Author: Sharron Burnett

 It’s incredibly funny how we vividly recall certain moments from our past and lose the details of others in a kind of fog. Of course we remember the shocking moments when someone close to us died or when there was a national disaster that affected all of us. I can describe the morning when I discovered that my father had died in vivid detail. I can see and hear the people and the voices as though the whole thing were happening right now. So too it was with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the attack on the Twin Towers in New York City. 

One would think that such shocking incidents would become fuzzy in the cloud of emotions associated with them, but the reality is that we never forget the vivid details of such unique situations that impact every fiber of our being.  That is why the telling of one’s life story is so revealing. It becomes a kind of psychological journey that explains who a person is and what is most important to him or her. How we view the world around us and the events that were meaningful to us is a mirror into our souls. 

I once wrote a paper using the stories that my grandfather told me over and over again. I don’t know how accurate they actually were but their content never changed. It was as though he had memorized certain times in his life so that he might reproduce them verbatim. What those tales told me is that my grandfather admired people who were kind and caring but also who were strong willed and courageous. Every remembrance that he presented had a moral and a bit of humor and spoke of his own difficult journey through life. Losing his mother at birth impacted him but living with his wise grandmother inspired him. Many of his best memories told of her intellect and independent spirit. 

My mother remembered the kindness of my grandmother and the toughness of herself and her siblings. She spoke of her father with a deep respect for his hard work and inventiveness. She often boasted that she was able to survive any difficult situation because she had grown up as the youngest of eight children. She insisted that while they were immigrants who often endured the ire of the people who lived near them, she held her head high with the pride of knowing that she was as good as any of them. More than once she recalled a high school English teacher who insisted that she had the best understanding of the English language that he had ever encountered among his students. She was a survivor who knew how to push back on bullies and ultimately her ability to ignore the naysayers helped her to navigate through a lifetime of tragedies and difficulties with optimism. 

For my mother-in-law stories of family were the center of her thoughts. She never moved far from where she was born and she dedicated many years to completing her family tree and learning the history of the people who had come before her. She was adamant in caring deeply for her relatives and dedicated to making sure that they were safe. Perhaps her undaunted love of people came from the heart defect that challenged her from the time she was a young girl. Doctors told her that she would die young but she pushed herself to defy all of the odds, even giving birth to a son when she was told that doing so would most likely kill her. He story of that birth was at the center of who she was as a person, someone for whom people always came first. She loved with a fierceness that never wavered.

I once had to create a three part autobiography for one of my graduate school classes. While I thought that the assignment was frivolous, I nonetheless enjoyed it because I love to write. The guidelines were such that I had to reveal a great deal about who I am as a person and what beliefs are most important to me. I threw my heart and soul into the writing with as much honesty as I was able to muster. 

The professor liked my work and encouraged me with his comments and the high marks that he gave me but then he took the time to tell me how he had interpreted what I had been saying in the lines and paragraphs that told my own story. I was stunned when he took me aside and insisted that I would only be happy in my work and my friendships when I was making a difference in the lives of others. He counseled me that my words had shouted clearly that money meant nothing to me but that relationships with people energized me. He told me that being an educator was not just a way of earning a salary for me but was really a way of life that fulfilled me. 

We reveal ourselves in what and how we remember the journey that we choose from our childhood and throughout our lives. We may change course along the way but in general there is a continuous thread that defines our values and the things and people that we most admire. Even how we recall tragedies tells us something about ourselves. 

When I think of my father’s death I remember the kindness of my Aunt Valeria who came to aid my mother and our little family in the middle of the night and stayed in our lives to love us until the day she died. I think of my Uncle Willie who saw the grief and confusion of me and my brothers and took the time to comfort us with ice cream. I can hear the loving words of the priest who visited my mother and assured her that even though my father was not a religious man he would be embraced by God. I think of the stray dog called Whitely who randomly showed up on our front porch and guarded us until we were feeling strong enough to carry on without my father. I can still see my Uncle Jack guiding my mother to purchase a new car to replace the one that was demolished in my father’s wreck. I hear him brokerring with a kind and generous man to provide a reduced price on the house that my mother eventually bought to provide us with the refuge that would embrace us until we were adults. I learned from all of these people how important it is to be kind and supportive and I suppose this is the kind of individual I have always tired to be.

