Time for Graduation!

 

              Hayter for May 21, 2023

                                                                   Mark            1967            Kay

“A Life After Graduation. Say What?

          I saw some pictures in the newspaper last week of graduating seniors. They were decked out in their flat, square caps with the attached tassel, and a long robe that practically covered their shoes. Yep, it’s beginning to look a lot like the end of school.

          My friend and fellow teacher Larry Salmons and I generally had graduation duty. There are a lot of duties for teachers. My least favorite was potty duty. Lunch duty was no fun either. For a few years at McCullough High, there was even a smoking duty. I’m thinking that’s been outlawed. But then I digress.

          High School graduation is one of those events in life, that you look forward to from junior high on. And then it arrives. Yahoo! And then it’s over. What do I do now? It’s one of those wobbly rungs on the ladder of life.

          If you’re an only child, your parents have likely made arrangements for your future. There were seven of us kids in the Hayter family. If you can afford it, you go to college. If you can’t afford it, then you get a job. If you’re one of three sisters, you get married. Not one of us was told that information. We just kind of picked that up.

          My oldest brother, Larry, got a job at Randall’s Super Market when he was a Sophomore in high school. Except for his one-year stint as an A&M cadet, Larry had a job every year until he retired. He was a postman for a good while. He never got to deliver the mail, but he did sort it. I think computers do that today. Eventually, Larry got a degree in chemistry that helped him get a job in the lab of one of the petrochemical refineries in Pasadena.

Dennis got a summer job as a lifeguard and worked his way through college. His younger brother, Mark, got a job in a factory that used asbestos, benzene, and other chemicals that would evaporate 10 seconds after you opened the drum. It was the stuff used to make pipe insulation and adhesives for fasteners.

So, during the summers, Dennis would tan while sitting in a tall chair watching people playing around in a large swimming pool with diving boards and a slide. And, he was given a whistle

While Dennis was doing that,  his kid brother Mark was in a smelly factory mixing weird chemicals coded with numbers into huge vats at a time when safety masks were not provided until a government inspector showed up. I didn’t make as much as Dennis, but I got to mix chemicals in a hot warehouse and fill the concoctions cans, put a lid on ‘em, and then stack ‘em on pallets.

After Dennis graduated college with a degree in Phys Ed., he got drafted and went to Viet Nam. He survived and came back unscathed… physically speaking. Then he went back to college and got a Master’s in Phys Ed. and became a coach.

My draft number was 338, so instead of going to Viet Nam, I made use of my degree in forestry and became a Forester for District Six of the Texas Forest Service in Conroe. Had I kept with the job for 10 years, I might’ve become a decent forester. Instead, I quit after two years and went to Sam Houston State where I got a Master's in History and Political Science and became a high school teacher with Conroe ISD.

It was when I retired from teaching that I realized how much I enjoyed the job. I didn’t care for grading papers and preparing lesson plans, but I enjoyed talking to and with high schoolers. It helps if you can remember what it was like to be in high school.

Big Al, the youngest Hayter boy got a job with the telephone company immediately after he graduated from Pasadena High. This was back when phones were hooked to wires affixed to telephone poles. Surely they don’t still call ‘em telephone poles. And don’t call me Shirley. 

Al was soon promoted to telephone repairman, where he got to go to homes and repair…uh, telephones. After that, he got the job of traveling around to small facilities that had a lot of wasps in ‘em but no windows. He would do stuff with wires. He tried to explain it to me once, but I couldn’t make sense of it. I just knew I didn’t want to be alone in a small windowless concrete structure with wasps.

My sisters, Lynda and Susan got married immediately after high school and each raised a family. Jill worked at Oshman’s headquarters for a while before getting married and raising a family. Each of the sisters ended up with tougher jobs than their brothers.

I don’t see how any of this info could benefit any of this year’s graduating seniors. No way could anyone earn enough money in one summer to pay for a year of college. And, obviously, many graduating seniors have no desire to get a college degree. That opens up many other options. 

The bottom line is not, “What do I want to do?”, as much as it is, “What can I afford to do?” Fortunately, we live in a country where you don’t have to stick with your first choice, assuming you can afford a second choice.  

Regardless, there comes a time in each person’s life when this question will arise. -- “If I had it to do over again, what would I do?” The answer will not change a thing. The only question that truly matters is.  – “What should I do now?”

The beauty of that question lies in the fact that it does not necessarily have to relate to getting a job… unless your job means everything to you. 

END 

hayter.mark@gmail.com

James Webb finds a buncha light

 

Hayter for May 14, 2023

“I See the Light”

Today’s topic has dazzled my mind, and I’m fairly sure it will dazzle something of yours. It has to do with the Final Frontier, or what Cap’n Kirk calls “Space”. – So, I’m going to go ahead and take off.

