Opportunity Knocks

     This past week I started up my volunteer jobs again, after several months of doing almost nothing. I volunteer as a tutor with our local literacy group, and as an instructor at our senior learning center.

     I haven't done much tutoring for almost a year. Last spring the semester was cut short in March. There was a fall semester, but I was just a fill-in. Now I've been assigned to a regular tutoring schedule, and will be working on Zoom once a week for the spring.

     The last senior learning class I did was the first week in December. Now, starting next week, we'll be in full session. I host three classes, and take two others as a student.

     So after months of drifting through the days without much to do, I'll finally be engaged with other people. I'll finally feel like I'm doing something worthwhile -- beyond just killing time by doing crossword puzzles, watching Netflix, and reorganizing the house.

     My wife B also volunteers at the learning center. But she focuses more on organizations that help feed and clothe disadvantaged people. I think that's important, and I'm glad that she does it. But it's not my thing. I'd much rather help people learn -- on the theory that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish you feed him for a lifetime. But I'll be honest. I'm a little selfish. I get bored dishing out meals. I like tutoring and instructing. So that's what I do. That's a great thing about volunteering: there are lots of different opportunities.

     It's not hard to find a volunteer job. In fact, once you do, people usually try to get you to do more. I started out teaching one senior class. Now I'm involved in three.

Our senior learning center

     You don't need any special skills or knowledge. You can collect clothes or pack lunches or drive people to appointments. But if you do have a skill, it's all to the better. We have a couple of computer experts who lend their expertise to our learning center. We have retired teachers who spearhead our ESL program.

     I majored in English in college, so I don't have much of a specialty. I don't teach a history course or computer workshop. I lead discussion groups, since discussion -- aka shooting the breeze -- seems to be the only thing I can do. I'm living proof that you don't need a real skill, or have to be particularly gifted, in order to help out people in your community.

     All you really need is an interest in something ... anything. You have to be sufficiently motivated to do some work and not get paid for it. But if you find some position that engages you, then it makes it worthwhile.

     I guess you need to have a desire to help other people. But by volunteering you also begin to realize that by helping others you are also helping yourself. You learn things; you meet people in the community; you get a feeling of accomplishment.

     You do have to be dependable. If you set up a class or a meeting, you have to show up on time to host it. It helps to have some common sense. As a volunteer you often do not get a lot of supervision or direction. You have to make some decisions on the fly ... you're doing what's right, not what the bureaucratic rulebook says. One exception: I was told never to meet with anybody one-on-one outside official channels, to avoid any possibility of bad behavior or false accusations.

     Most volunteer jobs involve other people, so it doesn't help if you're angry or cynical or determined to foist your opinions on other people. Volunteering is not about you. It's about others.

     You might also have to have some patience. Some of the people I've tutored have missed class or shown up late or didn't do their homework. You have to realize that it's not because they're lazy or unmotivated. It's because they had to work late, or their car broke down, or one of their kids got sick. People really do have other responsibilities, other pressures.

     Finally, it helps to have a little humility. Several people in my senior learning classes have more advanced degrees than I do. Some of the people I tutor are smarter than I am. They just didn't have the opportunity to go to school. I'm reminded of the 40-year-old guy who could barely read, and couldn't write a decent sentence. Then I found out he had started and was managing a successful auto-body shop -- something I could never do -- and was now taking classes because he felt it was finally time to get his GED.

     Maybe that's the real reason why we volunteer -- to discover that there's a whole other world out there.

Fishing 4 Answers

     My days of "doing nothing" have ended. I started my two volunteer jobs this week.

     My focus is on education. I donate both time and money to my colleges, to the community college, and other local organizations that are trying to help people improve their lives. I know it's also important to help feed the hungry, house the homeless and help the aged. But I choose education, maybe because I still remember that old saying about giving a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but teach him how to fish and you've fed him for a lifetime.

     So B and I together lead the Great Decisions in Foreign Policy course at the senior center at our local university. I'm not sure we're "teaching anyone how to fish" with this course. But the material from the Foreign Policy Association is informative, and the discussion is supposed to elevate the level of political discourse. And goodness knows, we certainly need to elevate the level of political discourse.

Great Decisions is held at the Alumni House

     My other volunteer job is tutoring underprivileged and ESL young adults. I tutored at our community college back in New York. And now I'm starting in Pennsylvania. We teach reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary. All crucial abilities people need to hold down a decent job and become enculturated into middle-class America.

    But just because I support education doesn't mean I don't get frustrated with the whole system. The training I received for this tutoring job was maddening. My class went for 12 hours over four days, and we still didn't get the information we needed to do the job. The time was taken up by needless background, endless administrative details, irrelevant tangents -- and inedible snacks that were consumed by no one. This is just one example of how the educational system seems incredibly bureaucratic and inefficient.

