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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (26787)	12/9/1998 10:13:00 PM
From: Grainne	Respond to of 108807

What a wonderful post, Penni! I think even Del would agree!

To: Rambi who wrote (26787)	12/10/1998 8:23:00 AM
From: Sidney Reilly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

penni, The school issue is one of choice and control over your/my child's education. Since the federal government has taken control of schools by linking block grants to states for education to certain required curriculum it has been a battle to keep local control of local schools. It's the NEA in washington, a powerful lobby, that is forcing the objectionable material as well as local school boards and individual teachers. The parents should have the final say in their child's education, not some obscure bureaucrat in washington with a hidden agenda. One only need look at the failing of the public schools to see the failure of the federal governments intervention. I don't think it is important if every parent agrees on every issue, the parents should have a greater voice. If something is highly objectionable to some is there any harm in finding another book? After all, are they teaching reading or Egyptian worship? Reading of course! I think the horrors of WWII and the holocaust can wait until high school. Even then many would still be very upset by graphic pictures and movies. I have watched some discovery documentaries and it's very upsetting watching a nazi shoot several people in the back of the head, real footage saved from german archives. I would rather have not seen it at all. What happened to O'Hair anyhow? Did she have a death bed conversion? I heard she wanted to die in secret so no christian could claim she accepted the Lord at the last. I thought a lot about the school issue before my daughter entered. I decided to let her go through public school. They have the most facilities. I did not want to deprive her of the social benefits of school, especially being an only child. Friendships formed in school are very important and can last well past graduation. I think the best friends I ever had were my school friends. I also did not want to shelter her and then have her grow up with no understanding of so many issues. I am explaining as we go and will keep doing so. So far it has worked out fine, but 2nd grade is an innocent time. I don't know the parents or the aids patient, so it's hard to make a judgement. I know a christian who's brother has aids and the aids brother avoids the christian at all costs and wants no relationship with him. The christian brother will accept his brother as he is but the brother will not have it unless the christian brother denounces his beliefs about homosexuality. There are two sides. Bob

To: Rambi who wrote (26787)	12/12/1998 12:24:00 PM
From: James F. Hopkins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Hi Penni; Here is A Christmas Story, as told to me by a dear friend. ------------ It's just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so. It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas ---oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it, overspending...the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma---the gifts given in desperation because you couldn't think of anything else. Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way. Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended; and shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church, mostly black. These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler's ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat. Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, "I wish just one of them could have won," he said. "They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them." Mike loved kids-all kids-and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball and lacrosse. That's when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas, I followed the tradition---one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents. As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn't end there. You see, we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer. When Christmas came around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning, three more joined it. Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition someday may expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope. Mike's spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us. --------------- May we all remember the reason for the season, and the true Christmas spirit this year and always. ------------ Jim