We Minnesotans know what it’s like to brave all kinds of weather as we go to the polls in November to cast our votes. We Minnesotans are fairly experienced with enduring electing all manner of people in high office in our usually left-leaning state. We Minnesotans also know what it means to wait for exceedingly long periods of time for important election results (i.e. the recent Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken.)

Well, while we wait, I’m offering an opportunity for readers to cast their vote here on the blog and have it counted, accurately and quickly.

I have several rough drafts in the works, but am a little stuck. So I’m going to let you, the reader, decide what I should write about in my next post. Please look at the list below, decide what you would like to see on the blog next, and cast your vote by telling me your choice at the bottom of this post in the “comments” section. If you would like to remain anonymous, just tell me that when you leave your choice, and I will count your vote but not publish your comment.

1.  Last But Not Least (my 5th favorite book of all time)

2.  Letters in the Sand

3.  Denel

4.  Pecans in My Pocket

5.  Organ Lessons

6.  Ten-Minute Challenge

7.  Rorschach Towel

8.  The Best Rooster’s Beak

9.  “Bring Them Here to Me”

10. Once Upon a Toile

11. The Quest for Beauty

12. Night-time Ritual

13. “Yook at dat yake!”

14. Dixon

Polls are open now, and you don’t have to go out in the weather to make your voice heard. Polls close at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18, 2009.

Blessings,

My son-in-law Jeremy recently put together a photo and video montage of their four children for me, set to a song I love. I have watched the little production on my computer several times, and of course the tears well up when I see how quickly time is passing and how my grandchildren are growing up right before our eyes.

Hearing this very familiar song again made me want to share it with you, even though you’ve probably heard it before. It’s really a masterpiece of simplicity and truth, in my opinion…an anthem for what life as a follower of Jesus is all about. All that’s needed for life in Christ is contained in these words. I hope you will turn up your speakers a bit, turn on the song, and scroll down and follow the words as you listen.

(Click on the dark red words just below, then once it opens, click on the play arrow:)

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Untitled Hymn (Come to Jesus)- words and music by Chris Rice

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Untitled Hymn (Come to Jesus)

Weak and wounded sinner
Lost and left to die
O, raise your head, for Love is passing by
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus and live!

Now your burden’s lifted
And carried far away
And precious blood has washed away the stain, so
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus and live!

And like a newborn baby
Don’t be afraid to crawl
And remember when you walk
Sometimes we fall…so
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus and live!

Sometimes the way is lonely
And steep and filled with pain
So if your sky is dark and pours the rain, then
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus and live!

O, and when the love spills over
And music fills the night
And when you can’t contain your joy inside, then
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus and live!

And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on glory’s side, and
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live!

Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live!

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So, in case anyone’s paying attention, I would like this song played or sung at my funeral. 🙂

Waiting for my wings,

Thank you all for sharing your random things – I was hoping they would bring a chuckle and they certainly did. I have some funny and quirky readers (and daughters!).

Deb is this month’s bloggy giveaway winner, and will be receiving a gift certificate to amazon.com to spend on anything she likes. Maybe she’ll buy that new Kindle she wants and can use the certificate to download some books to read on that dock she’d like to sit on, listening to loons and the lapping waves, and wearing her Birkenstocks and eating guacamole while contemplating sleeping past 5:55 a.m. 🙂

Congratulations, Deb!

Here are some upcoming blog posts I’m working on:  “Bring them here to Me”, Pecans in My Pocket, “I want to ______ well!”, Organ Lessons, Night-time Ritual, “Yook at dat yake!” and Denel.

If I had my druthers….

…this would be our humble abode…

…and like these on our heather hills, we would lie down in green pastures…

…and my husband would have to start wearing this…

…and we would take a break twice a day for this…

…until our daughter (who sells wool yarn) coerced us into doing this…

…and we’d be so exhausted we’d need this each morning for our alarm clock…

…and then I would insist that my three daughters would come to visit us often so they could learn to do this….

…but that’s only if I had my druthers…

1.   Our office used to be bright yellow with lots of dark stained wood trim, and as of this week is now a soothing, light aqua blue with lots of creamy white trim.

