STORYTIME TAPESTRY

The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world

July 15, 2005 

Happy Birthday Wendy Cossette

Now on to the good stuff..........

Today's Queue Stories
~**~**~**~

Kenny??™s G

Kay Seefeldt

My children have never applied to Mensa.  Probably never will.  Raising
children is difficult at best, but once they get in school, the task
becomes even more complicated.  As a mother, I wanted my children to do
their best without putting them under unrealistic expectations.

In my school days, having all A??™s was my goal. Anything less seemed
like a failing grade to me, But as soon as my kids got in school, I
soon learned that B??™s and C??™s were going to be more the norm.  I could
handle that. Whenever report cards came home, I??™d ask, ???Is this your
best???? If they said yes, I??™d assure them I was happy with their grade.
If they said no, then I??™d encourage them to work a little harder until
they felt they were giving it their best shot.

On one such day that report cards were issued, my two younger
children??™s cards held a respectable smattering of A, B and C??™s.  Then
Kenny, with his head held low and eyes averted, reluctantly presented
his. From his body language, I knew this one wasn??™t going to be pretty.
  Kenny was one of those kids who just didn??™t care for school. He??™d much
rather be dismantling or reassembling something mechanical.

Slowly I opened the card. One ugly, black mark - a stark D stared up at
me...daring me to explode!  Trying to remain calm, I explained to Ken
that D??™s were just not acceptable. If he was really having trouble
understanding the work, he needed to do either one of two things: ask
his teacher for extra help or bring his work home, and I??™d help him.

He must have remembered my ???helpful??? tutoring when he was in
kindergarten and having trouble with his colors. His teacher had sent
home a note alerting me to the problem.  I created a set of flash cards
like my mother used to do to help my sister or me learn our
multiplication tables.  I made several in red, yellow, blue, and green,
to start, figuring I??™d throw in a couple other colors after he had
those down pat.  Every day, after school, we??™d settle in for our color
game. If he correctly named the color, he??™d get to keep the card, If
not, I??™d keep it. For the most part, he??™d do fairly well until I??™d hold
up a blue card.  That??™s when the guessing game would begin. After he'd
named most of the colors in the rainbow and a few that were not, I??™d
grit my teeth and say, ???It??™s blue, Kenny. It??™s blue!???  Then he??™d have
trouble not only with blue, but the other colors as well.  Finally,
we'd both be totally on edge and ready for a complete melt down. I
decided I would never be home schooling my kids.

After a couple frustrating days, I mentioned to my brother (also a
teacher at Ken??™s school) the problems he was having with his colors.
Bubba suggested I might want to take him to an optometrist for an
evaluation.

When the eye doctor finished with Kenny, he informed me my son was
indeed color blind. Blue was his worst color.  Even with the prior
knowledge that colorblindness ran in my family, it had never dawned on
me that my son could be afflicted with this defect.  A flood of guilt
washed over me as my words screamed like Memorex through my mind??™s ear,
???It??™s blue, Kenny. It's blue!???

When the kids??™ report cards came out again, I discovered Glenn??™s and
Lorena??™s cards on the table after school, but none from Kenny. In fact,
there was no Kenny. ???Where??™s Ken???? I asked the other two.  Lorena,
always too willing to fink on her older brothers, blurted, ???He??™s in his
bedroom, and he??™s has hidden his report card in his lunch bucket, under
his bed!???

???Kenny, come on out and bring your lunch bucket,??? I implored of him. 
Dejectedly, he walked up the hall. Not wanting to stress him out even
more I joked, ???Gosh, It can??™t be all that bad, Ken.??? After looking over
his rank card, I asked, ???What??™s wrong with this????  Immediately, tears
began to flow and with trembling voice, he replied, ???I went right down
by F. I got a G!???  Blinking, I looked again. I??™d never heard of such a
grade!  Where he??™d had a D in social studies before, he now had C minus
(c-).  The teacher had inadvertently put the dash mark so that it had
touched the bottom tip of the C. It did look for all the world like a
G!  I couldn??™t help but chuckle.

