Gleaning Facebook: Meet the Teacher - Tomorrow Night!

Meet the Teacher - tomorrow night! And my room looks like a tornado hit it! And last night near midnight I began a conversation with a new Facebook friend who was in Bancroft School, Bancroft WV, in 1969 when I taught there. What joy to make that connection.

Comments

Tony Pope
1969!?!? Ha...

Ann Allee McRay
I feel your pain in regards to Meet the Teacher night. Some things you never forget!

Lyn Davis
My room does too! I felt like I was making so much progress, but it doesn't show in the clutteredness of the room! I was contacted by a former student today too! It made my day. This was a little fellow who was in my K class and moved up with me when I looped to 1st. He's now in 4th grade and jotted me an email from his new home in Wisconsin. It was fun to hear from him!
Parents are just going to have to understand that with 2 furlough days this week, the classrooms are not going to be perfect. If we have to choose between the decor of the room and lesson plans for next week - the plans have to win.

Terrell Shaw
Tony Pope walks on thin ice in July!

Gleaning Facebook: Delta is Found

Delta has been found. She had evidently snuck out a side door past Sheila's feet at some point. She was scared and hissing at a grey cat on the front porch when I found her.

Comments

Christie Hufstedler Boyd
Glad you found your kitty. One of ours was run over last week. She was born on Easter Sunday when Nicole was 10. We had a funeral last Saturday. We all told a story about her, we sang Amazing Grace, and Freddy did his standard pet departed prayer...Dear God, ________ was a good cat, lizard, dog, bird, mouse.

Susan Cherones
That sounds like the opening to a novel I'd like to keep reading!

Terrell Shaw
Thanks, Christie and Susan...
I need to interview Delta about her adventure, Susan, maybe there is a book there.

Susan Cherones
Hey Why not-Rita May Brown's cat, Sneaky Pie co wrote some of her novels!

Obama-ized Terrell

I found an online "Obama-size ourself site:

 

Gleaning Facebook: All Chiefs Reunion

This picture was in an album displayed at the reunion. Despite the shiny sheet-protector all the faces came out reasonably well. Judy, if you get the chance, tag the other folks in this pic. I think I can ID at least two others but... Thanks.

Comment

Roger Wade

Karen Strickland, Jan Wade, Carol Sewell, Patches Martin, Diane Cameron, Judy, Teresa, Pat Jarrod and Linda Hill.

Terrell Shaw
Thanks, Roger.

Judith Ann Whitaker Bishop
Hey Roger, you beat me to the bunch. Thanks, for the great party with all our friends. Your home is wonderful!!!!

Diane Warner
Pat Abbott I immediately knew
Your eyes! 

Another shot in the same album. I snapped it to record my (now FB) friend and Sheila's city editor at the RNT, Charles Graves, who represented Rome in the Ga. House in the late sixties. Who was the '69 Jr. Miss? Was she a West Rome girl?

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Charles Graves
We have been away for a week....i am sorry but i do not remember the young lady's name or where she was from

Gleaning Facebook: Walter Cronkite

And that's the way it is, July 17, 2009
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Bob Jackson

R.I.P. Walter !!

Chris Goodwin

Was media more factual back then, or has it always been slighted and I was just too young to realize it? Not looking for a political debate here, just wondering if it was once about informing people about interesting truths; not changing those truths or hiding parts of them to sway someone (I speak of both liberal and conservative media when I say that.)

Tony Pope

Just heard...the best report ever. Remember watching (and listening) to his distinctive voice as a child in the 70s.

Terrell Shaw

My opinion:

I think the news was less biased in Uncle Walter's day. Cronkite, we now know, was fairly liberal in his political beliefs, but he was highly principled and aspired to report the truth. He bragged that he was equally condemned by the right and the left. He was careful to separate news from commentary.

To me the major problems with "news" today are:

• sensationalism required by the 24 hour news cycle - you end up with circusses like the ridiculous over-coverage of the death of Michael Jackson. If anything "local" news stations like 2, 5, & 11 in Atlanta are even more sensational than national news networks.

• mixing/confusion of news and commentary -- CNN and FOX are the worst offenders. Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly, for example, officially call themselves commentators but they mix news in such a way that it confuses.

Terrell Shaw

Until the early sixties national news shows lasted 15 minutes each evening -- they didn't have time for more than the facts! Then they were 30 minutes for many years.

Tony Pope

I remember making sure to watch Cronkite's last broadcast...what about 1981 and then Dan Rather taking over. Dan just never could match Cronkite in demeanor and vocal ability. Honor and integrity just seemed to encompass him.

Chris Goodwin

It just seems the news is more about propaganda than facts on both sides. I too will never forget his voice from my childhood days!