2.   I made the best batch of guacamole I’ve ever tasted yesterday (will share the recipe if anyone would like it).

3.   I love Google Earth (have you looked at Mt. Everest, Lake Superior or even your own house with it yet? Scary, but so fascinating…)

4.   The temps were in the lower forties this week, so I wore my Birkenstocks outside.

5.   I am looking for a part-time employee who loves organizing paperwork.

6.   I’m reading the first novel I’ve ever read on my new Kindle (Enchanted April).

7.   I believe my seven grandchildren are the funniest, smartest, sweetest, most interesting people I’ve ever met.

8.   Michael and I think the book of Acts is very exciting reading.

9.   When I daydream, I think of living in a small house with a stone fireplace, of walking down a winding, wooded path in autumn, of yearly visiting the Highlands of Scotland, flocks of cardinals in my yard, deep blue Minnesota lakes, naps by a friendly fire, teaching, finally learning how to pray, the kindness in my husband’s eyes, experiencing a deep peace and abiding joy, and being still, so I can know He is God.

What are your nine random things? Or seven random things? Or three?

Leave a comment and you might be the winner of the March bloggy giveaway! I think I will actually use Random.org this month, so even if you’re the first to comment, you could very well win the prize.  🙂

I’m a pretty sentimental person, and I treasure the gifts people have given me. A ceramic fish made by my daughter Carolyn hangs in my office and all I have to do is look at it and my eyes fill. Cardinals in all forms perch all over my house, photos in pewter frames of people I love are placed everywhere, blue and white mugs by the dozen rest on shelves all over my kitchen walls, and books of all sizes are piled high and low. I’ll sometimes pick up a book and see the inscription penned inside by a friend twenty years ago, and let myself be transported back to that time of our lives. Or I’ll often choose a blue and white cup just because I want to think of the loved one that gave it to me, pray for them and “feel the love” as I drink from the item they selected just for me. I continue to be moved and grateful years later for the gifts that have graced my life.

I’m in awe of people who are really thoughtful gift-givers. People who have paid attention so well to another person, that they know just what to give them for a present. All three of my daughters are thoughtful and observant gift-givers; I am a terrible gift-giver so I don’t know where they learned this skill. I usually buy books or gift certificates for people and feel a little embarrassed that I’m not the kind of person who knows just the right style of wall plaque or tea towels or doo-dads that will go perfectly in each friend’s house. I don’t usually know what kind of earrings someone likes best, whether or not they still collect Fiesta-ware or Spode, and chances are I’m not sure what someone’s signature perfume is either. So when I see others who excel at this kind of attentive thoughtfulness, I’m always humbled and touched. I would like to be a more thoughtful gift-giver.

I received a gift recently that touched my heart so deeply I knew I wanted to write about it. It came in the mail, unannounced and unexpected; a wrapped package from my dear friend Kay, whom I met and have grown to love through Community Bible Study.

Kay has recently taken up knitting, and decided to make some scarves as gifts. I opened the wrapped package and lifted out a gorgeous, burgundy colored scarf, just the right width and length. The knitting was flawless. I wound it around my neck as I oohed and aahed, and reached for the card Kay enclosed. She wrote:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Here is something
Made just for you

The wool was painted
By your eldest with care
I knit it with love
Each stitch, a prayer

This is when the tears began to flow, because I realized that Kay had made this scarf for me with yarn hand-dyed by my oldest daughter Sharon, who dreamed up and used to run a yarn business in Maryland, called Three Irish Girls. I sat down and examined it, fingering the soft and now doubly precious scarf, and pondered all that had to go into this moment. I pictured the yarn being meticulously hand-dyed in Sharon’s studio outside Washington D.C., and the thoughtfulness it took for Kay to order the yarn from Sharon, knowing it would bless me in such a tangible way. I envisioned Kay sitting evenings with her family in their beautiful lake home, with this scarf forming row by methodical row on her needles. And I was overwhelmed with awe and gratitude that my faithful friend prayed for me over and over as she crafted this rich and soft piece, which warms and comforts me in a way no other scarf does.

Living in northern Minnesota gives me ample opportunities to wear scarves, as we have cold weather a full seven months of the year. And now that I have short hair I reach for them even more. But this scarf is extra-special. I love everything about it. The colors, the feel, the size, the stitch, the dyer, the knitter…

And when I put it on, I feel wrapped in love and prayer.

