A Day in the Life of Chaos

A different face but the same school in spirit There are few professions I admire more in life than one of the most under paid ones, the teacher.  Perhaps the fact that both my parents were teachers has augmented my understanding and sympathy.  My father was a professor at the university level and my mother taught those that no one else wanted to teach.  I guess it was a tribute to her dedication that she would actually take up the mantle and give a final shot to those whom mainstream education had cast aside.  She worked for a program called S.A.V.E. that acted as a kind of last chance for many kids to get a diploma.  Each student was filled with a litany of problems.  Difficulties in life that made education seem like an unneeded add on.  On the other hand, education was the one element that provided any structure to their lives.  I am sure that the social studies teacher/gym teacher/part time counselor and sympathetic ear my mother was definitely must have helped. Hardly a day

There is a small liberal arts university in Salem Oregon named Willamette.  It was the first major step in my process of breaking away from my parents and becoming my own man.  While I only spent my freshman and my senior year there I look back now at Willamette with great fondness.  My classes were small and personal.  My professors cared deeply about what they taught and the environment was one of intellectual growth.  Willamette is a little treasure built around a winding creek that flows through the campus.  It is an oasis of old trees, brick buildings and Oregon history nestled in the shadow of the Oregon State Capitol.  I studied history and politics.  I worked for a State Senator in the capitol writing letters to consituents and researching policy.  Most importantly, Willamette was a university that pushed its students to write.  Somewhere in the endless term papers and essays I learned that writing was the most important skill I would ever have. In the midst of my four ye