Teachers Change Lives: Mr. Eaves, Respect, and Curiosity

Being back in Nebraska, I'm feeling pretty nostalgic about just about everything. The food, the places, the experiences. I've even seen in passing a few people I went to college with, which is strange for me, having been away for so long. Or maybe it wasn't even that I've been away for so long but rather that I've been so far away for a few years that it seems like a completely different world that I once belonged to.

In honor of feeling nostalgic, now seems like the right time to tell you about a teacher who inspired me once upon a time.

Despite me loathing the subject he fancied to the extreme, my fifth grade teacher Mr. Eaves took my curiosity to a new and interesting level. The last year I spent at Stapleton Elementary in Joplin, Missouri, was filled with experiments, trips, explorations into the organic world, and, most importantly, the gift of trust and respect from an adult.

In elementary school I was part of a group of seven girls -- the Magnificent Seven they called us. We ran around the school like we ran the place, and the teachers knew that we were super tight knit. As we all ended up in the same fifth grade classroom, Mr. Eaves took advantage of our clique.

Between experiments with wave bottles (soda bottle + oil + colored liquid), tornado machines (two bottles taped together with water, spin it and tornado), and building rockets that we shot off on a non-school day at a field near the local university, Mr. Eaves put together an aviary in the back of the classroom and filled it with zebra finches. Our task, as the Magnificent Seven, was to spend our fifth grade year taking care of the birds.

We fed them, cleaned the cage, made sure their nests were cozy and clean, and at the end of that fifth grade year, Mr. Eaves gave us each a gift: We got to take some of the birds home with us. Me, being sentimental at that age and having the utmost respect for the teacher who made soda bottles interesting, named one of the birds Teaves.

Our final project was to take the empty, barren space between the two legs of our school building and plan a large garden. We created water features, decided which plants would grow best in the shade and which needed complete sunlight. We built in little walking paths and bridges. We created an entire ecosystem based on our teacher's guidance and our own creativity. It wasn't until a year later -- when we were all in middle school -- that the area was transformed. Mr. Eaves invited us all back for the unveiling, and the picture of most of the Magnificent Seven is one of my most precious.

The spark of curiosity that he inspired in me -- to get down and dirty to understand the mysteries and fun in the universe -- sticks with me even today. We loved Mr. Eaves for trusting us enough to raise birds and build rockets. He gave us the kind of respect that a fifth grader needs before launching into Middle School, which was such a gift for me at that time.

And if you know the kind of person I am, you won't be surprised to find out that the Magnificent Seven went to the lengths of purchasing Mr. Eaves a plaque and balloon on the last day of school to show him how much we loved, respected, and appreciated him. Ridiculous, right? 

Although I fell a bit out of love with science later in life after some bad experiences with honors courses and not great teachers, I still have a fascination with hands-on activities and creating things. As someone who reflects on life through the written word in numerous capacities, I have to think on and thank Mr. Eaves for giving me the gift of trust, respect, and most of all, the gift of curiosity. 

Feeling inspired? I'd love to hear about a teacher who inspired YOU! Check out this video of Chris Emdin, a science teacher in the Bronx who (oddly enough) incorporates hip hop into his lessons to help students see science in a different way. 

Also: Consider donating to Teachers Change Lives by clicking on "Donate to a Teacher" on their website. After all, teachers are doing innovative things in the classroom and you can help them do more by donating!


I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

From Webb City to the Gush

I'm such a weirdo. This absolutely made my day. Yes, a scale that measures in kilograms made my day. Why? I'll tell you why.

Mr. T and I went to the doctor to go over some blood test results as well as to discuss my ultrasound from last week. The baby is great ("Nothing spectacular," says the doctor) and growing at the right rate ("But why nothing spectacular," asks Mr. T) according to all of the measurements so far ("You don't want spectacular!" the doctor says with a smile). After getting referrals for a 32-week ultrasound and a dietician (if I happen to need it) and the three-hour glucose test (which, hopefully will come back negative for gestational diabetes so I can rip up the dietician referral), I decided to hop on the scale since I neglected to make an August appointment with the nurse to check my weight and all of that good and fun stuff.

Of course, I made Mr. T turn around (he went to the bathroom) and started moving the scale around to detect my weight. As I landed on the same figure (less one pound or 1/2 a kilo) that I had in July when I weighed in (huzzah!), I noticed -- next to the brand name of the scale -- ", MO U.S.A." so I moved the weights a bit and bam!

Webb City, MO U.S.A.

You guys, I practically squeeeed with joy at this. I know, I sound like a nutcase, but you have to understand: Webb City was right down the road from where I grew up in Joplin. Webb City was where I spent my summers going to the drive-in movie theater. Webb City was like a mini-vacation from Joplin.

From 1921 E. 33rd Street to the Drive-In Movie Theater!

[And, please note my devastation as I just discovered that the movie theater was torn down to build a Walmart Supercenter ... sigh ... ]

Seeing a little piece of "home" from so long ago in a medical center in Efrat, Israel is like ... wow it's a trip for me. A real trip. It makes me wonder how a scale made in Webb City (in kilograms at that) made it all the way to the Gush of Eretz Yisrael.

It really is a small world after all.

Of Crickets and Stars

Chloe, some girl, and my little brother Joseph -- not watching the game.

Last night, I fell asleep to the sound of a single cricket noising outside my window.

It was heaven.

I tried to explain to Mr. T how welcoming and comfortable the sound of a cricket chirping noisily was to me, and I'm not sure he understood entirely. But for a girl grown up in Southern Missouri and Nebraska, crickets are like white noise. As summer approaches, even more so do I feel like a cricket outside my window is a huge blessing.

When I was a kid in Joplin, Missouri, my father played softball on the company league and my older brother played baseball. My memory likes to tell me that we were out on the softball or baseball diamond almost every night every summer when I was a kid, but I'm guessing that it was more like every weekend or once a week. The baseball diamond on the outskirts of town, the tall lights illuminating the field and dust plumes flying upward when a ball smacked the infield or someone slid into base. The games always started when it was still light outside and by game's end it was pitch black and the crickets were a symphony of summer.

I'd like to say I spent a lot of time watching my brother and dad play, but the truth is that me and my band of merry picker-uppers would wander the grounds nabbing trash for the reward of something free from the concession stand -- I'd always grab a Chic-o-Stick or giant dill pickle while friends grabbed ring pops, soda, or a hot dog.

When my little brother was born, I spent time watching him and then enlisted his help when he was old enough to walk and pick things up in garbage grabbing.

Late in the evening, we were always among the last to leave, watching the fields being closed up and the dust settle from people racing out of the gravel parking lot toward home.

One year it was particularly hot, and I neglected to drink enough water to keep me fully hydrated. So near the end of the night when the sun was already gone I chugged a ton of water. So much water, in fact, that I ended up throwing up all over the dry gravel and dirt near our car in the parking lot -- water poisoning! I've never been a regurgitator, but boy did I really do myself in that time.

So crickets. Usually, we talk about how powerful smell is. How it can transport us to a different time and place and make our shoulders relax, our eyes close, and a deep sigh to emanate from someplace deep within. I have those moments, but they are few and far between (the smell of stale soda cans is one, because as a kid we used to spend a lot of time at the aluminum can recycling facility in Joplin). Sounds are even fewer for me, but crickets is one that transports me to a time when I know we were all happy.

(Another sound? Wind chimes, but that's another story from a less happy time.)

It's funny that my little brother never took up baseball and that my older brother basically quit when we moved to Nebraska. The culture was different -- football, not baseball, reigned supreme. I no longer spent spring and summer on the baseball field but rather spent my fall and bitter winters on stone slabs in a large high school football stadium, which transitioned to college where I was a proud season-ticket holder for three years (something happened senior year -- I couldn't afford season tickets, even at the deeply discounted student price).

And I can guarantee you one thing: You don't hear crickets late at night amid the crunch of helmets and shoulder pads at a football game.

After I attempted to explain this cricket fixation to Mr. T, he said, as if out of nowhere,

"I wish there were no street lights in Neve Daniel." 

