GOING TO COLLEGE and NOT GOING TO COLLGE
By Richard K Munro
I have attended a few colleges in my life and got some benefits from them. The main barrier was COST. American colleges are very expensive. One should only go, in my humble opinion, if one has clear goals. It is important, for some careers, to have a formal diploma or credential. If I were young today I would take a practical course in Nursing or Engineering or Computer Science. Medicine or Law are good careers but very long and very expensive unless one can do them via the military. I many Navy nurses, doctors and Marine lawyers in my day. I would recommend to any young person to do at least one tour of duty or to join the National Guard or Reserves and for many this could be the way getting some college without incurring an enormous debt. I know a young man to worked and studying for ten years to finally get his BS in engineering and now has a very good job. But his first job after high school was in a supermarket in produce. But he kept on studying at junior college at night to get his AA and then finally transferred to a four year college.
When I did become a teacher in my early 30s I was a mature individual and so was able to handle the stress of the classroom and academic obligations. In high school I had studied five years of Spanish and two years of typing and those two skills helped me enormously in my professional career.
As a teenager, I studied some classes near to home at Seton Hall University and also a summer in Soria Spain via the University of Northern Iowa which was very influential in my life. The program no longer exists, sadly. I commuted to NYU via the 77 bus and the PATH train and it was (then) relatively inexpensive. I got a solid undergraduate education (BA with honors) but thought graduate school was too expensive and I really didn’t want to be in the classroom anymore. So my New York education was over. I took advantage of my time in New York to enjoy the museums and culture and baseball games (frankly the thing I miss the most) and made many side trips to Washington DC. (I was in the Marine Reserves and trained at Quantico.)
I wanted to see the world and have some adventure. So I joined the Marines and later lived in Spain and worked as a construction worker in the West. I always studied when I could and did some military history courses via American Military University. I found it very difficult to live, work AND formally study so usually my education was via books as an autodidact. I had some freedom because I always avoided accumulating school debt.
After a number of years in construction and later at the Bank of America I thought it would be best to go back to school to get some formal certifications. I had studied computers and accounting at the American Banking Institute and some of those classes were at Seattle University which at that time was across the street from the bank. I first thought I could get an MBA but then thought a better fit for me was to get a 5th Year Teaching certificate 4-12 which I did by working nights and going to school during the day.
The hardest part was student teaching (which I had to pay for) while working full-time to maintain benefits for my family and support them. In order to be as employable as possible I also got a certificate in English to go along with my Spanish and Social Studies certificate. I worked or studied seven days a week. for two years I cam home at 10 or 11 PM M-Thurs and 7PM on Saturdays. I did not watch television for about two years! I only saw my family briefly most days. On Sundays I was with my family from about 7am to 1pm but the rest of the time I had to read, study, and type school papers. I had dinner with my family only Sundays and after dinner, I stayed up as long as necessary to be ready for the next week.
I took the CBEST (California Educational Skills test) in Math and English and passed it. On April 26, 1989 I was interviewed at the Tacoma Dome by an administrator from Arvin High School (Kern HS District) in California. They expressed mailed me a contract as a bilingual Social Studies teacher Varsity Soccer coach and JV Baseball coach. In the meantime I planned to get my MA in Spanish via the University of Northern Iowa in Soria Spain in the summers so from 1989-1991 I got 30 credits, got a Bilingual Certificate of Competence and a California Clear Credential. That was the most expensive educational project I had ever done and cost about $25,000. I paid about $10,000 in cash in 1989 but borrowed the rest. It took me about 10 years to pay that off but in the meantime I was able to support my family, buy a home and get tenured in the Kern HS District. From 1991-2003 I really wasn’t able to study formally because I was working nights, summers etc. In 2004 an opportunity opened up for a Fellowship to the University of Virginia and I studied there for one year (30 credits) but even with the Fellowship it was extremely expensive as I was maintaining two homes our family home in California and a one-bedroom apartment in Charlottesville. I tried to save as much money as possible by walking to school and not having a car. I rented one occasionally but traveled mostly by bus and train. At first I hoped I might finish my PhD but it was just too expensive, For me to have continued I would have had to quit my job, cash in on my retirement and move the entire family to Virginia. And I wasn’t getting any younger I was 49 in 20O4. So I maxed out my salary scale cut my losses and went back to my full-time job in the Kern HS District. I have since done many GREAT COURSES on literature and history and have been studying languages via DUOLINGO. I intend to do self education for the rest of my life. I am tempted to do on line classes in a more formal setting at times the problem is the cost and of course, I don’t need any more degrees or formal certification, I am retired (I do some part-time translating for lawyers or tutoring) and I don’t think I will ever work again except something I really love to do.
