We never had much money. This I knew. We had a home, most of the comforts of life and enough to eat. But it seemed like everyone else had a bit more. Maybe it was because we didn't have a car. Last in the neighborhood to get a television sit too. But I always had some new clothes at the start of every school year, and decent shoes. But money...No. Still, in the 1950s, as a child growing up in Southern California there were ways to get a few coins to rattle around in my pocket. Bottles meant pennies. We hardly had an ecological consciousness, but knew for every soda bottle brought back to the little Mom and Pop store in the neighborhood was worth two cents. Two shiny pennies that could become 10 with a few more. Beck's was that little store. They had a few shelves stocked with canned goods and kitchen supplies. A mother section had fresh produce. In the rear was a refrigerated case which I often vi...
Have you ever had to provide a distraction? Guiding someone, or a group of people, from seeing or hearing something for the common good. It can be a noble pursuit even though it sounds like there is the possibility of deception. But remember the word is distraction. People who can compartmentalize their mind are good at this. They provide the necessary shift from one thing to another because there is a significant reason to do so. Case in point: One summer, I was teaching in a special summer program for high school students at U C Berkeley. I'd had some success with the I-Search paper, a kind of saturation report where students interview people to find answers and information about a question that they need to have answered. In this format, I taught various journalistic writing and interviewing skills. I had about 15 kids in this class and they ranged in age fro 11-17. A couple of middle-school kids with pushy pa...