I responded, "Why exactly?" His response reminded me why I so love him.

"I'd like to be able to see all the stars."

Who Am I?: Part II

Up until 1992, things were moving along smoothly in my life. It was my mom, dad, my older brother John, and me. We lived in Joplin, Missouri, and for all intents and purposes life was good.

So. So. So. Cute.

And then, mom got preggo with my little brother Joseph, and he entered the world on March 18, 1992. His arrival necessitated a lot of things, like a new minivan (that would proceed to catch fire about three times over the next ten years) and a huge choice: little brother or the dog. My older brother and I had lived our entire lives with a dog, Precious, but once the little brother was coming, my parents insisted that the dog needed to go. Precious had only snipped at one person, and that was my grandmother, and she was probably asking for it, but the dog went and the little brother arrived. John and I came home from school to find a neighbor from across the street (who doubled as a babysitter) at our place waiting for us. She whisked us off to the hospital where we met the little bundle of joy, who was named after the same grandfather from which my middle name comes. I was immediately in love with the kid, probably a result of that little girls like babies mentality. My older brother wasn't as stoked and attempted fratricide. I'm only half kidding, really. When I was a kid and we lived in Iowa, my brother shoved me down some steps in one of those rolling, bouncy things that are no longer made, and when Joe came along, John just happened to let him roll off the bed while we were watching him. From the beginning, I took on a very protective role with my little brother. Being 9 years old when he was born, I felt a duty to be a big sister like the other big sisters I knew around me who had siblings closer in age -- but better.

I have more pictures of Joe than anyone in my family in all of my old albums. Remember: I started taking photos when I was in kindergarten, thanks to parents who understood that I was uber into photography. I have pictures of Joe on his favorite little red stool, laying on my day bed, playing video games, sitting in his car seat, and just posing in general. I was in love with this kid. He changed my life, my purpose, my everything. But he also was really annoying. I mean, he destroyed my Barbie Dream House on a daily basis while I was at school and he was constantly in my room for no reason. I loved him, but he was the typical annoying younger sibling for whom I felt more than responsible.

We are geeks. Like my mushroom 'do? | Fifth Grade

When I was in elementary school, I ran around with a very specific group of friends, so specific, in fact, that the teachers and even the principal of Stapleton Elementary School in Joplin had a name for us: The Magnificent Seven. There was Jessica, Jennifer, Allison, Kendall, Annie, Chelsea, and me. We were peas in a pod and we did everything together. We bought BFF necklaces, we had sleep overs, we swooned over the same boys in class, and by fifth grade our friendship was so solidified that we managed to start our own little newspaper/zine that we sold. The zine had lists of all the hot boys and profiles about each of us, and with the money we made we ... embarassingly ... purchased a plaque and balloons as a fifth-grade graduation gift for our teacher, Mr. Eaves. We were ridiculous, it's true, but we were besties, for life. We had plans, big plans, to be friends forever. We were in charge of the fifth-grade class aviary, for pete's sake!

During fourth and fifth grade, I left Stapleton to go to one of the other elementary schools for what was called the Enrichment Program. In fourth grade, it was a relief because Mr. Smith, our teacher, was a little loopy, what with making us watch Little House on the Prairie and having "parties" so frequently that I got sick of eating cheese and crackers. (Pretty sure he was later arrested for indecent acts with a child.) At Enrichment, we learned how to program computers, dissect a frog, and do gigantic projects that culminated in an end-of-year project presentation at Joplin High School (z"l). Fourth grade was wombats, and fifth grade was origami. I was such a nerd. But from what I remember about elementary school, it wasn't incredibly challenging. I was in a special reading group in the early grades because my advancement left me bored in class and, well, I was loquacious, as one teacher noted. I needed constant stimulation. Thinking back, I probably would have been given ritalin or something had they not known what to do with me.

Sixth Grade | That shirt? It's from the Sears
womens' section. Beginning of the end for me.