With each new ranking period, we??™d tease Ken by asking him if he had
any more G??™s, but he never got another one nor any more D??™s for that
matter. Guess he wasn??™t interested in being tutored by his mother. And
his mother was definitely pleased being out of that loop as well.


@Kay Seefeldt 3/13/05
Birdnest @megalink.net

Kay has had stories published in Petwarmers, Gardenwarmers, 2theheart
and Storytime Tapestry: ???The Artificial Limb,??? ???F.R.O.G.,??? ???Tiny
Troubles??? and "Am I Lucky or What?"  She enjoys gardening, reading,
writing, painting in watercolors, and teaching watercolors to adults so
they can experience the joys of artistic expression for themselves. Kay
is a twenty-six year veteran middle school teacher and says teaching
other people??™s children is also stressful enough at times. She thanks
God for the many blessings in her life....big and small.

~**~**~ 

Churchie People

Bill Walker

wildbill6807@yahoo.com

I think in the story about Churchie People I said something about dress codes. I got a few rakes about that.  Which is just fine, I welcome remarks if the remarks make reason. I hope I never feel like I am always perfect right on anything, after all I think I am still human, I notice once in a great while the President says there is a small outside chance he was wrong on some small detail.

Now about codes of dress and so on in church.  Yes I guess a person should wear the best they happen to have. But also do a bit of thinking about how others may feel.  Now say you happen to like this preacher, and so on.  But the crowd that hangs out there is not in the upper crust, most are just common poorer types.  Here you or I show up in 500 dollar suits, how does that look to the crowd. Now let me clear up something real fast, I have heard of 500 hundred dollar suits, can't say I have one.  I think that sucker I have hanging up in the house here somewhere ran about 80 bucks, and it is getting quite old. I haven't had it on in I forgets when and for what reason. I don't really dress to try to impress someone.  i remember a saying my dad had.. "Well if you don't really like my looks, look the other way buster."

I remember a story about a preacher. Love them preacher stories.  Anyways this one Sunday there was found what looked like a drunken bum kind of under a bush near the door to this fancy Dan church. Every one just had to notice this fellow as they got near the door. No one offer to do any thing other then try to not notice.  The church filled up and it was time for the preacher to show, but where is the preacher?  All at once the door opens and in walks this fellow.  He makes his way up front, and all at once turns around, gasp it is the preacher!!.  Now then his talk that morning was about how people  looked on others that was down and out.

You know one may be in blue jeans, yes I had one to write me and say that was their best,  clean but the best they had. They didn't have fine fancy clothes, would they be welcome in any church.   My answer was simple. Well why not, give it a try, if you feel un wanted or not welcome,  you can bet Jesus is not wanted or welcome there either.

I think if a person goes to any church, it is for two reasons.  A fellow and I was talking about this the other day.  He invited me to give the church that he and his wife goes to a try. Please note he never said HIS CHURCH !!!!.  There is a difference,  He don't own the place.

We agreed that a person should go to church to learn the way, or grow in the belief.  Then the second is have time to talk to one another about things, like how are you brother, sister?  And really mean how are you, brother, sister.  That is what is called fellowship.  That is part of being a Christian.  We talked about how cold some ice box churches are.  People come and go, never have time to say, "hello brother, sister."  and stand and talk a minute.  Church should be a place to make friends, after all the ones that came in the door says they want to be friends of Jesus.  How can one be a friend of Jesus if they give others the ice box treatment?

So I guess my thinking is if fancy clothes and such is the ticket to Heaven, there sure is a lot of us that just isn't going to make it.  Seems to me I remember reading about a man, all he had in this world was the clothes on his back, and some soldiers rolled the dice for them. I also believe that man said he was the way, no man or woman for that matter sees Heaven but by him.

Hi Carol- I've been working about a week getting it ready to submit. I
hope you enjoy it.

Well I??™m a story teller, not a writer. Never learned the art of fancy English. I

happen to live in Nebraska, but I??™m still Missouri. Never married, all the Dollies I

ever took a second look at was too smart. Now at 74, just turned that other day, I

figure they all home safe. I love Doggies and Dollies in that order. Lost my two

true friends this year, that be Tinker and Poo. So I found me a new one. This

time a little girlie Peke. She is a normal female. Got a mouth, talks all the time.