     And maybe that's one reason why college is so expensive these days. College is way too expensive. Yet, I am not one who favors free college tuition for all. Why not . . . 4 reasons:

     1. Someone has to pay for it. Shouldn't the person benefiting from a service pay at least some of the cost?

     2. That which is given free is not so highly valued. If you pay for something you are more likely to use it, and use it well. It's human nature. If there's no cost to education, there's no penalty for letting things slide, not paying attention, and otherwise squandering the opportunity.

     3. Paying for college is an investment. The idea is that we pay for something now in order to reap bigger benefits in the future. And we all know that we need to encourage more investment in America, whether it's individuals saving and investing for retirement or governments investing in infrastructure for the future. Paying for college supports the value of investment.

    4. Besides, so what if a person comes out of college with $100,000 of debt. Is that so bad? After all, we don't blink when someone takes out $100,000 mortgage to buy a house. So why should we blink at a $100,000 "mortgage" on an education. I'd argue that an education is a better investment than a house. Wouldn't you?

     All that being said, however, I don't really think it's a good idea for a 20-something to be saddled with a huge college loan. Instead I'd argue that it makes sense for the public to provide free college tuition -- or some other higher-level training -- at least for the disadvantaged. And I'd also suggest that perhaps some particularly talented people should get paid for attending college. So  . . . 4 ideas:

     1. Federal and state governments should invest more in education, from pre-kindergarten up through graduate school. After all, the public at large reaps huge benefits from a more educated population. So we as taxpayers should help pay for it. Also, money from federal and state governments is spread more equitably than the traditional real-estate tax which funds most primary and secondary education -- funding that favors the wealthy and the upper middle class over the poor and lower middle class.

     2. College and universities could and should lower their tuition, and make funding more transparent. Much of the price of college tuition is controlled by a secret cabal of college administrators, and they dole out money and credits not for the benefit of students, but for the benefit of the institution. I honestly know very little about college funding. But it seems they spend way too much on administration, sports and trendy courses. These are luxuries. Why can't colleges -- or at least some colleges -- compete on price?

     3. Why don't we make colleges themselves, rather than the government and banks, loan the tuition money to their own students. Making the colleges responsible for the debt would force them to be more prudent in their loan practices -- and would give them an incentive to keep down both loans and tuition.

     4. Maybe an undergraduate degree should take three years instead of four. Instant 25% savings! My premise is that college provides basic, background information. Then people have to go on for a masters degree to get the training to become a librarian, teacher, social worker, health-care provider -- or, it seems, anything else. So let's get on with it!

     Well, these are just some ideas, jotted down one morning over coffee. Now for me, it's back to the trenches, just helping two or three students become better fishermen.

Packing in a Lot of Food

     With all the Halloween talk about treats and candy, B and I last Sunday thought we could pitch in for a more serious effort to help feed the children. It's an initiative through B's church, which gathered together 424 volunteers at our local university to help pack food that will be sent to poor children in some 80 countries around the world.

     The sponsor of the event was an organization called Feed My Starving Children, which is a Christian non-profit that has been distributing food to poor people since 1987.

Hard at work

     So we gathered in an auditorium, listened to a hymn, heard a prayer, then got the instructions on what to do. B and I headed off to a table where we were packing meals called Manna Packs. Each individually packaged meal basically consists of rice, fortified with soy, dried vegetables and powdered vitamins.

     Each table involved a 15-man operation. Four people ladled in the ingredients; two people funneled them into  plastic bags, two more checked and weighed the ingredients, two more folded the bags, and then one person heat-sealed the bags. Then a crew of four people packed the bags into boxes.

     Other volunteers were bringing in the ingredients and the empty boxes to the tables. Then the filled boxes were picked up by more volunteers and hauled off to a loading dock, where still others were loading the boxes into trucks. Meanwhile, there were a few Feed My Starving Children staff members who set up the production line, coordinated our efforts, and provided instructions, advice and general support.

Not me ... but a proud volunteer

     We were just one three-hour "shift" in a four-day operation that was packing and sending some 1.2 million meals around the world. A few members of B's church had been to Haiti to view one of the receiving ends of the operation -- where the food actually made it into the hands of poor, starving children. It was heartening to see the effects. They had "before" pictures of obviously malnourished children, and "after" pictures of the same children, only a few months later, who had been given a steady diet of these fortified meals.

     Our group packed over 100,000 meals, which sounds like a lot. But actually, it's a drop in the bucket. This would provide a two-week supply. But there was more to come, since another group was following in after us for another shift of packing food.

     Honestly, I don't know where they get the food, or how they process it into the ingredients that we poured into the Manna Packs. But I can tell you, I came away with a better appreciation of the difficult and enormous logistical job it is to meet even some of the needs of crying and starving children around the world.

      And also, after spending most of a morning on a production line, sealing plastic bags, and then ladling soy granules into a funnel, it gives me a better appreciation of the difficulty of working on an assembly line. My wrist was killing me by the end of the day, and B had a sore back. But if it saved even a few lives, it was worth the effort.

