Congregational President

In 2016 I reluctantly said yes to joining the Board of Trustees of UUCB, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley. I ran unopposed and won. At first I couldn’t figure out what the board meetings were all about and what the real issues were. Who was running the Church? We spent most of our meetings discussing the process of governance and real issues must have been addressed elsewhere. It was pretty obvious it wasn’t the board. Before I had figured that out they told me the Vice President was too busy with job and family to run the nominating committee, would I to the nominating committee and be the acting Vice President? The next year the Vice President, now me, reluctantly became the President.

Like most mainline churches in these times we had the usual problems: a large old building sitting on very valuable real estate, growing deferred maintenance, a large staff and an elderly and shrinking congregation. When I joined the board our longtime co-ministers had just retired and we were in the two year interim where a search committee looked for a new minister. We had an interim minister I couldn’t seem to get in step with. The real leadership of the Church was diffuse and fragmented; the choir, religious education, the grounds committee, chalice circles, the personal theology program, the men’s group and a humanist group.

70 miles away we had a cabin in the woods in bad disrepair, our retreat center. At home we had a financial management mess, law suits and bad tenant relations. We had a congregation deeply divided and everyone passionately protecting their idea the church’s identity. I was the person most visibly in charge and still trying to get a handle on it when the new co-ministers arrived and I became President. Together we dealt with lawsuits, finding new tenants, and trying to find out where the money was. Before we found out where it had gone we ran out of cash for payroll. The real problem had been the financial manager without good supervision borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and covering up the mess it created. We were short and now Peter had to be paid.

The property in Sonoma, Freestone, had been a getaway for members since the 1970s. I wasn’t as sensitive as I should have been to how cherished the property was to an important minority of the congregants. I saw it as a piece of property in desperate need of repair and restoration with funds we didn’t have and a resource we were barely able to use with only a few congregants committed to it. At a big congregational meeting a majority just short of 2/3s voted to sell the property. We didn’t reach it.

Ironically the board is trying to sell Freestone again some five years later. This year they’ve changed the majority to 50%, but the vote hasn’t happened yet.

After my term was up, I served another year on the board supporting the new President and then gratefully went off the board. My Unitarian Universalist enthusiasm, my UU faith, was barely intact. I had a new respect for people who can make democracy work, particularly direct democracy like the UUs. I don’t know how they do it, leaders who can speak the truth without pissing people off. Then the pandemic came and now years later I’m still a member of UUCB albeit with a much lower profile. Our cash flow problem was saved by Federal Pandemic relief for employers which the church tapped very successfully, other problems were postponed and recently hired co-ministers left.

The church continues on, maybe unsubstainable, maybe not, but always struggling and so it goes with or without my help. I do know in 50 years there will still be a UU Community in El Cerrito with or without a Church. It will not be easy. I think the people there now are better able to deal with the strife. There have been three more board Presidents since, all of them reluctant to have taken the job.

82 is Too Old to be President

I thought Biden’s State of the Union speech last night was OK. Biden looked energetic, he gave the speech well, he even looked relaxed and to be enjoying himself. Vice President Harris did her Mike Pence imitation more convincing than Mike Pence. Kevin McCarthy couldn’t stop smiling; seeing himself as the Speaker of the House and was even cordial and correct not showing any of the Trump shit he talked to get there.

It was the usual Biden speech talking about his accomplishments and then it went on and on and he was still only talking about what he had done. He made the usual bows to bi-partisanship and getting things done, but it was apparent to everyone including Biden that this Republican Congress is not going to do a single thing with Biden. There were some good jabs at the coming Debt Ceiling crisis and some exchange between him and the Republican crazies, now leaders in the McCarthy’s House. This morning in the papers I got it, he challenged the Republicans as the Party that wants to eliminate Social Security and Medicare. “Liar!” the Rudes screamed. He countered, a readied retort, that it was nice to see they’ve converted. Nice move Joe.  Biden 1, Marjorie Taylor Green 0.

There was nothing about future policy, things he can do and will do, for the coming year. He did lay out the intent to continue backing Ukraine against hesitant Republican opposition originating in the Putin admiring Republican right, formerly the extreme right wing.