She will never be a great writers of stories like Tinker and Poo. They have

about 50 stories on HWS. And now writing back from Rainbow Bridge.

I just try to write about people, places and things best I remember. Have something

over 250 stories on HWS. under three names.   

~**~**~ 

ValueSpeak

A Weekly Column

By Joseph Walker

valuespeak@msn.com

GOODNESS AFORETHOUGHT

            Did you see where the Associated Press has reported that a mile-wide asteroid may very well be on a collision course with Earth?  According to astronomers, our paths will likely cross ??“ or come very, very close to crossing ??“ sometime in the year 2028.

            And if we dodge that celestial bullet, a 75-square-mile chunk of the Arctic ice shelf snapped off recently, and scientists indicate that this is just the beginning.  Computer models predict that the ice shelves are slowly being melted through global warming and will be gone within 500 years.  Nobody seems to know what that means, exactly.  But it is a scary thing to think about, I guess.

            There are several ways to respond to such news.  You can take a political approach and start looking for someone to blame.  You can take a right wing extremist approach and start looking for something to shoot.  You can take a left wing extremist approach and start looking for something to regulate.  You can take a reactionary approach and start looking for someplace to hide.  You can take a Lalaland approach and start looking for someone to write the screenplay.

            Or you can do what most of us do.  In the spirit of Mad magazine's Alfred E. Newman, I call it the "What, Me Worry?" approach.  We look 30 years down the road and say, "Well, I'll probably be dead when that asteroid hits ??“ IF it hits ??“ so why worry about it?"  Or we look at the possible effects of global warming on people 500 years from now, and that's so far off our own personal radar screens that we have a hard time generating any concern.  It's sort of like the topics you see in TV Guide listings for ???Jerry Springer": interesting, but I'll never have to deal with it in my lifetime.

So who really cares?

            Now, I'm not suggesting that we should be focusing on dealing with stuff like asteroids that may or may not intersect with Earth's orbit and ice shelves that may or may not be melting away.  It's the notion that "if it doesn't impact me personally during the course of my lifetime, I'm not going to worry about it" that is of concern to me.  Maybe there isn't a lot we can actually do about mile-wide objects hurtling toward us from space, or whatever it is that's causing the earth's crust to be 4-degrees warmer than it used to be.  But there ought to at least be some concern on our part for those who come after us, and the kind of world we're leaving for them.

            And if we can't think about them, perhaps we can think about those who came before us.

My great-great-grandfather helped to settle the valley in which I now live.  His son ??“ my great-grandfather ??“ lived here most of his life, and his son ??“ my grandfather ??“ spent a big chunk of his life here, too.  Together they cleared away a lot of brush that I don't have to deal with.  They leveled a lot of roads that I now travel, and they built a lot of doorways that I now step through.  My life is fuller and richer because of the groundwork they laid for me.

While it's true that they probably weren't actually thinking of me when they did all that stuff, they were certainly aware that they were planting seeds they would never personally harvest.  And that was OK with them.

            We are all beneficiaries of goodness aforethought, perpetrated by unknown men and women who cared about the kind of world they were leaving to unborn generations ??“ including us.  And now it's our turn.  To a great degree, the lifestyle enjoyed by those who live in future centuries will be determined by decisions we make today.  Will we live exclusively for what we can narcissistically harvest here and now, or will we plant a few seeds for those who will follow 50, 100 or even 500 years from now?  For them, as well as for us, tomorrow begins today.

            Which makes me wonder: does anyone have any ideas on how to slow down an asteroid?

~**~**~ 

Poetry Section

~**~**~

A Poet's Dilemma
Dan Hussain

Drunken metaphors
Cavorting to strange rhythms,
Hauling sackfuls
Of allegory and clich?©
Pilfered from a Bedouin's caravan,
Spice-laden, my words,
But their aroma
is lost to a critic's blocked nose.

