Fame Can be Fleeting

We just returned from Carson City.  This is the quintessential 'western' town.  First, they call it a city, but it's only about 6 block wide by 10 miles long.  This town is named for a man most Americans couldn't even name.  While there, I toured the Nevada State Museum which has an interesting exhibition about another American whose accomplishments are also lost to history beyond his name being attached to various towns, counties, schools, streets and natural objects such as rivers, creeks, valleys and mountains.  I'm talking about Kit Carson and John Charles Fremont.  Both were household names during their lifetimes, and their lives were intertwined at the height of their fame.

Kit Carson, who was only 5'4", was born in 1809 and raised on the very edge of the West in Missouri.  As many in his day, he never learned to read or write.  Known for his personal courage, integrity, and fastidious ways, he became a trapper, guide, an Indian fighter, a California revolutionary, a soldier, a federal Indian agent, the most hated white man to the Navajo Tribe, and a rancher.  As a 'mountain man' he trapped and scouted throughout the West from the mid 1820's until the 1840's.  During this time he was well known to the Plains Indians and his first two wives were Cheyenne and Arapaho respectively.

In 1842 while visiting his family in Missouri, he met John C. Fremont, a United States Army Topographical Engineer, who was preparing an expedition into the West.  Fremont promptly hired Carson as his guide, and due to Fremont's mention of Carson in his written dispatches, Carson's numerous exploits became known in the East.  Carson guided three of Fremont's western expeditions, and the two men were fast friends until Carson's death in 1868.  He never visited the city Fremont named for him.  

Just prior to the Mexican American war in 1846, heading a company of soldiers, Fremont and Carson rode from New Mexico to California in aid of Americans who were in rebellion against the Mexican rule of California.   Fremont, a United States soldier at the time, was tried in court-martial and found guilty of mutiny.  President Polk pardoned Fremont who resigned his commission and headed back to California.  Carson, not a soldier at the time, was not prosecuted.

Carson did become a soldier in the Union Army and fought in one Civil War battle at Valverdes, New Mexico. He spent most of his time during that war fighting with the Navajo who refused to be confined to the United States reservation, Carson hounded the Navajo practicing a scorched earth policy until, starving, they surrendered.  Carson then forced marched the Navajo on a 300 mile "Long Walk" from Arizona to Fort Sumner, New Mexico.  8,000 Navajo died during the migration. After the Civil War, Carson returned to ranching in Taos dying in 1868.

John Charles Fremont's contributions were highlighted in a current exhibit at the Nevada State

Museum.  Fremont opened the far American West in a series of expeditions one of which laid the path for the Oregon Trail.  Eastern emigrants followed the path blazed by Fremont and Carson via wagon train beginning in the 1840's. John Fremont and Kit Carson were the Lewis and Clark of their generation.  Carson's contributions were immediate as guide on the ground, but Fremont popularized the Western frontier with his words.  He wrote extensively, collected specimens of plants, animals, minerals and just about everything else he came across during his expeditions.

During Fremont's lifetime he was married to Jesse Benton, daughter of the most influential 'western' man, Thomas Hart Benton.  John Fremont was born in 1813, and college educated in Charleston, South Carolina.  He was a mathematical instructor in the United States Navy, and a topographical engineer for the  United States Army.  He was an officer in the Bear Republic of the California Republic - simultaneous with his United States military office - leading to the above difficulties.

 After California was admitted as a state, he was a Senator from California.  An early opponent of slavery, amazing considering his place of birth and upbringing, Fremont was the first presidential candidate of the newly formed Republican Party in 1856.  The Nevada State Museum is currently exhibiting both the sword presented to him by Charleston, South Carolina in the 1840's and his campaign flag as a Republican presidential candidate.  In the late 1870's he was the Territorial Governor of Arizona.  By the end of the 1880's he was virtually destitute.  In recognition of his service to the United States, and to alleviate his poverty, the Congress voted him a military pension. Fremont died in obscurity, his great exploits of so little interest in 1890, the books he wrote at the time barely sold.  In a little over 100 years both his and Carson's names beyond their association with places in the West have been forgotten.

