Writes of Passage

Age isn't just a number

Mar 23

Math & Me

by Cathey Weigel

If I had to take the math courses that are required to graduate from high school now, I would have been a drop-out. We won’t even mention college. Instead, I was raised in a kinder, gentler time that accepted I was a right-brained wonder and had graduation plans at both levels of education that allowed me to by-pass all those nasty sines and quotients and still give my parents the thrill of seeing me in a mortar board and gown. Three times!

In case you are wondering how I managed that, it was simple: four years of high school Spanish and three years in college (plus advanced placement credit) was an accepted substitute for advanced math and science. And by advanced, I mean anything past Algebra 1 and Geometry.

Obviously, this wasn’t a great educational plan since I can’t speak Spanish today, but at the time, I was hablo-ing like a native. At least, that is what I convinced my parents.

I tell you  all this so you will understand why I told the little elementary school where I am now a Title 1 Tutor that I was not prepared to do math at all on any level. Just glancing at the grandson’s homework over the years was almost enough to cause me to mail back my diplomas.Without stuttering, I told them this in plain and simple English when they were hiring me. Everyone, especially me, understood that I was going to tutor reading and vocabulary.

After all I went through to get approved to tutor, the first week I was ready the school was having some sort of testing and the little sweeties wouldn’t have been able to come let me enlighten them on how to take the next round of testing. Finally, after almost six weeks of rigamarole to get there, I was asked to come in this last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Except there was no school Friday. Oh, and then something else was happening Wednesday, so how about just Thursday?

New badge proudly around my neck, I arrived at 8 a.m. to learn they had assigned me to, (you saw this coming didn’t you?) three grades of math -third, fourth, and fifth – plus a science class.

Oh, and  next week there is more testing so I can’t go back to tutor until April. They agreed to get the answer keys ready to all the math questions that I am supposed to use to help the kids prepare by then.  Like having the answer key is going to help. In my old math books, the answers were in the back and I still couldn’t work the problems.

The only saving grace to this situation is that the school has mostly a Hispanic population. Maybe before this is all over I can brush up on my rusty Spanish.

Comprende?

Elementary school tutoring Life after age 60 Teaching

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Mar 15

Hi Ho is sinking low

by Cathey Weigel

Age-related irony: I’ve applied at all the known employment agencies. These “modern” days everything has to be done on the internet and they tell you that you can’t call or come in until they call you! A resume has to be attached which obviously shows immediately the issue of my being somewhere north of age 60. I haven’t received a call yet, and I did this a good two months ago.

They also use resume “finder” software which grabs keywords from an applicant’s and then it will spit that out if they have a job request. Mine was awful because of my teaching career responsibilities. Apparently being a Country & Western dance team director doesn’t translate well in the job world. So Craig (Mr. HR at Frito-Lay) helped me rework to make mine better and I resubmitted. You see the actual keywords it picks during the submission.

No shock that I haven’t heard a word. Craig had tried to break it to me nicely that I wasn’t going to. (I mentioned earlier how smart he was.)

So much for that avenue. I have practically attacked everyone I know for the networking/word of mouth method, which is how my friend gave me this lead on the tutoring job. I even posted on Fb that I needed someone to hire me. Almost got a job from that, but last minute they claimed they were not going to fill it after all. Heck, I even changed my FB picture to one that’s about five plus years ago when I wasn’t so darn gray!

While chasing everything, but it became obvious I was really just chasing my tail. I decided to be fingerprinted again after all.

If you’ve ever wondered why they don’t show people being “booked” after an arrest like they did in the good ole’ Dragnet days, it is because there isn’t anything cool to show when fingerprinting the suspect. No longer do you roll your fingers in black ink and have someone press them hard against a card while you wear a big number around your neck. Now you hold your hand on a camera box lens and the little light reads all the whorls and arches to automatically register them somewhere far, far away. If you have an iPhone 6  you probably have experienced this on a smaller scale.

What an education I got to discover that fingerprints wear out with age! Mine were worn completely. Here I had actually had  a job opportunity available as a bank robber and didn’t have a clue.  It was a shock. After many attempts, the lovely young lady trying to take mine informed me that mine were so unreadable that they probably wouldn’t be accepted on the first submission. What another huge age-related slap that was. It almost was starting to be funny.

End of this story is pretty boring. Since mine were on file already, they had a comparison set in  their Big Brother vault of knowledge and decided that I really am me. So, my prints were approved.

Luckily I found that out before I tried a life of crime.

age discrimination Elementary school tutoring Life after age 60 Teaching

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Mar 8

Hi Ho, Hi Ho – It’s off to work I go

by Cathey Weigel

My job search saga is so long that I’ll have to give you all the Reader’s Digest version or I might start howling at the moon. It still will be quite the story. After finally convincing my 90-year-old Mother to move out of her home and into an independent living facility, a story you’ll get to share soon, I became eager to find something to do other than spend my days sitting on my butt on the sofa. I had grand ideas of all the things I was brilliantly capable of doing.