Biden did a good job of demonstrating that even at 80 years old he can give a good speech and is with a script and some rehearsed retorts and quips still sharp. He is running for President in 2024 and this was as close to a campaign speech as he’s given yet. It’s the same old speech but up until now it sounded like an activist President pushing his agenda.  Last night was a campaign speech.  

Biden is a lifelong stutterer and mangling Schummer’s position, Majority Leader, not Minority Leader, was acceptable stumbling, embarrassing, but not fatal. He looks and moves frailly but heck he’s 80 years old. If he were a friend, he’d be described as 80 but still sharp. It was painful to watch him glad hand his way out of the House. I held my breath hoping he wouldn’t get knocked over in the press of members wanting to shake his hand.

I’m 76 years old and I hope my family describes me “but still sharp.” I tell myself most people are surprised to learn how old I actually am. So far I don’t move frail, particularly if anyone is watching.  

I will not vote for Biden under any circumstances. That is until November and it’s a choice between him and a Republican. Then I have no choice, but I will work hard before that to see the Democrats have a younger, more vigorous and less dated candidate than Uncle Joe. 82 is too old. I think it’s almost inevitable that a President starting his term at 82 is going to end up like Wilson, Reagan or Feinestein, just a shell of themselves before their term ends. I reluctantly admit no one could have been better for Speaker than Nancy Polosi, but she is the exception not the rule and even Nancy is stepping down at 82.

So Trump is almost as old. Trump is a demagogue. Demagogues go until they die. If the Republicans want a demagogue it doesn’t make any difference to me who it is. The Party is suffering from dementia, so why shouldn’t their candidate?

I felt this way three years ago and yes, Uncle Joe has done a good job and may have been the right man at the right time. Thanks.  Now step down. Make room for new leadership. I am not voting for a candidate who will start his term at 82 years old.

Japan 2012

In 2012 I finally accepted the invitation from my boss at Dai-Ichi Kangyo when I was there in the 80s. I had become Hayashi’s right hand man, my desk next to his. I was his American advisor, a gopher sometimes, a trusted lieutenant and a friend.

When he returned to Japan we continued to correspond and he insisted that one day I should come to visit him in Japan. The expense seemed intimidating and I didn’t have the time, but in my first year of retirement I was cash rich and had nothing but time. My excuses were gone and I finally agreed to come.

I arrived in Japan and Hayashi met me at the airport and was my host and tour guide almost every step of the way. Hayashi is a bit of a control freak but in two short weeks I got to see Japan in a way that most America-jin would never see it. I was the VIP guest in a downtown hotel, visited the Hayashi’s at home in central Tokyo, was a guest along with an old co-worker and his wife at Hayashi’s country home where the Hayashi family was from. I got to become friends with Nagasuchi-san. We had worked in the same place but never really known each other. I went by myself on a carefully planned package tour to Kyoto.

Currency, language, geography were never a problem with my guide.

The first event was a reunion of the DKB staff from Los Angeles in the 1980s. The dinner was at Hayashi-san’s very exclusive club in downtown Tokyo. After the 1980s DKB became a Zombie Bank and vanished in a takeover. My colleagues were the survivors and had been scattered to the winds. It was the first meeting of all of us since those days. It was fun to recognize each other after 25 years and the dinner was an incredibly warm and fun event. It seemed our affection for each other had only grown in the interim.

Ono-san, the class clown, was still the class clown. He was assigned to take me back to my hotel. We walked out into the crush of downtown Tokyo, he raised his hand and a large black limosine immediately pulled up at the curb. Ono-san was the president of a Japanese insurance company.

During the course of the trip, various colleagues were assigned to take me out or put me up. Yamada-san met us a few times and we went to restaurants and shrines. Nagasuki-san and his wife, friends of the Hayashis, picked me up and took me to the country home in Nakano. We spent a few days together and went touring in the countryside, seeing temples and shrines and eating at wonderful restaurants, touring the City of Nagano and Matsumoto Castle. I hadn’t really known Nakasugi-san. He was in charge of IT and we didn’t work together. We became friends on this trip. He and his wife were delightful. I asked him if Hayashi-san had changed at all. No, he said, if anything he was more himself, still the boss, but his loyalty and affection for his team was still strong and it seemed we all still did what he told us.

