More Than a Day, More Than a Dollar!

Well the Father's Day Off ended up being a little more than a day. Hey, it's summer, what can I say? I will soon fill in for the missing Recipe and Family news items. I have been extremely busy with a few of those "Honey Do" projects helping Pam around the house and in the yard. Janna and I have been busy with some "summer training" for school and for some personal interests which we are trying to develop. I've also been online attempting to plan a brief summer vacation and to do research into some of our "developing interests". Sometimes when online I may get sidetracked and spend more time with the interesting and funny things found online. I'm not sure what category the following web site would fall into. You can decide for yourself. The following website is one designed by a young man attempting to use the internet to become a millionaire. I think he may have done it! Take a look for yourself at what is reportedly a Million Dollar Website!

$ $ $ Million Dollar Website $ $ $

Recipe Wednesday #7 - Oops, It's already Friday!

I guess this will have to be 'Recipe Friday #1' or maybe 'Late Recipe Wednesday #1' or perhaps it should just be 'Recipe Wednesday #7 - Oops, It's already Friday!'

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I apologize for the late Recipe posting. I was extremely busy with close out procedures and other duties at my place of work. Some of you may know that I work in the field of education. For those who do not know, I work at a large public high school as a counselor and some of my duties include such things as preparing student schedules for next school year as well as grade and credit verifications for all grade level of my high school students, especially for those senior students who are graduating from school. This does include the unhappy task of helping those students with the upset of failing grades and incomplete credits. These students will either not promoting in grade level or will not graduate. They must plan for summer school or some other means of recovering the grade and credits required. As you can imagine the end of the school year can be one of the busiest times of our year. For another perspective and for a look at a different level of education and how busy the school year can be for educators you might be interested in my brothers Blog post "It's Always a Learning Experience" or "The End of an Era-Sort Of". These give his "perception of the world" as another educator. He is a kindergarten teacher at his current school assignment in Central Texas.

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Well, whatever the reason for the tardiness (more than obvious reference to the classroom and education) and whichever title you prefer, here is the Recipe for today:

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Aunt Dora's Pulled Mints

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2 cups sugar, 1/2 stick butter, 1 cup water, 1/8 tsp. oil of peppermint.

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If color is used, add at the first and cook in coloring. Combine ingredients. Put on stove and boil to 264 degrees F (hard ball). Pour out on marble. Cool 2 or 3 minutes. Make a fingerprint in the center of the candy and put in it 1/8 tsp. of peppermint. Fold all edges over. Pull until stiff, with little ridges. Stretch out on the edges of marble, away from the hot-spot. Cut with scissors. Leave on marble and cover with wax paper for the night. Store in airtight box. Might need to put a little butter on hands for pulling.

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Now, for the story behind this recipe. No, I don't have an Aunt Dora and neither does my wife! I was looking through one of our family recipe books for this weeks recipe. I found a piece of paper with a recipe printed on each side of it. This is not a hand written recipe. It was printed for public distribution by some individual or group. There is no other identification or reference to anyone or anything other than the two recipes. Neither my wife nor I are familiar with the recipe or the paper and where it might have come from. The cook book in which I found the paper is entitled "The Family Cookbook". I have not used this book for any recipe yet. The paper looks like it might have been cut or torn from another part of some kind of circular or advertisement. I simply thought the recipe looked good and it seemed like it might be easy to try. Please enjoy "Aunt Dora's Pulled Mints".

