YEAR IN REVIEW 2007

2007 began and I was still in Virginia Beach, not entirely surprising, but I still think of the international schools on a regular basis.  Having successfully completed my first year teaching eighth graders at Corporate Landing Middle School. I continued to bowl through the winter but did not sign up for the next season as each night I bowled I breathed in a few dozen other's second hand cigarette smoke.  What a disgusting habit.  Also, I didn't want to spend any more money or time on a school night... and my shoulder wasn't what it used to be...  and I couldn't break the 200 average barrier... and...  

 In February 2007 I purchased a home in Virginia Beach.  I am now, as they say, house rich and cash poor.  Looks like I will be teaching summer school...again.  It's going to need a lot of work and some landscaping, but it is bigger than it looks, close to both work and the ocean front, and comfortable.  Maybe in a few years I can afford furniture!  First priority, to get rid of all those blasted gumball trees... 

At the end of the summer, having fixed a number of plumbing problems and worked a bit on the yard, I moved back to my old apartment in Shadow Lawn, which had conveniently become available again, and rented this property.  Gumball tress are still there...

In May I bought a new kayak (Wilderness Systems Tarpon 140), bright yellow so the Coast Guard helicopters can see it, not that I could afford it, one that I can take further out into open water without fear of swamping, ...not that I let that stop me in my original kayak...   I will definitely be teaching summer school this year... 

I taught summer school this year, luckily at my home school, in my own classroom, with a principal who, defying the logic of public education, has a common sense and a realistic approach to what we deal with in public education. 

While summer school put a damper on any travel plans, at least there was fishing.  I am entertaining the idea of spending next summer driving out west to see all the great national parks there, like the Grand Canyon, etc.  We will see.  $$ will really tell and it might be a while before I have any to spend on travel...  Anyway, I have a place to stay in Great Falls, Mo.  Why would anyone want to go to Montana???  A great, life-long friend, Dr. D,  moved there to teach at a small university with his newly acquired Ph.D. (in divinity), wife, and EIGHT children...  I'll be sleeping on the coach!

Joined a kayak fishing club this spring.  TKAA (Tidewater Kayak Angling Association).  For the most part, a group of grown men (for the most part) that shares information and goes fishing together.  Each autumn they put on a kayak fishing tournament.  This year, my first, the gale-force (really) winds put a damper on the fishing, but it was a good event and raised a few thousand dollars that the club donated to military vets who have been wounded in Iraq or previous wars.   This is the first year I did not predominantly fish Rudee Inlet.  With a new kayak and a few new fishing buddies to show me the way, I fished Lynnhaven Inlet.  Learned a lot about catching "puppy drum," which are juvenile red fish.  They put up a really good fight, especially on the light tackle we prefer, and I am told are delicious.  In some twisted logic, I don't like cleaning and cooking or even eating fish... with the odd exception that I will eat almost anything put in front of me at a sushi bar.  Go figure. 

Cousin Bob, or Captain Bob, sailed into the bay this summer and actually called me up.  He moored in a secure little sound in Norfolk and dingied to a little beach where I picked him and his girlfriend up and we went to Ghent for a land-locked dinner of ground beef on a bun.  The next day I picked them up and took them shopping and touring around Virginia Beach.  Showed him my rental properties and scorned myself for not following his lead years ago.  Having bought a few rental properties of his own years ago, he is now semi-retired and spends a few months a year sailing up and down the east coast and over to the islands.  Envy!!!  The last time Bob spent any time in Virginia Beach was in the sixties and he was in disbelief at how the resort area had evolved.  He used to surf here back in the day.  Nostalgia. 