Hasegawa-san hosted me at a National Park near Mount Fuji. Yamaki-san took me to dinner at a famous restaurant in the Ginza. Arahata-san took me to dinner. At the end of the trip Hayashi had assigned Nakasugi-san to take me to some museum and we both discovered we were more interested in the railroad museum and we cheated and went there. On a trip arranged by Hayashi I visited Kyoto. Tsukamoto-san a junior office in Los Angeles was now a senior executive at a major International Bank and we met him for a very special lunch at his bank.

In a short two weeks I had an amazing trip to Japan, hosted and guided by Hayashi-san. I saw Tokyo, Yokahama, Nagano and Kyoto, shrines, temples, parks, restaurants, gardens and public baths and castles. An extended stay with the Hayashis at their country home. I met his auntie, his brother and saw his daughter a Nippon Telephone executive. It was an amazing trip and the warmth and friendship of my former colleagues was incredible. A short trip but a life experience for me.

A Trip to Ireland

In 2012 I finally went to Ireland. Most of my family and friends and even people I didn’t know all talked about what a wonderful place it was after they had been there. I am proud of my Irish heritage, but after being taught by Irish priests in high school and my experience of not being Irish enough for them, when I was in Europe Ireland wasn’t on my list of things I had to see. Finally in 2012 I went there for myself.  

As soon as I landed I was Irish enough.  I felt welcomed. It is an incredible country with incredible people. I have never been in a place where it was so easy to talk to people. Every town has a Falté shop, a government tourist center where the people are incredibly helpful. In Galway I got acclimated just walking around. I learned pizza shops in Ireland are always Pizza and Kebabs. I went to a poetry reading in a local library where arriving on time got me the last seat available.  It’s not cosmopolitan, it’s not provincial, it’s just comfortable.

In Dublin I toured the city particularly aware of the Easter Rebellion, the Post Office and the bullet holes in the Daniel O’Connell statue in the line of sight for British snipers at Trinity College to the to the Republicans General Post Office barricades. I attended a lecture at Dublin Castle and was invited by the moderator, an Italian Irish American from San Francisco professor at University College in Cork invited me to join him, the lecturers and their historian friends to go the pub.

I took a bus tour to the New Grange, a Neolithic site, even older than the Pyramids. I went to the National Museum of Ireland. I saw artifacts thousands of years old. It wasn’t the history I had shown at State Parks in California, someone else’s ancient history, it was mine going back to time immemorial, Irish stone tools and dugout canoes.

I went to the National Gallery and saw a special exhibit of Leonore Carrington, one of my favorite Mexican artists, an ex-pat of Irish ancestry who made Mexico her home. There was a wonderful docent who showed me around and we saw a small model maybe 8 inches long of “How Doth the Little Crocodile” a crocodile boat with a crocodile crew. I told the docent I had seen the full sculpture all 16 feet by 30 feet on the Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City. It was an old friend from Mexico honored in Dublin, like me part of the Irish Diaspora.

I went on to Cashel in Tipperary to see where my family was from. In the graveyard of the Cathedral on Cashel Rock there was a Duggan gravestone. In Tipperary at Brian Boru’s castle I wasn’t a person with an Irish surname, I was one of the Duggans.

Ballingarry is a long and expensive cab ride from Cashel. I got there and walked the main street. There is the Church of the Assumption, two pubs, the Miners’ Rest and the Amby, and a sundries/post office shop. The pubs don’t serve meals. I asked the publican where do people eat in Ballingarry. He said at the Day Break across the street, a 7/11 type convenience store that served chicken wings and snacks.

People told me my cousin Mark Duggan, a veterinarian, was down the street, but he wasn’t home that day.

The only thing of note in Ballingarry was Famine Warhouse, actually 5 kilometers away in the country. Warhouse is where the Royal Irish Constabulary had fled from the Young Irelanders.  Young Ireland had taken over the Commons in the Rebellion in 1848 and the Constabulary sent to break it up had to flee for their lives and took five hostages in the widow McCormack’s farmhouse.   