Our stories tells us and the people around us who we are. We would do well to listen to them with understanding and awe. 

It’s a cold rainy day and the temperature is supposed to drop even more during the night. In all likelihood there will be sheets of ice on the walkways and roads by morning making it treacherous to move around outside. I am trying to enjoy the time of hunkering down like a bear hibernating inside a cave. Perhaps it is the dreariness or maybe the silence that is making me pensive but some might say that I seem to be pensive all of the time. For now my mind is jumping from one thought to another without landing on a topic that will control the many thoughts racing through my head.

I am about a week away from surgery for a total knee replacement and because I am rarely sick and have had few medical emergencies in my lifetime I am a bit anxious about what lies ahead for me in the days and weeks after I have an artificial knee inside my body. I have been coached on the seriousness of what is going to happen and the need for my attention to all of the little details that I must be certain to follow to make my recovery as quick as possible. It can all be a bit overwhelming in spite of my confidence in the doctor and medical personnel who have been working with me. 

I’m not supposed to go outside into the yard or the garage for the next many days lest I pick up an infection or hurt myself before the surgery. Normally I would be outside helping my husband prepare for the big freeze but this time I have done very little to assist in the process. Instead I have relied on people like my eldest grandson and the men who mow our lawn to assist in moving potted plants and covering the more fragile ones that grow in the ground. I’m obeying my orders but feeling a bit useless as I watch my husband checking things outside to insure that all will be in good shape for the onslaught of winter which usually comes only in brief spurts in my part of the world. 

While all of this is happening I am reading about the courageous citizens of Minnesota who took part in a general strike by the tens of thousands. It amazes me that they took to the streets in sub freezing weather just to show their concerns about ICE using questionable tactics with their neighbors. They spoke of their first amendment and fourth amendment rights as citizens, echoing the determination of our nation’s founders who wanted to live with the freedom to speak their minds and to be safe inside their homes. I want them to know how much I admire and support them knowing that at least for the coming weeks I won’t be able to emulate their protests in my own town. 

I read an article in theNew York Times this morning describing the costs of healthcare in the United States for those not covered by Medicaid or Medicare. I thought of how little I have been paying for my own health issues and how I am able to schedule a knee replacement because I am well covered only because I am an older citizen. I think of how I mainly see retired persons when I visit any of my doctors and I feel that the main reason is that younger folks mostly use medical visits for emergencies because the rising costs are too much for them. 

I have compared what I pay for routine visits to what my daughters pay for the same kind of interactions with their doctors and it is stunning. Their costs are always thousands of dollars more for something that only cost me twenty dollars or forty dollars. When I hear such things my sense of fairness begins to question our entire system which at the present time seems to be disorganized and broken. It only appears to be working for Americans depending on how old a person is and even where that person lives. 

I certainly would not deny older Americans the level of medical care that I and my peers are receiving at costs so much less than those who are younger but the fact that other Americans are struggling under the weight of increasingly expensive fees with no help from our government is appalling. My ninety six year old father-in-law has incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical care in the last couple of months, most of which will be covered by Medicare and an insurance plan from his place of work that has never cost him a dime to carry. While it is wonderful that he has so much coverage I can’t help wondering why our system is so unbalanced that a young American with the same medical circumstances would be drowning in debt. 

The United States is one of the few first world nations in which the citizens are not covered by a universal healthcare system. We have always feared the idea of standardizing the care by insuring that everyone can enjoy medical care without bankruptcy. We worry that there will be long waits for services or that the level of care will deteriorate. We consider the cost and how much it will increase our taxes. These are all legitimate concerns but right now we are ignoring a vast swathe of Americans who are drowning under the cost of medical insurance that they only use for emergencies. Even then they will be left with huge debts based on deductibles that would erode most incomes. How can we call ourselves a great nation knowing that we are ignoring the needs of so many? How can we repair this problem with a spirit of fairness and a willingness to change for the greater good?

These are my musings and I believe that they should be considered by everyone. We take care of our elderly but we turn our backs on the young. It’s time that we listen to their needs and find ways to make certain that nobody has to sell their homes or dip into their retirement funds just to stay healthy. Those of us enjoying the luxury of a system that takes care of our every need should be leading the way to guaranteeing the same kind of access for all.     