I have several more serious blog posts I’m working on, but am just not in the mood today. So for fun, I thought I’d share something more lighthearted.

On my blog I have a feature that allows me to see what words people are using when they go to Google.com (or other search engines) and are looking for (or accidentally happening upon) my blog. I looked at it today and it made me laugh.

Most people reach this blog by simply typing www.JustJulieB.com into their browser field. Others tell me they have it bookmarked. I have bookmarked several good blogs that I love to read as well (take a look at some of them, listed directly to the left of this paragraph). Some people are still using Google to visit this site, and that’s just fine if it works for you.

But it’s clear that some people visit my blog completely by accident because they’ve typed in random words at Google, obviously looking for something much different than what they find when they click on any Google link to JustJulieB.

Here are some recent examples of the words people have used in Google searches, that inadvertently led them to this blog:

“German house” – I did write about living in Germany, but I’ll bet this wasn’t what that person was looking for.

“Schnauzer cold weather nasal” – well, Edith the Schnauzer does make a lot of nasally sounds when she’s sleeping, and we are having a snowstorm today, so cold weather does apply…

“Authentic Muesli” – I did post my favorite Muesli recipe a while back so hopefully they weren’t too disappointed when they found my version…

“Trees” – can you imagine anyone doing a generic search on a subject so broad as “trees” and ending up on this blog? 🙂

“Bleach scent addictions” – oh dear, this person was looking for help I can’t give them…

“Old age personality changes” – well, that one certainly rings a bell with me, but I’m not sure they found the geriatric/psychological help they were seeking…

“Just Jazzy Julie” – this is most definitely not the right Julie site for that person – to my knowledge, “jazzy” isn’t something I have ever been called…

“Big Picture Person Definition” – did this person hear a friend say, “I’m more of a big picture person” and turned to Google when she couldn’t find help in Webster’s? 🙂

“What does Jesus mean to you?” – they’re getting warmer – that is certainly something I’d write about and ask my readers to share about…

“Purple and orange sea slug” – this is one that many Google searches have sent my way recently – there must be an assigned paper that whole classrooms are doing on nudibranchs this week…

“Just Julie Entertainment” – yes, this is the company I will be founding soon, in keeping with my entertaining, energetic and overly optimistic personality…

“Do you have a life verse?” – one of the most common searches people use and end up on this site. Well, I’ll ask again – do you have a life verse? 🙂

“Lord of the Rings Bilbo flips out” – this made me laugh out loud. Who knows what the person searching Google thought when they accidentally happened upon this blog post at my site?

I don’t know what anyone else is searching for today, but I’m searching high and low for signs of God’s help and activity in my life and in the lives of those I love.

I’m not looking for it on Google, though…

Several months ago I received a disconcerting phone call. It was from the supervisor of one of the people we care for and have regular contact with, and she wanted me to know that T. had possibly been exposed to head lice. **Groan** Someone at T.’s work had lice, and that person’s coat had hung on the coat rack next to T.’s coat. So they just wanted us to know, so we could be aware. Because their coats had touched. Possibly.

Well, that was enough for me, and my mind went into overdrive. As soon as T. came home, I sat her down and started checking her hair and scalp. Mind you, I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly, but I thought if I looked closely enough I’d be able to see either A) little eggs, or B) a tiny live louse or two having a heyday. I didn’t find anything, but then again I wasn’t sure what to look for, so of course I went online and did some research. (A word of caution: if you like to sleep well at night, don’t go online and look at large magnified photographs of lice and their eggs.)

The more I looked, the more unnerved I became. We can’t get lice, not with all the people we have in our house! I checked everyone’s scalp and hair, looking for any sign of eggs. I checked pillows and blankets. I pored over hats and collars. Every little piece of dry skin, every flake of dandruff, each speck of lint on pillows I found, was scrutinized. Then I looked at more pictures online, but I still wasn’t certain I knew how to identify what I was looking for.