After making an amazing resume, joining LinkedIn, and hitting the “networking” route with gusto, I finally came to realize that no one was even remotely interested in talking to a 66-year-old lady about employment. Heck, they didn’t even know about my bad knees and still put me on ignore. Why I didn’t figure this out before I went to so much trouble must be a sign of mental decline.

Then one day I was visiting a family friend who is in the end stages of Alzheimer’s so it wasn’t a very robust conversation. Her daughter came in and I mentioned my tale of un-hiring woes. Wonderful daughter jumped to text a good friend of hers who teaches at an RISD (Title 1) elementary and was desperately looking for tutors to work with the little darlings to prepare for the May standardized test that makes or breaks a school. Within minutes, I suddenly had a job!! Or, so I thought….

After all, I gave 34 years of my life to RISD and I knew they would remember my worth and roll out the red carpet to herald my return.

Here’s where some real summarizing comes in: the district suddenly decided THIS year that anyone wanting even a part time job had to go through the entire application, resume, references, etc., etc., the process just like applying to teach. The application, all done online, included around 20-25 questions that I called the “Mensa” section. There were all these “What number would come next in this series….” and “John and Robin had 12 apples….” and these puppies were hard. Dennis and I were both trying to do them while we were texting some to Craig. When you have three educated people, two with Master’s Degrees that can’t figure out what darn letter comes “next” on the list, you have a real (pardon the French) bitch of a question! There is no other word for them.

These went on and on and on and I was really getting stressed. The application was incredibly long. Then I picked three friends who I knew could/would use their computers early the next day, put them down to get the reference form via email, texted them to look for it when they got up and went to bed over two hours after I started that darn thing. I was still living in my dream world that this would all end soon. After all, I am a retired RISD teacher, not some rube just dragged in from the street! By the way — all three friends were early risers and had it done before I even got up! I taught with some classy people. (little pun there)

Then —lots of stuff happens and (mostly) doesn’t happen and I’m pretty well ready to not bother with this anymore but the school was pushing HR to get this done. My conscience got the best of me.  To get a certified  teacher to come as a tutor was great for them and they were willing to wait for me to jump through all the hoops to get approved. Finally, I got the call to go to the Ad. Bldg. for “Orientation” on Wednesday. Mind you I was being “oriented” by a district that I had just given 34 years of my life by someone who wasn’t even born when I started.

At the end of this fun experience, signing dozens of forms like I was some sports star being recruited by the major leagues, they discovered that the state did not have my fingerprints on file! Turns out that became a requirement to teach in Texas the year the year after I retired.

Sudden Halt.

Back home to my computer. Redo all my Texas Education Agency info since the last they had on file I was teaching in RISD, and even had an RISD email. Doing all this takes three phones calls to the state because nothing was going like it said in the instructions.Third lady finally figures out why. Another hour of fun on the computer that night and now I was finally allowed  to sign up to be fingerprinted.

Guess what? There wasn’t a single place between downtown Dallas and Allen plus points east and west that had an opening to do this for over two weeks.

My parting shot to the Ad. Bldg. the day I left was, “I hope I can get this all finished before the test is over.” Little did I know then that it might take that long just to find someone just to do fingerprints. Yes, I need the FBI to get a third copy since I had it done when I got my concealed handgun license and again when I got my Known Traveler License… so why bother to check those when I can pay $47.95 to do it again?

Maybe sometime about mid-March — and this is a real maybe— all this will be done and I can go do my three mornings a week helping the little cuties practice their vocabulary, reading and other assorted test type things.

I’m still trying to figure out what I thought was wrong with sitting around on my butt all day.

Stayed tuned for PART 2 of the continuing story of: “Oh look, look. Cathey goes back to school.” It will be coming soon. Or, it won’t. At this point, even I don’t know.

 

age discrimination Elementary school tutoring Life after age 60 Teaching

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Mar 4

Mother v1.0

by Cathey Weigel

Since you are already somewhat introduced to the way my Mother’s mind works, it might be appropriate to give you more information. After all, this is the woman who raised me, and at age 91 (hers, not mine) has more impact on my day to day existence than any other. Some days are much better than others.

One of the funniest books I’ve ever read was the bestseller by Justin Halpern titled “Sh*t my Dad Says.” Sadly for Justin, his hilarious stories bombed on t.v. and the sequel book was nonsense. His dad had only so much “sh*t.” My mother, on the other hand, had very little so I won’t be getting a best seller out of her.  Yet I do think her axioms are all good enough to share for those of you who were not raised by a southern lady. Feel free to share mine.

