Remembering My First Day of School 1950

 Since I am long in the tooth and may soon join my friends and family on the other side, I have determined to write my memoirs.  My life has been pretty ordinary and mundane and no one will build statues of me in the park, but there are aspects of it that are worth remembering.

I remember my first day in the First Grade.  The year was 1950, I was five years old, and the place was Emerson School in Joplin, Missouri.  My mom accompanied me to my class and I was scared out of my wits.  There were tables along the side of the room, with seats for four students, two on each side.  My mom sat facing me and I faced the front.

Suddenly my mom got up and went to a table closer to the door.  Alarmed, I got up and followed her.  I didn't know it then but she was planning her escape while leaving me to the horrors of the big wide world.   Then she said goodbye, promising to come get me later, and got up and left.  I had never been separated from my mom before, so I put my head down on the desk, covering the sides of my face with my arms, and cried.

Suddenly I was interrupted in my grief by the lady teacher, who shook me gently and said, "We don't allow no crying in here, get up and come up front.  We are going to learn the alphabet."

The next thing I knew I was sitting in the front row, staring at a display of the alphabet, and immediately forgot about being abandoned to my fate.  Hey, this was the alphabet and it was interesting!  I think I learned to spell "CAT" that day.  That lady teacher knew exactly what to do and how to do it, and I still admire her teaching skill 75 years later.

Learning Spanish

A few months ago I purchased a subscription to Babel, a software program to learn different languages.  I have access to all languages that it offers, but I am using it only for French and Spanish.  I went thought a lot of the French, of which I already know a lot, to refresh my knowledge.  Now I am concentrating on Spanish, of which I knew little at the start.

I have learned a lot of Spanish since I began studying it.  It is nice to open a page of text on the Internet and understand a lot of it.  

Babel is a good program, but I could never achieve fluency using that alone.  I have immersed myself in the language, reading stories in Spanish on YouTube, and taking lessons posted on YouTube on a variety of topics about grammar snd rules and vocabulary.  Also, by listening to the spoken word in recordings my understanding of spoken Spanish has improved tremendously.

I am a long way from becoming fluent, but learning another language is a big project and you build on your knowledge day by day without worrying about being perfect.  

The Near Death Experience In Children

 One of the first books I ever read about the Near Death Experience (NDE) was "Closer To The Light" by Melvin Morse, MD.  Morse was a NDE researcher specializing in the experience in children who had suffered catastrophic events (like almost drowning in a swimming pool) and survived.  The stories these children tell about witnessing an afterlife are compelling and fascinating.

Morse points out that these young NDE experiencers do not have an ax to grind.  They have not yet been indoctrinated into a particular religion and feel no need to interpret the experience with what they learned in church.  They simply tell the unvarnished truth, or usually they do.  One child told Morse that he had been climbing a stairway to Heaven.  Another spoke of a crystal castle.  Two different boys claimed that in that new place "you could double jump." 

For anyone interested in pursuing a better understanding of the Near Death Experience, "Closer To The Light" is an excellent starting place. I recommend it.

Bryan Kohberger Guilty of First Degree Murder; Faces Life Imprisonment Without Parole

The psycho known as Bryan Kohberger had his plea deal accepted.  He will spend the rest of his life in prison, with no parole or appeal possible.  His life is not worth a pile of horse poop at this point.  The firing squad, which he avoided, may have been preferable after all.

Bryan Kohberger

Why did he do it?  Kohberger has not said what his motivations were, and they are anyone's guess.  Here is mine:  BK admired serial killer Ted Bundy and sought to emulate his hero by committing a similar crime as the Chi Omega murders of 1978. He dressed like Bundy in black clothes and a face covering, and like Bundy, he preyed on college women (and one man) asleep in their college housing bedrooms.

Ted Bundy broke into a Chi Omega sorority house of the Florida State University and killed two sleeping female students with blows to the head with a wooden club.  He did this at 3 AM.  He had no motive, he just liked killing young women. Bundy then went down the street and broke into another house and attacked two more women, who survived.

Ted Bundy was convicted of murder and was executed in Florida in 1989.