Tuesday, April 20

Up at 6:30 this morning to be ready to go to the area school for a photography workshop. At around 8 a.m., I heard a noise that sounded something like the muffled thud of a vehicle door shutting. Mother later said that she heard it, too. It was a sonic boom from the Shuttle Discovery as it passed over the state. TV weather forecasters had alerted us last night that we might hear this.

We arrived at the school around 9 a.m., and started to park in the same spot we did yesterday. But today, an elderly maintenance man on a riding mower frowned at us and indicated with hand signals that we should move to another spot. Seems we're always displeasing the maintenance guys.

It was a beautiful day for going outside to the playground for a photo safari. Fifty-one fifth-graders in two classes were issued individual one-time-use cameras for taking pictures of the shapes and angles of the playground equipment.

On the way to the playground, the girl who upchucked yesterday apologized to me for the mishap. I assured her it was okay, that we are not in control of those things.

This is a particularly nice big playground with lots of interesting equipment, like large painted tractor tires, wooden bridges, and climbing structures, along with the usual swings, slides, and monkey bars.

Unfortunately, during the second session this afternoon, after a few students had finished using their cameras and were playing on the swings, one of the girls came crying to the teacher. She had been knocked to the ground after being hit in the back of the head with a swing. The teacher walked her to the nurse's station, while I stayed with the class.

In the afternoon class, there is a learning disabled male student. The rest of the class is very protective of this student and willing to help him any way they can. Today, one of the other boys partnered with him to help him with the photography assignment. When they were finished, he played basketball with the boy, letting him win their game.

The disabled student is very loving and likes to hug, which is just fine with me. But the teacher remarked that there is a class of behavior-problem children at the school, in what is called a "Success Program." The program is designed to help these children mainstream back into regular classes. The children have behavior problems for a variety of reasons....abuse, broken homes, etc.

One day the disabled student hugged one of the behavior-problem kids on the playground. It broke his heart when the child called him a "retard." Well, the disabled student's classmates quickly let that child know that they wouldn't tolerate anyone treating their friend that way.

The teacher related a sad story of one of the behavior-problem children, whose father had abandoned his mother when he was a baby. Within an 18-month time span recently, the boy's grandfather died, then his mother died in a house fire, and his brother drowned. He is now being raised by his grandmother. It's no wonder this child has behavior problems!

The third-grade classes today saw the "How to Take Better Pictures" video. It's a good video that appeals to children and has a lot of helpful information about taking pictures. I don't know how much the kids gained from the video, but I noticed the teachers were furiously taking notes.

During the lunch hour, Hubbie and I delivered the cameras from the morning session to the one-hour service at the pharmacy store, thinking they could get started working on them. But when we took the second batch to the store after school, we learned that a staff member had called in sick, so the work didn't get done. However a couple of staff were to work on them this evening.

After delivering the cameras to the pharmacy this afternoon, we went to an office supply store to buy both black and white poster boards for upcoming projects at the school. I asked if the school could provide poster board, but the teacher thought there might only be white, and she wasn't sure how much of that was available.

We were back home around 4 p.m. Later, we had a supper of boiled chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and English peas. Mother went home afterward, and Hubbie and I watched TV, including the movie, "Too Late to Say Goodbye." The movie, rated PG-14, is based on a book by Ann Rule, and is the true story of murder and betrayal. It's a 2009 Lifetime Movie Channel feature starring Rob Lowe, whose character, Bart Corbin, a dentist, is suspected of a double homicide (his wife, and a former girlfriend).

After that, we watched this week's second episode of "Dancing with the Stars,"followed by an episode of "Lost."

Note: we were a bit taken aback yesterday when someone in the school administrative office announced over the loudspeaker that the teachers were to meet in the "liberry" after school.