CHRISTMAS IN THE TRENCHES 1914-1918 (AULD POP)
BY RICHARD K MUNRO
Thanksgiving 1959 to 2024
Thanksgiving is recognizing and thanking the One who has provided a gift or blessing.
We have blessing of the people in our lives whom we love and who love us,
If we have the blessings of physical health and sight and taste and hearing and strength,
We should rejoice and be glad -and thankful.
If we have material blessings, a home , a cozy library, a kitchen of our own, a bit to eat and a bit to drink, music to enjoy,
We should rejoice and be glad and thankful!
We should also be glad for the spiritual blessings which give serenity and peace to our souls.
I thank God for the blessing of memory so that my mother is always near and in my heart,
I thank God for having known my father -my mother never knew hers- he was killed
August 8, 1918.
I thank God for having known my father’s father and learned so much from him especially about
thankfulness.
When I complained I was having a bad day he used to say what is it? IS THAT ALL!
Laddie, it’s nae the end o’ the warld! It THAT”S a’ ye have tae worry aboot ye
hae nae worries at a’, aye! To be trapped in a dry cave in Galliopoli wi’ the Turk a-shootin’ doon and
a-comin’ if they can to cut your heid off -AYE that’s trouble!!!
AULD POP said:
Count your blessings, lad,
not your sorrows,
count your blessings, lad,
not your disappointments,
count your blessings,
not your losses though they be many,
Give Thanksgiving, lad,
Give Thanksgiving!
For all you have lived,
For all you will live,
and for all the joys and love and frienships in your life.”
Remember, you are lucky to be alive,
lucky to have someone to love,
lucky to be loved,
lucky to have a school to go to or a job to do,
lucy to have a roof over your heid
and lucky to have tea or soup at the boil.
Lucky to have a welcome behind the door when
you come home at night.
Lucky to have the light of morning in a new day
and there in the kitchen is your mother
getting breakfast ready for us all.
Aye, count your blessings lad.
Auld Pop is gone but he still is counting his blessings with us every Thanksgiving.
He is looking down from the mantle in his kilt even now.
It is April 6th , 1917 in Salonika.
America has entered the war and for him there will be no 5th Ypres
And he will live to tell stories and play records to his grandchildren
though he will sing no more.
For the gassing at Ypres 1915 hurt his lungs and his song is silenced forever.
But he still can whistle and drum out a tune.
And he counted his blessings despite the hardships and the exile and the separations
Because he lost a few years in the war but not his entire life.
Unlike more than 7,000 men in his Regiment and 197 men in his company.
They were 200 Scottish pals in August 1914 and by April 6, 1917 they were just three.
One thing I learned from Auld Pop was gratitude and the meaning of
Thanksgiving. Ne obliviscaris DO NOT FORGET
Tad Wert Reflects on His Vast Reading for 2024
The Bardic Depths: You’ve Written Poetry, My Boy
Nosound with Tim Bowness: Dogs (Pink Floyd)
You gotta be crazy, you gotta have a real need
You gotta sleep on your toes, and when you’re on the street
You gotta be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed
And then moving in silently, down wind and out of sight
You gotta strike when the moment is right without thinking
And after a while, you can work on points for style
Like the club tie, and the firm handshake
A certain look in the eye and an easy smile
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to
So that when they turn their backs on you,
You’ll get the chance to put the knife in
You gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder
You know it’s going to get harder, and harder, and harder as you get older
And in the end you’ll pack up and fly down south
Hide your head in the sand,
Just another sad old man
All alone and dying of cancer
And when you loose control, you’ll reap the harvest you have sown
And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone
And it’s too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around
So have a good drown, as you go down, all alone
Dragged down by the stone (stone, stone, stone, stone, stone)
I gotta admit that I’m a little bit confused
Sometimes it seems to me as if I’m just being used
Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake off this creeping malaise
If I don’t stand my own ground, how can I find my way out of this maze?