An hours long gun battle ensued; two rebels were killed.  Reinforcements came for the Constabulary and the rebels retreated and faded into the countryside. Most of the Young Irelanders escaped capture after the event and some showed up in America afterwards. I knew about the Rebellion at Famine Warhouse, where the Irish Republican flag was first flown. I didn’t know it was in Ballingarry where my great great grandfather was from. It was closed for the Day.

I learned a little more about it and began to connect the dots. The Young Ireland movement was an independence minded group made of up of middle class Irish Protestants and Catholics. William Smith O’Brien, the leader was Protestant country gentleman from a landowning family and a member of Parliament.

Michael Duggan my great great grandfather arrived in Missouri in 1849 at the age of 21. He was not fleeing the famine, like Irishmen of the day in steerage to Ellis Island. He entered the United States through New Orleans and went up the Mississippi and bought 500 acres of prime farmland in Brinkstown Missouri.

A young man, 21 years old, from Ballingarry who left there in 1848/49 and arrived in America with enough money to buy a large farm. The Duggans have always been Republican in their sympathies and rebels at heart.

Was my great great grandfather a Young Irelander in Ballingarry in 1848? I don’t know. He certainly could have been.

91 Dead to date this year

On New Year’s Eve of the Lunar Year, a 72 year old madman from Hemet opened fire in a Monterey Park Dance Studio and Club and killed 10 New Year celebrants and wounded 10. He left and went to a similar Club in Alhambra where two patrons disarmed him. He fled and was spotted the next morning in Torrance. When the police approached his vehicle he shot himself and died.

The victims were apparently an older crowd that were celebrating the New Year at a party at the club where they took ballroom, latin and Chinese dance classes. What a sadness. The shooter was an old man who had reported to the Hemet Police where he lived that people were trying to poison him. The victims were also older people who belonged to a dance club. It’s remarkable that the shooter and the victims were all Asian, either Vietnamese or Chinese Americans.

And life goes on in America. Another mass shooting. A couple of weeks ago a whole family from a ten month old baby in their mother’s arms to grandparents were murdered in the Central Valley by gangsters. Eleven years ago a madman killed 7 people at Oikos University here in Oakland. A rare event in 1999 when the Columbine shootings occurred has now become commonplace, disturbed teenagers, madmen, paranoids, and politically deranged people are arming themselves and killing people en masse for all sorts of reasons, political, personal, jobs, race, gangs or sometimes for no discernible reason at all.

In a country of 330 million people these type of people are inevitable but only in America are we insane enough to make sure everyone who wants a weapon of nearly any kind can obtain it and to claim this as a constitutional right. With various loopholes, this includes violent felons and the insane. There are even court cases where the right to buy a gun for the disturbed or the mad is defended. A majority of Americans believe there should be limits but the gun manufacturers and their association the NRA fight common sense controls every step of the way.

Of course, almost all other countries control their citizens owning weapons very tightly. For myself single shot long rifles or shotguns for hunting or even protection are fine. But assault rifles, automatics, pistols, weapons meant only for killing people should be banned and gradually removed from circulation. It’s not going to happen in the United States for now and periodic mass murders like Monterey Park and worse should be expected frequently. There’s nothing rare about them now.

Reaching out to the isolated and deranged with decent mental health services wouldn’t hurt either.

Two days later another overwrought Chinese American man shot 7 coworkers to death in Half Moon Bay. The victims were farm workers at a mushroom farm. He was captured alive a short time later in a parking lot familiar to me from my Half Moon Bay days.

Monday a video was filming at the corner of MacArthur and Seminary at the gas station there, a few blocks from our house. Gunfire erupted and 1 person was shot dead and four people were wounded. It was multiple shooters and was apparently gang related.

91 people have died in mass shootings in the United States this month. This is according to a crowd sourced data base, Mass Shooting Tracker where four or more people shot defines a mass shooting.

Good Kharma

An old AA story is of the man who didn’t believe in God at all. A friend wondered how he could be so sure. The man told his friend he had proof. His friend asked what was that. “Well I was hunting in Alaska right next to the Bering Sea and a wind came up and I didn’t realize I was on an ice shelf and the piece I was on broke off. And there I was on an ice floe floating out to sea. I couldn’t see the shore and I began praying to god to save me. I prayed and I prayed and he didn’t save me.”