Gleaning Facebook: Harry's New Movie

I saw Harry Potter last night with Lillian, Jonathan, and Gregg. Great! I think it was the best of the HP movies so far. Wonderful cinematography -- interesting camera angles and dramatic lighting. Good acting. Daniel and Rupert have really developed as actors.

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Laurie Craw
Didja know Rachel catered the HP NYC premier party and rubbed elbows with several of the stars? Yep but they didn't give her a big tip or nothing so who cares.

Terrell Shaw
One'll these days there'll be a mama posting about a young caterer rubbing elbows with Rachel Craw.

Tony Pope
Ha...no reasonable changes... Moviewise I liked it...but wonder why they changed (left out, etc.) so much that made the book such a good read. Why they don't consult me I don't understand! Ha...

A Nostalgic Visit to McHenry

I'm participating in a science workshop out at Georgia Highlands this week. We finished up a little early and I had McHenry on my mind so I stopped by to take a walk and a few pics. This is the front of the current main building. They've put a huge roof on it since "my day", but I left something that's still there. My students and I planted thirty red maples the first year around the "new" building. Two remain, as far as I can figure it. The one at the far right was well back from the road when it was planted, believe it or not. I hope we don't lose it when someone decides it's a driving hazard!

Facebook Comment
Tony Pope
I was there today from about noon-3pm. What time did you take these? The "big" tree may be the largest left. There was a pretty apple tree back near the kitchen that disappeared a few years back. We had talked one time about planting some to line the driveway around the school.

Terrell
I was there about 3:45-4:15 or so.

The Dramatic Club tablet used to be part of the stone column whose base is still visible near the road. Now its in a brick column farther from the road.

Facebook Comments

Tony Pope
I think this is one of the remaining "Pearly Gate" columns.

Tony Pope
Terrell, I can't figure out how to link from the McHenry site over to the pictures I just added from the 1900s-1970s.

Terrell Shaw
There are two ways:
1. Scroll down the McHenry group page to the photos. Click "add photos". A box should appear showing your Facebook albums. Choose the correct one and click on it. Click on each pic you want to add to the McH group (or choose "select all"). Then click the blue bar that says: "Add Selected Photos". It may take a little while for them to be added.
2. Open your post that has the pictures. Copy the url from the address bar at the top of the page. Open the Mchenry group page. Scroll down the the "links" box. Paste that address you copied into the "Post a link" field and click "Post".

 

One of the civic clubs, I think the Optiomists built our "recycled playground". The kids loved the tire climbing wall that is gone now. All that's left are these five tractor tires that I'll bet still get a lot of traffic from primary hands and feet.

Facebook Comment
Wesley Morrison
I kissed a girl inside the big blue one while in the second grade. It was my first. Mrs. Moses would have killed me. Ha ha ha! Great memories. Thanks for posting.

The swings, I think, date to "my day" and the yellow jungle gym on the far right. They must have nearly doubled the classrooms with the two big additions at the back.

I wonder if the graffiti "artist" was commemorating the first principal of the 1973 building, A.J. Frost?

The gym is the same tha was there in 1971. A prvious one stood between this one and the old main building on the hill. I never saw that one.

If you had stood in the door of the gym in 1971 and taken an identical shot, you would see no wall but, instead, a steep slope with a long set of concrete steps leading up to the driveway. Across the drive you would see the left side of the main building. At the rear would be the windows to my room. You might see shelves through the windows of the library where Mrs. Burge ruled. And a couple of other rooms toward the front. On the far left of the shot would stand the small white frame house where several teachers had lived previously, but which was now home to the janitors, Earl and Nellie Hill. That house is still there but not visible in the under/overgrowth.

At the right is another of those red maples. Like 28 others it was mowed down by the county schools lawn mowers (grrrrrr!) but somehow it kept shooting back up until it managed to get enough growth to be unmowable. The one we managed to really save is at the front, directly beyond my Toyota.

Looking up the main drive from the gate. The ruins of the main building are under all the greenery to the right. The Hill's house is in the very center of this shot. A corner of it is just barely visible.

Mrs. Packer's domain was this building, the lunchroom. She loved those "commodities" that the federal government sent out: real butter, lots of flour, etc. And she knew what to do with them! Wonderful rolls, especially cinnamon rolls. And cobbler!! Oh, my!!!

Facebook Comment
Lester Brookshire
Mrs. Packer could cook like no one else! She always gave me extra!

This shot is not exactly the shot at the top of the main page, but close. Behind all this is the lunchroom, to the left< the long steps, and the crumbling main building of McHenry School that was abandoned as a school in 1973. I think it was used by the county maintenance department for several years after that. Now it has been allowed to just fall in.