For thirteen years I spent my summers reading novels for possible inclusion into the curriculum of my Honors English I courses.  I pored over used lesson plans to make improvements and I designed essay questions, challenging assignments and discussion topics for the following year’s students.  Yes, I was one of THOSE hyper-dedicated teachers whose goal it was to ignite a genuine passion for literature and a love of writing in her brand new, deer-in-the-headlights, high school freshmen.  And for thirteen years, every class brought with it a variety of learners ranging anywhere from the totally disinterested “I’m only here until I turn 16 and can drop out of school” level to the “I’ve read War and Peace five times, I’m fluent in six foreign languages and my PSAT and SAT scores are already published in the Guinness Book of World Records” types.  Julianna DeSoto was among the latter group.

The student was indeed ready!  Julianna was seldom if ever absent from school.  She was so intent on absorbing everything she could to prepare herself for slam-dunk, full-ride scholarship admissions into every university to which she applied.  In fact, I’m quite sure that Hollywood producers used Julianna as a template when they created Jennifer Lawrence’s character of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games!  Julianna is fierce — she fights for herself and for her goals. Julianna was always a decent writer, but with a little guidance from Yours Truly, she became an excellent one!  As my student, she was ready for The Teacher to help hone her skills.  I loved reading her expository essays, her personal narratives, her short stories and even her poems and haikus.  After all the students deposited their assignments on my desk, I routinely shuffled through them to find Julianna’s paper to put it at the bottom of the stack . . . to save what I already knew was the best for last — for “dessert!” Whenever one of her essays received a score of 93%, she’d risk being late for her next class to inquire what it was about her work that caused it to be marked down from 100% perfect!  She was, I should say, rather . . .  annoying!  However, as time went on, I came to be continually impressed not only with her academic performance, but also with her personal character.

I retired from teaching at the end of Julianna’s freshman year, but for some reason, she and I kept in contact through email.  And . . . somewhere along the past twelve years, we became friends, and boy, oh boy, am I glad about THAT!  Every Baby Boomer should put down whatever it is he is doing and immediately head out to find a friend in the Millennial generation!  Of course Millennials are entirely self-absorbed, have a very strong sense of entitlement and are most likely still living with their parents . . .  rent free and fully insured on their parents’ policies, but if you aren’t their parents, they make superb friends!  Julianna is my fashion consultant, my advisor as to what is hip and “cool,” AND she can navigate her way around computers, cell phones, iPods, iPads, Androids and every other piece of modern technology with as much ease as a Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg!  If she filled out an application for employment with Google or Apple, my bet is she’d be running the company in no time!  She’s THAT good!

As I settled into my new life beyond the classroom, many activities filled my days.  I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with all the free time I had, so I tried EVERYTHING!  I learned how to clog; I joined our community’s knitting group, The Knitwits; I sat on a couple of boards — one at my church and one in my community; I played tennis and dominoes (but discovered right away that they weren’t for me — tennis requires way too much running and dominoes involves away too much math!); and I took up golf.

Now . . . one would NEVER think that the game of golf would inspire my latent, unattended passion for writing, but it did.  Perhaps this admission would serve me better on a psychologist’s couch, addressing the inner voices that gasp, admonish, chortle, giggle,  complain and criticize during most rounds of golf, but here we go!

The Student was ready.  I studied every book written thus far on the rudiments of golf — from the proper equipment, the proper swing, putting, short game, bunker shots, names of clubs, golf terms . . .  EVERYTHING!  After that, I concentrated on the mental side of the game. Oh, the MENTAL side!  That’s when The Voices were born!

“How could you scull a shot like that?” chided The Critic inside me.  “You KNOW you lifted your whole body just as you hit the ball!  Don’t you know that every time you look up you see a sh#tty shot?”

“Good Grief!  Get your butt back to the driving range and work on that!  Do you HEAR me?” ordered The Coach.

“Oh, NO!” moaned The Whiner. “You’re SUCH a loser!  The last thing you said to yourself was ‘DON’T LOOK UP!’ and that’s exactly what you did!  You looked up, you Stupid Head!”

