The Unlikeliest Of Places

Yesterday I wandered over to the WalMart in Cicero to kill time before I had to pick Jakob up since Jericho was a little antsy sitting around at home. We picked up a few random bits and pieces, but the coolest thing happened on our way out. At WalMart they always have greeters standing by the entrances welcoming people in and saying 'farewell' to those on their way out

Well, the older gent who was the greeter at the exit I was headed to noticed the sling (that I made and posted about in a previous blog) that Jericho was being carried in. He stopped me to ask me how exactly it worked and we got to chit-chatting for a few minutes.

Come to find out this gentleman had a PHD in science and was a Biology/Chemistry/Environmental Science teacher at the high school and college level. It was so interesting considering that is what Bill is interested in going into. He told me a number of stories about his teaching days and some of the assignments he had given his students. One of them was actually really awesome! In his Environmental Science class, their final project was to write a paper on what the world would be like 50 years from that time (now mind you, this easily was 20+ years ago). He said it was fascinating to see what the students came up with. I thought it would be a neat idea for Bill to use at some point in his teaching.

But you know, who ever would have thought that I would meet someone so cool working at WalMart? I think that a lot of people (myself included!) have the preconcieved notion that people working in jobs like that are unmotivated or uneducated. Obviously that is the dead wrong assumption. Meeting him was definitely the highlight of my week I think. I ended up standing there to chat with him until I finally HAD to go or I would have been late to pick Jakob up from school. It was lovely and refreshing. I find myself liking older people and feeling sad that it's so seldom that we sit down and listen to them, living the fast paced lives that we young people live. Sometimes it's nice to slow down and listen.

Jakob is doing really well in school. He loves it, of course. And yes, I still walk him to his class every single day. I also went to the first parent workshop of the year and was sad to see so few parents there. Only five parents showed up, out of an entire school full of children, only five parents came. So needless to say, I'll be getting involved with the Parent Association. Just call me soccer mom extraordinaire!