At least their names still abound on maps and in history books.  An entire race of people and their names and the names of the places they lived have been completely forgotten.  The Washoe, the Paiute, and the Northern Paiute are the native American tribes of Nevada and Northern California.  Not only was their stone age culture eradicated, but these people were almost exterminated.  (For example, 80% of the Washoe Tribe died within 50 years of contact with the Caucasian industrialized culture.)  The Nevada State Museum had an amazing exhibition of these people.  First, there was a video presentation of several tribal members telling their stories accompanied by film of the places named in the stories and musically enhanced with traditional tribal songs.  I learned, thanks to Wolf and Coyote, why there are no pine nuts in California and no juniper trees in Nevada.  The Paiute also tell a Loch Ness monster type story about Lake Tahoe.  You rarely see historically accurate presentation of the Native American oral tradition.

What really startled me was the 11,000 year old burial site with accouterments found in a cave in the 1940's in Nevada.  This site has been carbon dated, and the bodies have been named as the tribal ancestors of the Washoe/Paiute Tribes.  These people were living in Nevada and hunting mammoths and other large predators of this geological era.  What was puzzling in the land of every mineral and ore you can name, these people never worked with metal.  Perhaps, the plentiful food supply of protein stunted development of agriculture and thus the abandonment of the nomadic life.  Their story is tragic and brutal, but inevitable.  The same world wide migration and extermination pattern is as old as civilization.

I spent a fascinating two hours in the museum while Drake perfected his blackjack skills.  The highlights beyond what I've discussed above:  Mammoth skeleton and an even more ancient horse ancestor skeleton.  There are marvelous mineral samples.  An entire mining ghost town has been disassembled and re-assembled inside the museum.  Then, there's the walk through replica of an underground mine.  Finally, this museum is gun nut heaven.  This museum has an awesome personal firearms collection.  Even the building is interesting.  The 'old part' is the original Carson City Mint where coinage was stamped out close to the silver and gold mined in Nevada, and the 'new part' is a thoughtfully designed new facility joined to the old mint building.  Finally, the short lived Pony Express (the nascent Carson City locale was a stopover for horse exchange prior to crossing over the 7000 - 9000 foot mountain range into Sacramento) is commemorated in front of the museum.

As always, there are pictures:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/115478608971584948192/albums/6056066771158866465?authkey=CLGzg_rwt8H6dw  

First Lake Tahoe Hike

If you asked Drake, today was our first 'real' day in Lake Tahoe.  We came here for the peace and quiet and to HIKE.  Lake Tahoe has been buzzing with vacationers making most of the hikes overcrowded and difficult to access.  We've been waiting for after the Labor Day weekend to start hiking since when the kiddos go back to school, the numbers of people accessing the attractions drops like the proverbial stone.

When Sarah was about 13, the FWISD had this super calendar in which we had a "fall break".  It was a week in October, and we went to Lake Tahoe on an adult vacation.  The HEB school wasn't out, so we needed someone to care for Sarah in our home, so she could go to school each day.  We left Sarah with Stephanie, a family friend, who was a college student at the time since Sarah informed us she was 'too old to be babysat by a grandma'.  Stephanie was great, and she allowed just enough 'fun' stuff - including hanging out with college girls for Sarah to be really happy.

Lake Tahoe is when I learned I really like hiking, day hiking anyway.  This is where I bought my first pair of hiking boots.  Today we went re-hiking one of my favorite trails:  The Rubicon Trail.  It runs along a bluff at the edge of Lake Tahoe.  With some hikes, you trudge along a pretty ho-hum trail to get to the prize at the end - waterfall hikes are like that.  However, the Rubicon has beautiful views of what most people

consider to be the most scenic part of Lake Tahoe along three-quarters of the hike.  It's also fairly level with a slight downhill going and a slight uphill returning.  Just enough to let you know you've had a workout.

