Good Memories

I got rid of the plaques

I am slowly and surly (surly to bed and surly to rise -- what am I, a GenXer?) clearing up the boxes in the downstairs. I ran across these old PTK items from my time as an advisor some thirty odd years ago.   

My time with Phi Theta Kappa was challenging and wonderful. What was challenging was the cat herding part of it. Also, I consistently made mistakes with the budgeting. What was wonderful was the tradition of the hug line and seeing the students graduate with honors.

 Also, it was kinda great when the new president of the college, after seeing me selling six-dozen me-made chocolate chip cookies at a symphony concert at Bend High (pre-Michael, when the symphony had trouble pulling a decent Beethoven out of it's ass), made PTK a line item in the college budget.

After taking this picture, I unceremoniously dropped the two plaques, which used to hang in my office, into the garbage. Because it was the day after pick-up, they made quite the bang when they hit the bottom of the cart.

I am keeping the picture, medal, and the saw. The medal might make a nice costume piece. The picture is from a conference in Portland, probably drawn at the Saturday Market, and is me, me, me! The saw was part of a joke that my two first leaders, Steve and A.J., shared, though at this point in time I can't remember the joke itself.  All I remember is laughing hysterically together at saws with paintings on them.

I look back and realize how young and anxious I was all the time in those days. Anxious that I wouldn't be able to hold my job, anxious that I wouldn't get tenure, anxious that I could never do enough. The "kids" in PTK helped me to feel as though I was okay out here in what was then a small town of 25 thousand in the "wilderness" or, as I once put it, "a college in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere."