Many of my readers are inveterate readers of Cowtown Pattie's Blog, Texas Trifles. I would wish that no one miss the last item in a meme, Ten Biggies, that Pattie posted the other day:
My first real out of high school job as a public school instructional aide found me assigned to an inner city impoverished neighborhood school - a rude awakening for this white bread, middle-class teenager whose only brush with the "other side of the tracks" was a class field trip to the county jail once. These children had seen more violence, heartbreak, and poverty than I could have ever imagined in my worst nightmare. Another teacher took me aside that first month as I struggled to pull socks away from impetigo-crusted sores on little legs and told me that these babies deserved more than my pity; they needed someone who cared enough about them to see that they learned to read, someone to teach them there is a different kind of life beyond the daily visions of addiction and crime. I will never forget the little girl who wanted to lift up my shirttail to see if I was white "all over", the young boy who did not have his own toothbrush, the child who saw his mother shoot his father full in the face and was being raised by a grandmother after the mom went to the penitentiary, and the over-powering stench of a child who did not ever have clean clothes - his siblings just tossed their daily clothing into a pile on the floor, and grabbed whatever was available from said pile the next day. These children taught me more than I could ever teach them.
Thank you for bringing this post and the one below to my attention. Wonderful writing and so very inspirational. It is nice to have two new blogs to visit.
Posted by: Maria | November 20, 2005 at 06:54 PM
Sometimes it takes us a while to find a site. I don't recall how long Pattie has been blogging--but it's been for longer than my tenure in the blogosphere!
Posted by: Cop Car | November 21, 2005 at 06:26 AM
And she has the most amazing variety of entries!
She's a "must read," and it's good of you to bring her to the attention of others, Cop Car. That's a pretty amazing post, isn't it?
Posted by: buffy | November 22, 2005 at 09:18 PM
Thank you for pointing out this blog. It has now a place in my list of favourites. The post itself is amazing isn't it - it really makes you think.
Posted by: Adele | November 23, 2005 at 03:28 AM