Now hiking for me is a real challenge.  First, I have to get into cardio shape which is difficult since in a fitness center it's mostly done on a treadmill or a cross trainer or a stair master.  All of those pieces of equipment make my feet hurt worse than usual.  However, I've been using the cross-trainer at the fitness center we joined and lumping it.  Next, it helps if you lift weights with your legs to develop those thigh and calf muscles.  That's no problem - I actually like weight machines.  Finally, I have to 'prepare' my feet.  Today, it took me 15 minutes to get my feet ready for this 3 mile hike.  I won't bore you with the details.

It was worth all the effort, and my feet aren't too bad after the hike - just normal pain.  A big plus of this house we're living in is there's a hot tub on the back deck.  I took a million pictures, of course.  This is the first trail of many over the next six weeks.  Here are the pictures of the Rubicon Trail

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/115478608971584948192/albums/6054647278151115361?authkey=CNG55I_wk4WUKw      

Much Ado about Grocery Stores

When we move to a new location, there's a learning curve.  The internet and a smart phone are indispensable.  These electronic tools make 'finding' exciting instead of frustrating.  So, what do we find?  Well, first and foremost, a grocery store.  Berkeley was the easiest since the grocery store was on the ground floor of our apartment building.  This arrangement has spoiled me completely.

We just took the elevator down five floors with shopping bags over our arms.  I actually felt like I was in France or one of those other countries where people carry string bags and shop daily for food.    I didn't bother in New York City because I never cooked anything.  I've lived in at least three towns where there were no 'real' grocery stores. In Franconia, New Hampshire or Seal Rock, Oregon, it was ten miles to the grocery store.  Burlington, Washington had a 'sister town' (Mount Vernon).  The two Washington towns were like the Texas towns of  Hurst and Bedford so blended together they are really one town with two names.  In Austin it was either HEB, Whole Foods, or Sprouts.  Burlington, Washington really got me shopping organic, coop, and local since it's a farm valley.  Richmond shopping was convenient - they had a local store that sold only produce, meat, cheeses, and baked goods.  It was located next to a Walmart Super Center. (Yes, I shop with the evil empire for certain things.)  Logan, Utah was also a Walmart grocery town.  In Sun City I shop at three separate stores on 'grocery day'.    

South Lake Tahoe is a tourist town.  There's 'tourism' here 10 months of the year, with October and May being the 'dead' months.  Most of the store fronts are pitching something to the tourist trade.  For instance:   boat rental, paddle board rental, bike rental, ski rental, ski/beach apparel, bars, tourist restaurants, souvenir shops, art galleries, and surprisingly two competing 'real' grocery stores plus something called the Grocery Outlet.  A real grocery store has actual aisles, produce, meat, and a bakery.  This town is also loaded with drug stores, but the only discount 'box' store is an atrocious K-Mart.  It's probably the only K-Mart store in that company making money because they have a complete monopoly in South Lake Tahoe.  It's a terrible store filled with shoddy merchandise, complicated check-out procedures, and management who've apparently never seen a Walmart or Target.  What isn't here is a 'dollar' store - no Dollar Tree, no Family Dollar, no Dollar General. You have to drive to Carson City - basically an hour over a 9000 foot mountain to find those or a Walmart or a Target.

I think about grocery stores.  They are and aren't all the same.  In America, we take for granted that every grocery store will have wire push carts, baskets for the light shopper, and well organized head high shelving with multiple choices in the staples.  It will be well lit, with refrigerator cases keeping the cold food cold.  During the holiday season, you can expect Christmas carols over the store speakers.  There will always be beer, both cold and room temp, and sometimes wine, and a little more rarely, hard liquor.  If it's a major store, there will be a bakery and delicatessen.  There will be a checkout with a scanner of those black lines helpfully found on each and every product, a cashier to move the items across it, and usually a bag person.  You can find a combination of a sea food market, a cafe, a coffee shop, a salad/soup bar, a florist, a pharmacy, a bank, a nail technician, a massage therapist, an optometrist, a post office, or a hair dresser depending on the individual store and the location.  I've yet to see a funeral home inside a grocery store, but I figure it's just a matter of time since cremation is gaining popularity.  Just for fun, here's a list of the grocery stores I've shopped.  It's pretty comprehensive:  Walmart, Albertson's, Safeway, Fred Meyer, Kroger, Fry's, Whole Foods, HEB, Smith's, Sprouts, Trader Joe's, Shoprite, Shop Easy, Winn Dixie, Bashas, Aldi, A&P, Brookshire,  Food Giant, Fiesta, Market Street, Piggly Wiggly, Price Chopper, Reasor's, Sunflower Markets, and a new one in South Lake Tahoe called Raley's.

