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How to Insult Your Pastor

I guess how I became a member of St. Paul Lutheran Church in the heart of San Antonio needs mention as it is indeed relevant to why decades later I’m still in association. I won’t mention my previous church, mostly due to the good people I knew there who were, unfortunately, unable to alter its mission which was, for far too many, to simply attend a Sunday service and then go home thinking they were safe in the knowledge God was on their side, the rest of the wider world not really important.

To go a bit deeper, the congregation was known to higher church authorities as one with lots of problems, so many that when our long suffering pastor, who also saw what I just described, finally retired, we could not attract another as the word was out we were best avoided if a successful church mission was desired. Finally, Synod recommend we consider a lay minister and that’s how I came to know John Castor, a truck driver by trade and as good of a Christian as I’ve ever known. Continue reading “How to Insult Your Pastor”

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Understanding COVID-19 and Why it’s Such a Big Deal

By now, we have all read ad nauseam about the novel strain of coronavirus that has changed our lives forever, SARS-CoV-2. This is the name of the virus while COVID-19 refers to the illness or disease caused by the virus. Y’all probably know that too. But you have probably wondered why we are treating this virus so different from influenza. After all, we have never shut down entire cities of businesses, schools and workplaces over the flu. Fundamentally, all viruses work the same way to make us sick; they use our own healthy cells, invade them and use the cell’s resources to reproduce hundreds more viruses. As more and more of our healthy cells are taken over, our bodies start to feel the distress. A major difference is influenza viruses replicate in our upper respiratory tract, while SARS-CoV-2 replicates in our lower respiratory tract. Continue reading “Understanding COVID-19 and Why it’s Such a Big Deal”

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How I Became a Millionaire Teacher

I spent several weeks at the beginning of summer vacation reading old education textbooks as I sat along the Intracoastal Waterway in Dulac. This water highway hugs the Gulf of Mexico coastline and connects to many inland water routes. I perched at the end of a shell road on a small cliff obviously cut by water erosion, but just how unknown to me until the first big offshore supply boat roared by. These big commercial boats have enormous multiple engines powering huge propellers. The wake generated by such force creates an enormous wave I didn’t appreciate until one knocked me right out of an old aluminum lawn chair.  I had my nose buried in a text book, a fishing pole in the other hand, and didn’t see the wave coming. Never made that mistake again. I also desperately wanted to avoid even worse mistakes I’d made as a classroom buffoon.

While my self-study program worked well and led to good scores on the National Teacher Exam (NTE) I was required to pass to keep my job, I was absolutely certain waving my NTE scores at kids like Marvin would be even less effective than the futile efforts I’d made previously. Marvin repeatedly tumbled my world far more than any wave did, and I sought a means of survival far more complicated than stepping back a few feet. As for which force scared me more, I’d give a big nod to Marvin and crew. Continue reading “How I Became a Millionaire Teacher”

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Smart on Stupid

Her intelligent brown eyes glowed, letting anyone watching know very little would go unobserved. She used them like pointers, keeping her hands still on her lap so that her expressive face would not be distracted.

It was her face, really, that started this, a vision of many nations reflecting America’s oft mentioned melting pot, but now pushed aside for the more politically correct salad bowl.

“I’m a mutt,” she told me as I tried to comply with another ridiculous call for labels and tags, in this case a form asking for ethnicity and gender breakdowns in my journalism classes. With Mona I had no choice but to ask; I could see so many imprints across her attractive face that a random guess was bound to fail. Continue reading “Smart on Stupid”

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Almost Oakie’s Last Days

It was a typical Sunday morning. We’d just returned from church and I was already mentally tasting the breakfast tacos we’ve become addicted to since moving to San Antonio. Our two rescue mutts, Sadie and Oakie, met us at the front door in usual doggie style, acting as if they hadn’t seen us in months.  I walked the two most energetic pooches to the back door to release into our relatively large back yard, one that’s completely fenced. I had no idea we were about to experience many days of deep grief until what seemed like a miracle occurred.

Continue reading “Almost Oakie’s Last Days”