I choose to start with the largest explosion in the history of the Universe. I capitalized the word “Universe” because it’s big. It’s so big that it supposedly goes on forever. Begging the question, “How long did it take the Universe to grow that big?” And, if it’s the Universe, where did it find a neverending place to gobble up?

          Try to get that out of your mind, because right now, I am going to share a fascinating discovery that I read in a science magazine. The article had really big words in it, so I’m taking it as fact. The fact is that scientists have determined that the greatest explosion in the Universe occurred at a place 8 billion light years away from Earth. The explosion was caused by a gigantic space cloud of hydrogen that swallowed up a massive black hole.

          I’m assuming the light from the explosion just recently got to us, and when it did, someone calculated how far away the explosion occurred, and how long it will take for the SOUND of the explosion to reach us, keeping in mind that sound waves don’t travel in space.

          One other question, if I may, did the explosion travel in every direction? Up, down, outta town? Are there beings on other planets just now getting light of this light? More than that, you’ve got to ask yourself, “Where was God standing when this thing went off?” – (Had I thought that God didn’t have a sense of humor, I would not have made that observation.)

          Yes siree, that was the most bizarre news item I came across last week. A second one that is worthy of note, has to do with the number of moons circling our eight planets. Keeping in mind that our ninth planet Pluto lost its planetary designation because it had trouble maintaining a rotation. In other words, Pluto never was a planet. It was a cheater. 

          Of the eight true planets in our solar system, Jupiter has the second-most number of moons. When I was in school Jupiter had 12 moons. My seventh-grade science teacher said there were only five, and I believed her because I had never heard of the 12-moon theory. Over many decades, 83 more moons have been found circling Jupiter, upping the number to 95… and counting. 

          The extra moons didn’t just show up. They were there most of the time. It’s just that we never could see them until we started sending up satellites with keen eyesight. Then when the James Webb Space Satellite went up a couple of years back, moons came out of nowhere!

          Saturn has more moons than any other planet, 145. One of the moons that was located in 1990 is shaped like a ravioli. It’s flat with a bulge in the middle. I kid you not. It’s an insult to moons everywhere. And, get this, seventeen of Saturn’s moons travel in the opposite direction of its other moons. I don’t know why. More importantly, I don’t know how. I’m not even sure scientists know, but I have every confidence they’ve come up with something I can’t argue with.

          Let’s not ignore our other mooned planets. Venus and Mercury don’t have any moons… that we know of. Mars has two, Uranus 27, and Neptune 14. Pluto had five up to the time they discovered it wasn’t a planet. I assume a scientist pulled Pluto’s five moons out of the air, so he could name one after each of his kids. That’s what’s called an educated guess.

          Before we leave our steller realm, (as if it’s possible!) I will now address what I consider to be the most valuable scientific innovation since rearview mirrors. Obviously, I’m talking about the creation of the James Webb Space Telescope mentioned earlier. That son of a gun was shot into space two years ago and is now a million miles away from us. And, get this – It is not orbiting Earth, it’s orbiting the sun! The earth’s gravitational pull keeps Webb from taking off on its own. We couldn’t let it do that because the light from the earth and the sun would’ve messed up most of the photos it sends us.  

What they had to do was, uh… Tell you what, let’s listen to NASA’s chief Scientist explain it to his work staff. --  “Okay, people, listen up! This James Webb Telescope thingy has got to travel a million miles away from Earth, all the while facing the dark side of the Earth while moving at a speed that will let it maintain a perfect line with Earth without actually orbiting it. It must orbit the Sun, or else we’ll get lousy photos! I need to see something by Thursday next week. Everybody get busy!”  -- Does that sound anything like your boss? Or, spouse?

          One last thing before you pass out. Do you remember me mentioning a few minutes ago about the great explosion that occurred eight billion light years away? Well, the James Webb Space Satellite has discovered another speck of light coming from 13.5 billion light years away. That’s the furthest light that’s ever been noticed from Earth… so far. 

          It begs the question, what’s the farthest inhabited planet from Earth whose scientists have discovered light from our sun? Are any of the inhabitants visiting? If so, has any one of you introduced them to HEB’s Creamy Creations Texas Starry Night Ice Cream? I discovered it three weeks ago. Things haven’t been the same since. – That’s the last thing I wanted to share with you because it’s got “Starry Night” in it. That, and it’s really good. – Till next time!

hayter.mark@gmail.com                        

 end

 

 

           

 Hayter for May 7, 2023

“May Days”

        I shall start off today by telling you that May 21 is "International Talk Like Yoda Day". -- Not, I will such a day celebrate.  

