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We got another drenching during the night. I measured 1.06 in. of rain in my gauge this morning. Not what we wanted to see, for sure, but hopefully not a lot more damage was done.
Because of the serious flooding in Montpelier, the planned meeting place for Responsible Wakes on August 1 has been changed. The details are in this latest newsletter:
It doesn't seem possible we are half way through the summer - the days and weeks have flown by. It seems to me when I was young, summers used to be longer. We certainly didn't have the catastrophic weather events like we have these days. Crops were planted, there were thunder storms and occasional rainy days, but the hay got cut and then there was Danville Fair, and soon it was time to cut corn just about when schools opened again, all mostly without incident. I guess back then our worst weather came about in the winter months.
I remember feeling seriously restricted during those first weeks of school in September. My feet rebelled at wearing "real" shoes instead tennis shoes (or none at all when my mother wasn't watching), and it was especially difficult to have to struggle into crisp, freshly ironed dresses that I had to at least try to keep clean. I spent all summer in shorts or jeans, rarely getting "dressed up" in anything with a skirt and sleeves. Then, confined in the school room I had to re-learn how to sit still at a desk. That was especially difficult on really nice days when I'd prefer to be outdoors. I expect that every kid in the Cabot Plain elementary school (all eight grades of us) felt the same way, and that's why recess was always fun! Thinking back, in grade school there were two girls who probably looked forward to school every day - the Harrington sisters. One of them, Clara, later became a teacher in West Danville. I don't know what her younger sister, Loris, did. I lost track of both over the years, but I do remember that they were good students - and both seemed to be perfect young ladies, scrubbed clean and perfectly starched and ironed every day.
I'm sure it didn't take many days before I accepted the routine of school, and I'm sure I enjoyed it, even though I think I was always inclined to daydream a bit, especially as I got older and the subjects seemed to get harder and less interesting. I remember one day in high school French class when I was oblivious about what was going on in the classroom as I gazed out the window, thinking about something totally unrelated to French, I'm sure, and suddenly I was aware of laughter around me. Apparently the teacher, Miss Foster, had drawn attention to my daydreaming by asking me something in French, and of course everyone understood except me. Pretty embarrassing, but I'm sure it didn't cure me. Somehow Miss Foster got me through French I with a passing grade. She was also my English teacher and moderated school debating teams.
We also had to participate in public speaking in order to pass English. I enjoyed the debating and even made it to the district round as a representative from Cabot, but public speaking was different, and I flat out refused to participate. Miss Foster threatened to fail me in English if I didn't go along with the plan and I knew my parents would not be happy with that outcome, so I finally chose a poem "The Homely Man" by Edgar Albert Guest. As I look back, I'm sure it was not on her list of acceptable choices, but she was probably willing to compromise; I think I was the only one in our class to recite a poem, and certainly the only one to do a dialect poem. Miss Helen Foster was a really good teacher, and as I look back, I'm sorry that I probably made life difficult for her - over that and a few other issues.
That was a long time ago, and I no longer dread speaking in public, and I'm happy when I learn something new these days; but I confess - I'm also happy that I'm now at a point in my life where if there's something I don't want to do, I simply say no - and nobody argues. It's one of the few advantages of getting old!
Enjoy your weekend.
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