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I thought that money and a lot of material things would protect me from my problems. I thought I would never have to go hungry or cold again if I were famous. I was a dreamer.
some weeds surrounding a seedling cotton plant, pulled some soil up around the plant and handed me the hoe. He explained which plants were cotton, how far apart the little mounds of earth should be, and exactly how many plants should be left in the hill. In less than a minute he taught me how to save the strongest plants and treat as weeds the weak spindly ones.
that I would chop up the wrong plant. I was only slapped up side the head a couple of times before I was a very proficient cultivator. I never admitted that it was fun. I made my own garden beside the barn. As a farm family we were allowed a large number of days out of school for harvest. I missed the first two months of school every year, because of cotton and tobacco. Believe me when I say, "you have not really worked hard until you pick cotton." When we picked cotton for other than our father, we were paid 3 dollars per hundred pounds of cotton picked. Cotton is very light. It has a sharp protective shell with spikes the prick bare hands before giving up the fluffy treasure filled with seeds. It was weighed at the end of the day. My average weigh in was about 185-190 pounds. I have picked over 200 pounds in one day and earned a whole 6 dollars.. My hands were bleeding and had to be bandaged. We also raised and harvested cucumbers, sweet potatoes, tobacco, corn, cantaloupe, as sharecroppers with a neighboring large farm. As a private family farm we raised everything we sharecropped and more. Part of the summer before leaving home at 16 was spent baby sitting for a White family with 4 small children all below the age of 10. I was expected to iron numerous piles of clothing and linen, plus feed and care for the 4 kids. My first job in New Jersey was as a governess and housekeeper and yes they also wanted me to iron. The family moved to Switzerland and wanted to take me with them. What can I say? I was barely getting used to NJ. I worked in a factory making hair rollers, you know the little pink foam and plastic ones. We were paid by the piece. It reminded me of picking cotton. A lot of people over 60 worked there. I got contact eczema and was advised that I needed to leave the environment of the factory. My third job in NJ was in a Medical Technology lab. I washed test tubes. Bloody test tubes. Urine filled test tubes. I flirted with the idea of becoming a medical technologist for a hot minute. I thought I wanted to be a journalist so I did a stint as a reporter while in college. Covering school board meetings in small towns was time consuming and not very much fun. I sold the New York Times in front of an Exxon gas station on Palisades Parkway. I met some very interesting people at 6am while hawking papers before attending class at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
and worked out of the Center for Modern Dance Education for a year. We were a performing company that attended and gave classes at the dance school. We performed in schools, recreation halls, community centers, hospitals, parks and prisons. There I fell in love with Modern Dance. Randy Ogletree and I started taking classes in the Martha Graham technique with Kazuko HIrabayashi and the Lester Horton technique with Milton Meyers at Alvin Ailey School of American Dance. The Grant was over in a year and we all went our separate ways. I had a play produced at The American Theatre of Actors, an off-off Broadway playhouse, and was indoctrinated into the dog eat dog world of legitimate theatre. The audience obviously loved my play. I was lead upstairs in the elevator with a serious man on each arm. They made me an offer. They actually wanted to take an option on my play. The only catch was that I would have to include more songs to make it musical comedy and assist another writer as he rewrote my dialogue. The last condition was revolting since the writer assigned could not write dialogue to save his pants. He was a good actor and still is, but he could not write. I would not agree to his rewriting my play since his play was a total stiff failure. I also offered to write them a musical comedy, because my play was very obviously a tragedy. That night, I made a decision. I needed a real job. I substituted at a few schools including the famous Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey. I applied to substitute in Teaneck, NJ and was told that I was overqualified. I was sent to the Superintendent with a note. They hired me as Arts Educational Consultant. I basically found Artists and arranged for them to work as adjuncts in the school district. Somewhere down the line a dance teacher was needed. I told them that I could teach dance classes. They auditioned me as I taught a basic modern dance class. My duties expanded and I began to teach dance. After two years the program lost its funding. I was retained as an English teacher. It took 4 years to find my way back into the dance studio at one of the Middle Schools. The high school did not have any dance classes. I transferred to the high school and started the academic program which partnered an already popular after school dance club.
can be seen in one of my dance classes when he was in 7th and 8th grades. There is quite a long list. My job was time consuming, but extremely rewarding. We produced over ten dance and theatre productions a year.
to myself, "I love my job". There were students who actually asked the principal if they could spend the weekend in the dance studio. The Dance Ensemble gave students a place to belong. They referred to themselves as the "strong woman group". While my job consisted of teaching dance and staging productions life was good. In 2000 they appointed a Supervisor at central office in charge of Performing Arts. At first glance, it seems a terribly good idea. He was extremely impressed with the Arts program at the high school. He was especially impressed with the dance program and how it functioned. He decided that the district really needed an Arts Academy program to match the Math Science Academy already proposed. He was very excited. He was the only one excited. We had worked a lot of years and turned out some really good musicians, dancers, actors, writers, visual artists and we frankly did not want his Academy. During February vacation, he invited me in to discuss the program. He wanted someone on board and excited with him. I was hesitant since he wanted the meeting kept secret. I made sure I told someone in a high place about the meeting. He picked my brain and basically sold me on the idea. I really had no choice. The program was coming. I could get on board or continue to resist. I decided to join him in the venture, besides I thought it would help make the Arts a viable candidate for the honors program. The Arts Academy offered honors credits in the Arts for high school students. It was a very attractive prospect to grade conscious students who wished to major in the Visual and Performing Arts after high school. I was made coordinator of the Arts Academy, a school within a school. My love of the job went down hill from there. At the end of the 2004-2005 school year I transferred to the junior high school and taught basic skills to underachievers until I became seriously ill and retired.
that there is no formula for getting rich quick on the Internet or anywhere else. One may play the lottery or gamble in a casino, but the odds are always against the big pay off. I have always worked very hard and I have found that Internet Marketing is no different from any other endeavor in that making a lot of money demands hard work. Scammers have the upper hand in that they are not required to ever look into the eyes of the people that they rip off. I had to develop a whole different trust system in order to deal with the "New Traveling Salesman". |
Copyright 2005-2007 Kolsm, Inc.
| Are Your Teenagers Reading the Classics? High School English Classes across America have required readings in Classical Literature. |
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