All grocery stores are not the same.  The products are slanted toward regional taste buds, and you can find interesting surpluses and deficits.  For that reason, there's no 'best' store.   In New England you can buy three kinds of salsa; in Texas thirty kinds.  By contrast, New England overflows with clam chowder - fresh, frozen and canned.  The South is the land of Dr. Pepper (all the flavors in every size) and pimento cheese.  You can't buy ANY kind of pimento cheese on either the East or the West Coast.  I made my own in Berkeley!  You have to blow the dust off the cans of Dr. Pepper in certain parts of the country.  Some regions swell the soft drink aisle with Coke while other regions are top-heavy with Pepsi.  Tea bag selection is at its zenith on the Northwest coast.  Any grocery store in the Northeast has an entire aisle devoted to food aiding the preparation of Italian food and a whole section of Kosher food.  Every Southwest grocery store has an extensive Mexican aisle.  The West coast stores have an entire Asian aisle with both canned, processed and fresh food items.  The grocery store in Logan, Utah had an aisle devoted to gigantic quantities - such as a 2 gallon jar of pickles or 25 pound bags of cereal.  A Southern grocery store is chock full of junk food.  (Yes, EVERY American store is loaded with non-nutritious, sugar laden, fried in palm oil, and dregded in salt food, but Southern grocery stores seem to revel in how much revolting, really, really bad for your long-term health food can be packed onto their shelves.

The last fun thing about finding the local grocery store is the scenery getting there.  Some places have the lock on the scenery, and South Lake Tahoe is one of the best scenic drives 'to the store'.  So, I'll end this Seinfeld blog (all about nothing), with a snapshot taken along the route to the grocery stores.

The Sierras on the road to Safeway

              

Victorian Architecture and a Farewell to San Francisco

Haas-Lilienthal House - San Francisco, Nob Hill

We took our last outing into San Francisco today.  We used transit exclusively - at the cost of $20, which must seem excessive to people living in the prairie culture, but it would have cost far more in both gasoline and parking fees if we had driven our car into the city.  I saw one garage which would give you a day's parking for only $25 - if you arrive after 9am and leave the garage before 6pm.  It was well off the beaten tourist path, so you would taken a bus or cable car anyway to get to any attraction.

Today we went to the Haas-Lilienthal House, the only standing Victorian house in San Francisco with it's original furnishings that is open to the public.  This house was built in 1886, and it survived the 1906 earthquake easily.  However, it was almost consumed by the fires which raged three days and swept across San Francisco.  Here's a very revealing aerial photo taken in May of 1906 (Earthquake:  April 18, 1906).

What we have here is mainly fire damage.  San Francisco was a 'modern' city in 1906, and people had gas lighting and gas cook stoves and gas fireplaces. The quake ruptured not only the gas pipes, but also the water pipes.  Once the escaping gas caught fire, there was no water to extinguish it.  Almost 40% of the city was destroyed before the fires were brought under control.  The fire officials of the time finally realized they had to create artificial firebreaks.  Moving ahead of the fire, they dynamited the buildings of entire streets.  One of the dynamited streets was Van Ness which contained the mansions of the wealthy.  The Van Ness firebreak was one block from the Haas-Lilienthal house, and thus the house we toured today was saved.

