SOL 2/31: The New Learning Technology Blues

Returning for year nine of writing daily in March with my slice of life writer friends! Check out Two Writing Teachers for more slices of life occurring every day in March. 

Just home from a family history
and technology conference.
Excitement bubbling over,
eager to share my new learning.

Asked a young family at church
to let me test drive and share
the Memories app with them.
Epic fail!

Somehow what seemed easy there
wasn't so easy here. 
Back to the practice board for me.
Thank goodness I brought cookies!

SOL 1/31: I Didn't Do It for the Chocolate

Returning for year nine of writing daily in March with my slice of life writer friends! Check out Two Writing Teachers for more slices of life occurring every day in March.

I've just returned from being a rookie at the tenth Roots Tech Conference held annually in Salt Lake City. (You may see more than one slice about this event since I'm currently riding a conference high.)  I love this description of the conference I found online. "RootsTech is a global family history event where people of all ages learn to discover, share, and celebrate their family connections across generations through technology."

I found it to be a thrilling experience, filled with new learning and ways to help me inspire others in our congregation on this journey. But as any conference goer can attest, there comes a time when you get a bit cranky. 

It happened on Saturday morning (my fourth day at the conference), when I wanted to be in three sessions at the same time. I decided on the session that I "thought" would help me with an upcoming event that I'm planning. I was disappointed because the content of the presentation was a sharing of online resources with which I'm already familiar. So rather than sit and stew, I opted to quietly leave and planned to make my way to another session. 

But when I stepped out, I met a missionary couple from Canada wearing the famous blue "Ask Me Anything" volunteer shirts. We chatted briefly about where they're from (Alberta, Canada) and whether they knew my friends Coleen and Oliver (they didn't). The husband shared that he'd had his picture taken the day before with David Hume Kennerly, the Pulitzer prize-winning photographer who had entertained us with his famous photos in the general session. 

When I saw the photograph, I replied that he should post it on Instagram. He and his wife informed that they didn't have Instagram. So I chose to help them remedy that. Maybe because I found myself in situation after situation where others had helped me navigate new territory at this conference, I decided that this was an  opportunity for me to give back. Or maybe because I just really didn't want to sit through another session. 

After I got them both signed up for an account, I helped Val draft his first Instagram post and attach the photo. And while we were doing that, Val's wife slipped more than a few wrapped chocolates into my jacket pockets.  It was a sweet reward that I enjoyed as the day proceeded, but the best reward was sharing something I knew how to do with someone who was eager to learn.

Yours truly and my new friend, Val, 
proud owner of an Instagram account!

Slice of Life #52Stories: 8/52, An Apology Poem

Last week I gathered my courage to join fellow educator and slicer friends at Ethical ELA for a five day writing challenge. One of our prompts was to write an apology poem using William Carlos Williams's poem "This Is Just to Say" as a springboard. As I thought about who I might need to apologize to, my conscience was pricked.  I wrote my apology to my fellow library patrons. I can't write stories about my life without including stories about my relationships with books and libraries and book clubs. It's a powerful thread that is stitched through the stories of my days and years.

This is Just to Say

I picked up
Giver of Stars
from my
holds shelf

Knowing I
couldn’t squeeze
it in before its
Feb 28 due date

Scheming to keep
it longer
and just
pay the fine

Apologizing to
my KCLS book friends
waiting patiently
in line

Returning the book
today and getting
back in line
I'm #499

- Ramona Behnke

Poetry Friday: Poetry for Young People: African American Poetry

 
Head over to Library Matters
for this week's round-up of poetic goodness and
 Cheriee's celebration of Vancouver poet, Avis Harley.
Thanks, Cheriee, for hosting this week!

I had planned for some time to share this book for Black History Month and almost missed my chance. Added to the Poetry for Young People series in 2013, African American Poetry is an exceptional collection of verse by African-Americans. Be sure to read the introductory four page essay by editor Arnold Rampersad. Marcellus Blount is the other editor of this excellent collection. I'm highlighting several favorite poems (with links to three of them), but don't rely on my recommendations. Get your own copy so you can savor every single page and then share it with a friend.

"The Bean Eaters" by Gwendolyn Brooks 

 "I Want to Write" by Margaret Walker

"Winter Poem" by Nikki Giovanni

"Songs for the People" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Although this poem was published 125 years ago, the words in this quatrain still resonate today.

". . . 
Our world, so worn and weary,
Needs music, pure and strong,
To hush the jangle and discords
Of sorrow, pain, and wrong.
. . .  "

"The Creation" by James Weldon Johnson
I love the focus on light (my OLW for 2020) in this poem. Be sure to click on the link to read the entire story about the making of the world.