Retirement: An Attitude Adjustment

As I mentioned in my last post, B and I have attended a series of retirement seminars in the past few weeks, hosted by our local senior citizens center called Founders Hall. The moderator told us that we would be covering every aspect of retirement, except for money: How to find new meaning in life. What to do with your time. Whether to stay in your old home, or relocate to a retirement mecca.

And yet, the most important lesson I took away from this week's seminar hit the question of money right on the head.

The lesson doesn’t involve any practical tips, like downsizing your living quarters or paying off your mortgage or starting to sell your old furniture on ebay or your new craft projects on Etsy. It involves an attitude adjustment.

When the moderator asked for questions or comments, or personal stories about how people handled retirement, one fellow stood up. He was in his mid-to-late 60s, dressed in casual, unremarkable clothes. He apologized, saying his wife was a volunteer at Founders Hall, so maybe he shouldn’t be talking. But he just wanted to add one thing to the discussion about starting a new life in retirement.

He told us that he had retired from a computer company about three years ago. He used to run a department, and he had a number of people reporting to him. He said he’d been with his company for almost 40 years and toward the end he made a pretty good salary. He confessed that he had spent most of it, on a house and new cars and travel and his kids. Yes, he had funded his retirement accounts, but when he retired he was still a little worried about having enough money to maintain his lifestyle throughout retirement.

But the real problem, it turned out, was that after he retired he felt disconnected. He had no purpose in life, no focus. For the first few months he would go with his wife to the grocery store and follow her up and down the aisles, until one day she leveled a look at him and said, “This has got to stop!"

Still, he didn’t know what to do. When he was working he had places to go, people to see, and a schedule to keep. Now he had nothing. When he was working, he had performance reviews, which gave him a kind of report card on his life. He got raises and promotions, and had the money to buy most of the things he wanted. His job had defined his life. He took some pride in telling people where he worked, and he "kept score" by how much money he made, how many people reported to him, as well as the money he spent on travel, cars and his house.

But now realized that he had to come up with a different way to define himself, and a different way to keep score. He considered taking up golf or fishing; but when he really thought about it, he realized that didn’t interest him.

He knew he had certain skills, and finally, prompted by his wife, he decided he could apply those skills to help people around town. So he talked to a friend, who suggested he attend a meeting of the men’s club, and that eventually led to Meals on Wheels. So today, he spends two afternoons a week delivering meals to senior citizens. He also found himself at the library last winter, helping seniors do their taxes. Then in the summer he checked out the Volunteer Match website, and was linked up to work with Habitat for Humanity.

Last year he and his wife sold their house and moved into a condominium. He was tired of taking care of his yard and repairing things around the house; and besides, with the kids long gone, he just wasn't interested in his house anymore. Instead, he was interested in spending time with his new friends and helping out around town. He and his wife don’t travel much anymore. They haven’t bought a new car since they traded in the family SUV for a Honda sedan almost ten years ago.

He doesn’t miss his house, or the travel. And he doesn’t have to worry about his finances anymore. Why? Not because he has more money; but because he spends less. Because now he defines himself not as a computer programmer and affluent member of the community, but as a volunteer who helps out other people in his community.

He keeps score not by how much money he makes and spends, but by how many people he has helped. “I think about what I want people to say at my funeral,” he said. “And I decided nobody was going to care how much money I made, or what my title was at work. I want them to talk about the people I have helped, and the impact I made on my community.”

Back to School

     Yesterday was my first day back at the Academic Support Center of our community college, where I am a volunteer writing tutor. This year I am only a "substitute" because I'll be away too much to fit into the regular schedule. Still, I enjoy tutoring students and find the experience very rewarding.

     When I arrived on campus, I noticed that the parking lots were as full as I'd ever seen them. Later, the ASC coordinator told me that student enrollment is up this year.

     The newest, most recognizable building on campus is called the Gateway Center . . .

     . . . and inside the Gateway Center is my favorite place on campus.

     There were many students streaming in, ready to learn -- although there wasn't much for me to do the first day, since no students are facing a deadline for an essay the first week of college. The only help I gave was showing people how to log onto their student accounts, where to go for placement exams, how to access online homework assignments and course information.

    
     The Academic Support Center, where I hang out, is located on the first floor of the college library.

      This is a community college in one of the more affluent suburban areas of New York. Yet we still get many students who have various challenges -- some are poor, many speak English as a second language, many are also working while they go to school, or taking care of kids; some of them have a long commute by bus.

     Sometimes we tutors wonder if we really do any good at all, if we're ever getting through to people. (In case you can't read the quote: "It is better to write a bad first draft than to write no first draft at all.") But we keep on trying -- helping students write their own stories on their own blank slates.

    

Volunteering an Opinion

     I just finished tutoring for the first summer session at our community college. I've been volunteering there for the past three years, helping students with their essays and presentations, their applications to four-year schools, their resumes and covering letters for job openings.

     I can't volunteer for the second summer session, because I am too busy moving. And I'm not volunteering next year, either, since I'll be doing a lot of traveling and won't be around that much.

     I'll miss going to the college, helping the kids, and hanging out with the other volunteers. It got me thinking about volunteering, and how much it means to us retirees.

