Floating to find a word for my new decade

Many of you know that each year around January 1st I choose a word for my year. I was inspired by the Abbey of the Arts and the process suggested here. A former student who has made it a practice to choose a word for her year in January asked via Facebook message if I …

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At 60: Six things I’d tell my younger self

This week my life's clock will tick into a new decade. I'll be 60. No longer can I try to claim that I'm "middle aged." I'm obviously much closer to the end than the middle. So what have I learned in these 60 years? What would I tell my younger self to help make her …

Considering My Own Racism: My beginning years as a high school teacher

I left law in the summer of 1985 to become a high school English teacher. When people would ask where I was going to teach, I told them, "Rossville High." More than once I received the reply, "They have a lot of blacks there." The way that comment was delivered was a kind of judgment …

Considering My Own Racism: My Law Years

I'm continuing my chronological look at the racism in my past thoughts and reactions - and I now have arrived at my law school and assistant district attorney years. That was only five years for me. Three in law school, and two as an assistant D.A. I discovered that law just did not suit my …

One year after double knee replacement

A year ago I was finishing my week in a rehab hospital after having both my knees replaced. I thought that by now I'd be healed. I was only partially right. I don't have the excruciating pain of a year ago. But I'm also not pain-free. And I'm certainly not walking well - especially when …

Considering My Own Racism: My College Years

I don't remember very much having to do with race during my college time, and those few memories are from my freshman and sophomore years. My last two years were almost completely "white." I attended Georgia College (now Georgia College and State University) from fall of 1976 through spring of 1980. Of the predominately white …

Considering My Own Racism: My High School Years

As I continue the series of blog posts in which I explore my racism, I'm focusing on my high school years. I don't have a lot of actual high school memories that touch on race. The first has to do with riding the bus to school. My guess is that this was during ninth or …