 You can see where the fire 'stops' at Van Ness at the top of the picture.  Notice Market Street - in 2014, the BART runs up and down this street which is in the heart of San Francisco bisecting the city like an arrow pointing northeast.

This San Francisco house was built in 1886 by a moderately wealthy Jewish family whose roots were Bavarian, and whose business was the wholesale grocery trade.  I couldn't help contrast the San Francisco house with the Maymont House in Richmond, and the Vanderbilt Breakers in Newport.  Each represents a 'step' up on the wealth scale.  The Vanderbilt houses were opulent; the Maymont House was ostentatious, while the Haas-Lilienthal house was comfortable.  Here's what I mean:

Maymont Dining Room

This dining room at Haas-Lilienthal is nice, but certainly does not reflect the level of wealth finance or railroad construction and ownership brought in the 19th century.  All three houses are contemporary to one another being built within 7 years, 1886 - 1893.  Much of the craftsmanship of Maymont and Breakers was created specifically for these houses by individual craftsmen, and in the case of the Breakers, craftsmen imported from Europe.  By contrast, Mrs. Haas went down to Market Street and 'picked out' her architectural details manufactured by machines, just as new home owners today pick out their cabinetry and counter tops.  Granted, Haas-Lilienthal is all first quality, but it is manufactured quality mimicking individually crafted details.  No one appeared in the San Francisco house to hand paint gold leaf around the carefully crafted plaster molding.

The one interesting fact the ancient tour guide offered (three times) was the typical Victorian crown molding around the ceiling of the 'first parlor'.  The top level is the 'egg and dart'; the second level are the dentals - we were specifically cautioned not to call them 'teeth' -, and the third level closest to the floor are the bay leaves or laurel leaves - all of which represent symbols going back to Greek and Roman times.

This is a perfect example of machine routed molding rather than hand carved molding.

There are more pictures of the various rooms of the house if you wish to flip through the pictures. 

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/115478608971584948192/albums/6044672105847148353?authkey=COaBuZ-W36XpQQ 

This was our last outing into San Francisco.  This sightseeing tour impressed upon me how many attractions have been in San Francisco for the past 40 years.  Our first trip here was in 1974, and in 2014, you can still ride the cable cars, buy cheap souvenirs in Chinatown, take the boat to Alcatraz, shop at the Piers, walk through Golden Gate Park, and even across the Golden Gate Bridge.  The fog still rolls in and out, and some days in the shank of summer feel like a chilly autumn day.  You need to pick your walking routes carefully in the city unless you're into mountain climbing which is what some of the steeper hills feel like as you trudge up and down them.   We've enjoyed this summer on so many levels.  If it weren't for the damn earthquakes, this place would be a paradise to live in.  We leave here in 6 days.  My prayer is I get out of town before the ground shakes.    

Golden Gate Park

Golden Gate Park is still as magnificent as ever.  I first saw it about 40 years ago, and it hasn't changed much.  If anything, it's been improved thanks to severe ocean storms and earthquakes. The origin of the park lies in nineteenth century San Franciscans deciding to compete with the newly created Central Park of New York City by developing a great park of their own.  The Golden Gate Park is the fifth most visited urban park in the United States.  Central Park may be the number one visited park, but the Golden Gate is 174 acres larger being 1017 acres.  Originally, the park area was sand dunes, but over a fifty year span, hundreds of thousands of trees were planted, and today, the dunes are a distant memory.

Japanese Tea Garden

One of the things I love most about the northwestern United States coast are the flowers. The climate is wonderful for flowers.  Golden Gate Park is filled with them.  The Conservatory of Flowers is a gigantic greenhouse.  The Japanese Tea Garden has both flowers and sculpted trees.
 The Rose Garden showcases the most beautiful roses I've seen since The Portland Rose Garden (which is the gold standard for roses in my opinion).     My favorite roses are the multi-hued ones, and this garden was filled with them.  Poor Drake, we were trying to catch a bus when he took a short cut through the Rose Garden.  We missed at least one bus as I lingered snapping pictures.