That evening, I started to itch. Badly. I scratched my head a little and tried to put thoughts of lice from my mind. That worked for seven minutes and then the itching grew in intensity and finally just became constant. I tried to look at my scalp by holding a hand mirror and standing close to another mirror, but I am “visually challenged” and couldn’t see anything but my own hair. By the time I went to bed I was certain that I, myself, had a massive and teeming lice infestation and soon the whole house would have to be tented and fumigated by a pest control agency. (As Dave Barry says, I am not making this up.) I was almost in tears. I had Michael look carefully to see what he could find, but he couldn’t see anything either. I slept fitfully that night and woke up just as itchy the next morning.

There were only three options, as I saw it. One was to panic and assume there were now billions of lice in every nook and cranny of our house, and head to the drug store to buy a case of nerve-toxic delousing liquid, and treat every person in our house immediately. Option Two was to try to use mind over matter, restrain myself from gouging and violently scraping my now-tender scalp, speak firmly and authoritatively to myself and say, “Julie, there are no lice here. Get a hold of yourself!  T. doesn’t have lice, her coat doesn’t have lice, you don’t have lice, no one else in this house has lice, and you can relax now and move on.” Option Three was to call my friend Carey.

I remembered that a few years ago, Carey’s young son had gotten lice. They found out that he got them by putting on a hat that had just been on someone else’s head who had lice. Now, everyone knows that lice like to pay social calls to the nicest and cleanest of people. Having head lice doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t washed their hair, kept their house spic and span, or made personal hygiene a top priority. Usually a lice infestation means that a person was in the wrong place at the right time, as in the case of Carey’s son. To the person who has lice, this is small comfort.

Well, Carey did everything a good mother would do. She treated her son right away with the lice-and-nit-killing shampoo, and then compulsively went through his hair with a nit-comb sixteen times a day for the next three weeks. She checked her husband, her other children, and herself. She found a couple of nits in her own hair, so then treated herself. She didn’t rest until she was certain the last louse and/or nit was dead and gone from her home. It wasn’t a fun time, and I remember feeling so sorry for what Carey and her family were going through.

But now because of her experience, in my estimation Carey was a Certified Lice Expert. The next morning I called and told her about the phone call from T.’s supervisor. Carey patiently explained to me what I should be looking for, how the nits were not white and round, but were slightly elongated and like teeny, tiny beige grains of rice stuck to the hair follicles. I got off the phone and searched again, but every microscopic light-colored fleck in my house now looked like a louse egg to me. My head was so itchy and I was growing more miserable by the minute. I finally called Carey back and asked her in a voice of quiet desperation, “Carey, can I just come over and have you look at my head to see if I have lice?”

“Of course you can!” she soothed, so I grabbed the car keys, waved to Michael and headed out. In the time it took for me to drive to Carey’s house, she had gathered and set up all the essential tools for detecting whether or not I was a lousy friend, and was waiting for me at the front door when I arrived.

She had this huge magnifying glass with a bright light attached to it, she had a chair set up under the light, and she had the nit-comb in hand, which she had needed for her son years before. I sat down in the chair and braced myself. Carey was a Certified Lice Expert, and in a few minutes I would find out if The Bugs of Doom had taken up residence on my scalp, and therefore my pillows, car, carpets, beds, house, yard and neighborhood. Carey parted my hair and peered closely. She parted it again and again and examined every part of my scalp, methodically and gently. And may I add, compassionately, because she knew what kind of a dither I had worked myself into. At one point she said, “Oh, Julie, you’ve actually scratched some raw spots on your head.” I thought to myself, blood and scabs I can deal with; lice I cannot.

After about twenty minutes of careful examination, Carey straightened up and announced that I did not have head lice. What relief! What a burden lifted! I could resume my life now, and I thanked Carey profusely for being the kind of friend who would drop everything to dig through a friend’s hair to hunt for blood-thirsty insects.

It took over a day for my nerve endings to get the message that it wasn’t necessary to itch anymore. Even though my mind was at ease, I found it interesting that it took some time for my body to follow. I checked everyone in our household again and never found anything, thank God. And I was amazed at the power of suggestion, how just a hint of the possibility of something brought real symptoms.

Carey and I have laughed about this little episode in our friendship, the memory of me sitting helpless in her living room while she hovered over me, digging through my hair. Even though it gives me the heebie-jeebies to think about it, I’m grateful for her. I know that she’s the kind of friend I can turn to when I’m really feelin’ lousy.

