It's just like riding a bicycle

 Last week I gave a tour of Antietam to a group of kids from HCC, a couple of them are classmates, so I enjoyed them seeing something else that I do.

The weather was perfect and the kids were really engaged.  I was a little apprehensive as it has been ten years since I left the battlefield, but I must tell you, it all came back.  I loved it, and so did they...

just like in the days of yore.

See you next time.

(retured ranger) Mannie

School Days, some stuff I've been working on

 I'm having a great semester at Hagerstown Community College.  I'm taking Drawing II and Sculpture I.

This is some of my work:

Calamity Jane, pencil

The Best of Intentions, pencil.

Slava Ukraini, plaster, silk, watercolor.

I continue to have the time of my life.

(retired ranger) Mannie

The Dream Team

 A snowflake on a warming day.

The perfect "work group" is a rare and precious thing...not just people who work well together, but friends who empathize and commiserate with each other, who encourage and console each other, who boost each other to excellence and savor each others successes.

When I worked at The Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument, I was a part of that type of rare tribe. We were actually friends, rather than merely co-workers, and the sum of us was greater than the parts.

We were the ones who started the Park Service efforts at what was then, the newest of the National Monuments. We invented the idea out of whole cloth...together.

When I retired, I did so in the vacuum of quarantine - all of us were working from our homes and only meeting via zoom. My retirement send-off was done, the only way it could be, remotely on a computer screen. Sadly, there were no opportunities for hugs, handshakes, and private words with these wonderful people.

I planned on going back for a visit after things opened back up and it was safe to travel, but, by then, all of my friends had scattered to the winds of the Park Service, and "The House" is closed for a multi-year renovation.

And that perfect snowflake, just melted away.

We should all be so lucky, in our working lives, to have the opportunity to find such perfection, even if only for a moment.