Lessons

As I said yesterday, my computer and internet has been a mess. I don’t really know what the problem is, but it makes me crazy. I think it is my dial-up connection because I get an error message about not connecting to remote computer. Sometimes I get a message about no answer. Pretty much the message is clear – Go find something else to do, because this ain’t working today. When I am able to get connected, I get bumped off immediately. The kbps at one point yesterday was 2. I have also had trouble going to Blogger. Iiiee, I think I could throw the whole computer out the door. With a patience, I can eventually get connected and stay on, but I keep waiting for the bump.

It would not have been so bad yesterday, but I had procrastinated and needed to look something up on the internet for my art class with Mr. F. Mr. F and his wife are ranchers who live near by. He is retired Army, and he is a blacksmith. A few months ago, he asked me if I would give him drawing lessons to help him with his blacksmithing. Mr. and Mrs. F are very interesting people – the kind of people who seem to love learning. Mr. F soaked up all my knowledge on drawing, practiced on his own, and was a great student. Actually, I thought he drew pretty well without my help. Because he was not really interested in painting or color, after a few months, my lessons were pretty much over. I did not want to take up his time without having something to teach. I wanted to talk to him about design elements and composition principles, which are not so easy to teach, and I needed to look up some teaching ideas on the internet. Here is where the procrastination set in. I waited until Monday to start looking, and my class is on Wed. morning. You already know how my Monday went. Then the computer gave me fits. Finally, the internet stayed connected and I was able to find some lessons. I was running late, but my time with Mr. F went well. We decided that he now “had the tools” to draw and just needed to practice. Lessons are over. It is a relief that I do not have to do "lesson plans", but I will miss my time with Mr. F because he taught me about blacksmithing - very interesting stuff!

On my way to Mr. F’s house, which is across Hwy 7, police were stopping vehicles. Several hours later, they were still stopping vehicles. It turns out that yesterday morning a school bus from Velma was taking a bus load of very young children to the movies to see “Santa Clause 3”. The bus apparently hit the guardrail on one side of the highway, overcorrected, rolled once, and went through the guardrail on the opposite side of the road. It went down a steep embankment (bar ditch) and hit some trees crunching the front of the bus. Out of the forty-plus children on the bus, only one was hurt critically. The others were treated and released – that was pretty incredible considering the wreck.

All of the kids were taken to the Duncan hospital where doctors checked them out. Bubba, a young man from our church, told me that he had driven one of the ambulances to the hospital. Then a school bus brought the rest of the kids. He said he was standing at the hospital when the bus pulled in and the kids unloaded. Bubba said there was a little boy from Loco, whom he had seen a few times, but did not know at all. When the little boy saw Bubba standing there, he came running, threw his arms around Bubba, and said, “I knew you would be here!” Bubba said, “He just hugged me and cried. He was really scared.”

I can just see Bubba, who is a really cool dude, standing there holding this little boy. It is funny how a familiar face can be so comforting. Good for you, Bubba!