A few days after my scalp had quieted down and things were back to the blessed ordinary, I sent Carey this picture by email to express my appreciation for how she had ministered to me. Oh, we’ve gotten more than a few chuckles out of this photo! (That’s Carey on the left, and I’m the one with the white eye-shadow. I can’t remember who the other two are.)

I told her that it was a photo of the both of us, and I titled it “True Friendship.”   🙂

Yesterday and I wrote about a teacher I had in eighth grade who truly made a difference in my life. Now it’s your turn!  You can all be guest bloggers today on Thankful Thursday, and tell your own story.

Who is your favorite teacher and why are you thankful for him/her? What grade did he/she teach? What subject? Where? What did he/she do or say that encouraged you and made a difference in your life? What words did he/she say that are still ringing in your ears? What other details do you remember about that teacher and/or that school year?

It’s easy to leave a comment and you can even choose to be anonymous if you like. Just click on the word “Comment” at the bottom of this post. This will take you to a simple little typing area where you can put in a few words, type your comment and then simply click “Submit Comment.”

Let’s reminisce today,

They are the caterpillar years. Those awkward years between childhood and adulthood when we’re no longer the adorable little kids we once were, and aren’t yet the cool grownups we will be. The caterpillar years are often marked by growth spurts, acne and sudden (or perhaps I should say sullen) personality changes that make parents uneasy. Those years are often pivotal in people’s lives and I know more than one person who remembers the junior high school years as the time they made the choices that steered them toward success or failure in future years.

In the Midwest, children in the caterpillar stage attend what is called Middle School. Where I live now, Middle School used to mean seventh, eighth and ninth grades, then was changed several years ago to include fifth through eighth grades. In Southern California it was called Junior High School, and when I attended, it meant just seventh and eighth grades.

At Traweek Junior High School, I experienced a lot of firsts. It was the first time we moved from classroom to classroom for our different subjects. It was the first time I had a locker. It was the first time we had P.E. (Physical Education) and had to change our clothes for it. It was the first time I went to a school dance. And because several elementary schools fed into this junior high school, it was the first time I was in classes where I didn’t know most of the other kids.

I also remember every single one of my teachers. In Kindergarten, Mrs. Staton played the piano and daily gave us graham crackers and a small carton of milk. I remember that in first grade, Mrs. Weber tsk-tsked at me and gave me a C in Deportment. In second grade Mrs. Lokken taught me to say “Rabbit!” and told my father at parent conferences that I had real potential. He told me, and I thought maybe things would be okay after all. In third grade, one of our fifty weekly spelling words was our pretty teacher’s last name: Giauque. In fourth grade, Mrs. Migdal taught us how to make dioramas to illustrate books we read. In fifth grade, Mrs. Rorex kindly let me wear a pair of her shoes when mine got drenched on the way to school as I walked through the dew-soaked soccer field. In sixth grade Miss Curry taught us about poise by example and Venezuela by text.

In seventh grade, when I wasn’t even aware that over the summer I had turned into a caterpillar, I had several teachers: Mr. Wade, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Rose, Mr. Neely, Mrs. Kiger (who taught P.E. and weighed and measured us all the first week – I was 5’7″ and 95 pounds) and Mr. Boyd. We had left off our beloved hopscotch and turned to hanging in the halls in what we thought were cool clumps. The days of playing foursquare faded into days of figuring out how to wear eye makeup and how to dance to Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” and look like we’d been born doing it.

By the eighth grade, I knew girls who “went steady” with new boys every couple of weeks, but I was getting taller and ganglier, and I was never one of them. I remember a boy I had a crush on from a distance, and how blissful I thought life would be if he would cast a glance my way. In the wisdom that comes from hindsight I can see that if my prayers had been answered about him, I would probably have ended up a motorcycle mama or at the very least a disillusioned and lonely young woman.

Enter Mr. Fred Contreras. In eighth grade he was my teacher for two classes each day – English and Social Studies. I was surrounded by brilliant students who could do advanced math in their heads and probably went to M.I.T. and are now wearing pocket protectors and working for NASA. I was just a tall, freckled and skinny thirteen year-old who liked swimming and books, in that order. School had largely been a pleasant experience for me and I had done fairly well, but Mr. Contreras was a different kind of teacher, and broadened my little world in a way that still plays out thirty-eight years later.

