I went to the Barnes and Noble bookstore today and recalled how I became an English teacher.  I got the background at Christmas time when Mr. Wieselberg, Dad’s business partner, would give me one or two English language classics, like Treasure Island or Tom Sawyer.  I read them, and became very articulate in English class.

Of course, then there were the nuns, like Sister Maura, who taught me grammar so that I was an expert.  Life takes many unexpected turns.  I wanted to be a physicist first, but Manhattan College told me there are no physicists who are partially color blind.

And now I’m an author.  Life really is amazing.

Today I’m going to have two slices of peperoni pizza for supper.  To you this is no big thing, but I haven’t had that since my heart operation, eight years ago.  The good Lord, speaking through a registered nurse, told me that just for tonight, it’s OK.  How often have I forgotten to thank the Lord for a small gift like that, which nevertheless makes a big difference in my life.

A happy life is made up of small moments like those, I believe.  I resolve to be grateful for them and many other things from now on.  (Lord, don’t pay any attention to my momentary impulses, but I am grateful.)

The Home Owner’s Association is having a meeting on Nov. 8 to elect officers, one of whom circulated a petition to dissolve the HOA.  The petitioner made out an impressive application for the office, and is abiding by all the rules of decorum that pertain.  Perhaps the HOA board will see that she has learned to “play ball” the way they do, and will welcome the newcomer.

Much depends on the participants.  Have they learned the rules of their Judeo-Christian civilization or are they still back in the more primitive eras?  We’ll see at the meeting.  One person persuading the group can make a difference.

She probably made the same mistake with the latest newcomer that she made with me.  She treated them to a warning, abrasive attitude.  Only they wouldn’t take it.  Now we have a petition to do away with the HOA, the Home Owners Association.

But the newcomers had a good education.  They ran for the board, filled out the application meticulously, and we’ll see how it goes from there.  We need fresh faces in our community, and let’s remember the Biblical welcome to strangers.  I, for one, am willing to work with the newcomers.  That was an impressive resume on the application.

I have them all in my good intentions and prayers.  God bless them all, even the abrasive warner.

Switzerland, the place of my memory’s alpine meadows and belled grazing cows, has become a foreign land to me.  Some of their people politically push for parenthood for lesbians and homosexuals, or for voting rights for sixteen-year-olds. But then, my influence was here, not there.

Congressman Steve Israel, a former student of mine, attested that I had some influence.  (But so did possibly two other former students, who are now in Sing-Sing.)  Anyway, I, too, have been influenced, by some of the best people this country has produced—nuns, brothers, clergymen.

Don’t think temptation is less here than there.  We are all in this together, and each of us has an influence on his or her fellows.  Make it the best.