     There are about a dozen volunteers in the writing center, a division of the Academic Support Center. There are over a hundred when you count those volunteering in the math center, in science and technology, and for ESL as conversation partners. So I have a lot of company, but not just here in New York, all across America as well. It turns out that America is one of the most generous nations in the world. According to figures from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, some 60 percent of Americans regularly engage in some kind of charitable activity, compared to an average of about 40 percent for other developed countries.

     Another study, from Merrill Lynch and Age Wave, found that Americans offer almost 8 billion hours a year volunteering for charitable causes, from church activities to political organizations to helping out neighbors and strangers. While Americans of all races and ages contribute both their money and time, retirees are the ones who reach out the most.

I tutor writing at -- where else? -- the school library

     Retirees have the most opportunity to volunteer, since our time isn't consumed by working or taking care of children. We have almost twice as much free time as working parents in their late 30s and early 40s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and we are looking for something to do with all that extra time. So while retirees comprise less than a third of the population, we account for 45 percent of all volunteering hours, Merrill Lynch found.

     We also have the most money. Retirees have the lowest poverty rate among all age groups, and also have the most savings. As a group, we are sitting on more than four times the net worth of our children who are working and raising families. This explains why retirees account for 42 percent of the money donated to charity, according to Merrill Lynch.

     As my own experience has shown, retirees find it fulfilling to volunteer; it gives us the feeling that we make a difference in the lives of others. Most volunteers report that helping others brings them more happiness than spending money on themselves. Retirees who are active in charities also exhibit a stronger sense of purpose and higher self-confidence, with lower reported rates of depression as well as lower blood pressure and lower mortality rates.

     Volunteering is also a way to make social connections, offering retirees an opportunity to meet people with similar interests and values. Some 85 percent of retiree volunteers say they have developed new friendships through their volunteer activities. Personally, I've found a group of like-minded friends at the college. We sit around and talk shop, but we also talk about our families, our lives, our interests. We occasionally get together for coffee before or after a session, and I've found one fellow volunteer who likes to dance, and so B and I meet up with her and her husband once or twice a month to go dancing.

     Speaking of B, she devotes most of her volunteer time to her church, and according to Merrill Lynch, that makes her more typical than me. About half of people who donate to charity contribute to a religious or spiritual organization, while 30 percent donate to relieve poverty, 25 percent to provide disaster aid and roughly 20 percent to educational institutions.

     But it's true that charity begins at home. While some people say that leaving an inheritance to their children is an important goal, today's retirees are twice as likely to say it's more important to help out family members in times of need instead of accumulating an estate for their children. Over 60 percent of parents have given some kind of financial support to their adult children. Others have extended a helping hand to parents, siblings, in-laws and grandchildren.

     It may come as no surprise that women are more generous than men. They are more likely to give money and more likely to volunteer. They are also more likely to say they achieve happiness by giving to others rather than spending money on themselves, and define success in terms of helping others rather than accumulating wealth. Women give out of gratitude, not guilt. And because of their greater longevity, women also exercise control over the family inheritance. Today, about a third of charitable bequests are made by married couples. But almost half are made by women alone.

     So anyway, I got an email from the college the other day. The writing coordinator said she understood I wasn't available next year, because I'd be traveling. But maybe I'd be around toward the end of the semester when things got busy. Would I be available to volunteer in November and December? So now I'm thinking, I'll probably be home, maybe I could just help out during the crunch period.

Who Really Benefits from Charity?

     America is one of the most generous nations in the world. According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) about 60 percent of Americans regularly engage in some kind of charitable activity, compared to 40 percent in other developed countries.

     A study from Merrill Lynch and Age Wave found that Americans donated some $358 billion last year, and most of it came not from corporations but from individuals and families. In addition, Americans spent 8 billion hours volunteering for charitable causes, ranging from church activities to political organizations to helping out neighbors and strangers.

     While Americans of all races and ages contribute their money and time, retirees are the ones who reach out the most. Some two thirds of retirees say that retirement is the best time to give back. Why? Because retirees have the extra time, and many also have the extra money. On average retirees are sitting on four times the net worth of their children in their 30s and 40s who are working and raising families, and so the result is that retirees account for some 40 percent of charitable giving.

     Last week the New York Times reported on the Purpose Prize, for Americans age 60 and over, created ten years ago by Encore.org, a nonprofit group focused on those "in midlife and beyond." The Purpose Prize is given to older people who do charitable work to improve their communities.

     This year six prizes, ranging from $25,000 to $100,000, were awarded, along with 41 "honorable mentions." One prize went to Jamal Joseph, 62, an ex-con who co-founded the Impact Repertory Theater in New York City.

     Joseph provides a safe place where young people can talk and write about how their lives are affected by bullying, gangs, violence and drugs. The participants learn ways to convert their experiences into dance, plays, poems and music. But the program is no comfortable liberal-arts type seminar. Participants first attend a three-month boot camp where they learn leadership skills, conflict resolution and time management. Then they do community service, participate in exercise programs, pledge to get good grades in school and keep daily journals.