His friend asked, “Well you’re here now. How did you survive?”

“Oh, some Eskimo came along.”

I got up this morning, showered and got ready because I was going to coffee and socialize with parents after I dropped my kid off. Escuela Bilingüe is a great school. The parents are wonderful people, professors, lawyers, engineers, and artists; they’re an interesting mix. The once a month Coffee Cart is always an enjoyable social occasion, we stand outside at a picnic table near the drop off and do a cocktail hour with coffee instead of drinks. We mix, we talk, we listen and I float from conversation to conversation. We talk about school, kids, jobs, work, politics, it’s one of my favorite social connections. This morning at  EBI, as we call it, the Coffee Cart was canceled.

At the gate to the school Irma said they tried to get Peet’s this morning, but Peet’s canceled and they had to cancel the Coffee Cart. There was one other parent, someone I didn’t really know. He said he’d wait and see if anyone shows up and would talk to Irma in the meantime. I walked past them at the gate and went to the picnic table. Even though they canceled it, someone’s bound to show up, the notice was in Parent Square online.

In the meantime I talked to Carolyn, while she unloaded kids with Luis at the dropoff. She is from Coachella, down in the desert Southeast of Palm Springs. She’s Spanish speaking as are most of the staff at EBI and I tell her I’m trying to learn Spanish. She’s a young woman, a teacher’s aid but she begins to relax. I learn her husband got a job here and she moved with him. She prefers the warmth of Coachella to the chill of winter in the Bay Area.

Then I go over and talk to Luis for a moment and find out Luis is actually José and I’ve had his name wrong for five years I said. He said we’ve known each other for 7 years, well maybe, but he’s a good guy and we laugh. He speaks Spanish with a wonderful Cuban accent and to my amazement I understand some of it.

The other parent comes back and I offer to share the coffee I’ve brought for myself. His daughter is in the third grade and we chat for a few minutes. I tell him I’m Irish and that they say if the Irish weren’t in AA they could have their meetings in a phone booth and that in AA even if only two people show up they go on with the meeting and before I finish my observation, he interrupts, “I went to a meeting last night in San Mateo.” “A meeting?” I ask, “An AA meeting?” “Yes,” he says. So I tell him “Next week is my 39^th AA birthday.”

Matt is two years sober. He’s dropping his daughter off, whom he is just getting to know and getting involved in her life. He left Kerry’s mother when she was pregnant and they don’t have much of a relationship but it looked like maybe things were changing with Kerry and her mother. But Kerry’s mother is getting on with her life and has a boyfriend and the boyfriend moved in and likes being a foster dad and Matt wasn’t nice about it when he saw him this morning. He doesn’t like him, even though he seems like a pretty good guy. This guy stays overnight with Kerry’s mother, gets up in the morning, serves Matt’s daughter cornflakes and puts her to bed at night.

Matt has been struggling, but he’s got it, he’s sober now, but this is hard. We talk about patience, and meetings. He has a sponsor, but it’s hard. I say, “You know I don’t much believe in god as some sort of chess master, but it’s hard not to feel like you and I a couple of pieces he just moved to where we need to be.”

Matt doesn’t slow down. He is hurting and he needs to talk. He’s a good guy and he knows he needs to be patient but when it looked like he might get a chance to be a husband and a father there wasn’t and Kerry's mother is moving on, it hurts.

I tried to be a good listener. Matt is a good guy. He’s staying sober and trying to lead a good life. But doing that in the beginning is hard, particularly for people like us who began drinking before we had grown up and getting sober hasn’t fixed everything yet. I tried to interject a few AA clichés. It will get better if you don’t drink. Working the steps helps. The shit doesn’t stop when we stop drinking. Patience. Things like that.

I could feel Matt was in pain and this was a crisis. It takes a few years for us alcoholics before life is no longer one crisis after another, before we learn how to live life on it’s own terms, the gifts of sobriety as they come. Everyone around us seems to get it, have the good things, doing well and we’re still struggling. I told him after 39 years I didn’t have a strong urge to drink anymore, but that was only good as I long as I worked the program.

