365 Days of Impacts

I was a sophomore in High School when I had the dubitable pleasure of taking Mr. Regan's government class. I was a cheerleader so I regularly had my uniform on, and he used to always rank on me - apparently he did not like cheerleaders because he thought they were less than. #MeTOO Mr Regan! This was not a big deal compared to the major faux pas that he made in class one day when he called the townhouse complex I lived in "tenement housing". I lost it in class. I went off on him with a barrage of remarks to the point that they extracted me and took me to the principals office. They called home and Mom had to come get me. I was in big trouble. They wanted to suspend me. Mom asked me what I did - and I told her what he said, and that I was just defending my home and calling him out for his attitude and inappropriate behavior. Of course it was more like - "Mr. Regan's a jerk mom, he said this and it's just not fair. It was wrong and he was mean and ...

Another middle school teacher that made a huge impression on me was Mr. Cozart. Mr Cozart was a math teacher. He had a prosthetic arm. Much like Mr. Lentine's eye, I have no idea how he ended up with this prosthesis. This was the 80s, so imagine today's prosthetics and picture a mannequin arm. This was not a bionic man arm. He had an awesome sense of humor and he had mastered the art of self deprecation regarding it. But I never learned how he lost it, which kind of bums me out. Mr. Cozart also taught drivers ed. He is the man that taught Christy how to parallel park. Christy in turn taught me. His technique was to pull up super close to the car in front of you, until you are level with the hood of the car next to you. Then you put it in reverse, and when your mirrors are paralell, you cut the wheel immediately. When your mirror is parallell with the back bumper of their car, you cut the wheel back. This works 99.999% of the time without any correction. So, indi...

In 7th grade, my science teacher was Mr. Lentine - he taught biology. Mr. Lentine had a glass eye. I'm not sure how he lost it, but it was really fascinating to me. You could never tell if he was really looking at you or not because you would get confused as to which eye was the fake one. The impact I had from Mr. Lentine was that his phrase was "there are no stupid questions". And he meant it. He wanted you to learn so bad, he didn't want you to be held back by fear or embarrassment. One of the most hilarious experiences I had in his class was reading aloud in his class. At the same time, I was also going through sex ed at the same time - where we were learning all the body parts of humans. We were studying the octopus in his class at the time and as I read the article, every time the word tentacle was in the article, I was reading tentacle, but saying testicle. By the end of the 2 paragraphs, the class was howling with laughter. I literally had no clue ...

My first grade teacher was Mrs. Seppela. She was a sturdy woman, with short black hair with grey at the temples. I hated school at this time in my life - YES me. I didn't want to be without my mother - very attached. So Mom and Dad went to the Bahamas with my Uncle Bert and Dawn. They left Christy and me at home with Nana to go on this vacation in the middle of winter. My poor grandmother. I threw myself down into the snow more than one day over this week and feigned being sick just so I didn't have to go to school. Not only did my grandmother suffer, but my teacher really didn't know what to do with me. I cried in class every day. One day she couldn't take it and she just sat down with me and cried with me. I mean she boo hooed. NO FAKING. I think this stunned me so much, I totally overcame my fear of being without my mother. I remember being concerned for her, because I had never really seen an adult cry like that. I do not remember crying at school aft...

I have always loved and respected my Uncle Johnny. I knew my Uncle as a Airforce war veteran, of the Vietnam war - and in his later years as a servant to the government working at the Pentagon. He also was a professor teaching at Calhoun College in Alabama. He had his PhD. He was a hero in my eyes. While he was serious most of the time, he would bring us AWESOME gifts from abroad, colorful dolls, exotic things and a sense of wonderment of other worlds. In is later years, I knew him as a loving son to my grandmother, Nana. He was a loving brother to my mother, a loving husband to Winnie, and most of all, a loving father and grandfather to his kids/grandkids. He could be hardcore, but he was always a great provider and supportive even in the bad times. He ALWAYS remembered my birthday, with the most beautiful cards. And I never remembered his, but it wasn't about that for him. I see so much of him in my cousin Kent. He cared about me to his last day on earth, and I always...

On July 4th 2018, Winnie Coffman Poteete passed away. Sometimes in death while sad, it brings out the best in all people including the person who has passed.  Unfortunately, the stories of Winnie on her bad days clouded the person that she could be on a good day while I knew her on this earth. Winnie was active in the officers club no matter what city/airforce base the family was currently living at. And they lived in many cities over the years - Athens, Elkmont, DC, Atlanta, Dayton Ohio, California, Oklahoma. While Uncle Johnny was off fighting wars, Winnie was not only home being a single mom with the kids, but she also was active in the local theaters in many of these postings. Not only did she help with the scenery and costumes, she starred in them! We got to see articles and photographs of this side of her - the likes of which I never knew about her. She was a model for the local malls perfumeries in Atlanta. She trained the retail staff on how to show and sell perfume (C...