Generations

This weekend I was listening to Coast to Coast AM with Ian Punnett, the weekend host, interviewing Neil Howe. While most of the interview concerned the book, The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy by William Strauss and Neil Howe, one topic of discussion which arose was the topic of 'Generations'. At first I listened only in passing, as I had never really paid much attention to the topic of 'Generations'. Sure I had heard of the 'Boomers', 'Gen-X'ers, and more recently 'The Millennials'. I had never really paid much attention to the whole topic and it had never really caught my interest. I knew that it generally dealt with the history of the culture and events which were popularly associated with the groups of people who were born, raised, and came of age during an extended period of time in history. As a former History teacher this sounded fascinating and it aroused my interest. As I listened to some of the explanation about the different 'Generations' and the contrasts and comparisons between the different groups of people the whole topic began to become more intriguing. I determined I should do a little research, see if I could get more information, and try to ascertain if there was indeed anything to this 'Generations' thing. I found the topic to be very broad and there is a vast amount of information available. I also determined that there was more information than I could cover in one writing. I will try to break it down into a few interesting topics and give some explanation and insight into what I have learned about the topic of 'Generations'.

I will first focus on identifying three 'Generations' or distinct groups of people during the last century of U. S. History:

1. The Silent Generation: Members of this group were born between World War I and World War II and they were too young to have served during WW II, although many of them may have had fathers who served in WW I.
2. The Baby Boomers: This group is constituted of members who were born shortly after World War II. This period of time in U. S. History is distinguished by a general increase in the overall birthrate. This population explosion was also taking place in many countries around the world and there was generally a world wide "Baby Boom".
3. Generation X: This group consists of those who were born between about 1964 and 1981. Most members of this generation are the children of either the 'Baby Boomers' or the 'Silent Generation' and they came of age with such things as MTV, Cable TV, and Video Games.

One fact became immediately evident about the whole topic of 'Generations'. There is a variety of sub-groups within many of the groups and there is a bit of variation about the topics most influential and considered most important in determining the characteristics of each group. Sometimes popular culture and social trends seem most important while at other times politics and economic trends become more important in determining the specific period in history and the predominate characteristics of a particular 'Generation'. I will continue with this topic in a series of future Blog Posts and I will try to make some observations about some of our current affairs as affected by these 'Generations'.

That Teacher Thing!

My brother recently wrote to an issue in one of his blog posts. Something about the Good, the Bad – no make that the Good, the Stupid (see his blog post for Sunday, April 6, 2008 by clicking on the link). The post dealt with some recent news stories he had seen or heard concerning educational type issues and the good or bad (stupid) results which follow. I’ve noticed that my brother and I frequently do similar things and this is one of those things. I tend to focus on education related news items and pay close attention to those stories. In fact, I had heard both of those same stories in the news and had some of the same thoughts as my brother concerning the issues related in those stories. I recently read a Letter to the Editor on the Editorial Page of the Houston Chronicle. This letter dealt with a tendency among many in this country to place the blame for the failures in education on teachers rather than on any personal, family, or social issues which might be involved. Please read that letter ‘Tired of being Scapegoat’ for the entire story. In her letter to the editor the writer refers to ‘Back to School’ a previous editorial about the No Child Left Behind Act. I agree with the writer of ‘Tired of being Scapegoat” wholeheartedly!

Now I’ll get to the point of this whole story. I’m trying to figure out if this is a family thing or a teacher thing. I believe this is one of those ‘teacher things’ since I taught school for a number of years before becoming a school counselor. My brother is also a teacher and has also been a principal and administrator in some of the districts in which he has worked. My sister was also an elementary school teacher and had worked at both private and public schools. Well now wait a minute. Now this is starting to sound like a family thing! How did we all end up being teachers? Neither my mother nor my father were teachers. I do remember though that they were both frequently at school for various reasons. My mother was in P.T.A. and I believe she may have been P.T.A. president a time or two. My father always came to school any time there was an event like the Fall Carnival or May Fate Dance. That was where each class in each grade level learned some sort of dance like a May Pole dance or Square dance. Each grade in turn went out onto the playground to perform their dance for on looking parents. Wow, what an event! Maybe that is why I hate to dance but, that is another whole topic.

For more information about my brother and his family as well as pictures of my sister you may visit his Blog at Horst Household Happenings. He has a Picture Monday thing where he posts old pictures from our childhood. Some of them or pretty interesting and they are a quant reflection on past times. They show what it was like for us growing up in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. Now there is the History teacher in me. Maybe it is a 'teacher thing' after all!