Speaking of buses,  I loved the subways and buses in New York, and I've loved the BART trains and the buses here.  The bus system in San Francisco is efficient, punctual and almost completely covers the city.  We've crisscrossed the city on buses.  Usually time is not exactly pressing for us, so if it takes us an hour to use public transit rather than 40 minutes to drive, we consider the extra 20 minutes as just sight seeing opportunities.  We're headed to our last attraction tomorrow - the Haas-Lillenthal House.  It's an 1886 Victorian which survived the big earthquake of 1906, and it's furnished with the original furniture and ornamentation.  It's also in a part of the city we haven't seen this trip.  We'll take the Bart into the city from Berkeley and catch a bus across a new part of the city.  

We've pretty much passed on the destinations we've seen before avoiding Alcatraz, the Piers, Ghiradelli Square, the cable cars, and a host of others.  This trip is actually our fourth time to San
Francisco.  Our choice of attractions this trip has pretty much centered on art exhibits, wine and getting to know areas outside San Francisco.  My favorite exhibit was "Gorgeous" at the Asian Art Museum.  Our last exhibit was at the deYoung, located in the Golden Gate Park, and we came for Modernism, a traveling exhibition from the National Gallery of Art.  I just couldn't resist dropping by the Japanese Tea Garden for old time's sake.

One of the unlooked for bonuses of this vagabond life is I'm getting intensive geography lessons about parts of the country of which I only had a hazy understanding of the lay of the land.  Here it's been fascinating to learn first hand about the microclimates which dot the Bay Area.  The weather can change by ten or fifteen degrees or go from sunny to overcast to fog by traveling ten miles.  From the viewpoint of the deck outside our door, we've observed the quintessential San Francisco image:  Fog rolling in over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Another real plus to living in the second most food mad city in America are the wonderful restaurants we've found here, and the joy of finding excellent produce in the Farmer's Market every Saturday just two blocks from this apartment.  I've been trying to store up for the restaurant desert of Sun City.  I suspect South Lake Tahoe (our next destination) will be somewhere between the two.

I close with a picture of one of the roses from the rose garden.  As always, there are more pictures for my art friends and my flower friends.   If you want to see them, follow the link.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/115478608971584948192/albums/6042354458532970433?authkey=COXfnfS-tb_vjgE    

Naked Wine

We couldn't leave here without another trip to wine country.  After all, the town of Napa is only a one hour drive.  This was the last extended family time we got to spend with Sarah before she left for New York.  (Can you imagine?  She wanted to spend a couple of weeks with her HUSBAND before she has to return to New Haven for the start of the final year at Yale.  I mean, REALLY!)  Just kidding....learned this summer visits are better than cohabitation with your adult child.  Don't get me wrong - things went swimmingly.   We loved being able to help her with a place to live while she kicked off her start-up.  We didn't make the mistake of expecting her to live in our handkerchief pocket, and we all enjoyed the time we got to spend together - the most in the past 10 years.  However, despite all the positives, it just felt like having a long term guest, and we missed our privacy.  Smooth spots went each way - Sarah got her laundry done, and she cooked for us whenever she got the chance.  She already knows more about cooking than I've learned in the past 40 years.

As a final fling, we just decided to take off for Napa and see if we could hit the downtown tasting rooms on a Saturday.  Thanks to Emily (friend of Sarah) we went to Naked Wines.  Drake had suggested we try to find a tasting room which represented more than one winery, and Sarah remembered the Naked Wine, a tasting room they couldn't get to when they visited Napa in January.  We settled into seats at our own table, and proceeded to taste a wide variety of wine.

We have been solicited to join the Wine Club at every single winery we visited out here.  Basically, they are a very bad deal.  Usual deal:  They pick the wines from their bottles and send them to you. They send you a case or at the least a half a case and charge shipping every month.  We didn't find a single winery where we enjoyed ALL their wines.  Plus, the prices were pretty steep even for members.