     Another prize went to Belle Mickelson, 67, a science teacher turned Episcopal priest who lives in Cordova, Alaska. Her program, Dancing with the Spirit, aims to help rural children and connect them with their elders. She travels to remote villages in Alaska, and through music and art, helps teens develop confidence and cope with the adolescent depression that is often masked by alcohol and drug abuse.

     The Merrill Lynch/Age Wave survey also found one other benefit to charitable activities. They offer significant payback to the donors.

     Some 70 percent of retirees said contributing time and money makes them feel as though they are making a difference in other people's lives, which in turn makes them feel like they have a greater purpose in their own lives. Those surveyed also signaled that being generous provides a significant source of happiness -- more so, for example, than spending money on themselves.

     Retirees who are active in charities also have a stronger sense of purpose and higher self-esteem. They have lower rates of depression as well as lower blood pressure and lower mortality rates. So . . . it seems that those who lend the hand get just as much support as those who accept the hand.

Do You Know What a Gerund Is?

     As I've mentioned before, I volunteer two afternoons a week as a writing tutor at our local community college. I deal mostly with young adults who are taking either the remedial writing class, or else the basic freshman English course.

     In other words, these young people have a lot of difficulty stringing together more than a few sentences. Most of them are underprivileged kids who went to a substandard high school, and many of them took time off after high school before entering college. A lot of them are also holding down part-time jobs, and some of them even have children, so they don't have a lot of time to spend laboring over their essays, revising them and polishing them up.

     I see a lot of essays with sentences that don't have a clear subject and verb, and a lot of them begin, "Being that ..."

     So now I tell my students, Do not start a sentence with a word ending in "ing" unless you know what a gerund is. It's just not that easy to use a gerund as the subject of a sentence.

      For the record, the word gerund comes from the Latin gerundium, the noun form of the verb gero, meaning, that which is to be carried out. In other words, a gerund is a verb that ends in "ing"and functions as a noun. As in:  Swimming is good exercise; or, Visiting friends can be fun.

     But in the course of developing my rule-of-thumb, I did a little research and found that others have said it much better than I can. So, being as how I found these quotes, let me offer a few:

     "Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."  -- William Arthurd Ward

     "I never believe nor disbelieve. If you will excuse my speaking frankly, I mean to observe you closely, and to decide for myself."             -- Wilkie Collins

     "They cut down elms to build asylums for people driven mad by the cutting down of elms." -- George Barker

     "Shooting pinballs is not an art form." -- Bart Simpson

     "Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it."  -- Langston Hughes

     "All talk of winning the people by appealing to their intelligence, of conquering them by impeccable syllogism, is so much moonshine."       -- H. L. Mencken

     "There are times when parenthood seems nothing but feeding the mouth that bites you." -- Peter De Vries

     "This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."                              -- George Bernard Shaw

The One Thing I'm Thankful For

     I'm not a big fan of Thanksgiving. I don't like watching football on TV. It's usually too cold to do anything outside. And there's something that strikes me as a little weird about a holiday focused entirely on stuffing as much food into our mouths as humanly possible. Plus, I try at all costs to avoid traveling around the Thanksgiving holiday, when flying or driving bring on not just the usual anxieties but outright, full-fledged panic.

     But there's nothing wrong with taking a day to count our blessings, to be thankful for what we have, rather than complaining about what we don't have, or feeling envy for what others might have. And after spending the last year and a half volunteering to help kids at our local community college, I can wrap up all my thank-yous into one big package:  I am thankful that I was born into the American middle class.

     Saturday Night Live and satirists of all stripes have a field day making fun of the middle class -- how bland we are, how boring, how conformist, how white and pasty we are, how earnest we are in our ticky-tacky houses, etc.

     But I volunteer at our local community college, helping mostly underprivileged kids learn how to read and write and analyze and organize and think about things. A few of the students I see are middle-class kids who typically exhibit some kind of mild learning disability. But most of the kids are people of color who live in the poorer sections of our county, and who come from the American underclass. Many originally came from another country, and English is their second language. Some were born here; but their parents speak Spanish or something else at home.

     A few of the students are women in their late 30s or early 40s, who have come back to school to get their degree. They are grandmothers. They live with their daughters and their grandchildren. One of my favorite students is Mary, who writes children's stories for her creative writing class. Her command of grammar is very basic and extremely flawed. Yet she comes up with simple but charming, and often very imaginative, stories based on the exploits of her own grandchildren.

     What strikes me about these students -- whether they're black or white or something in between -- is that they all grew up under challenging circumstances. Probably some of them have suffered discrimination. But the real common denominator is that their parents are poor, or near poor. They were not read to as little children. They did not go to enriching nursery schools. They grew up in apartments, and their backyards were the streets. They went to marginal public schools, and their attendance was sometimes interrupted for one reason for another.