As they remind us in AA, meeting Matt sure helped me, made me grateful, and reminded me that Sobriety is a great gift, a grace from god. It reminded me of my early years in AA and the struggles I had. It reminded me when Church Carmalt, my sponsor, said “work with newcomers."  Of course, I’m still growing and I still struggle a little, but I didn’t drink and over time it got better, and it’s still getting better.

I hope I did Matt some good. It sure helped me.

I had to laugh. Newcomers see god’s hand in everything that happens to them. I had that kind of higher power for awhile and it helped. I don’t believe that’s true anymore, but it’s hard to deny when something like this happens. I may not have been his Eskimo, but maybe I’m someone who listened along the way and shared a cup of coffee.

Another coincidence, this morning I meditated on listening, becoming a good listener. I may not believe in god exactly.  But kharma makes sense to me. I am grateful for good kharma when I see it.

Note:  A few days later I ran into Matt again.  We sat in his car and talked.  He's still in crisis.  Exploring ways to deal with that, he said he wouldn't smoke pot that day and hadn't for some hours.  I'm not sure if pot was his word, like everything else I'm dated but nonetheless he hadn't smoked pot for some hours.  It seems for the last two years Matt has been on what we call the Marijuana Maintenance Program.  In my experience that's not sobriety, better but not good enough.  The first rule of working the 12 Steps is to be sober.  In my experience, if I don't drink things get better.  I'm pretty sure if I do drink they're going to get worse.  And as I heard it in the beginning and believe, mind altering drugs and alcohol are the same thing, just a question of getting to Omaha by plane or train, you're still in Omaha.  I shared my opinion and my phone number with Matt, I haven't heard from him since.  

My meeting with Matt kept me sober, my Higher Power at work.

Disclaimer:  I’m certainly not a representative of Alcoholics Anonymous nor can I say I’m even a member but I know people. Saying that, this is a story. It could happen.

Teacher's Aid

One more time I asked myself what do I want to be when I grow up? At 67 it still resonated. I tell people, I’m no longer immature, I’m young at heart. The last time I asked that question, I became a Park Ranger. I wanted to do something that would be new and fun. And the answer came back, an elementary school teacher. I didn’t want a job, but a job like volunteer gig. On a school tour for Adam I asked the principal how I might do that. She was enthusiastic and told me first to go to the district and get cleared as a volunteer, get a badge and we’d go from there.

Lisa Kantor and I exchanged a couple of emails and we were getting ready to start. In her last email she asked what experience I had. I told her I was a kindergarten Sunday School teacher. I didn’t hear back from her. She didn’t respond to any of my emails or phone calls. She was unreachable. I think maybe Ms. Kantor didn’t want a Sunday School teacher at her school. By that time I had stopped qualifying my church attendance as being Unitarian.  Be honest, let people think what they want. I was in good company with Jimmy Carter. I think maybe I’d just been stereotyped as a “Christian Evangelical.” That didn’t feel good. Even Evangelicals have a right to be in our schools.

Not long after in February 2014 I was registering Adam for Transitional Kindergarten at Colorado Elementary School in Richmond and I asked to speak to the principal there. I met Linda Cohen, a legendary principal in Richmond Schools. We talked and she was quite eager to have me as a volunteer. “When can you start?” she asked. “Tomorrow,” I answered. And so I did, the very next day. Linda had me go to each class from 3^rd to 6^th grade and ask the teacher what they would like me to do. The first year I tutored math, babysat or just distracted disruptive kids, worked with a new immigrant from Mexico who did not want to learn English and worked one on one or in small groups.

I volunteered two days a week. At lunchtime I went to the teacher’s room. I met some teachers, I was part of Coronado Elementary School. After a few months, one morning I got up with that feeling, oh god, I don’t want to go school today. A moment later I realized, wow!, just like a real job. I was showing up.

The next year Adam started Transitional Kindergarten at Coronado and the first day I asked Linda what she wanted me to do. She was busy and said, “Well why don’t you just go to Transitional Kindergarten for now.” We’ll figure it out later.

I found a home. There was no later. For the next six years I was a volunteer teacher’s aid in Transitional Kindergarten. I worked with Licet Santos, the regular teacher’s aid and Pat Boyne, the teacher. We were a team. I did what I could to help, supporting the kids, encouraging them and enjoying them. Little people have always fascinated me, the amount they learn just to get started in life and the physical changes are astounding, learning to walk, to talk, and in TK to be part of a group and that squiggles and symbols can have meaning. It is their first formal step in learning to learn.