Naked Wine is a totally different animal.  They represent hundreds of small wineries.  Their 'club' members are actually investors in these wine makers and their wineries.  Naked Wine invests not only capital, but also bottles and labels their participating wineries output, so small vintners can get their product out on the market.  In return the "Angels" (investors) get first shot at the wine at reduced prices. Each Angel pledges $40 each month - which is less than our monthly wine expenditure.   The genius is there are hundreds of different wines to choose from out of over 1000 wineries from all over the world, and you choose when to spend the money in your account.  This is exactly what we've been looking for.

Hey, Emily, your sommelier classes just paid off....for us!  Thanks.



  

We Need Sports Books!

As everyone knows, I'm a great supporter of Donor's Choose especially for teachers who are personal friends.  I loved being a teacher on many levels, but one area of frustration was the unwillingness of the State of Texas to provide the necessary funds for supplies to be able to teach the most effectively.  For the first ten years of my teaching career, I was handed a grocery bag with a box of chalk, a box of Bic ballpoint pens, a 2"x 3" box of paperclips and a felt eraser.  It was so paltry, it was insulting.  I was extremely fortunate because my principal actually bought enough xerox paper to last the year.  I knew many teachers in other schools who had to buy their own paper.

Texas isn't the only state that expects teachers to buy supplies.  One of my young friends from Utah started teaching last year, and she's one we really, really, really want to keep in the public school system - she teaches developmentally delayed pre-schoolers.  (Boy, talk about a nightmare job, but these kiddos are her calling.)  Anyway, as a graduation gift, I sent her $300 of supplies to open up her classroom.  I'm talking stuff you office folks just completely take for granted - like a stapler!

One of the ways I solved my supply problems was to involve my great Methodist Church (St. Paul's in Hurst), and they poured supplies, magazines and anything else I needed into my classroom - including PEOPLE who volunteered and spent time at the school.  Supply problems are annoying, but, hey you can teach without a hole punch.

What you can't teach without are learning tools.  That's when state legislators need to be hung up by their thumbs for not appropriating funds.  We are not talking teacher's salaries here; we are talking books.  Yes, books.  My friend, Shannon, teaches in a district in central Texas.  She's a children's librarian for two elementary schools.  The area is rural.  That means the normal outlets where poor children have book access is very limited - like limited to SCHOOL.  They don't go to the public library because either there isn't one, or it's too far away.  Do I need to remind anyone of the price of gasoline?  Rural children from poor families don't have the financial resources to hit Barnes and Noble or shop on-line for books because of money.  In many rural homes, there may be cable or dish TV, but the budget doesn't include internet.  And in some of these student's families, books are of no importance because their parents never developed the habit of reading.

Yes, reading is a habit that's formed in childhood - like brushing your teeth, playing video games, watching TV, or developing any other hobby or use of time.  Lifelong habits start in childhood.  Reading is certainly one which is a predictor of being a successful, productive member of society.  Ironically, the onset of the Electronic Age has actually upped the value of reading.  It's a predictor of how well you do in school, how much higher education you pursue, how good of a job you land, and whether or not you wind up in prison.

If I haven't convinced you at this point to click on the link below, then your heart is stone and your citizenship quotient is zero.  Shannon needs SPORTS BOOKS.  She's doing her job, the most important part of her job - and that's to hook kids on reading.  It's a no-brainer:   After the 3rd grade, reading is all about perfecting the skill.  Kids are stubborn and short sighted - you have to give them books they want or they just won't read.  Donate ANY AMOUNT - yes, I'm talking as little as $5.  You may still be able to put in the code word INSPIRE and get your donation matched.  We have a lot of money to raise for this one.  42 books cost more than you think.  Books for kids need to be library quality which are different than flimsy paperbacks - those last about one semester in the hands of fourth graders.  Shannon always includes the prices she must pay for the books.  Donor's Choose vets each project.  There's no money going anywhere except for the books.  Click.  Donate.  Please.

http://www.donorschoose.org/project/touchdown-we-want-sports-books/1253431/?rf=page-siteshare-2014-07-project-teacher_1520846