on 03-23-09 14:46: Ardith Hinton to James Bradley re: Let It Snow...  1.

 JB>  Shocks all around here. I've been a little put off by PT,

 AH>            As in "Physical Terrorist"?  I can relate to that.  :-))

Pretty informative, alas. One, maybe two "instructors" 
weren't worth spit
to me, but *all* others revealed massive information about my situation. This
time, we determined my mechanics were as good as can be expected, and I have
two new exercises; one to aggravate the nerve, and another to target a muscle I
had been ignoring.

 AH>            Uh-huh.  While you're engaged in shovelling the
 AH> white stuff outside the house, other jobs... e.g.
 AH> shovelling out the basement... have to be placed on the
 AH> back burner.  I can relate to that too... [wry grin].

Get this... I just fished out two cylindrical items that fell into the clothes
dryer lint filter receptacle. (I'm sure I missed a hyphen or two there. ;-) I
tried rolling the dryer - en masse - onto its top in hopes the item (I was only
expecting one.) would roll out, but it turned out I would have had to give it a
back flip before anything - if at all - would have been dislodged from the
squirrel cage fan. 

Now, back to the back-log. /-:

 JB>  and someone has beaten me to shoveling the public walks!

 AH>            What a nice surprise....  :-)  :-)  :-)

...And now, a third time! Once, both flanks to my house were done, omitting
mine and the neighbour's. Just as well that I didn't observe who was
responsible for that one!

 JB>  (PS:  Evidence is point to Welfare Mom!)

 AH>            Ah.  One might be tempted to consider such women deadbeats
 AH> who take unfair advantage of the rest of us hard-working
 AH> souls... as I think many other people do.  However, I am

Looks like she has a new man pulling her load. He seems like a nice enough guy,
so I hope she doesn't screw this up too. Maybe she can learn how to eat "humble
pie".

 AH> somebody who wasn't clearly acting in loco parentis.

That wasn't supposed to be, "loco parentitis"? 

 AH>            The other person I had in mind left her husband when she was
 AH> in her early thirties.  We camped with her & her children at
 AH> around the same time.  I noticed that she often found it a
 AH> challenge to deal with her offspring... both of whom have
 AH> special needs... and with her feelings pertaining to the
 AH> breakup. We were sharing a campsite, so when dishes needed
 AH> to be washed or a kid needed to be fed I just did whatever
 AH> it was without regard for whoever was supposedly
 AH> responsible for it.  I never said "Ahem... it's your turn
 AH> to do xxx now!"  She would eventually realize what had been
 AH> going on, and then she'd do it....  :-)

That's a a prime example of leading by example. {-:

Maybe her work ethic had a part in her divorce. Maybe her x was equally, and
deservedly maligned. Maybe it's not our place to ask, or even care where blame
belongs.

You identified a void, and picked up the slack until the culprit identified it
too. Roughing it can bring such deficiencies to the forefront, and provide
plenty of learning opportunities. ((-|

Even if mom improved for a year, that's a year better that the kids will have
it.


 JB> RE: ...No( mo)r(e) [...] shovel?

 AH>            We might have been skeptical too, except that he
 AH> did the same thing in two or three consecutive years with a
 AH> shovel borrowed from the same church. Dallas & I last saw
 AH> him when we were feeling rather overwhelmed.  We hired him
 AH> to shovel our sidewalk, and he did a good job.  So we paid
 AH> him (in advance) to shovel my mother's sidewalk, a quarter
 AH> mile away, and he did a good job there.

 AH>            Sad story... he'd been ill for several months, lost his job
 AH> etc. I hear a lot of stories like that & I don't necessarily
 AH> believe every word.  But this guy wasn't just looking for a
 AH> handout.  He offered to do something useful for us in
 AH> exchange & we took him up it.  I respect that sort of
 AH> attitude.  :-)

An appropriate reward for an adequate job. That's something my cynical eye has
forgotten about. Let's hope he moved onto bigger and better things.


 AH>            Uh-huh.  Good for you!  Seems to me they may have learned
 AH> something important there.  If not, it certainly wasn't for
 AH> lack of opportunity....  ;-)

It's up to the student, isn't it. 


... James
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