Leon Konieczny’s Blog

It is a tragedy of modern times that we do not value teachers enough. Take a look at their pay. It’s pitiful. They are the front line in educating the citizens of tomorrow….the ones who’ll take care of me when I’m old and feeble. Yet as a society, in general, we seem to put such little value on teachers, and pay them poor salaries. Truly they do it out of love, and that’s an admirable quality. I have two sisters who are teachers. One of them wrote the following in an email message recently:

Yesterday afternoon, I was busy correcting personal narratives. I’m checking for things like beginnings that grab the reader’s interest, strong use of details, dialogue, and other criteria. I have a student whose mother was killed in a car accident 17 months ago. He wrote about finding out his mom was dead. His narrative did not met many of the requirements, but how do you grade something so sad and so heartfelt? It made me realize how hard Christmas must be for him. He lives with his grandparents, but his brother lives with his dad. They won’t see each other this Christmas, and I realize just how good I’ve got it. At Christmas, we often get bogged down in a mountain of tasks, but need to remember that we are blessed to be able to complete those tasks, one at a time. And if they don’t all get done…so what? We have the gift of love. We have the gift of family. Nothing else matters. Oh, and the student, with a bit of tweaking on my part, ended up with an “A”.

My sister, as a teacher, has the ability to touch this child, to give them hope, to give them a shoulder to cry on, to lend a kind word, to touch their heart. Why do we not value teachers more, and pay them more. The good ones (and both of my sisters count among those) are not paid nearly enough for what they do. We pay the administrators and the politicians much better, yet they don’t make the difference in one life that an individual teacher can.

Perhaps, if you can read this, you have a teacher to thank. I suggest you do so today, now.

Merry Christmas.

My family is weird. Definitely weird by today’s standards. I so often hear of families where someone is not speaking to someone over some distant (and often fuzzily defined) issuer. Or families where everyone is divorced and remarried so many times that you need a scorecard. Or families that see each other once every few years, the visits are far between and, when visiting in another city, you stay in a hotel, not at their home.

My family is not like that. They are definitely weird.

Among my brothers and sisters, all are still married to their original spouses, all over 25 years. Definitely weird. Of all my cousins, I think there’s one or maybe two divorces. That’s it. Not a lot of churn. Looking to my mom’s cousins, there is a divorce or two, not much.

My family is so weird. We actually visit each other. No one would think of letting a family member staying in a hotel when visiting. Hospitality reigns. Just in town for a bit? Stop over for dinner, food will magically appear and you’ll eat like a king. Driving through? Stop by, you’ll be welcomed like you’re a king.

Definitely weird.

I am very lucky.

There is a real danger to electricity, and I had the chance to ponder on that fact today. Now, when I was a child, my parents taught me to be careful with electricity. I learned to respect that current going through the wires. I learned how to replace a light bulb, how to fix a broken cord or plug, and learned what can happen when you’re not careful. Heck, I learned that last lesson again a few years ago on Christmas eve: I’d fallen asleep on the sofa with all the tree and inside Christmas lights on, and awoke to some sort of noise and what sounded like sparking….I’d overloaded a circuit and the plug in the wall (actually, it was a noise filter) was shooting sparks! I quickly unplugged it and felt the warm cord. Shame on me, I’d overloaded a 5 amp filter with, I’m sure, a lot more than that. The next morning a 10 amp filter was on it’s way, and now I use some heavy duty cords to make sure.

But, I’ve gotten away from the purpose of this post. You see, apparently, I’ve learned nothing about the real danger of electricity. I know this is so because I just spent the last bit of time cutting warning tag after warning tag off of a series of 7 watt lights!  Yes, I have some little village type things I put up every Christmas, and this year I just could not deal with all the warning tags. There were four on each cord! Four! What did they say? Hell if I know, just some sort of warning about the dangers of electricity. Apparently I’m an idiot or a dolt, or just got up from a hundred year nap and don’t know a thing about electricity! Four warning tags! For one 7-watt light!

But the real danger, the REAL danger of electricity, the real danger is when you try to cut those tags off. It’s hard to get a scissors in there, and using a sharp knife is also dangerous–don’t want to cut the cord, right (See, I knew that and yet none of the warning tags warned me about the danger of removing them!)?  So, the real danger of electricity is in removing those unsightly warning tags.

Hey, I wonder… if I’d cut myself while trying to remove a warning tag, could I have sued the maker, because no where did they warn me of the dangers of removing the tag, nor provide any easy means to remove the tag. I’ll bet some lawyer out there would take my case, make it a class action, and walk away with several million dollars. Me? I’d get enough from the lawsuit to buy a box of band-aids!

Yes, I know, I read the book, too. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Of course, if you remember the ending, who won? Christmas did. And the people of Whoville.

Why am I bringing this up? There are a lot of so-called Politically Correct people out there trying to steal Christmas from us. I’ll admit, it’s a bit better this year, as some major retailers have put Christ back in Christmas, refusing to bow to the pressure to change “Christmas” to Holiday or something else. It’s the Christmas Season, I’m going to do Christmas shopping, I’ll sing and listen to Christmas Music, and I’ll wish people a “Merry Christmas.”

Yes,the Grinch will not win. Actually, it’s the so-called politically correct Grinches that will not win, not if we don’t let them. If you celebrate Christmas, wish me a “Merry Christmas.” If you celebrate Hannukah, I’ll accept your “Happy Hannukah.” If it’s Kwanzaa, “Happy Kwanzaa” greeting are fine by me. Celebrate the holiday you want to celebrate, and I’ll do the same. Just don’t tell me what I can’t celebrate.

It’s December, it’s the Christmas season, and I’ll be wishing you a “Merry Christmas!”

I have a very lot to be thankful for. But this Thanksgiving Day, I am most thankful for the ordinary. My sister, Mary, poetically summed this up the other day:

there is no blessing that I seek
no question i would ask,
i am grateful for the gift
of an ordinary life.

I cannot add a thing to that sentiment. Mary is sure the poet and the writer in the family.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the ordinary in my life, but the people in it are anything but ordinary: family, friends, coworkers–all wonderful and influential in my life. And there are things: work, home, food, gardening, pets, shopping…. so many more…. ordinary to many, but again, special to me.

I am thankful this Thanksgiving, very Thankful. Especially for the ordinary….

I wonder: am I a Polish American, or an American Polack? It seems a fair question. My grandfather and all my great grandparents came to the United States from Poland (or whatever had been Poland at one time, when they came over). What were they? Resoundingly, they were Polish. No doubt. Not even the hint of a doubt. They spoke Polish. They followed Polish traditions. They were religious as Poles are. The associated with other Poles, even when in this country.

What, them, am I? Well, I guess I am an American first. After all, that’s why the left family, friends, home, and their own culture, to come to America to give their children and their descendants a chance at a new life, a life in America, a life of freedom and opportunity, a new life, one unlike the lives they must have known.

Yet, when they came, though they adopted their new country by learning English, by becoming citizens, and by voting and having a say in things, they did not forget the “old ways.” They were proud of who they were and where they came from. And so am I. I can’t explain it, but I feel quite a connection. I am an American, but I am also a Pole, even though I’ve never set foot on Polish ground. I honor my background and the traditions of my ancestors, every day. I am proud of them, of what they accomplished, and of the opportunities they gave me. I have not forgotten. But even more so, I cannot forget. I can’t forget, just can’t.  And, in it all, I feel so fortunate, so connected to them, so lucky.

I am a Polish-American, and damned proud of it!