school district
My sister, Alena Stevens retired from the school district last year, in what was probably the weirdest retirement ever. She had planned to retire at the end of the school year, but then everything got very crazy. Spring break turned into the unofficial end of the in-class school day, and after a while, all that was left was to sort out the students’ belongings so they could stop by the school, and the staff would bring the belongings out to them. Alena’s job pretty much ended in March rather than June.
That wasn’t the only work oddity in Alena’s working career either. Alena worked at Kmart in her teen years, as did I…it must be a family trend. Anyway, she was walking to work from our house, which was less than a block away, and for some reason our youngest sister, Allyn Hadlock was in her own car, sitting in front of the house. This was back in the days of the CB radio. We didn’t have cell phones in those days, so if you didn’t mind having everyone within range hearing your conversation, you could 
pick up the mike and “call” a friend. The unique thing about the CB radio is that it also has a PA built in too…maybe not all of them, but Allyn’s did. So, as Alena was about to turn the corner to head to Kmart, Allyn picked up the Mike and said, “Alschmenerdoodle” over the PA. She made sure to say it in a long drawn out manner…and very loud. Alena stopped in her tracks and turned around laughing!! You have to understand that our family has a rather long history of making up funny nicknames for each other. I don’t know if Allyn had used that nickname before, but after that it became a standing joke and funny nickname!! Of course, while Alena found that super funny, it just couldn’t stand without “retaliation.” From that point and for a long time, Alena called Allyn “Alschminerdoodle!” Hahahahaha!! I don’t know, maybe retirement is the best move for Alena!! Work gets very odd for her…although, she did meet her husband Mike Stevens while working at Shellabarger Chevrolet, so there is that.
These days, Alena’s favorite title is grandma. She loves spending time with her granddaughter, Elliott Stevens. Elliott is a perfect fit in our family, not just because she is blood relation, but because she is humor related. She is so funny, and I just know that Elliott will get right in there and come up with a new generation of nicknames. Alena loves spending time with Elliott, and they love being silly together.
This year, Alena and her husband, Mike purchased a new camper trailer, and with summer finally upon us, they are looking forward to doing some camping at Pathfinder Reservoir. It will be a fun time with family, and especially Alena, because she knows that she doesn’t have to go back to work when the summer is over. That takes some getting used to after retirement, but it sure is nice to remember that every time it comes to mind. Today is Alena’s 60th birthday. I hope I’m not in trouble for telling her age. Happy birthday Alena!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
It’s every school aged child’s dream…enough snow to have the school district call a Snow Day. The only bad thing is that they are always few and far between. Nevertheless, I can remember a few of those snow days from my childhood. They made for good rivals for the storm we had overnight, in the amount of snow received. I remember one storm in particular from those days, when we were told that the snow was very heavy, and people needed to shovel it off of their roof to protect the roof from collapse. Well, like most kids on a snow day, we didn’t need a second invitation to go outside and play. It’s funny how that works. The plan was to go out an shovel off the roof, but while that did happen, there was a lot of playing in the snow too. Now mind you that the school district had decided that it was too cold, too snowy, and definitely the snow was too deep to have the kids walk the relatively short distance…five blocks in our case..to school, but we could spend half the day outside playing in the snow. I could see the problem if it had been blizzard conditions, but it wasn’t. Nevertheless, on a snow day,
playing outside all day was far better than trudging off to school.
Deep snow is always extra fun, because it makes building a fort much easier, and believe me, that snow and this snow today…are deep. the snow is heavy and easily formed into walls or snowballs. Before long the fight was on. I’m sure that our parents loved hearing the screams of laughter as their daughters played happily out in the back yard. You see, sometimes, snow days are for adults too. Today for instance, my car could not begin to drive down the alley from my garage, and we will have to go our and dig snow later to get it out so it can be parked in from of the house…if I am to make it to work tomorrow. When my husband, Bob left for work this morning, his truck was dragging on the deep snow, and my car sits much lower than his truck. The snow day of yesteryear that comes to mind was the one where my dad got to stay home too. In fact, he city was even asking people to offer to transport people on snowmobiles in the event of an emergency.
That didn’t affect us in any way though, because we didn’t have snowmobiles, nor did we have need of one. We were busy outside trying to move the snow from one spot to another, so that we could move from point “a” to point “b” with a little bit of ease. And the only reason we were doing that was because we wanted to see just how deep the snow really was. We weren’t going anywhere…we had nowhere to go…because it was a snow day, and everyone knows that everything of any importance to a kid is closed on a snow day…especially the school.