     In short, these students, who range in age from 18 up to about 45, did not benefit from a middle-class upbringing, with good local schools, private music lessons, soccer camp and SAT preparation courses. And yet, their clear ambition is to struggle their way to get a better education, which will lead to a better job, which will eventually help them achieve the much-ridiculed, but also much-sought-after middle-class lifestyle . . . aka the American Dream.

     Maybe there are some "welfare cheats" and "welfare moms" out there who play the system and plan to live on the dole for the rest of their lives. But not these kids. I have enormous respect for my students -- especially (as I remember my own unsuccessful attempts to learn a foreign language) those for whom English is a second, or sometimes third or fourth language. But all these students have hope; they have ambition; and they also have a road ahead of them that I don't think I could have successfully struggled through when I was a young man.

     All of these people are trying hard. Some of them will go on to four-year colleges and careers in business or computers or social services. Some will be disappointed. But all of them deserve our respect, our support and our encouragement. 

     On this Thanksgiving, I give thanks that my road was an easier one, that I was lucky enough to be born into the middle class, and not the underclass. And so, especially now, I wish them the very best.

    

School's Out for the Summer!

 

 

     School has just ended at our community college. Classes are over for the year. Exams are done and gone. I've volunteered to tutor for the first summer session, which is just now starting, but after this I'll take off the rest of the summer from my volunteer job.

     Still, no matter how old we get, or how long it's been since we've walked around campus, there's a certain thrill that comes at this time of year. Because it's vacation time. We look forward to the warm, lazy days. School's out for the summer.

     In commemoration, I bring you the best of what are presented as "actual" quotes from English exam essays, courtesy of a humor site called tickld, with a little help from another site called snopes.
  
     These happen to be analogies and metaphors presumably found in high school essays. Most are more imaginative than what I've seen from my students:

     "His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free."

     "She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up."

     "Her vocabulary was as bad as, like ... whatever."

     "He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree."

     "The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM."

from Buzzfeed's Best Yearbook Quotes of 2014

     "A little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't."

     "Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze."

     "Hailstones leaped from the pavement, like maggots when you fry them in hot grease."

     "Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph."

     "John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met."

     "Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut."

     "The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work."

     "The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while."

     "The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant."

     "It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools."

     "He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up."

     "It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall."

  

Pay It Forward

     I remember when my folks retired to Florida, back in the 1980s, we saw a used-car lot out on Route 1 with a big sign that advertised: "Buy Here! Pay Here!"

     We thought it was a joke. Isn't that the way everybody buys things? We couldn't figure out what the sign was offering that was so special. But the sign was up for as long as my parents lived there.

     (We later found out that "Buy Here! Pay Here!" is a way used-car salespeople sell cars to people with bad credit. The dealer extends credit to the buyer, so the buyer doesn't have to go to a bank where they will likely get turned down for the car loan.)

     The other night B and I were driving home from our dancing class, and for some reason I thought of the term, "Pay it forward."

     So I asked B, "What does 'pay it forward' mean, in your mind?"

     "Someone does you a favor," she replied. "You can't pay them back, so you do someone else a favor instead."

     I was ruminating (B was driving, so I was ruminating) on my last post about how we pay for our children's college tuition, and might help to pay tuition for our grandchildren as well. Your parents paid for your college tuition. You can't pay them back, so you pay it forward by paying for your own children. My kids are finished with college, and I don't have any grandchildren (yet?), and so it's easy for me to suggest that people chip in for other people's college tuition.

     Maybe I do my part by paying school taxes. Our school district just passed its 2014-'15 budget, spending a little over $26,000 per student. I have two kids who went through the school system; but I wasn't paying $52,000 a year in school tax. Other taxpayers were paying for my kids to get educated. Now it's my turn to pay it forward ... help pay for other people's kids to go to school.

     I guess everything we do for our children is paying it forward from our parents. Except we try to do it better, don't we?

     Last week I finished up my first year as a volunteer tutor at our local community college. I'm paying it forward to these other kids for all the help and advice and favors done for me when I was a younger. Not that there were very many that I remember. My parents were pretty hands off, even remote. My high school was a hostile place, and nobody helped me there. I had a professor in college, and a boss early in my career, who were mentors to me to some extent.

     I think some other people tried to help me out when I was a kid, but I found it hard to accept help . . . and even harder to ask. I see a difference in my kids. My daughter asks for a lot of help, and gets it. My son is much more reluctant to ask; and he seems to be more on his own. Maybe women find it easier to ask for help?

     The kids who come into our tutoring center at the community college are asking for help, and they need it, for most of them are from economically disadvantaged families. Some of these kids get more out the center than others; but they are all trying -- trying to get an education, trying to get a better job, trying to grab a piece of the American dream that some people think is fading away.

     I'm sure there's one thing they know that I never did -- what "Buy Here! Pay Here!" means. And so regardless of what our own backgrounds are, I think we owe it to them to Pay It Forward.