(c) Dan Husain
March 30, 2005

Name: Murtaza Danish Husaini
Pseudonym: Dan Husain

Bio: Poet, writer and a freelance theatre actor based in Delhi, India. Dan is 34 years of age and had articles and poetry published in news magazines in India. Those who may be interested in his work may check his blog,

http://shamethepoem.blogspot.com/

or the collaborative blog he runs with few fellow poets and writers.

http://shakespeareandco.blogspot.com/

Currently, he is in the process of setting up a theatre repertory company in Delhi, India.

e-mail: dan_husain @yahoo.com

Meanwhile, I'll go and subscribe your newsletter. I also wrote couple of short stories recently. I guess they may interest you. You'll find them on my blog.

Thanks & best regards,

Dan

~**~**~

Wildlife

By Deepak Morris

Earthworms in my bathroom,
Frogs upon my lawn.
Cats in my cradle,
Dogs to greet the dawn.
Spiders on the mantel,
Flies in my soup,
Heaven knows what else I'll find
If I should care to stoop.


Have fun,

Deepak

Deepak Morris

rhapword@yahoo.com

"What would you do if you weren't afraid?"
http://www.freewebs.com/deepakmorris
Check my blog for tips & tricks on everything from acting to presentation skills:
http://dm01.blogspot.com/

~**~**~

Statistics 
by Vance Agee

This morning early on my TV
I saw a doctor her chances say,
A comfort great in her own way,
Her sick life ahead for her to see?

Statistics!

What a wonder course to take!
No way learning here to fake.
What a wonder thing to know,
When we have a cancer grow,
Or any evil on this earth below!

???You have six months left to live.???
This god of science does not forgive!

Statistics!

What then the chance of Lazarus??™ rise?
What the chance of blind to see?
What the chance of lame to walk?
What the chance of dumb to talk?

And yet the Son of God did make
The sick well for their faith??™s sake!

What the chance of sin to clean?
But then by stats no sin is seen!
Where would correlation come between?

How tragic is this mental set!
Fear, dread or false hope beget.

There is human one stat so sure:
All on earth will someday die,
And for that is just one cure.

To scientists all I give this call:
Not one of you can prove the real!
But prayer is known well to heal!
Call on God and He will hear;
He will show no need for fear,
Wisdom not heard by human ear.

Statistics?

He
does
not
obey.

Vance G. Agee

vgagee @adelphia.net
About Me:

I was born in Buffalo, New York, a few
decades ago. I was a lonely only child.
However, my mom read to me: the KJV Bible
cover to cover, Pilgrim's Progress, and
numerous books. Between four and eight
years old, I lived at 162 Bertie Street in
Fort Erie, Ontario. I loved Suzanne Bevan,
blond hair and bangs and recently wrote a
poem about that. Great people there!
I then attended School 54 in Buffalo and
the Martin Luther School,where my favorite
subject was Church History. I would write
the assignment and then read for fun! I
attended Buffalo Bennett High School in
Buffalo, a great school then. Out of 2000,
I was often among top 10 and sometimes I
would be number one on the honor roll, with
a 99% average. I was valedictorian 1/400,
but hated the SAT's. The school failed to
measure my I.Q.,because I maxed out their
group test. Basically, I hated school,
but learned to play the game, because that
attention was one of the very few things
which made me feel some self worth! I
had the problem of being interested in
nearly every subject and having no idea on
which to finally concentrate for a life's
work.

I attended and became valedictorian at
summa cum laude from Houghton College in
our NY Southern Tier. I spent one summer
in Europe and one at Middlebury College,
VT. I was asked back for two years as an
interim instructor. There I met my wife,
Kathleen. For two years I taught at
Phil-Mont Academy in Dresher near
Philadelphia, PA, took courses at Faith
Theological Seminary, and loved working
retail at the old Gimbel's Department
Store in King of Prussia, PA. Then we came
to Pembroke Jr-Sr High School in Corfu, NY,
where I taught five years and led two
student tours to Europe. I earned my M.S.
in Ed. from SUNY at Brockport 4.0, and
moved to the Town of Lewiston near Lake
Ontario, NY, to become an assistant
principal at Lewiston-Porter C.S.D. for
nearly 25 years. I built an international
exchange program that included:
Minsk, Belarus; Germany, Australia, Canada,
France, Japan, Spain, and Venezuela! I took
the students to Belarus, Germany, and
Australia, and later a small group to the
U.K. I also had a cable TV show and
produced student video movies!

