drink to prevent dehydration, perhaps administer a cool wash cloth to the forehead, and give the ill person an aspirin or acetaminophen to ingest to assist in reducing the fever.
During the summer, daughter was registered with the public school system to attend Kindergarten. Later in the summer, we were notified and invited to attend an orientation where we met the teacher and viewed the classroom. The classroom appeared much different from the time when I attended Kindergarten in the same school district. Many play stations surrounded an area of tables. When I attended Kindergarten, there were no toys in the classroom. The instruction in the early 1960’s was rote, and organized with textbooks and workbook reliance. Questioning these arrangements, we were told that the individual child learns in different ways and so a “play, debrief, replay” philosophy was enlisted as a way of teaching in this classroom. I felt leery about this new method but trusted that educators were competent, proficient, and gained good results, through this teaching approach. The day I sent daughter off to school on the school bus, was an anticipatory day for both daughter and I. I could not understand at that time, why another mother was crying at the bus stop.
For a holiday celebration in daughter’s Kindergarten, parents were asked to send in treats. As a class mother, I was to attend the event to assist the teachers and one also volunteered to bake cupcakes for the students in the class. After preparing, baking, and frosting, and setting the cakes on trays at home, one proceeded with the cupcakes to the school to help with this event. Upon arriving in the class, I noticed that another parent(s) had also sent in cupcakes with their child. These cupcakes were from a bakery and were topped with plenty of frosting, sprinkles, and other attractive to children, plastic decorations. Both sets of cupcakes were delivered to the children when I quickly realized that they preferred the commercial bakery product to my home made cakes. Hence, all of the cupcakes that I prepared early that morning were thrown in the garbage. I stated to spouse that one person should have been assigned to prepare cupcakes for the children.
With daughter off to full day Kindergarten and perceiving that son needed more socialization with other children I contemplated acquiring a part time job. I also had a nagging sensation that I should be contributing financially to the family even if only to pay the grocery bill. So, I applied for and was hired for a part time job with a medical billing firm. Son attended a nursery school three days a week and a babysitter twice a week, for four hours a day. This job became quickly disturbing to me as I noted the astronomical medical bills sent to people. Even after payments by insurance, people still owed exorbitant amounts of money, bills beyond belief, for usually a serious and lengthy illness. I stated to spouse that one illness could completely bankrupt a person. I was beginning to become sickened by this job and was not happy with son’s babysitting arrangements as I believed there to be too many children, under the care of one woman. The small amount of money obtained from this job, was not worth the family and personal sacrifice and so, I quit this job.
After departing from the above employment, I contemplated purchasing a food truck to deliver frankfurters, hamburgers, sandwiches, and beverages to people attending the town parks in the area. I believed this would be a likely lucrative business as this kind of business idea had not yet been tapped