I'm not sure where the "humble" part came from.... I answered all the questions honestly!

Whenever anyone asked my grandfather what he wanted for any gift, he always gave the same reply:

“A smile and a kind word.”

When I was a child, I thought that was a silly answer.

The older I get, the more that I realize how wise Grandy’s answer was.

On an unrelated note, one of my favorite students was killed yesterday in a car accident. Megan was a bit punk, with a few piercings, a few tattoos, a sarcastic attitude, a sharp mind and wit, and a five-year-old son. Sigh. There is no joy in Mudville today.

Give someone a smile and a kind word today. They might need it, and you might not get another chance.

Old Coots win!

Yesterday was the Coots vs. Whippersnappers softball game. That's not the actual name, but if I put the real words (which are similar), students may find this blog. Anyway, it's our student/faculty softball game. The faculty always win. Always. If, at the end of the day, the students are in the lead, we invoke "retroactive norming" to make the the score more. . . accurate.


Here I am getting a hit. I only took one at-bat, so I can claim that I am batting 1.000! Not many players can claim that. (Note the FSU cap and the Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars sneakers. Cool, huh?)

I actually made it home! Here I am, having just crossed the plate with my veteran colleague Bill celebrating my run. My shirt is shameless self-promotion of my summer class. If I don't get enough students, I'll have to get a summer job! (My hair is getting long. . . .)

Astoundingly, we won the game (with some rather generous officiating playing a minor role). It was great fun. I have assumed the mantle of Captain Coot. (None of the more seasoned members of the faculty wanted the job.) My main task is trash-talk. I'm good at that. Last year, we had only nine members of faculty and staff who played. This year, we had over twenty. My inaugural outing as Captain was a success!

Good times.

Sheesh!

And now they are saying that we could get six inches of wet snow over the next twenty-four hours!

Crazy weather

I suppose it might be sad that the most interesting thing that I have to talk about is the weather, but that's normal when one moves from Florida to Wisconsin (at least for the first year). It was 80 degrees two weeks ago. All the snow melted. I finally understood why e. e. cummings called spring "mud-luscious" and "puddle-wonderful." I did not enjoy the mud like cummings did, but I certainly saw a lot of it! Anyway, now it's cold again. The low this week has been about 18 degrees most nights. Last night, it got down to 16! The high today is 32. It snowed this week! Nothing stuck, and it was just light flurries, but STILL! Crazy.