My first trip out to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel was a bit much for me.  Paddled out with two Navy SEAL types.  Could almost keep up with them.  As I was trailing DKSJ, he noticed some splashing behind him to his right... that was pretty much just a few feet directly to my right.  It was the time of summer when the large (like the size of a car) rays were in the bay.  Thinking I might miss the sight of a huge ray, splashing the surface, presumably making a meal out of one of my fish, only a few feet to my right, during my first jaunt to the bridge, he thought he'd point it out for me, ...you know, in case I didn't see it.  "Look at the ray," he shouted, not bothering to look back and therefore having to acknowledge I wasn't keeping up with him.  After a sudden, unexplained bust of speed, I was quickly to his LEFT and explained that it wasn't a ray he saw, which would have had two wing tips casually smacking the surface as they do, but a very pointed, rectangular, dorsal fin attached to a shark violently thrashing its jagged teeth back and forth across its dinner, obviously hungry.  I managed to keep up with him, off to his left, for the remainder of the paddle. 

Summer came to an end and toward the end of August I found myself in an unusual position, that of teaching the same subject for a second year in a row.  The previous year was not easy, but I managed.  During my first year at Corporate Landing MS I was put on the "inclusion" team."  In education, at least in Virginia Beach, that meant I was teaching the lower end of the "regular" ed kids (the advanced students were on another team, but of course we no longer track students according to ability in education... :-)  with a large percentage of special ed kids... but we don't call them "special ed" any more, now they are referred to as "special needs."  Surely, they will feel better about that.  I received exactly zero hours of training, preparation, and support for this group of students and it was an eye-widening experience.  The best teachers, with the most experience, get to teach the advanced kids...  Of course, administration can't understand why test scores aren't higher for the special ed students, most who could care less about receiving an education and enjoy taunting new teachers, and pat the experienced teachers of the advanced students on the back and hold them up as the example.  After all I did to get myself through the year, at the end of the year I got scolded for low special ed scores.  That was it.  Nothing else was said.  Welcome to public education.  The 2007/2008 (current) school year, I am teaching on a regular ed core team and the newest new teacher was given the inclusion team.  Hahaha!  Welcome to public education.    

In my mid-life-crisis inspired attempt to find an old high school friend, I have run across a few old friends and acquaintances from my days at Shore Regional High School.  Bob, a school-mate from early elementary days and on, who became class of 1979 student body president, and his high school sweetheart wife Mary, still continue on in West Long Branch, with an all-American family.  Bob was good enough to have lunch with me this summer, but didn't have any more ideas about what I could do to find my long lost friend, Kathy B.  Also, via the wonders of the Internet, got back in touch with a few others from SRHS - Kathy W. and Robin.  It was fun to catch up with them.  Also, at the end of the year reestablish correspondence with Andy, who is currently, and unsurprisingly, doing quite well for himself and living in London. 

Finally admitted to my doctor that my shoulders were bothering me.  After all this time, all it took was a couple shots of cortisone and a few weeks of stretching.  Damn male ego!  Could have done this years ago!

Navy SEALS apparently don't do much during the daylight... they prefer the night.  Needless to say, my aging, rotund backside has become quite fond of eight hours of sleep...  Too bad.  DKSJ, my main fishing buddy this past year, married with a newborn, apparently has an agreement with his wife that he can go fishing anytime he wants, as long as he doesn't skimp on his husbandly-fatherly-go-to-work-home-owning duties... this means he fishes at night..., late at night.  Sleep, as we used to say in the Marines, is for whimps.  How nice of him to remind me...  I do have to say, there are a lot less motor boats threatening to mow us down at 2AM behind the they-all-look-alike-in-the-dark grass islands.  But when a dolphin pops up five and a half feet to your rear right and blows the water out of its spout, it does take a few moments for the ol' heart to start beating again.  Eventually, you would be surprised how active fish are under the moon.  Apparently, they don't sleep either!  We spent one night fishing the pilings holding up the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel.  It is true that you can catch so many stripers that you lose count and your arm gets tired!  Next on my list, is to catch one striper, over 40 pounds, from my kayak.  

Just might bring in the new year under the moon at midnight in my kayak!  Happy, Safe, Fun, New Year!!!