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| My Louisiana |
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| Still My Louisiana |
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| You've got it . . . |
As I was doing dishes after supper, yes, I finally felt like eating and cooking, I started to think about friends and family who are surprised that I root for both the Men and the Women's Basketball Teams at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. I have so many good memories of the UCONN Campus and some tough memories too. But one of the best came to mind as I was washing dishes this evening: my parents came to see the UCONN Men play in a Yankee Conference game in the Field House in Storrs. It was incredible that my parents came to see a game. At half time we watched Greco-Roman Wrestling. I don't remember who the opposing team was but I do remember Big Ed Slomsenski, Don Perno and Toby Kimball as members of the team. Big Ed was in one of my English classes; I remember getting a kick out of seeing him squeeze into the regular classroom seats. I don't think they won - but the fact that my parents were there is a vivid memory that popped into my head as I was cleaning up after supper. My older brother and I were on campus at the same time. He had just gotten out of the Army and he and his wife lived in an apartment off campus. I imagine that I must have driven Ma and Pa to D's for supper and then we went to the game. I lived at home and commuted to campus for my Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes and I worked at Deary Brothers weekends and sometimes Tuesdays and Thursdays if they needed me.
I also recall D and I taking a History Class with Dr. Cagel. D would often not show up for class, he was working at the UCONN Dairy delivering milk, and I would take notes which I passed on to him. Of course he always managed to get a higher grade than I and it used to tick me off. I still think that he got the better grade because he was a man and a veteran; I was just a girl. It's funny what my mind conjures up when I think about UCONN. I wanted to major in French and minor in Botany but the counselor to whom I was assigned said that wasn't a good combination and I believed him!! What a jerk I was. In any case I majored in French and minored in Latin. All of this background noise I'm writing is just to explain why I love UCONN Basketball! I've followed the men since I was in school for my BA and then I lived on campus for my MA while Puppy's Pop was in Vietnam. I started paying attention to the Women's team when coach Auriemma came to UCONN and I've followed both teams pretty religiously ever since. I get revved up and tell them how to play, what to do and what not to do! Somehow or other they have become my favorite TV show. I don't watch TV very much, probably because my parents thought it was a waste of time so we didn't have one in our house until I was 16 years old when an Aunt who was moving to a new apartment gave us her TV and kitchen stove. Heck, I can still sing Connecticut UCONN Huskies, symbol of might to the foe . . .
Here's hoping the Women can go all the way but it really doesn't matter because I'll take both teams and root for them no matter what. It really is a pleasure to watch them play even though I've had to admonish them and their various coaches for many years.
All schools at every level should be giving all of their students a sound, education in the fundamentals - reading, writing, mathematics, history and philosophy but it ain't happening. All schools seem to have an agenda and if the modern student isn't brainwashed from an early age it is miraculous. But that's for another time and place or maybe never. It hurts my brain when I think of what is happening in all phases of education. Perhaps the only schools I applaud at this time are the Trade Schools! Anyway I must end here because I'll get maudlin. Need to go sit on the back porch and swing.
Quote: He that has found a way to keep a child's spirit easy, active, and free, and yet at the same time to restrain him from many things he has a mind to, and to draw him to things that are uneasy to him, has, in my opinion, got the true secret of education. ___Locke
Quote: There is a moral as well as an intellectual objection to the custom, frequent in these times, of making education consist in a mere smattering of twenty different things, instead of in the mastery of five or six. ___Chadwick
Quote: Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken in the hearing of little children tends toward the formation of character.__Let parents always bear this in mind. ___H. Ballou
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