“Ha Ha Ha,” sang the playful voice of The Comic.  “You should have seen how funny you looked just now!  There you were, looking SOOOO serious, like you were on the PGA tour or something, then BOOP!  Up popped your whole body like a jack-in-the-box!  I wish I’d have taken a picture of you! Oh, my God!  I can’t stop laughing!”

And so it continued . . .  and evolved.  I observed my friends as they struggled with The Mental Game.  The Comic LOVED it.  She’d mentally draft scripts that she thought might be going on in her friends’ heads, thoroughly enjoying the fictitious dialogues.

The Comic, try as she did, could just not stay silent — she HAD to open her big mouth – – – OUT LOUD – – – and include her entire foursome in her fantasies.

To make a L-O-N-G story short(er), at my friends’ emphatic encouragement, I began writing a pseudo newspaper sports column for my regular group, recapping our 9-hole match play matches.  Most super star athletes have nicknames, so . . . we did too!  The Marquis and Princess Cut, Whacker and Pounder fought tooth-and-nail for the victory dinners at The El Rey every season.  The sports page articles circulated the following morning to each of the four subscribers.  But the subscribers forwarded their emails to their friends and pretty soon, the distribution list grew and grew and grew!

“Oh my God, Peggy!  These recaps are so funny! You should put them in a book!” was the general consensus, but The Introvert didn’t think so. The Comic did, but The Introvert told her NO! The Writer was intrigued, but  . . . noncommittal.

Daily recaps flew across The Pond during my 10-day European vacation with Heidi.  At one point we received a response:

“Don’t come home!”

Not feeling the love and nearly on the verge of tears, I read on:

“We are enjoying your recaps SOOOOO much!  We don’t want you to come home because then this will all be over!”

The Writer was flattered but The Comic . . . well The Comic was adamant!

“What if we DID put our stuff in a book?” she mused, “Do you think anyone would read it? Forget a book! I think we should start a blog!”

<GASP!>  A BLOG????  That involves a computer!  A domain name!  The internet!  The freakin’ World Wide Web!!!

So . . . what does one do when confronted with something about which she knows NOTHING?  The student was ready!  I called my teacher, Julianna DeSoto!

“Hey — would you come over and help me figure out how to start a blog?” I texted (because I learned that Millennials TEXT rather than use the telephone for everything except emergencies!)

A “thumb’s up” emoticon accompanied by another one in the shape of a hand signing “O.K.” buzzed into my phone.

There we sat at my computer, Student and Teacher, except this time the roles were reversed.  Julianna’s fingers danced across the keyboard as if she were Beethoven performing a sold out concert at Carnegie Hall!

“O.K., there,” she said, pleased with her progress. “See how easy that is? Now . . . tell me . . . ‘how do you get to your media manager?'”

<deer-in-the-headlights panic evident in my expression!>

“Um . . . .wait . . . what’s a ‘media manager?'” I asked, stalling for time and sounding ever so much like the students waiting until they turned 16 so they could drop out of school.

“Remember . . .we’ve gone over that several times already!  Now pay attention . . . it’s not that hard,” she instructed, trying not to sound impatient.

“Watch my hands,” she said gently, “I’m just gonna press the Control key at the same time I do THIS!”

Because I had always been the Teacher and Julianna had always been the Student thus far in our relationship, I was a bit uncomfortable with the role reversal.  I didn’t want to make it even more obvious that I didn’t know the first thing about creating websites or customizing them, so I fought the need to take notes!

“O.K.,” I repeated, hoping that articulating her directions orally would somehow burn them into my memory, “press the Control key . . . look for the little picture icon to add clip art . . . click and drag into my ‘media manager’ (whatever THAT is) and ‘preview your post.'”

And lo, and behold the blog came to life!

I am still a bit rusty on all of the ins and outs of blogging, but I dare say The Comic is pleased as punch, The Writer is inspired and The Student LOVES her new Teacher!