  1. Always let the “little boy” win.  – Clearly, she knew some little boys I didn’t know, and also had never heard of equality. Nevertheless, no matter what game we were going to play while I was growing up, Mother always sent me off with that cheery advice. I can honestly say it is advice I have never followed.
  2. Don’t drink rum and coke. – WOW! I was getting ready to leave for college and this was the only piece of advice I got from a woman who I had never seen take a drink. To this day, I wonder what precipitated that nugget of knowledge. However, to this day I’ve never had rum and coke so that shows you my level of trust.
  3. Anything you do three times in a row becomes a habit. –  She finally hit it out of the park with this advice when I was raising my children. Those little minds have big memories. Ergo, night #3, you let them cry it out.
  4. Marry a poor boy with lots of ambition. – Truly easy to live by since I never knew any rich boys. I did date one that had a job stocking at Tom Thumb and he seemed rich at the time, but that didn’t last past high school.
  5. Don’t go out on a first date with someone who wouldn’t want to marry. You can’t help who you fall in love with. – I still can’t figure out how you know you wouldn’t want to marry someone if you didn’t go out with them but apparently, she had a secret list she never shared.
  6. S/he is so perfect in so many other ways. – This is unquestionably Dennis’s favorite. It beats the tar out of anything else you can say when someone screws up. After 40+ years of marriage, the other ways may be running out, but he will never know it with this admonition.
  7. A new broom sweeps clean. – Think about it. Every time you get a new boss, president, whoever, there are sweeping changes, right? It fits so much. So, this is my go-to excuse for anything I want to quit and pass on.
  8. And I close with our family favorite with full credit to my paternal grandmother: TAKE PIE WHILE IT’S PASSING. – I never go shopping without that forefront in my mind. If I see it, time to buy. After all, pie is passing and it may not be there when it goes around again. You would be amazed at how much “pie” there is in any given week.

And like my Mother’s advice, I encourage you to grab all the pie while it’s passing that you can, as long as you don’t drink it with rum and coke.

 

 

 

Advice from Mom Age Life after age 60 Mother's Advice Southern

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Mar 1

Let’s start at the beginning

by Cathey Weigel

Every story has a beginning, so as the song says, that’s a very good place to start. It may help future readers if I introduce you to the cast of characters in my life, and believe me some are true characters in a cliché sort of way.

Starting with my birth on Halloween, which may have had something to do with a character trait according to some former students, things continued swiftly to being anything but ordinary. For openers, my Mother was insistent that they name me, her firstborn, Magnolia Blossom. My precious Dad held it over my head for years that I really owed him for talking her out of it during a long labor. Gratitude doesn’t even begin to explain how I feel.

Instead, Mother settled on naming me Catherine but called me Cathey from birth. After the Magnolia failure, the best she could do on short notice was naming me after a little girl who had died in a well. This is a true story, as they all will be no matter how far-fetched. In order to get my honesty in storytelling verified right from the start, feel free to “Google” Kathy Fiscus. Her death was a really big deal while Mother was pregnant with me, and you know how emotional pregnant women can be.

My mother, however, decided to spell my name with an “e” before the “y” causing me to have my name misspelled all my life. At some point in my youth, I  finally asked her why on earth she did this. Her reply? “I thought all those rounded letters looked good together.” I think that’s key to understanding why I’ve always been a little off plumb. I was raised with a woman who settled for extra rounded letters since she was thwarted from big white flowers.

I am sure there is little reason to mention by now that we’re southern. Even more than that, we have five generations born in Dallas and a bunch more born in Texas. That is supposedly unique. My answer to that is: look at our family tree and you’ll discover what unique really means.

Mother’s dad, my Pappa, was born in Dallas in 1901, but the only reason that’s interesting is a story that may come later. Her Mom, my Nannie, didn’t move to Dallas from Ballinger, Texas until she was two. That was in 1902 if you’re the chronologically inclined type. My dad’s parents were farmers in northern Texas up by Wichita Falls and moved to the big city of Dallas when he was about three. That too played a big hand in my fate.

I have one sibling, a sister, named Carolanne, who I call CAGS when texting. She is four and one-half years younger than I am, but we were five grades apart in school. Other than when she annoyed me, I never really paid much attention to her after the cute baby years. We have met as adults in a way many adult children do – bonding over how in the hell are we going to deal with our Mother now!

Mother will be 91 this May and is quite the handful. Daddy died in 2008 after my parents had a true Ronnie and Nancy type marriage for 60 years. We all miss him, but never more so than when we are having to deal with Mother. He did that so well.

I am married to the greatest love of my life, Dennis and we have one living child, Craig, (see www.withoutLaura.com) who is not only the most wonderful son in the whole world, he also gave us two of the greatest gifts any person will ever have in this life – perfect grandsons. Craig also gave us a gift when he married his wonderful wife, LeAnn, who is another incredible addition to our family tree. It doesn’t require mentioning that we think Craig is darn smart to do all that for us!

For future fast reference, here is the cast list:

Cathey Weigel, your author

Dennis Weigel, her amazing husband

Craig Weigel, best son ever

LeAnn Weigel, daughter-in-law love

Perfect grandson #1, also known as the second coming in our world

Perfect grandson #2, known as perfect grandson #2

“Mother,” a southern belle of a generation long gone

CAGS, the sister I really never knew until Mother grew up

Let’s see where this takes us from here.  

Aging Life after age 60 Mother knows best Southern Teaching

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