     There's a movie called Pay It Forward starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. It came out in 2000 to mixed reviews -- by and large critics thought it was sentimental and syrupy while the audiences liked it. It's not on Netflix, but maybe I'll go down to the library and see if they have a DVD. Because I think we all need less "Pay Here!" and more "Pay It Forward."

Top Ten Reasons Why I Blog

     As I've mentioned before, I serve as one of about a dozen volunteer tutors in the Academic Support Center of our local community college. I help students with their papers, essays and tests, and coach them in how to improve their writing skills.

     Last week the coordinator of the writing center called me over to her desk. She thought it was interesting that I write a blog -- a form of writing that's relatively new and different, especially for an academic setting -- and asked me if I could convey the bogging experience in 300 or 400 words, to use in their newsletter. I decided I could, but didn't think I had to take the assignment too seriously . . .

     I introduced myself as a volunteer in the Writing Center, but admitted that in my secret life I write a blog. It’s called Sightings Over Sixty, and it covers baby boomers, retirement, health, finance, grownup children and . . . how time flies. My pen name – my nom de Internet, if you will -- is Tom Sightings. And I’m over 60 years old. Get it?

     A lot of my friends are curious about why I spend my time jotting down thoughts in cyberspace. So, what do I tell them? First of all, I point out that I’m not alone. A lot of people write blogs. (And I wonder -- why do you write a blog?) The web directory technorati counts 363 blogs about baby boomers alone. There are blogs about stamp collecting, knitting, golden retrievers and a thousand other topics.

     But if you really want to know, here are the top ten reasons why I blog.  To . . .

     10. Get something off my chest – I have a few opinions on things like health care and how people drive (in my opinion, unlike Lake Wobegon, most people are worse than average drivers!), and so I can spout off whenever I want.

     9. Make friends – I have over a hundred followers of my blog. Some of them I consider friends. In January, when I vacationed in Florida, I played golf with one of my blogging friends.

     8. Join a community – You don’t just get people to read your blog. They talk back, make comments, and usually, you end up following their blog as well. It’s a party!

     7. Make people laugh – I admit it, in my younger days I was a class clown. My teachers didn't think I was funny, but some of my classmates did. If you don't believe me, check out the Humor section of my blog, and you be the judge. But hey, gimme a break . . . it’s not easy to be funny!

     6. Make money – Yes, you can sign up for advertising programs though Google and Amazon, and earn money from your blog. Why, sometimes I earn as much as $3 in one day!

     5. Practice my writing skills – As you can see . . . I need the practice.

     4. Annoy my spouse – Since I write my blog under a different name, and I don’t identify my spouse by name, I can say anything I want!

     3. Stay out of trouble – I’m retired. Well, to be more accurate, I’m unemployed. But when you get to a certain age, you can call yourself retired instead. Blogging gives me something to do while my long-suffering spouse goes off to work.

     2. Make a name for myself – Wait a second, I write the blog under a different name, so how am I making a name for myself? Er, I guess I’d better rethink that one.

     And the Number 1 reason why I blog? I blog, therefore I am – It’s a little known fact, but all the great philosophers had their own blogs. The first blog? "In the beginning . . . .”

What the Tutor Learned

     As I mentioned once before, this fall I started volunteering as a tutor at the Writing Center of our local community college. I found the position through a connection I made with VolunteerMatch.org -- a website I recommend if you're looking to volunteer in your community.

     I applied for the job which included filling out an application, going for an interview, taking two writing tests, and supplying two recommendations. I trained for three days, then was given a badge and sent to help college students improve their essays and assignments, and to offer guidance on how to become better writers.

     The age range of students is 18 to about 40. So far, my most rewarding experience came when a 30-something woman asked for help on an application essay for a scholarship to nursing school. She'd written a powerful piece on how as a child her sister had fallen sick in their native village in Ghana, and she'd accompanied her sister to the hospital and watched as a nurse gave her sister medicine, held her hand, and helped her get better.

I volunteer here at the library

     The essay was powerful, as I said, but it was a little confused and riddled with bad grammar. I helped her straighten it out, and went home proud of myself, hoping that perhaps I might have made a difference in her getting that scholarship.

     I've assisted a couple of kids who are applying to continue on to four-year colleges; and obviously I've helped, by now, 25 to 30 students complete various class essays and homework assignments.

     Probably half of the people who arrive at the center are non-white -- blacks, Hispanics, a few Asians. But all of them come from families of modest means. I've seen exactly two students who seemed uninterested, who were probably there only because someone told them to come. The rest of the students are struggling to learn and develop their skills, in an admirable effort to make their way in this competitive world.

     Yesterday I was especially struck by a young fellow who I'd seen several times already. When he arrived I was busy with another student. He tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I could help him next. I was flattered that he wanted to wait for me, rather than seek help from one of the other volunteers. (There are typically three or four tutors in the Writing Center at any time. There are no appointments. Students come and go at their convenience; and in the month or so that I've been volunteering the Center has consistently been crowded with students seeking help.)