Deaf, dumb, and blind, you just keep on pretending
That everyone’s expendable and no-one has a real friend
And it seems to you the thing to do would be to isolate the winner
And everything’s done under the sun
And you believe at heart, everyone’s a killer
Who was born in a house full of pain
Who was trained not to spit in the fan
Who was told what to do by the man
Who was broken by trained personnel
Who was fitted with collar and chain
Who was given a pat on the back
Who was breaking away from the pack
Who was only a stranger at home
Who was ground down in the end
Who was found dead on the phone
Who was dragged down by the stone
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: David Jon Gilmour / Roger Waters
Dogs lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Songtrust Ave, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
IZZ: Collapse the Wave
The reasoning is mad
The quantum of the action
The spin up and down
Tunneling through barriers
Trapped teleportation
A real life simulation
Constructive interference
Destructive incoherence
Entanglement of life
Superconducting
A late irradiation
The building blocks of life
The things that we don’t see
Behave as waves
A light that can’t be seen
Is right in phase
The time is canceled out
Energy saved
Comе and look with me
Collapse the wavе
Come and look with me
Collapse the wave
The struggle and toil
We’re spinning on the surface
Always looking down
Tunneling through suffering
Of our own making
The joy is for the taking
Destructive incoherence
We fight the better fight
Just to see who’s right
Superconducting
Delayed radiation
Waiting for the cry
The things that we don’t see
Behave as waves
A light that can’t be seen
Is right in phase
The time is canceled out
Energy saved
Come and look with me
Collapse the wave
Come and look with me
Collapse the wave
Just give me a reason
Just give me a chance
Has the time come to collapse the wave?
What have we done?
Where will we be?
When there’s no one
With no want and need?
Fall on your knees
Consistently
What do you want?
What do you need?
The things that we don’t see
Behave as waves
A light that can’t be seen
Is right in phase
The time is canceled out
Energy saved
Come and look with me
Collapse the wave
The reasoning is mad
The quantum of the action
The spin up and down
Tunneling through barriers
Trapped teleportation
A real life simulation
The struggle and toil
We’re spinning on the surface
Always looking down
Tunneling through suffering
Of our own making
The joy is for the taking
Just give me a reason
Just give me a chance
Just give me a reason
Just give me a chance
To collapse the wave
Collapse the wave
The Cure: Alone
This is the end of every song that we sing
The fire burned out to ash, and the stars grown dim with tears
Cold and afraid, the ghosts of all that we’ve been
We toast with bitter dregs, to our emptiness
And the birds falling out of our skies
And the words falling out of our minds
And here is to love, to all the love
Falling out of our lives
Hopes and dreams are gone
The end of every song
And it all stops
We were always sure that we would never change
And it all stops
We were always sure that we would stay the same
But it all stops
And we close our eyes to sleep
To dream a boy and girl
Who dream the world is nothing but a dream
Where did it go?
Where did it go?
Broken voiced lament to call us home
This is the end of every song we sing
Where did it go?
Where did it go?
Where did it go?
Where did it go?
Broken voiced lament to call us home
This is the end of every song we sing, alone
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Robert James Smith
Alone lyrics © Lost Words Limited
Russell Kirk Against Liberalism
The Lewis Carroll You May Not Know
While Lewis Carroll is justifiably famous for his books Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass, he was also an accomplished mathematician. In his biography, Lewis Carroll in Numberland, Robin Wilson focuses on that aspect of his life.
Spirit of Cecilia 
You must be logged in to post a comment.