Hold Fast to Dreams by Liz Flaherty

This came mostly from 2019. The past week or two, I've been buying school supplies here and there, worrying about Covid in the schools, about how kids are bullied, teachers are bullied, and pubic education is under constant fire from the same people who are holding the fire extinguishers behind their backs and saying "Gotcha!" 

Am I biased? You bet. I have kids who teach and a grandson still in middle school. I'm afraid for the students who may not get what they need in the future, whose school curricula may be built around political platforms instead of the truth, and who have to learn to take cover before they learn the alphabet and "Red Rover, Red Rover..." I worry about teachers ending up having to be armed, because...you know...they don't have enough to do. 

I'm a mom and a nana. I got a little sick writing that. Thanks, again, for opening the Window and for reading it even when you don't agree with it.

Her name was Margaret. In my freshman year, she had someone else grade short stories we wrote, just to give us another outlook. I got great feedback--I held onto that a long time. Great feedback is an immeasurable gift. 

His name was Gordon. He encouraged.

Her name was Clauda. She taught both English and Latin, and I learned more about words and their origins than I ever would have thought existed.

Her name was Jane. She didn't think I'd EVER learn to type, but I did. Finally. Not well, but well enough that being a writer was much easier than it might have been.

His name was Joe. He taught Algebra and about life, and when I sold my first book, he brought me a dozen roses.

Her name was Mrs. Sullivan. She was my first grade teacher and she didn't like me, but she let me read with the second graders because I was bored. I was scared to death of her, but I learned. Every day.

His name was Graham, although I don't think they called him that. He taught Senior English. It may have been my favorite class ever. 

His name was Jerry. He was a heck of a basketball coach, and he taught American History and made me love it. He also gave me a C in it. It's where I learned you don't have to be good at something to learn from it and enjoy it. 

I graduated from high school 54 years ago. The list above is a microcosm of the ones who taught me in those 12 years on the way to graduation. I still remember their names, what they looked like, and things they said to me.

On November 19, 2019, almost 20,000 teachers went to the State House in Indianapolis. They sang, they chanted, they wore Red for Ed. They carried signs, they met with legislators, they publicized the shame that is our state's stance on public education. My daughter and son-in-law were there. The support our educators received was humbling. The support they provide to their students should be humbling to the lawmakers; unfortunately, it is not.

I will get off my soapbox now. I realize it's probably not the right place for it. And yet it is. Because of those people up there, I'm a writer. I know about commas and plot and quotation marks. I know that in that 12 years with them, none of them ever told me I couldn't do anything. None of them ever said I wasn't good enough. None of them ever cared where I lived or that I didn't dress as well as other girls. They gave me everything I needed in adulthood's toolbox.

And I'm still so grateful.

To all the teachers and kids and school staff going back to school, have a good week.Be safe. To them and everyone else, be nice to somebody. 

Support and Defend by Liz Flaherty #WindowOvertheSink

Photograph from Jack Rahilly

I kind of knew what would happen. When I posted a picture of my husband and a group of other soldiers from Vietnam in 1970, along with the assurance that they were neither losers nor suckers, I knew there would be a firestorm. And there was. Along with remarks about how young those guys were, there were a multitude of comments concerning the President and how many of us feel about him, and another plethora of observations from people who support him. Many of the comments had nothing to do with the subject at hand, which was a public figure's disrespect for veterans.

They served, some voluntarily and some not, and many are still serving. They have kept us safe for 244 years or so. They serve to protect not only us but our rights, to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." They "bear true faith and allegiance to the same."

I don't like that it created such an issue, even though I did it purposefully. Possibly because my politics are unpopular where we live, I don't like to post contentious things. I get my feelings hurt when people say mean things. I get furious when they say things that aren't true. I get defensive...oh, all the time. 

But I remember George Wagner. It was the first year of North Miami's schools being consolidated and some of us rode a couple of buses for a long time to get to school. It was a disgruntling time. So the administration made a rule that kids on buses were not allowed to go together and buy their drivers Christmas gifts. The other part of the rule was that the drivers couldn't give the kids treats on the last day of school before Christmas break. 

George was one of the best drivers and the best guys ever. So we pitched in our quarters and bought him a present. He told us we shouldn't have done that. And then, one-by-one, as we got off the bus at our houses, he handed us the treats he wasn't supposed to have given us. 

Joe Wildermuth, who'd broken his back and didn't get around too well at the time, backed the students when they staged a sit-in at school. I don't remember whether we won or lost the cause we were sitting in for, but I remember Joe standing at the podium in the gym. He had our backs.

