AfterWords: Volume 2, Issue 2

November 2003

President's Message

Whew!!!!

This Fall has seen a blizzard of elections, election signs, billboards, speeches, TV debates, and media coverage. Time to stop and catch our breath.

Thanks so much to all those members who volunteered over the past months to bring some changes to the Province, the Municipalities, and the School Boards. And special thanks to the many thousands who cast their votes in the elections.

This Fall newsletter is smaller than usual, mostly because we have all been busy, but we hope you find some things here that brighten your day.

AfterWords will publish a larger issue in the new year and we certainly welcome letters and submissions for that issue. Possible Topics: My Election Experiences;  Being a Volunteer; Recipes and Cooking Tips; Teaching Memories; Spring Gardening Pointers; Jokes; Travel Tips and Experiences. Why not just surprise us!

ARM Chapter 11 Annual Meeting

You’re Invited!!  You’re Invited !!

ARM Chapter 11 ANNUAL MEETING

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

OSSTF District 11 Office, Oxford Street West to 680 Industrial Road

Time: 3-5 PM

ELECTION OF OFFICERS/REPORTS/NEW BUSINESS

Conversation, Information, and Treats!

Freedom and the Retirement Itch

One of the great freedoms of being retired is choice. We are so less bound by schedules and requirements. We can actually do those things we like and value - or at least that we say we like and value. Maybe that is one little retirement itch - we can’t use the excuse of work anymore! If we want to do it - we actually can ...

... such as volunteering. With time and a guaranteed income, why not give some time, expertise, energy and caring where it will really do some good? And one more little retirement itch - we retire at the peak of our abilities! Prime-minister-in-waiting Paul Martin could be in his tenth year of retirement had he been a teacher! Man, do we have a lot to offer - and is it ever needed!

Government is providing less and less in the way of social services. The right-wing  tax-cut mantra is so firmly entrenched that it shows no sign of going away any time soon. The recent and ground-breaking United Way/Children’s Aid Society/UWO Study “Protecting Children is Everybody’s Business” paints a bleak picture of the escalating number of children needing major intervention and support to have even a moderate chance of success. So - how can our kids get this vitally-needed support? Well, who better than retired teachers - people like us who have devoted their lives to children, who care, have expertise - have time and energy, have spent their lives trying to make a real, positive difference?

Interested? Want to find out more? One way to start is to contact the United Way and say you are interested in exploring ways you can help - either directly with the United Way or with one of its member agencies. Your help will be immensely valued and appreciated, and you will get that glow of success and accomplishment, of making a real difference - and you still have the choice of when, where, and what you will be doing.

“Retired” doesn’t mean pulling back from active life. It just means we don’t HAVE to work anymore. It can - should? - mean even more engagement with things we really value. Think very seriously about volunteering. The biggest beneficaries usually turn out to be us!

By Joe Wilson, District 11 ARM 

Don't Forget!

Your ARM Chapter 11 Discount Card can save you money.

Click here for a complete list of Preferred Business.

Don’t You Just Love Research!

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht orded the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltter is at the rghit pclas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the orod as a wlohe.

 Should we share this breakthrough with our colleagues still in the classroom?

School Daze

Answers from some Grade 5 and 6 students on those tough, mid-term tests:

1. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood.
2. Joan of Ark was burnt to a steak and was canonized by Bernard Shaw for reasons I don’t really understand. The English and French still have problems.
3. In the first Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, hurled biscuits, and threw the java. The games were messier then than they show us now on TV.
4. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper which was very dangerous to all his men.
5. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donky Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Since then no one ever found it.
6. Abraham Lincoln became America’s greatest Precedent. Lincoln’s mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing The Emasculation Proclamation.
7. The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up.
8. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbits but I don’t know why.

   

Sunday School

Some Sunday School teachers like to talk a bit about ancient history as well as teaching about major figures in the Bible. Some even dare to have their young charges write answers to a short quiz. Here are a few memorable answers:

1. The Greeks were a highly sculptured people and without them we wouldn’t have had history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.
2. Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without ingredients. Moses went up to Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandos. He died before he ever reached Canada, but the commandos made it.
3. Socrates was a famous old Greek teacher who went around giving people advice and asking questions. They killed him. He later died from an overdose of wedlock, which is apparently poisonous. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.
4. Ancient Egypt was old. It was inhabited by gypsies and mummies who all wrote in hydrolics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert. The climate of the Sarah is such that all inhabitants have to live elsewhere.
5. Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines. He was a actual historical figure as well as being in the bible. It sounds like he was sort of busy too.

   

Three Kinds of Men

There are Three kinds of Men:

the one who learns by reading;

the few who learn by observation;

the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

(From “The Wisdom of Will Rogers”)

Scatology

Do you remember some of the scatalogical jokes you traded when you were a kid? I fondly remember a series of one-liners that were supposedly titles of books by various authors. Here are a few that are printable in this respectable journal:

·The Rusty Bedspring by I.P. Knightly
·Tracks Across the Desert by The Diarrhoea Kid
·The Open Kimono by Seymour Hairs
·Spots on the Wall by Who Flung Dung

Did any of you trade these types of things in your public school days? Let us know.
Perhaps we should start a new series of ARM titles. How about Early Riser by Uppen Attem?

Hints for Writing Proper

1. Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
2. And never begin a sentence with a conjunction.
3. Avoid repetition, tautology, duplication, and reiteration.
4. Try to keep your sentences short, because if they get too long your readers will have difficulty remembering what it was you were on about and then, of course, they may start to get confused and think about something else like last night’s lottery draw, or the Church social, or that new car, and anyway, I just like short sentences.
5. Correct punctuation is, very important;
6. Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague.

   

Let us not take thought for our separate interests, but let us help one another.
(OSSTF Motto)

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