Lesson's Learned from My Recent Road Trip

If you have been keeping track of my blogs, you know that I just completed a school related road trip to Corpus Christi and back. It turned out I traveled with 4 of my lady co-workers (all over 50 by the way!) instead of three. Here is what I learned about my lady friends.

Lady #1 (M.K.) -- She is originally from Poland. She was born in Poland while it was still under a Communist government controlled by the Soviet Union. She remembers being in elementary school, and the KGB coming in and asking if anyone had been to "church" on Sunday. If the students answered, "Yes", the KGB would take that student out of class and find out who the kids parents were. The kid would then go home to find one, or possibly both, of their parents had been arrested for violation of anti-religious laws. Later she applied to be a Dr. at a medical school. While working for the college's radio station, the KGB came in one evening, and forced her at gun-point to read Communist propaganda over the air-waves. This shook her up so much, she quit medical school. She ended up marrying an American who was working over-seas. He brought her to America and tried to treat her like a slave. She resisted, ended up divorcing him and applied for U.S. citizenship. She has been teaching in public schools and Adult Ed for about 20 years. She is very ANTI-BUSH and ANTI Iraq War, and she is a very nervous person when she cannot smoke like she wants to. She also loves to say, "Jesus Rodriguez" a lot when she wants to emphasize a point or gets frustrated. (Much like Sylvester the Cat says, "Sufferin' Succotash.") She is pro-Obama and tried her best to be a "side-seat driver", until I told her she was making me more nervous than the traffic.

Lady #2 -- (M.R) Our lady from Puerto Rico. She was our "Diva!" She attempted to control it all. She is very allergic to MSG and was very picky about where we chose to eat. She did restrain much of her criticism of others but once again told me "I dance like I am constipated," when I was swaying a little bit to some music at Joe's Crab Shack. Her family still lives in Puerto Rico but she is very glad and very proud to be an American. She supports John McCain, because she feels he is the best person to protect us from the terrorist, "Who will attack us again, if one of those crazy Democrats gets into office." She is also our party lady. She was the one attempting to drag us all out for a drink or two.

Lady # 3 -- (A.R.) This lady is originally from St. Lucia (a tiny island nation in the Caribbean). When asked how she met her husband, (a twenty year age difference by the way), she told us how she was working in a hotel in St. Lucia at age 18. Her husband came in, "He checked into the hotel and checked me out!" Her husband asked permission from her father to bring A.R. back to the states with him. With her father's blessing she traveled back to the U.S. with her future husband. After a year of courtship here in the states, they married. I also found out from her, that because St. Lucia is a British Commonwealth Nation, that citizens of St. Lucia, can go to college in England for free. She supports Hillary Clinton for president, because she supports the "universal health care system." Although she would vote for Huckabee if she had to vote Republican.

Lady # 4 -- (D.R.) She is born and raised Texan. She lives in the "South Side" of our fair town, in what she calls "the hood!" She managed to raise 4 kids in "the hood" and get them all graduated and most of them into college. Wow! She was the quietest of us all. She refused to get involved in the political debates but did call Lady #1 Anti-American for not supporting the war on terrorism. Didn't find out much more about her, because she slept most of the way there and back.

As for the Conference...there were some good sessions and bad sessions as with all conferences. I did learn that even the walls in the expensive hotels are not thick enough to block out all the noise that a bunch of teenagers can make. A group of teens attending a DECA Convention made all sorts of noises from about 10:30-1:00 every night. I called hotel security on them twice. One of the crazy teens attempted to climb onto the balcony of lady # 3, from a lower floor. Scared her to death.

All in all, the trip was not as bad a thought it would be, but I was glad to be home. After spending two 7 hour trips with these wonderful ladies, we were all getting on each others nerves. We just wanted to be home with our families. Or in the case of lady #1, her cats!

I will catch up on my other blog thoughts tonight after paying some bills, or maybe tomorrow. I need to spend some more quality time with my family.