I took all courses at 3.8+ for a doctorate
at SUNY at Buffalo on a Presidential
Fellowship (1/100/6840 grad students --
top 5%), but a 13 page survey was a problem
in completing a dissertation!
I retired from Lew-Port in June of 2001,
fairly disgusted with school
administration. I have a red belt in
karate, used to bench 265 (I weigh 155),
and always loved working with students.
I did complete a "distance doctorate". For
a time, I worked in real estate and did
retail again at the Boulevard Mall in the
Kaufmann's Men's Store (part of the large
May Company). My daughter has both a B.S.
in Management from Buffalo's
Canisius College and an A.A.S. summa cum
laude from the F.I.T.
in Manhattan. She works for Calvin Klein,
and I love to visit her in NYC and at her
Brooklyn Heights apartment. I love to
write for both print and Web, to do video,
and have numerous other interests. I was
recently hired at Bishop Timon -St. Jude
H.S. in South Buffalo, as their Latin
teacher. I am grateful to many Internet
lit. sites and to all my readers!!!

~**~**~

Writers Feedback

 I love the philosophy of the The Old Timer by Bill Walker.All of our lives i guess is spent in trying to be smarter. I also liked the wit in the stories of Ellen Braun_Haley . They were interesting and entertaining. Nathalie

Announcements

Hello Carol--  We were gone for a few days and now I am teaching for a
couple weeks at a summer art camp, so have been truly busy. Haven't
even had a chance to catch up with all the great reading on Storytime.
Just wanted to say that those that I've read are wonderful. And, of
course, I particularly loved the one by my sister...."School Daze."
Hopefully, all your readers and writers made it through Hurricane
Dennis without a great disruption to their lives. Heavy downpours from
it will be giving us a deluge of water here in Maine by this week end.   

Prayer Requests and Updates

Special prayers are needed for our senior writer Nell Berry who is going into the hospital for foot surgery.  Please pray for her, as an elderly woman we know that surgery takes a harder toll on our bodies than it does with younger people.  Let us all pray that the situation will be corrected and and Nell will be her old self sooner than later but pain free!

Sharona's Aunt Barb is about to leave this world --- and she needs salvation.  I am asking all my Friends to please keep Aunt Barb in your prayers; that she will open her heart to the Holy Spirit.  And pray that the Holy Spirit will empower Sharona as she shares with her Aunt Barb; that He will give Sharona the right words, the right thoughts, the perfect timing, that she will be able to lead Aunt Barb to the Lord.

Please, pass this request on to all your praying friends.  The time is short; we do not know how short, but it is critical that we all be in prayer for the soul of Aunt Barb.

Thank you and God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill Gray

To All;

Haley Aguilar is 3 years old and has cancer the doctors have give her only 2 months

to live, she is in Millers childrens hospital in Long Beach, Calf. Please pray for her

Dad John Aguilar to bring him back to the Lord and give him strengh to get through

this.

All prayers for them are deeply appreciated, God bless you all for all of your prayers!

Walking In His Loving Light!

Richard & Jackie Sims

SENIOR WRITERS

Agee, Vance;  Apted, Violet;  Baker, Kathy;  Batt, Al;  Berry, Nell;

Boda, Ginger;  Bryant, Sharon;  Buhagiar, Victor; Cassady, B.J.;  Crider, Mark; 

Deming, Barb; Goodier, Steve;  Harris, Kathy Anne; Hunt, Sharlette; 

Jacobson, Gary;  Kiser, Roger Dean; Kerens, Claudia; Jenkins, Pamela;

Liles, Norma;  Mazzella, Joe; Ojeigbe, Georgewaters;

  Petry, Dianna Doles; Roberts, Susan;  Shaw, Bob; Sims, Richard; Swarner, Ken; Vaknin, Sam;

Walker, Bill;  Walker, Joe; Warner, Gorden K;

Whirity, Kathy;  White, Robert;

STORYTIME TAPESTRY STAFF

Publisher: Carol Roach-founder

Moderator: Thelma Hartselle-co founder

Moderator: Clara Westerfer

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