I am by nature an obedient person, the good child who avoided dangerous situations lest I might have caused undue worries for my widowed mother. I have been known as a “goody two shoes,” someone who walks away from risky moments. I have lived a lawful life for over seventy decades, paying taxes on earned income that came in the form of cash and would never have been traced back to me. I stop at a red light in the middle of the night when nobody is around. I do not boast about such things. it is simply who I am. I try to be honest and thoughtful but at the same time I have a protective streak that runs deeply into my soul.

I have a tendency to attempt to rescue people and in many cases I have been successful. In my mind every single human has value regardless of the sins that he or she has committed. I have learned how to separate the bad deeds from the persona of an individual. Nonetheless I agree that there are times that the road to salvation for someone who has done egregiously horrific things resides in contrition and appropriate punishment. There is evil that is seemingly beyond our human absolution and must ultimately be judged by a higher spirit. Nonetheless, the vast majority of humans want to be good but may falter now and again. Taking them to task for their transgressions requires great wisdom and patience because the ultimate goal should be to help them to change, not to so demean them that they become seemingly unsalvageable. 

We live in a society that adheres to a continuum of justice. Some believe that only strict rules and unwavering punishments will lead to a better society. Others feel that finding the reasons for bad or illegal behavior should always be part of an attempt to not just punish but also to change the thinking and direction of those who flaunt the rules of society. There are even those who feel strongly that in certain situations it is paramount to disobey rules or laws that are obviously unfair and dangerous for everyone. 

I remember a time when my teacher became frustrated with some of my classmates that she believed were behaving badly. She took out her anger on all of us as though we had somehow been in league with the so called “bad seeds.” I had no idea who was actually the target of her ire but I had to sit quietly listening to her harangue and then stay after school writing sentences until I had completed the requirements that she imposed on all of us. Because I work slowly I was one of the last students to finish the assignment. When I turned it in to her she quietly whispered that she knew that I had done nothing wrong but that she had to punish everyone to be fair. 

Of course even as young as I was then I understood the unfairness of what had happened. Blaming and punishing innocents to make a point does little more than make even the nicest person want to rebel. I lost all respect for my teacher and actually began to think that the trouble makers who had been taunting her may have had a point. I saw that just because someone in authority creates a command or a rule does not mean that it is appropriate or even legal. This teacher taught me to be wary of authoritarian policies and the people who enforce them. She demonstrated the classic behavior of someone who uses force to maintain control. 

We are in an dangerous situation as citizens of the United States at the present moment. We know that there are indeed people living among us illegally. Some of them quietly work and stay to themselves without breaking additional laws and others commit heinous crimes. There are also immigrants who came to this nation legally and are working to eventually gain status as citizens of our nation. Somehow in the quest to eliminate the worst of the lot, even some who were born here but look foreign are being targeted indiscriminately by ICE. 

ICE is forcing its way into homes without warrants. It is arresting people showing up for legal hearings related to their citizenship. It is going to schools and using children to get to their parents. They are behaving like the teacher for whom I lost all respect by casting a net so wide that many innocents are included in their reckless endeavors. All one need be is dark skinned or someone who speaks with an accent or someone with a foreign sounding last name to be stopped and sometimes taken away. Little wonder that American citizens are now attempting to help those being assaulted so lawlessly just to meet quotas. 

Our Founding Fathers wrote a Declaration of Independence and in doing so they were breaking the laws of the king. If captured when they met to write a Constitution they might have been hanged. They were considered by the King of England to be dangerous traitors subject to the full force of punishment. Because they understood the most egregious behaviors of the authoritarian government under which they suffered as colonists they created the Bill of Rights. to protect themselves from anyone who would ever deign to rule without regard to what they believed to be their prevue as free citizens. The Bill of Rights are as follows:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”

“In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Read these directives and know that we the people have certain rights that are being ignored in particular by ICE. We have the right to demand that they be held accountable. We have the right to speak out against their methods and protest what they are doing. We have the right to insist that they do not randomly break into homes without warrants or force people out of their cars without due cause or throw people to the ground and kill them for legally carrying a gun or raid schools to terrorize children. It is not up to those protesting the behaviors of ICE to just comply. Our Founding Fathers understood human nature and set up guardrails to protect us from anyone who would misuse the power of the government. It is up to ICE and the president to follow the laws of the land. It is clear that those rules are being flaunted and we the people have had enough!

