Flat Stanley Heads Home to Houston

Here I am in the Savannah Airport with the pilots who are supposed to fly our plane home. It is over 2 hours late because of the thunderstorms in Houston. I find it amazing that the weather in one part of the country can affect someone who is over 1000 miles away.

Two hours later we were finally on our way. It will be good to be home again!

Flat Stanley Plays Golf

I played golf today. Here I am getting my first birdie.
I learned that math is very important because you need to be able to add up your score. The golfer with the lowest score wins the game. The goal is to have a score lower than 72 which is called par. So you also need to be able to subtract. Professional golfers usually shoot below par but amateur golfers are happy if they break 80.

Flat Stanley Meets Rosie Jones

I’ve meet several famous golfers on this trip. Here I am at breakfast with Rosie Jones. She’s also a famous LPGA golfer. She’s retired now and besides doing commentary on the Golf Channel she also arranges golfing trips. She’s very funny and most delightful.

Flat Stanley Walks on the Beach

Daukuskie Island faces the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Bay of Savannah on the other. The beach is totally deserted – we walked for over an hour and saw no one. You can take a look at it on Google Earth if your teacher has it installed on her computer.

I examined a Horseshoe Crab – did you know that they date back to the time of the Dinosaurs? Some people call them Living Fossils.

Daukuskie Island has a long history. At one time Indians who ate the crabs just like this one lived there. Now it is a summer home for wealthy people who build great big houses. There is no bridge to the island. The only way to get on and off is by boat. It’s as close as getting away from everything as I’ve ever seen.

Flat Stanely Rides in a Golf Cart

Most everyone at the Daukuskie Island resort drives around in Golf Carts.

They have many uses besides golf courses. They are electric and they are good for our earth since they don’t need gasoline. You just plug it in at night and let the battery recharge. They are also very quiet.

In Sun City, Arizona, many people have a golf cart instead of a second car. Many people there have custom golf carts.

Flat Stanly Meets Kathy Whitworth

Flat Stanly again:

I’ve meet some interesting people on this trip. Here I am with
Kathy Whitworth. She is a famous golfer who won 88 Professional Golf Tournaments. That’s more than anyone.

Tiger Woods has 54wins. How many more does Tiger have to win before he breaks her record?

Annika Sorenstam’s won 69 tournaments. How many more does she have to win to break the record? Who has won more – Tiger Woods or Anika Sorensten?

Ms. Whitworth said she’d never before posed with a book character. I told about my travels and she said that I travel as much as she does. She is going to Australia next week.

The Wives

My Beloved is nourishing her inner Golf Goddess at The Rosie Jones Golf Getaway at Daufaskie Island, South Carolina. It’s also our 10 anniversary and she suggested I do the unthinkable and ask for 3 personal days and join her. There is a partners package, so way she can indulge without one iota of guilt.
So, along I came, books and computer in tow. The women – there are 16 of them golf all day and I join them for breakfast and dinner. In between, I’m at my own devices, which suits an introvert like me just fine.

Daufaskie is very, very remote so I’m not doing my usual thrift store marathon. No point, there aren’t any stores on this island, not to mention few roads or cars. Transportation is mainly by foot or golf cart.

I’ve been spending time on the porch overlooking the ocean, reading and watching the world. Dukasee caters to corporate retreats and meetings. Given that is no place to go, it’s actually a very good choice since nobody can skip out of the meeting to go to the ball game or the mall. There are several golf courses & bars so the A type executive is content.

Besides our group, there is a also a large party of slightly graying at the temple men in golf shirts and Ralph Lauren shorts enjoying a tax deductible combination of golf and business. Some have brought their wives who of course may join their husbands on the fairways. They stay behind, visit the spa and sit on the veranda and chat.


The wives fall into two categories. Some originals, acquired during the man’s senior year in college. 50ish or 60ish, graying hair, a figure that’s been changed by childbearing and gravity. Comfortable clothes that cover the buldges and flat shoes. They look well taken care of off and are well put together. They look like women who are at peace with themselves and their life and realize the size 6 cheerleader they were 30 years ago is gone forever. They keep busy with their children, their grandchildren and volunteer activities.


Then there are the trophy wives. Blond, painfully thin, carefully manicured nails, high heeled sandals. Large diamond engagement ring, expensive gold necklaces adorning a taut carefully maintained size 4 figure clad in perfectly coordinated resort ware. A large purse with lots of chrome and buckles hangs over their left shoulder. Large, suitcase size purses appear to be in this year.

