The Holidays - Part I

The holiday season for teachers marks the midpoint of the school year.  Granted, there really is a little more time in January most of the time, but it feels like you are half way there.  I learned early on that it is a great time for a deep breath and a chance to do what you want to do for a couple of weeks.

When I was at Young Elementary, most of the time was spent with family.  Those were  the last holiday seasons that I would have with my Grandpa Morris and Grandma Finch.  Grandma Morris had died the holiday season before I graduated from Manchester.  Grandpa Finch lived long enough to preside over the wedding to my wife in 1977.  The holidays in 1974 headed me in a new direction.

In the days before the break that year, the students in the afternoon block, fueled by my stories of the elementary students with whom I had spent the last three years, begged me to set up pen pals with students at Young.  Once that was established, they wanted to meet their pen pals.  That lead to the Christmas party that they planned for their pen pals.

It was a special time.  The high school students dressed up, made decorations, baked cookies, created a play and performed it, and generally took over the whole project.  For me it was an opportunity to blend the world I left to the one that I now inhabited.  At the end of the day, we all created memories.  I remember that some of the high school students came to me and said that they knew that they wanted to be teachers so that they could work with children just like the ones at Young.  I know that at least three of them followed through.

That year, my brother and sister in law were expecting my first nephew and my parents first grandchild.  We all gathered as we always did, even though my sister and brother in law had moved to New Jersey.  They made the long trip to Fort Wayne for Christmas.  When they headed back to New Jersey, they had a passenger - me.  That was the year that I was to make my first trip into New York.

My furthest excursions from Fort Wayne previous to that time were family trips.  Other than sites in the Midwest, I had never been further than Chicago.  We made one trip to Niagara Falls, which got me out of the country to Canada briefly.  The only other time was a trip to Washington, DC.  So going to New York with my sister and brother in law was a big step for me.

I made two trips into the big city.  Once I went with my sister and brother in law.  Because I researched all of New York, I took them to places that my brother in law had never seen or heard about even though he had lived in that area all of his life.  The other time I went in alone.

I took my camera with me.  I really didn't go anywhere in particular.  I just let the city grab me and pull me where it wanted me to go.  I heard stories by not talking, just listening to all that was around me.  I fell in love with the city even though at that time it wasn't nearly as clean as it is today.  It represented all of the country, the good, the bad, and everything in between.

When I left, I experienced another first.  I flew home.  I remember that I entered the plane very worried.  Not so much about the plane going down or anything like that.  The thought that crept over me was that I would be claustrophobic or get sick.  Needless to say, I made it and many flights since.

The experiences of that holiday season allowed me to advance past the me who was simply a college graduate and teacher.  I had more control over who I was and where I was going.  When I worked with my classes after that, I created a world that I had now discovered myself.