WERE THE TUDORS TUTORS?

Blog number   178                                                              30 May 2008

One of the very best jobs I ever had was tutoring Math at a high school in Sacramento.  Elk Grove, actually, but same thing.  I have known for some time that I cannot teach and I don't like teaching, but I am an excellent tutor, and I love tutoring. I like explaining things. I like to be asked questions.  From my egocentric view, it seems that that should be a universal trait, but it isn't.  Some people hate to be asked about something they know.  That is so alien to me.  I don't understand it.

This morning I called the Phoenix library because I left a book there that belonged in the Casa Grande library.  Lemme digress here a moment.  I just thought of something.

I had a friend in the Air Force that once came out to our house  and he asked me where all our books were.  I asked him what he meant and he said I was always talking about something I was reading and so he figgured I must have a lot of books.  I told him I got my books from the library.  News to him, I guess.

He once told me that he never read books because they didn't have any pictures.  I just looked at him nonplussed and he said, "Really.  I need pictures or I can't read."

Okay.  Back to business.  When I told the librarian what I wanted, she told me to wait a minute and a short time later she came back and said, "We have your book."  I thought there was a good chance I had lost it because I thought it would be thrown away since it wasn't their book, or at least placed on the shelf where people could buy books for a dollar.

I asked her how she had found it so quick and she said it happens a lot, so if their computer kicks out a book, they put it in a special box and wait for somebody to ask for it.  Now comes the raison d'etat for this blog entry.

When I found this out - about how the library works mis-returned books, I immediately wanted to tell Teresa.  But I have been working on a discipline where I don't tell some things so that I will have a few secrets.  So far I haven't been able to do this.  The tell - no tell thing worked so hard on my psyche that it brought up an epiphany.  The reason I can't keep a secret is this old bugaboo about tutoring.  I want to explain!  It's who I am.

This may not sound like much to you, but from inside here, it's a big thing.