You get a feeling when it’s about to happen. Someone is going to ask you to present a lesson to a group. You can never be sure what the topic will be you just know you are about to be asked. I have this sixth sense about things like that.

Well last week it happened. Kathie and I were enjoying a meal at the Senior Citizen’s Center. Of course you know neither of us look old enough to be eating there but nobody has carded us yet.:)

An elderly lady pulled a chair up next to me and apologized for interrupting us as we ate. I sensed what was coming next. I so badly wanted to say, “No, I am retired and that means I don’t teach anymore. Not now, not ever!” But I had a mouth full of peas at the time and that might have resulted in an embarrassing episode so I remained silent and waited for the request.

The sweet little old lady proceeded to explain that a group of ninety year old’s gather in the Senior Citizen’s Center every third Tuesday of the month at 2:00 o’clock and continue to learn new things in their elderly years.

Not being born yesterday, I immediately assumed that I was going to be their next educator. But what would be my topic of expertise I wondered?

My first thought was that they would want me to discuss my new children’s book “The First Advent: Stories and Activities”. I would have really been interested in something like that because think of how many grandchildren and great grandchildren a crowd like that would have. Think of the possible book sales.

Speaking of book sales, Advent is coming and have you blog readers purchased your book, or two or three yet? If not, hop to it as November 30th is fast approaching. It’s available on Amazon, can be ordered at most book stores and I will do a wonderful job of personalizing one for you and sending it to you in snail mail. Just contact me for info. 🙂

Now back to the blog and all those possible book sales to those grandchildren and great grandchildren. It was greedy of me to think that way and I apologize . However the book sale possibilities quickly vanished when the lady responded, “We were wondering if you could come next Tuesday and speak to us about raising pumpkins?”

I was so surprised about the topic request that my mouth actually flew open. Thankfully the peas had been successfully swallowed and there was no embarrassing incident.

Now since I have been raising pumpkins for twenty years that was not a threatening topic until she continued, “Try to make your talk around thirty minutes and then there will probably be a lot of questions.”

Thirty minutes is a long time to talk about growing a pumpkin. Dig a shallow hole, throw in a half dozen seeds, cover with dirt, till the weeds, watch the vines spread and flower, observe pumpkins growing, harvest and sell the pumpkins along the highway. Do you think that will take thirty minutes? This will require a few fill in stories along the way I’m thinking.

But like the title of this blog, ‘Once A Teacher Always A Teacher’ what could I say? I said I would do it.

So now it’s back to lesson plans again!

But one thing I am looking forward to was her statement that there would be lots of questions when I finished. My school teaching memories aren’t filled with a lot of questions from students. I would ask the questions and then using a crowbar force a student’s hand to raise so I could call on him or her.

So I’m curious to see how the promise of abundant questions pans out. If there are questions I hope they are simple. Nobody would want to know the scientific name, genus and species, for the pie pumpkin I planted this spring would they? Now I’m beginning to worry a bit.

When I was teaching I always had a step by step lesson plan written down on my planner for each of my classes. I did that faithfully for forty-two years. So it was natural that I continued that process.

But since my audience was going to be elderly and the presenter would be almost as elderly I went to the recycling center and found a large piece of cardboard to write my lesson plan on so it would be visible for myself and the audience. Well at least the members in the audience who had undergone successful cataract surgery.

In the middle of the cardboard sheet I wrote “Mike’s Pumpkin Patch Life Cycle”. That made me more comfortable as it gave my talk a little more of a biological ring to it.

At the top of the cardboard sheet I wrote Jung’s because that’s where the pumpkin growing process started for each of the twenty years. Sometime in the middle of our Minnesota winter as I was longing for the arrival of spring I sat down with my Jung’s catalog and ordered seeds for the next growing season.

I completed the life cycle very quickly. After twenty years the steps of raising pumpkins are pretty well engrained in my mind. I’m just a little worried the life cycle explanation may not reach the thirty minute mark. Can I remember enough filler stories to keep the presentation interesting?

Since I’m scheduled to do my presentation today at 2:00 pm my next blog may reveal my successes or failures. If my blogs fail to appear ever again you’ll know I was driven from the community and stripped of my blogging rights forever.

However, I have faith in old people because I am one too and we would never treat a presenter that way even if the presentation was bad. So wish me luck!

As I was finishing writing this blog I got that premonition again that another speaking engagement was on the horizon. Checking my email I discovered that a busload of pre-school and kindergarten children will be arriving at our house tomorrow morning at 9:00 am to have a tour of the pumpkin patch!

Lesson plans here we go again!

There’s that old saying about teachers that you may have heard a time or two. It goes like this, “Old teachers never die they just lose their class.” At the rate I’m going I’m having a hard time believing that ‘losing your class’ is even possible. Does that mean I’ll go on living forever?

So it was elderly education today and pre-school/kindergarten education tomorrow. Can I handle that extreme change? Only time will tell.

Until next time.