The two groups are thrown together for a couple of days, expected to spend most of the daylight hours in each other’s company. I wonder how the first group feels, looking at the second. Do they keep in the touch with the women the trophies have replaced? Do they look at the trophy wives and wonder if any of them have a friend waiting in the wings to take their place at the table?

And ,does it ever occur to the Trophy Wives that 10 or 15 years hence they may find themselves in the first group?

Flat Stanley here:

I'm not quite sure what happened but after arriving in Texas I found myself stuffed into a bag . The next time I saw daylight I was on a ferry boat and surrounded by water.

I over heard some saying I was on the Savannah River, in Savannah Georgia and that we were heading toward Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.

Wait a minute! This isn't making any sense. I 'm supposed to be learning about Cowboys and the Alamo and instead I'm seeing the Atlantic Ocean.








What's going on?

Flat Stanley Adventures #1

Mrs. ABC Mom asked if I'd be willing to host Flat Stanley for week or two. For those of you who don't hang out in Elementary classrooms Flat Stanley is a book character who accidentally found himself paper thin and living in a envelope. Teachers send him round the globe and he helps make geography come alive.

He show up in my post office box the day before we left for Daufuskie Island & I stuffed him into my computer bag and took him along for the ride. He's really supposed to be hanging out in my library back in Texas but he's taken a slight detour.

Flat Stanley hopes to blog about his trip and adventures. Of course he realizes that his audience is in the second grade so he's not going to tell the ENTIRE story of his trip. His hostess will however, fill in all the details in her blog posts!

And I Helped...

About 10 years back we got a new student - 8 year boy, just arrived from Vietnam. The family was living with their cousins in a home down the street from school. Funny looking kid, kind of gawky, mismatched clothing and an eagerness to learn such as I've rarely seen. He took to the library, to the books and to Accelerated Reader like a duck to water. He started out with Go Dog Go. By time he graduated from the 5th grade he was devouring Harry Potter. He loved computers too -the two of us learned PowerPoint together. He was one of those kids you always remember and go out of your way to give extra help and encouragement. .

Some of the cousins were younger so I'd see him from time to time at school events and we kept in touch. Two years ago he showed as a volunteer via his High School service group.

He's a senior now, graduating in May. Applying to Yale, Harvard, Sanford and Rice. I know his parents, his family, his natural ability and his work ethic are mostly responsible for the fine young man he's become. But I like to think I helped a little bit too.

Reasons for the Long Silence

Last Thursday
Get to work at 7, teach till 2:30, teach after school Primary Gifted & Talented class till 3:45. Take 3 of the Primary Gifted and Talented to kids to daycare (pacifying them with my GPS). Go to post office. Go to thrift store next to post office (find a $40 & $30 book, a Halloween flag and 2 books to donate to my school library). Pick up Spring Rolls at the Vietnamese place for dinner, 5:30, open library for Family Library Night. 8pm. Remove 77 people from library by turning off the computers. Go home. Answer e-mails, list the 2 books, pack books. Go to bed.

Last Friday
Get to work at 6:45 (have to put library back together again after Family Library Night), work till 2:30 (check out 400 books and teach 6 classes + lunch in library for 30+ kids). Rush home, meet a friend who drove in from MacGregor. We , drive to Galveston for the annual Friends of the Library Sale.. Arrive at sale at 4:30. Doors open at 5. Shop the sale till they kick us at 7:30 (awesome sale – they weeded the art books-spend $110, and have a $400 book in the lot). Have dinner, drive back to Houston, We kill half of a big bottle of wine, go to bed.

Last Saturday
Get up at 6:30, arrive at the Heights Friends of the Library sale by by 7:30. Buy books (spend $120) , Go to Zen center sale, buy more books (spend $30) . Go to brunch with 2 other book sellers and talk shop for 2 hours.. Go to Half Price Books. Buy more books (spend $40)- including 10 Betsy Tacy books . Come home Do laundry, clean up kitchen, clean up after cats (one has a new habit of pucking). Drink rest of the wine while listing books (that might not have been the brightest of moves) .

6:30pm The Universe calls (via Lou): Spiritual Man has more books .
Guess what I’m did last Sunday at 2pm?

It’s beginning to look like the Soccer’s Apprentice has switched from buckets of water to boxes of books