I do believe that there is actually something called “the teacher mindset” even though no such concept has ever officially been studied. Years of working in a classroom changes the way a person looks at the clock, the days of the week and the calendar. Everything in life revolves around the demands of being ready and present for those hours dedicated to instilling knowledge in the students in a teacher’s care. Routines define the “teacher year” which begins in the weeks leading to the new school year and never really ends as one cycle bleeds into another. 

Sunday evenings are always a time of preparation for teachers. In addition to the usual duties of working individuals teachers begin to fret over plans for the coming week, even as they understand the many last minute emergencies and situations that may upend all of the work they have done attempting to stay on track with the scope of sequence of the subjects that they teach. As one of my education colleagues calls it, “the Sunday scaries” are a real thing for those who work in schools as they wonder if they have done enough planning to adjust to whatever happens in the hours that lie ahead. 

We teachers become so attuned to being observant and having alternative ideas for those moments when all of the best laid plans go awry that we sometimes come across as being way too controlling to those who have never been in our shoes when strange happenings upend all of the work that we have done. We are all too aware of the thousands of reasons that our school day may morph into events that were not anywhere in our prognostications. We don’t have just a Plan B but plans that go beyond Z. 

I know for a fact that I have at times annoyed members of my family who have never lived in my work world when I question their preparations for all sorts of things. They accuse me of distrusting them when I note possibilities that will change the course of whatever they have decided to do. My years of experience in an ever changing environment have taught me to be ready for anything and so I fret over the idea that things will always go smoothly. Thus the people around me sometimes accuse me of being bossy or overly anxious and yet when things go south just as I suggested they might I never utter the phrase, “I told you so.”

I am no longer actively working in a school but I do homeschooling two mornings a week and even in that tiny environment I have encountered unexpected situations that have forced me to change gears and save the day. I always need a host of alternatives in my pocket to adapt to the needs of my students which is really just the way that life is. 

A good teacher is always ready with extra pencils and paper and a new plan that looks nothing like the one in that they crafted originally. I knew this to be true whenever I interviewed a prospective employee or asked them to demonstrate their abilities with a lesson that they would present to a group of students. I looked for prospective teachers who would be able to think on their feet.

On one occasion an applicant came ready with an outstanding lesson plan that appeared to be ironclad. The only glitch came when the audiovisual equipment that she needed stopped working in the middle of it all. She demonstrated her mettle when she was able to keep the lesson flowing without interruption changing her entire methodology on the fly to keep the students’ attention. It was a masterful presentation and she indeed proved to be an exceptional educator. 

I have been retired from full time teaching since 2012. I find myself unable to completely let go of my teacher tendencies. I clean my house on Saturday mornings just as I did when I had to use my weekends to tie up the loose ends at home while readying myself for the week ahead. I spend time on Sunday afternoons grading the homework of my homeschoolers and analyzing what direction I need to follow with each of them. I awake early during the week and use the sound of the school bus stopping on my corner as a signal to get going with whatever is commanding me on my calendar. Mine are habits forged over the years but they are not unique. I find them being replicated by all of the young educators that I know. For each of us the seasons are not defined so much by the circuit of the earth around the sun as by the timing of the school year and the list of skills and knowledge that we have a limited time to convey to those in our care. 

Perhaps we come across as arrogant “know it alls” but that behavior is baked into our teacher DNA. We know that very few of our days go as initially planned so we have learned to be ready even as we look weeks ahead to be certain that when the last bell rings we have done our utmost to reach every person who sat before us waiting to partake of our attempts to prepare them for the world that they will one day enter as adults. Ours is a task that cannot be left to chance. 

As a daily consumer of Facebook I am often amused by the posts and ads that I encounter that speak to the days of my youth. We humans are rather sentimental and tend to look back on the times of our childhood with great joy as long as our experiences were positive and loving. Mine was quite wondrous save for the time when my father died so suddenly. I am reminded of how strange it was for a man so young to die when I see my former students celebrating their thirty third birthdays and I think of how many moments of life lie ahead for them. It seems almost unreal that such a young man left the earth forever and yet is remembered to this very day by those of us who knew him. 