Years ago, some books got banned from our school library. My son told me about it, I wrote a column about it, and things got a little uglier than they might have if I hadn't done that. The kids and I lost the battle and the Stephen King book got banished. 

I've lost a lot of battles in my lifetime, probably more than I've won. I am a coward of the bravest kind in that I never cop to being anything but a coward. One of my brothers said once that while he would never be a fighter, he certainly could run. That would be me, too, except that I'm really slow, so I don't run, either. 

What that means is that sometimes I have to stand up. I learned it from the Constitution our military swears to uphold, and from George Wagner and Joe Wildermuth. Even from the school board that banned a Stephen King book because a parent didn't want her son reading it. 

I will not make a habit of writing political columns. Not because I don't feel things strongly, but because I like writing about fun things and because I think people's beliefs should be their own and respected as such. But there are times, as I said, when I have to stand up. 

This was one of those. Thank you to all veterans who have served, to the ones who didn't come home and the ones who did. Especially to the ones like my husband mentioned today--the ones who made it home but not really, because they were never the same again. Thank you to the ones who are serving now and will be there in the future when we need them. Thank you for standing up. So that the rest of us can. 

Have a good week. Stay safe. Be nice to somebody. Buy a veteran a cup of coffee. 

One of Theirs by Liz Flaherty #WindowOvertheSink

This was a column in Peru Indiana Today in May of 2019. I'm using it because one of the people I write about in it is having a birthday on September 2. If you know Joe, or if he taught you, he'll undoubtedly remember you and be glad to hear from you. You can send him a card at: Joe Wildermuth, 340 E. 18th St., Rochester Indiana 46975.

It's not a surprise that I love teachers--two of my kids teach--and the 20 books and all the columns I've written over the years are, at the end of the day, because my teachers all that time ago told me I could. Thank you to them. Again and again and again. 

Our neighbor passed away on April 18th. She was nearly 100 years old. She hadn’t lived in her house up the road with its peonies and pristine white outbuildings for several years. A beautiful young family lives there now, but it’s still “Marabel’s” when we drive past. When we went to the funeral home, we saw more neighbors there, talked to her family, and looked at the photographs on display. Lots were of her grandkids—Marabel did love those grandkids—and even more were of other kids. Picture after picture after picture of first grade classes with a few third and fourth grades thrown in there, too. All hers. I can remember her using the term “one of mine.”

I interviewed a retired teacher for a newspaper article once--Loretta Oneal. She showed me gifts from students that spanned the decades, picked individuals out of pictures and laughed over memories. Spoke in grief and through tears of one recently lost to cancer. It had been twenty-some years since she’d taught her, but she was still one of hers.

I’ve written about him before, but Joe Wildermuth taught me as much about algebra as he could (it wasn’t much) and a lot about being a good person. About standing up when giving up would be easier. When my first book was published, he brought me flowers. Because I was one of his.

Virginia Balsbaugh was the school librarian when I was in high school. She knew her stuff, knew the books, knew the students she was buying them for. We didn’t talk about safe places in the 60s, but they existed as much then as they do now. Mrs. B’s office was a safe place. For the student librarians, particularly. We were hers.

We were in a coffee shop one night when I heard Barb See, a retired teacher, ask, “Where’s my Skyler?” about our grandson. He’s 22 now and graduating from Ball State this weekend with a commission in the U.S. Army, but he’s still one of hers.

I still remember, and have told too often, of the time I went looking for the principal at our elementary school on a day I was volunteering there. I found her in the cafeteria, playing Christmas songs on the piano for the kids while they ate their lunch. None of those same kids are at the elementary now; for that matter, the principal isn’t, either, but they’re all still ones of hers.

It is a phrase, if you spend much time with schoolteachers, you’re likely to hear a lot. When they talk to each other, there’s often some eye-rolling going on—that’s when you know they’re discussing one of theirs. They usually call them by name because they have an uncanny ability to remember not only their students, but the students’ siblings, their parents, and what they wore to school on picture day. (That might be a slight exaggeration, but not much, and the absolute truth is they would remember which of theirs were prone to exaggeration—hence the eye-rolling.)

I know not all teachers are good ones. There are those who should never have stepped behind a desk. There are some who thought it would be easy, who thought they’d leave the building when the school day was over and get there the next morning in time for class to start. There are probably some who don’t fill their Walmart carts with school supplies, buy clothes for kids who need them, and who’ve never cried over a student.

But that’s not most of them. Most of them are there every day. Before and after class. At graduation open houses. At meetings and meetings and meetings. Many of them have to work second jobs to support their teaching habit, and it’s a bitter pill to swallow, but they keep showing up. Because those kids, even the ones who are hard to like and harder to teach, they’re ones of theirs.