Word: pta
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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What do you feel when you get whacked? In my case, nothing, and I remember nothing, which seems weirder still but is actually normal. Doctors speak of "post-traumatic amnesia," PTA for short, to denote this peculiar whiting out of violent episodes. The other car hit me head on but slightly off center; its impact was concentrated on the driver's side. It then spun off the road, though its occupants too, astonishingly, survived. Under such an impact, bones may not just break; they can explode, like a cookie hit by a hammer, and that's what happened to several...
...Carolina grandparents tuck Tiana into bed at night and make her breakfast every morning; they pay for her school and her doctors. Instead of traveling and seeing friends, as they expected to do in their autumn years, they are back in the business of going to birthday parties and pta meetings. For the past seven years, since Tiana's mother left the baby with a sitter and never picked her up (her father moved out two years later), parenting has been their life. "I cried for three days when we knew that this was going to happen," recalls Vickie...
...didn't just follow her father's path toward nursing. She also followed his example in the civic arena, becoming active in Somerville life. She joined the PTA and volunteered for various political campaigns and community associations...
Parents must also do things they may find difficult--like calling a stranger on the phone or going to a meeting of the parents association. But if you demonstrate the desire to get involved in the school community, chances are your child will too. Attend that first PTA meeting or contact members who have children close in age to yours. Ask some general questions--they will undoubtedly fill in the details...
...waitresses laugh and to the ones who pick up litter on the beach, the ones who stop to help the ones who have flat tires, the ones who return wallets, the ones who pick and sing for fun and the ones who run the Fritos pie booth at the PTA school fair. Here's to the clerks who say, "Now you have a nice day, hear?" and mean it, and to the ones who say wryly, "If it was a snake, it would've bit you." Here's to whale savers and the wolf lovers and all the lovely birders...