" . . .
And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.

Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That's good!
. . . " 

I hope you'll look for this anthology, read the introduction and meet some new-to-you poets!

Slice of Life #52Stories: 7/52, No Lost Items Today!

I'm attempting to write 52 stories from my life during the year 2020. One story a week, in no particular order, to remember and document some of the memories of my life. This is the first one that actually occurred during this year.

One sad fact of life as I've grown older is a preponderance of lost items in my life. On Sunday, it was my earbuds. I was headed for the treadmill to pick up enough steps to meet my 10,000 steps goal when I opened my earbud case and it was empty! I spent more than an hour searching for them. I was terrified because I always put them back in the case! My husband helped me look and it was only when I had returned to the car for the third time (convinced they weren't there because I never wear them when driving) that I discovered them on the passenger seat. I was frantically trying to finish a book on audio this past week before our book club meeting, and I must have worn them to the car, pulled them out, carefully placed them on the passenger seat, and promptly forgot that I did this. 

As if that wasn't enough challenge, the next day the butter dish turned up missing. My husband had unloaded the dishwasher. As I was putting away a few items on the counter, I noticed the top of the butter dish, but no bottom. 

"Honey, where's the bottom of the butter dish?" I inquired.  

He replied, "It wasn't in the dishwasher."

"Oh, yes it was," I replied with certitude. I distinctly remembered moving it from a vertical position to a horizontal position as the top rack became ever more crowded and I played the "shuffle-the-dishes-around" game in order to make everything fit.

"Well, it wasn't there when I unloaded," was my husband's reply. 

Each of us spent a bit of time looking around the kitchen trying to figure out where the bottom of the butter dish had gone with no success. And then, just before we headed to bed, my husband found it! In the dishwasher, in the very back of the top rack, under a basket. I had totally forgotten moving it back there as the top rack had become more and more crowded. Mystery solved! 

And I'm happy to report that today has passed uneventfully with no search for lost items eating up time we'd rather spend doing other things. Unfortunately, that seems to be the exception rather than the rule lately.

Poetry Friday: Save that Empty Heart-shaped Box!

Head over to Teacher Dance 
for this week's round-up of poetic goodness. 
Linda composed an original poem and shared hearts and valentines,
both current and antique from around her house.
Thanks, Linda, for hosting this week on this very sweetest of days!

You are probably familiar with the Jack Prelutsky poem "My Mother's Chocolate Valentine."

Many years ago, someone pulled a fancy Valentine chocolate box out of their poetry bag of tricks. (It sounds like something Janet Wong would do, doesn't it?) I borrowed the idea, saved an empty heart-shaped box from Valentine's Day, and glued the poem inside the box. It's a delight to take the lid off the box of chocolates and recite the poem, pretending to eat chocolate by chocolate . . . until you reach the final two lines and replace the lid on the box: 

"I ate my mother's valentine . . .

I hope she likes the box."

So even if no one gives you a box of chocolates this year, watch the after Valentine's Day sales and purchase this prop for your poetry suitcase. Happy Valentine's Day!

Slice of Life #52Stories: 6/52, Love on a Pillowcase

I'm attempting to write 52 stories from my life during the year 2020. One story a week, in no particular order, to remember and document some of the memories of my life.

I'm not sure what I was thinking. Perhaps my double digit status gave me the courage to defy my father. I think I was eleven or twelve when this story took place. I was at cousin Carol's house. Sunday visits to each other's house after church were an almost weekly tradition. After Sunday dinner, we painted our fingernails. We had done this before I'm sure, but this was the first time that I dared to wear it home. For some reason, my father abhorred fingernail polish. (Perhaps I should mention that my father was born in 1912, in rural Oklahoma and his father was a Baptist preacher.)

When I got home from Carol's house, it didn't take long for my father to notice my fingernails. He exploded in his gruffest voice and insisted that I remove the offending nail polish. I responded with tears and my own anger. Fingernail polish seemed so innocent. What could be wrong with the pale shade of pink on my nails? I stomped off to my bedroom, removed the polish, and began a reign of silence.

The next day I was surprised to find fingernail clippers and a nail file on my pillow. Without the rage of the previous day, my father sat on my bed and explained that he wanted me to take care of my nails and had bought me these tools so I could do exactly that. The discussion ended with a hug. I never understood my father's dislike of painted nails, but I always understood that he loved me. (Perhaps it wasn't really the nail polish he disliked as much as the thought that his little girl was growing up.)