Perhaps the most striking thing about having Mr. Contreras as a teacher during those angst-laden caterpillar years, was that he treated us with respect and without a hint of condescension. Last time I checked, junior high school students were in the running for the most annoying humans on the planet, but an observer in Mr. Contreras’s classroom wouldn’t have gotten that vibe from him. I’m sure each morning he looked out at the blase, pimply-faced, short-skirted group of us and saw an ungainly bunch of caterpillars, but I also think he saw what we could become. He knew we were in transition and these were hard years for many of us. But he also knew we were capable of a lot and that someone needed to ask us to step to the plate. He did, and we stepped up.

His was not a classroom where crowd control was needed. Author Frank McCourt wrote that his first momentous words uttered as a teacher were “Stop throwing sandwiches!” In his whole career as an educator I doubt if Mr. Contreras ever had to issue that command. His serious, quiet manner carried an air of authority that we understood meant we were there to learn.

We read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and Shakespeare’s Macbeth (out loud) and Steinbeck, and suddenly Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew seemed like cartoon characters in comparison. I still like the older Nancy Drew books, but back in eighth grade I recall thinking, “Does he expect us to actually get this stuff?” He did expect us to get it, and with his help, we did.

We all sensed that he cared about us as human beings. Our class loved and respected Mr. Contreras so much that when we found out the date of his birthday, we all conspired with his wife Kathy on how to surprise him with a classroom party. Taking donations so we could purchase for him the six-inch thick The Complete Works of Shakespeare was effortless – every student wanted to give. We all signed our names inside the front cover, to convey to him that the way he had treated us and taught us, really meant something. We also learned that he liked the song “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” so gave him a CCR record. We might have been just another class of thirteen year-olds to him, but he was not just another teacher to us.

After many years passed I started teaching my three daughters at home, and I pondered how much books had impacted our lives. I wrote a letter to Mr. Contreras about what a wonderful teacher he had been. I often think nice things about people and fail to tell them; I decided not to go that route with him. Since then we have exchanged e-mails and occasional phone calls, and now that I’m fifty-one I guess I should call him Fred. It doesn’t roll off the tongue easily, because I still think of him as Mr. Contreras.

When my father died in late 2007 my husband and I flew back to California to attend his funeral, and we were so grateful to also be able to have dinner with Fred and his wife Kathy.

We check in with each other now and then, and still talk about what we’re reading. Fred is retired now, is still married to Kathy, and is the father of three grown children. He and Kathy have a granddaughter they delight in. He fights the same disease my husband does – Parkinson’s – and he’s been an encouragement and help in freely sharing about his journey with us.

I don’t think my metamorphosis from those awkward caterpillar years has resulted in me becoming a butterfly – I’m more of a moth sort of woman. I’m not a spectacular specimen and I do a lot of unnecessary and unproductive fluttering around. But I am attracted to light, and spend most of my days wanting to draw close to the One who called Himself the Light of the world.

Once in a while a marvelous teacher steps into our lives. I have had excellent teachers throughout the years, in school buildings and in the school of life, but Fred Contreras is the one who stands out in my memory the most. If you asked him he would probably modestly claim to only have been doing his job, but for me he did more than that. He let us know he cared. He opened a door for us to an amazing world of literature. He looked at us and paid attention when we spoke. He treated us like the people he knew we could be, not the insecure geeks we thought we were. He was a pretty serious man, so when he smiled or laughed we noticed and took it in.

When I graduated from eighth grade at Traweek Junior High School I asked Mr. Contreras to sign my yearbook. In keeping with who he was, he wrote (in strong and beautiful handwriting) a short but sincere and very encouraging note to me, which I cherished and half-dared to believe. He made me feel like I could really succeed at whatever I put my hands to.

There are still things I would like to do before I die, but some days I really doubt that I’ll ever be able to accomplish them. Then I think of Fred. And I can still picture him standing at the front of that Southern California classroom, looking out at all of us and fully expecting us to succeed.

I’m so thankful to be able to share about Mr. Contreras. Everyone should be blessed with a teacher like him.