One of the common posts on Facebook asks what our favorite places to eat were back in the day. When my father was alive that would have had to be a Tex Mex restaurant that was located in the Montrose area of Houston, Texas. It was a glorious place with polished tiles from Mexico welcoming us from the time we walked through the doors. The colors and the ambiance were exciting, a dining adventure that I knew from the start would be yummy. I loved the food and joy that my family felt on those excursions. 

Once my father died our nights out mostly consisted of visiting my grandparents and aunts and uncles. Because my mother’s budget was as slim as they might be our dining adventures consisted mostly of visiting local cafeterias where we were allowed to select three items however we might wish. Mostly my brothers and I would choose meat or fish with a vegetable of some kind and a dessert. I was a fried fish fan and almost always wanted macaroni and cheese to go along with my entree. My dessert of choice was apple pie. 

If the budget was doing well our mother might take us downtown to munch on hotdogs from James’ Coney Island, a local hangout where we would see celebrities and wealthy matrons mixing it up with those of us who were ordinary people. We sat at school desks munching on the delightful hotdogs and celebrating the fact that we got through the line for ordering without being yelled at by the men working at the steam tables.  Eating there was exciting and I still have an addiction to the hotdogs even though the original location with its local color is long gone and the hotdogs have grown ever smaller over time.

Sometimes for birthdays and other special times our mother would save enough from the budget to take us to the Tel-Wink Grill on Telephone Road where we enjoyed waffles or roast beef with gravy on a bed of white bread. The food there was almost as good as the country cooking that my grandmother Minnie Bell had become famous for preparing. Other times we joyfully gathered at a local Tex Mex place that did not have the ambiance of Felix’s but did have very tasty food. 

It was only after I met my husband Mike that I learned that there were other more opulent options for dining out. After we had been dating for a time his parents wanted to meet me at an elegant restaurant that specialized in steak and seafood. From the moment that we entered I felt uncomfortable and wondered if I would know how to act. It was quite obviously a place where prices seemed to be no object and I almost gulped when I saw them posted next to the entrees listed on the menu. 

I did my best to pretend that I was accustomed to such experiences but even the elegance of my future mother-in-law with her diamond rings and gold jewelry made me feel out of place and somehow lacking. I found myself wondering if I would have been more comfortable there if my father had lived and we had gone to such places as a family. I remember the whole affair as a kind of out of body experience in which I felt as though I was there and not there at the same time. I can’t even recall what I ordered or how it tasted because I was in a world that I did not fully understand. 

Eventually all of that changed but first I used my skills at living on a small budget as Mike and I attempted to survive with an income so small that it barely paid the rent on our apartment and allowed us to purchase groceries for the month. Mike was amazed by my ability to squeeze a dime and make it last far beyond its limitations. He learned about my world and then we built our earning power from there. Eventually eating at an expensive restaurant would be more commonplace for us but inside I never really forgot to appreciate my good fortune and to think about those who were hungry because they had such small incomes. I have never taken the comfort of my life for granted.

I ultimately became the best of friends with my mother-in-law who was more down to earth than I first thought she was. I bonded with her when I learned that she had lost her father when she was in her early twenties. That loss was as traumatic for her as mine had been. We often spoke of how much we missed our fathers and how losing them had defined us. She became one of the wisest women I had ever known who made it feel okay for me to long for my father even years after he was gone. I learned that she was actually a very humble woman and that my initial assessment of her as a wealthy women with whom I would never bond was totally wrong. She had mostly wanted to welcome me with a special feast and never once thought that it would make me uncomfortable. 

My favorite outings for dinner became her Sunday feasts that were so much like the ones my grandma Minnie had prepared in my childhood. We would sit around the dining table munching on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and then the two of us would enjoy an after dinner treat of hot tea and cookies. In those moments we began to realize how much alike we were and she became a kind of big sister and mother-in-law all in one. Somehow money or lack of it did not matter. Only our kinship and understanding of each other made those meals as special as the ones that I had enjoyed as a child.

I have never taken a shared meal for granted because it is in the sharing of our bounty that we understand our common humanity. It is a spiritual moment when what we consume matters far less than the people who are there with us. They are the moments that keep our memories alive.