Smeagol had two litters of kittens in her young adult life. Right when Dennis got divorced and moved out, Smeagol had 2 back to back litters of kittens. I always named her litters after artists. She was actually a teen cat mom for the first litter - I think she may have been 3. For the first litter, most of the kittens were given away except for 2. Rodin and VanGogh. Rodin eventually went to my Friend Amanda and became "Rodie"and VanGogh got nicknamed Viggy for short. Viggy became Dennis' little buddy. She was so cute - she fit in the palm of Dennis' hand. She would sit on his shoulder while he worked. Eventually, when she grew up, she came to live with me, Buckwheat and Smeagol at 3rd Avenue. Viggy was all tomcat, even though she was a girl. If she had been human, she would have been like Idgie Threadgoode, from Fried Green Tomatoes - the local tomboy who swears, smokes, drinks, gambles and never goes to church. As many of you know, Crack Lady lived acro...

April 11th is the birthday of my sister - Christy Suzanne White. The only way I can describe my sister is salt of the earth. She is Aries all the way and I am Taurus - this lended to some head butting early on, but while she and I did not always get along in our younger years, I have nothing but love and respect for her now. The best story that I have to tell what my sister is made of is that when my father came home from his last hip surgery without an actual hip socket/acetabulum to put his femur back into, my sister dropped everything - her entire life in California to stay for almost a year in Alabama to help my mom care for him in the house until he was better. There was a hospital bed in the den. He got an infection that required them to clean and redress the 10+ inch incision/wound daily, and a high powered antibiotic had to be administered for 18 weeks via a pic line that went straight to his heart. Christy administered this most days - with Dad timing the dose, because i...

Whoever is trying to bring you down is already below you. ~Anonymous Revenge may seem like the right alternative to you at the time, but trust me when I say the act of revenge is never as sweet as the taste of forgiveness. Adjusting your attitude is a better way to spend your energy and is less expensive than the consequences you will pay for your acts. When I was a teenager, one of my close friends was betrayed by a boyfriend. This was total teenage drama, but as we all have experienced it, it can be seeminly devastating. As a teenager, you don't have the maturity to think it all the way through to the consequences - you just want to feel what you perceive as the joy of payback. Many thoughts cross your mind - back then we had the thought of slashing his tires on his brand new car that he presumable loved more than my friend. I basically had the bright idea that letting the air out of the tires was one less step from being criminal. I don't think I've ever told thi...

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. -Mark Twain Think about that for a moment. Are you the violet or are you the heel? I will tell you that there have been many times in my life that if I did not let go and let God do his work and forgive the situation, I would not be the jolly person that everyone thinks I am. There is so much hatred in this world, it is so easy to hate, and so easy to hate others for whatever they "did" to you. That sucks so much energy out of your soul, you really have no recourse but to stop doing it. If you don't stop the hate, you will never get out of that hole you keep digging for yourself that you fall into every time you walk around the same block. You don't have to forget whatever has been done to you, but set a boundary. STICK TO IT. Continue to forgive the person, love them through it. But don't ever let them do it again. In my case, the person I had to forgive the most to bring ...

So, when I met Dennis, his spirit was pretty beat down. Needless to say, the divorce took a huge toll on him. He had lost his mojo. His self confidence had been squashed by the situation. And then he met me. I immediately made him make a bucket list. I made him think of all the things he always wanted to do but for reasons that shall go unnamed, he had lost his chutzpah to attempt them. I told him - YOU NEED A THEME SONG. He couldn't give me one that really fit him, so I chose BACK IN BLACK by AC/DC. Needless to say, when you're riding down the road cranking this in the car, you feel like you can take on the world - and forget about the nay sayers in your life, you can do anything! Think of this like the "at bat" songs that baseball players have. Like Chipper Jones used to have Ozzy Ozbourne's "Crazy Train". Put it this way, Dennis didn't really embrace this idea. But at the time it fit - not only for his personality, but also for his fi...

Chances are that if you grew up from the 80s and on, you are influenced by Divorce. Most of the time this is a negative influence. Divorce takes the norm and blows it apart. It ruins trust not only with the parents, but the kids, friends. It devastates the finances of the family and usually one of the parents is strapped having to pay the bulk of child support. Houses get foreclosed on, and forget living paycheck to paycheck. Sometimes parents have to get multiple jobs to make ends meet. Many file bankruptcy. Kids are suddenly split into 50/50 visitation (if they're lucky) or sometimes they don't get to see one of the parents at all. Many parents are thrown into being the single parent. Many parents let the nastiness that was their marriage bleed over and affect their kids no matter how hard they try. Kids become bargaining chips. They are used against the other parent. One parent trash talks the other, it gets nasty. NO ONE WINS. I have not been in a divorce, bu...