My TKers were learning more in that year than graduate students at Berkeley would learn in a year.  I was in awe at what we were part of. These kids were laying the very foundation of their education. They were learning life skills. Recess was just as important as the classroom. They were being domesticated, like wild horses they needed to be gentled. For some kids it was their first experience in the system. They couldn’t leave, it wasn’t voluntary and making a scene didn’t help.

One day I was telling my good friend Bob Weiss about what I was doing and he said, “You know these kids are going to remember you for the rest of their lives.” I hadn’t thought of it, but of course. What a responsibility, memories of Mr. Jack into the next century.

Licet, Pat and I worked together for six years. Licet was wonderful, local, very bright, she should have been a teacher herself, but after a marriage, two kids and a divorce, she needed to earn a living and it was our good fortune to have her as a teacher’s aid. Pat is a professional teacher and did the magic of curriculum, lesson planning, pacing and all the paperwork. I appreciated that I got to be a part of teaching children hands on, but I didn’t have to do the bureaucracy. My style is more Ranger than Teacher and with Pat and Licet, that worked.

In 2019 things began to come apart. Pat was getting toward the end of her career and had a hellacious commute. She had injuries and health problems. Licet was having a hard time too. There were sick days and substitutes and it wasn’t going very well and then we got a substitute who stayed, Miss Chavez. She was a graduate of Cal but had been a truck driver between LA and San Francisco. It was her first year as a substitute and we were fortunate to get her. She didn’t have the experience of Pat Boyne, but she had a lot of heart, wanted to do well, and loved the children. So it was good and then in March of 2020 Covid came.  We were doing distance learning. I tried to join in, but a teacher’s aid on Zoom is just one more complicating element and it didn’t work.

In September of 2020 I didn’t participate but when in person classes started again in the Fall of 2021 I came back. Miss Boyne was the TK teacher again but struggling with the administration over medical leave. She mostly didn’t show up. We had a series of substitutes and just no teacher at all. We did have Miss Pinkston, a wonderful teacher, She was the new Reading Resource person at the school and it wasn’t her job to take over TK.  She did what she could to help.    

I needed something more consistent. I talked to my friend Lourdes, a great 2^nd grade teacher there. She recommended I ask Terra Doby, the kindergarten teacher if she would like a volunteer. She did and we started working together.

What good fortune. Terra Doby is an amazing teacher. If Kindergarteners are a little wild, she is a Kindergarten Whisperer. Her oft repeated phrase is, “Ignore to learn.” And so the class seemed wild from the outside, slowly she began to work her magic on the kids and all but one became happy students, and even the most difficult child improved, got a little better. Instead of letting the difficult kids take over the class she was able to gently bring them in. She didn’t let them distract her and the class. They were ignoring to learn. It was a wonderful experience for me.

During the summer break, Adam and I went to lunch with Miss Doby. Afterwards Adam said, “I wish we had a teacher like Miss Doby in our school.” She is gentle, loves her job and is very good at it.

For their own reasons the administration decided Miss Doby was going to the 4^th grade the following year. She asked me if I was staying in Kindergarten or might want to come along with her. I tell my friends that after 7 years in Kindergarten I’ve been promoted to the fourth grade.

This year has been different, fourth graders are a lot different than Kinders, but they’re still wonderful kids. Working with Miss Doby has been a pleasure. It’s enjoyable just to watch how she teaches.  It's fascinating to watch a Kindergarten teacher who is very different in the 4th grade but just as good.  As her aid, I do what I can to make that easier, copying, cutting, sorting books, just doing a lot of the time consuming jobs that leave her with more time to teach. I also do assessments. I tutor a little and sometimes I walk around and just help. I’m older than when I started this and I found two days a week was taking it out of me. I cut back to one day a week and it made it much more enjoyable.

I love being around the kids, participating in their growth, helping where I can and being Miss Doby’s assistant, doing whatever I can to make her job easier and give her more time to teach. I am amazed and delighted how much the kids appreciate my being there, how they miss me when I’m not there and happy to see me when I return.