Real Time Post

I had an exciting day at work for me. First we had open house this evening so I did not come home after work I just stayed at school and got some work done and while I was doing that Christmas came early to my classroom. The tech guys came and installed a promethean board in my classroom. They are really cool interactive boards; gone are the days of chalk or white boards. If you would like to see what they can do a Google search and there are all types of demonstrations to watch. I am so excited because I went to the training and early August and have just been impatiently waiting to get one of these in my classroom. The second exciting event ties directly to open house. Last year we had 75 parents come to open house; we have 1,500 students enrolled at our school. Pretty depressing when you stop and think aobut how few people came to learn about where their child attends school. This year we had 600 parents. I was so happy because when the parents take an interest that is when we start to see changes occur. Good things are happening at my school and I’m really thrilled to be a part of it.

Syracuse State Fair

People tell me that I should blog and I’ve said I just do not know what to blog about. To me I just lead a normal and at times a slightly boring life that people would not want to read about and the people that might care I send a once a week email to and they can read it or not. Then I though what if I wrote in retro time; I have some great memories and as I’ve been listening to Pandora.com on the computer some of those memories have been flooding back.

For those of you that do not know about Pandora.com it is really cool you put in a song or an artist and from there the computer just starts playing different music that you might like based on your first selection. If a song you really do not like starts to play you can give it a thumbs down and if you really like it you can give it thumbs up.

Anyway I put the Osmond Brothers into the computer a couple of nights ago and soon I was having flashes of memories while I was writing lesson plans. My sister knows this story well and if she has slightly different memories she can add her memories as well.

I believe it was the summer of 1975 possibly 1976 and the Osmond Brothers were going to be at the State Fair in Syracuse, New York and like most teenage girls in the 1970s I love the Osmond Brothers especially Donny. My friend Debby had informed me of the concert and we desperately tried to get her Mother to agree to take us. After all Debby had family there we thought it would be a sure thing but it was not. So we tried a different approach. We asked my parents and to be honest I am not sure what transpired but I am sure my Aunt Dorothy had a hand in it. My parents agreed to let me go to Syracuse with my younger sister and I would get to see the Osmond concert. We tried to convince Debby’s Mom that Debby needed to come also but Debby did not get to go.

So my sister and I got on a Greyhound bus and headed to Syracuse. There were two seats left on the bus when we got there but they were not next to each other. There was no way I was going to let my little sister sit by herself near strangers; so we shared a seat and when it got tight feeling she sat on my lap. If the lady in the seat next to us had not been so large we most likely would not have felt so tight in our shared seat but we arrived safely in Syracuse and spent the night with Aunt Dorothy and Uncle John.

The next day was the day of the fair. Aunt Dorothy took us to the fair while Uncle John went to work and he met us at the fair in the evening. It rained most of the day at the fair but we did not care we were at the fair and I was going to see the Donny Osmond in real life. That evening Aunt Dorothy and I headed to our seats while Uncle John took my sister to the midway for some fun.

I remember that I loved the concert but what I remember with even more fondness was what happened after the concert. Once the concert was over we met up with Uncle John and my sister. We were both exhausted as we headed to the parking lot and then we hit a snag; my Aunt Dorothy could not remember where she had parked her car so we wandered around for what seemed like forever. My Uncle John had of course remembered where he had parked but in my Aunt Dorothy’s defense we had been there all day my Uncle John had only been there for a few hours. They finally decided that Uncle John should take us home. He took us home and put us in bed. I had been so excited I did not fall asleep right away so I heard my Aunt Dorothy come home. She asked my Uncle John if he had given us a bath or shower before we went to bed. He told her he had not because it was late and we were exhausted. This did not surprise me because my Aunt Dorothy is very clean. She said “John but my clean white sheets will be all dirty because you did that.” His comment and for this I loved my Uncle John “Dorothy they are only sheets you can wash them when the girls get up. They are girls that had a busy happy day and sleep with pleasant dreams was more important than white sheets.”

I know we spent a day or two more with Aunt Dorothy and Uncle John before they put us back on a Greyhound bus for home and this time we each had our own seat next to each other.

My first post!

So who's Penny Candy? Well, if my mom had her way, she would have named me Penelope Candace, or Penny Candy for short. She did not, but I decided to use that for my blog name.

By the way this blog was set up by my husband, Doohickie, so that I can comment on other people's blogs without being anonymous.