     This young fellow, about 25 or so, was born in Africa and grew up in Brooklyn -- not hip Brooklyn where the 20-somethings live, but a rougher part of the city. English is his second language. He's majoring in computer science, but taking a writing course to improve his English skills.

     The first thing a tutor asks the student is:  What's the assignment you're working on? This fellow was supposed to interpret and react to an essay by Maya Angelou on Joe Louis and a boxing match he won against an unnamed white opponent. (The essay is actually an excerpt from her memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.)

     The student summarized the essay, included a couple of good quotes, described how blacks at the time felt pride for themselves and their race, yet were still afraid to go home that night, fearing a white gang might descend on them and take violent retribution.

Joe Louis

     The conclusion my student reached is that despite the victory by Joe Louis back in the 1930s, despite the success of many black professionals in the decades since then, and despite the country electing a black president, the racism felt by regular, ordinary blacks in this country is just as bad today as it was when Joe Louis won that fight.

     When he read his conclusion (I try to have students read their essays aloud to me), I had to stop him. Sometimes the students get confused, or they don't write down exactly what they mean, and the flow of their essay comes out muddled.

     I asked him if that's was he really meant. Didn't he really mean that progress has been made in racial relations, as exemplified by those first steps by Joe Louis, but that much more needed to be done?

     No, he said. He meant what he'd written. Yes, he told me, some blacks have climbed up into the middle class. But the majority of blacks face racism every day, when they walk the streets and fear being stopped by the cops; when they go into a store, especially a high-end store, and are viewed with suspicion; when they rent an apartment, buy a car, go through an airport, or somehow end up walking through a white neighborhood.

     I suddenly realized what I was doing when I asked him about that statement -- I was projecting my own view of racism, which has only been formed third-hand through the media and by interactions with those blacks who have managed to work their way into professional jobs and who fit into the middle class.

     So I shut up. I let the young man finish reading his essay. I did help him make a few technical corrections on the paper, but I did not try to change his mind. He knows better than I do.

     That day I went home, not patting myself on the back for helping kids at my local community college. I went home chastened, maybe a little embarrassed by my own cluelessness. I don't know what I can do about it, except go back and try to help more kids as best I can. I wonder what paper this young man will bring me tomorrow?

No Accounting for Taste

     B and I are having a bit of a contretemps. She's being very unreasonable, in my opinion, so I thought I'd reach out to my friends in the blogosphere for some support. Because as you'll soon see, my position is obviously right, and B is just being ... impossible!

     It all started a few weeks ago when B and I were helping out at the used book sale at our local library. We were setting up, when what should come through the door as a donation but the coolest, neatest, bossest bookcase you've ever seen. It's custom made. It's homemade. By a master handyman, lovingly crafted for his child.

     Before the sale started, the ladies in charge of the book sale decided on a $50 price tag for the bookcase. But before the doors opened, they decided $50 was perhaps a bit too ambitious. They put a $40 sticker on it as the book sale began. They placed this piece of furniture in the back of the room, hoping it would draw people through the rows of books -- kind of like the way the supermarket places milk at the back of the store.

     Okay, the bookcase didn't sell for $40, so we moved it up next to the checkout counter and brought the price down to $30. Surely someone would grab it now.

     At 2 p.m. we dropped the price to $10, as a couple of the women started worrying about what we would do with this bookcase if it didn't sell at all. At 4 p.m. we marked the price at $5, but still it didn't sell, and the bookcase went into storage in the coat closet with the leftover boxes of books.

     We gave away the books -- some to the senior citizens home in town, and some to the prison up the highway. Our last disbursement occurred this past weekend when we went over to the library to help a woman load the last of the boxes into her SUV -- she is going to use the books in her literacy program and ESL classes.

     After all the boxes were gone, I spied the bookcase standing up against the back wall of the closet. "So I'll take the bookcase if no one else wants it," I ventured.

     The woman in charge of the book sale gave me a puzzled look. "Really?" she replied. "Well, go ahead, take it. We need to get rid of it."

     "Get rid of it?" I said. "It's a really cool bookcase. I can put it in my bedroom."

     That's when B came around the corner. "What's going on?" she challenged.
 
     "The bookcase," I explained. "I'm taking the bookcase."

My new bookcase, temporarily relegated to the basement.

     "No, you're not," she said, looking slightly panicked.

     "Yeah, we can put it in the corner of our bedroom."

     "No, we can't."

     "Well, alright, we can talk about that, but surely we can find someplace for it," I countered.

      "You're not serious."

     "Don't worry," I said, "it'll look good." I wedged the bookcase onto the dolly and carted it out the door. I wheeled it out to her minivan and slipped it into the back. B trailed after me, "You're really taking that?" she kept asking.

     And so, long story short, the bookcase is currently residing in our basement. I want to bring it upstairs to the bedroom. She wants me to bring it out to the curb for trash collection.

     Now, tell me the truth, don't you think it's pretty cool? One of a kind. Admit it . . .  wouldn't you like to have something like this in your bedroom? We're lucky to get it. So, come on, don't you agree it merits a special place?