    However, I like May. The month, not your aunt… although I’m sure she’s a peach. When I was teaching, the month of May was my third favorite month because it was a good indication that the end of school was knocking at the door. Or ‘on’ the door? (Teachers are expected to know everything.)
 
    But, for now, let’s get past teachers. When I was a student, the month of May was a wonderful indication of the end of school, and a foreshadowing of final exams. It was a pain in High School, but in college, for the most part, the finals were killers.

    “Physics and Heat”? Libraries are full of books about the stuff I never learned. My physics professor was supposedly one of the top 10 physicist in the Country. Smart as all get out, but he didn’t know how to relate to anyone in class. Fortunately, God let his Student Aide be the one to average grades. I never passed one of the professor’s tests, and made a “C”.  

     That being said, the worst test I ever took was in “Bowling”! How hard could a bowling test be? That’s the attitude I had when I entered the classroom. --  Question #3: “What is the name for the position of bowling pins when only the 4th and 9th pins are standing?” -- What? It’s got a name? And the test was fill-in-the-blank, NOT multiple-choice!

    I made a “C” in bowling, but only because the coach didn’t let the written exam count enough to fail me. He just wanted to humiliate me.

    I didn’t mean to get into all of that, but the memory of my “C” in bowling won’t leave me alone. – Excuse me. --  “Like a rock, I was strong as I could be: Like a rock, nothin' ever got to me…” -- Bob Seger’s lyrics have been known to pick me up.

     Right now, I’m back on track of sharing good stuff about the month of May. One nice thought was that May 2 was “National Brother and Sister Day”. I think I referred to that last week. It doesn’t matter, because my siblings and I did no celebrating. Hey, they’ve got kids. I’m much better off with only Kay.

    Speaking of which, our neighbors have two kids – Oliver and Rooney. I’ve mentioned them before. Remember Oliver making chalk drawings on out driveway? The boy’s quite talented. His little sister’s talent is in being the most adorable little munchkin head on the planet. 

        She’s a tad over two and makes me wish I was a granddad. During the Easter egg search, Rooney kept trying to give me each egg she found. And she was holding the basket! I guess for balance. Of course, the eggs were plastic with candy inside. Just like the ones that didn’t exist when I was a kid.

        But Rooney is a wonderment. A wonderment with a name that I love but am not sure how to spell. I’ll have to wait until she’s three years old to ask her. Yep, I’d be a super grandfather. And no, I don’t care to babysit any of your children. Not even Oliver and Rooney. I’ve found that the few children who enjoy my company, usually start having issues after the first 20 minutes. Most of them after about five.

        Speaking of today, May 7th,  it is “World Laughter Day”. I don’t know why, except that it’s so much better than August 7th. If you ever see me smiling on any date in August, I’m faking it.

        But, May is fine. I don’t know if you’re aware, but tomorrow is “No Socks Day”. If you already knew that, I’m worried about you. There’s something not right about walking around without socks; however, it is supposed to stimulate the flow of blood in your toes and other portions of your feet. It also helps your leg muscles and any other things that are remotely affected by your feet. -- Your teeth? Not so much.

        One thing that’s misleading about “No Socks Day” is that if I wear shoes with no socks, my feet sweat. Sweat inside a shoe is nothing to celebrate.  Regardless, someone with authority thought it would be nice for us not to wear socks tomorrow. I’m sure there’s a “No Shoes Day”. I’ll let you know when it comes.
    
        But here’s the killer. You wanna know what the killer is? Tuesday, May 9th, is “Memorial to Lost Socks Day.” I don’t know who started it, but I did discover a statistic about it. Sock scientists tell us that every person who wears socks loses 1.3 of them each month. The research was developed by scientists who asked 2000 sock wearers how many socks they lost in 2022. After doing the math, they came up with the 1.3 a month. Ingenious, says a guy who almost failed bowling.

        There are over 200 more holidays in May, but I just don’t have the space to mention stuff like, May 4th was supposed to be the “National Day of Reason”.  And, no, I don’t know why. May 14th is not only “Mother’s Day”, but it’s also “Dance like a Chicken” Day. I don’t think it’s necessary to celebrate that in front of our Mother.

        May 20th is “Be a Millionaire Day”. May 21st is likely to be “Spend 20 Years to Life in Prison Day.”  May 29th is not only our hallowed Memorial Day, but it’s also “Put a Pillow on Your Fridge Day.” I had to research that one. Turns out, a pillow on your fridge is supposed to make you wealthy. In my house, it would be called “Mark’s Straight Jacket Day.”

        I feel a need to celebrate May 31 today. That is “Speak in Complete Sentences Day.” -- As if.  

end

hayter.mark@gmail.com