With appreciation, Señor

I wasn't feeling particularly nostalgic this morning. I was just contemplating what I was trying to do with this blog, and telling myself I ought to work to make each post short enough so it would fit on a single piece of paper, should one occasionally be printed out to share with those of my circle who do not use the Internet (there are some!). Then, click!

I flashed back to high school, and to a special teacher who, one summer, taught an enrichment course in writing skills. The goal was not too advanced for sixteen-year-olds, but we worked and worked to reach it. We wrote paragraphs. Just one for each assignment. But each paragraph was read and critiqued, and then we wrote it again. And sometimes again.

There were all kinds of paragraphs. Some expressed feelings. Some presented facts. Some described processes. I remember especially writing about the technical procedure for making ice cream, which I did daily in my first summer job at the local dairy and ice cream bar. I've written a lot of technical paragraphs since then, often about procedures for finding information, an activity that whets an appetite different than that tempted by the ice cream paragraphs. Writing has become both a vocation and an avocation.

That same teacher who taught me to write a good English paragraph was also the first to give me some words and grammar of the Spanish language. It was a good foundation, on which I continue to build.

Thank you, Señor. Muchas gracias.