But then middle school arrived. Sixth grade. A bigger school, more people, and some of my friends were going off to different schools, private schools. But Joplin wasn't big. I remember it being about 80,000 when we lived there, so I wasn't worried about losing friends. Thus, in 1995, I started at South Middle School, not knowing what my parents were cooking up for the family at that point. I was still in the Enrichment Program, but this time around it wasn't so much challenging as it was entertaining. We visited a Taxidermy Shop and went to this small donut hut for Coke in glass bottles (what a novelty!). The rest of school was frustrating and kind of a bore. My friends were making new friends and I was dressing in all black. The only class I really enjoyed was art class, and my mom still has some of my works up on the wall at home. Sixth grade was hard for me for many reasons, most of which I can't pinpoint today. I remember being more overweight than I had been in the past -- or, at least, for the firs time it bothered me. I was taller than all the other kids my age (for the first and only time in my life), too. And then?

My parents told us we were moving to Nebraska. Nebraska? What is in Nebraska? My friends aren't there, our house isn't there, our town isn't there. What about Benito's (my favorite Mexican restaurant of all time)? Dad got a promotion, they told us, and he would be a regional auditor based in Lincoln, Nebraska, and we were moving on August 1, 1996. In the midst of middle school, in the midst of an image crisis that left me eating nothing but a Kool-Aid burst at lunch for an entire year, I was angry, but naive. I imagined my friends would come visit and that I'd visit them and everything would stay the same. That was partially true, but only for a few years. Of all of The Mag Seven, only one friend has kept in touch with me regularly over the years, and that's Jessica -- but not in the way we once were friends. Only 350 miles away, a six-hour drive, one would think that things wouldn't change that much, but they did.

Chloe's on the left, Joe on the right. 

As an aside, I have to mention the role of baseball in my childhood, because it's summertime and, well, summertime in my world in Joplin meant one thing: pickles. Okay, that sounds weird, I know, but let me explain. My father coached and played on his job's softball team, and my older brother started playing ball back when he was Tee-Ball aged. Every summer, we were at the field pretty much every single day, with either John or dad playing. I was lucky that Jessica's dad was a big baseball buff and so she also was always out there with us. As kids, we used to wander around during the game picking up trash and when the bag was full, we'd race back to the concession stand for a free treat. Sometimes it was a Chick-o-Stick, but usually, it was a gigantic pickle. Other kids got ring pops or the dip sticks that go into powdered sugar, but I stood by my two options. When Joe was born, he came to the field in a stroller and as he got to walking, he would run around the park, too. Oddly enough, one of the other kids his age was born the day after or before him (I forget) and her name was Chloe. Back in those days, we thought Joe and Chloe were going to grow up and get married, what with their summer baseball romance and all. After we moved to Nebraska, Joe and Chloe would send each other little letters (of course, our moms were the ones doing it), but that, too, stopped. But that was life for me in Joplin: Baseball, baseball, and more baseball.

In Nebraska that all would change. Football was the word of the day and my brother hopped on that bandwagon early. My friends would change, my ambitions would change, everything would change when we moved to Nebraska. I was a different person the moment we settled into our house in Lincoln and I started school in Fall 1996 at Goodrich Middle School.

But that's for another installment ... stay tuned for the move to Nebraska, in which I stop wearing black, get into Nirvana and the Spice Girls, fall in love with JTT, start over again with friends in high school and ... oh wait. I haven't even mentioned my religious upbringing in these posts. But that's okay, y'all can find that in other posts. 

Who Am I?: Part I

Some days I really realize how lucky I am. And then I wonder how I got here.

Driving down Route 6 from our place in the Poconos between Lord's Valley to Hawley, PA where one of my favorite coffee shops is, the road is mine. They're starting to build up in spots, with large houses with vinyl siding marking the landscape as changing. Wooded properties are for sale as commercial lots, and I wonder what everything will look like in 10 years. Right now, however, it's me and the road, my arm out the window moving up and down with the current -- just like when I was a kid. Except this time, I'm driving.

I was born Amanda Jo Edwards on September 30, 1983, at the Independence Sanitarium in Independence, Missouri. My mom probably didn't know it at the time, but that was Rosh HaShanah. She says it was a sunny day and that they hit every pot-hole on the way to the hospital. I was a normal-sized baby weighing a normal-sized amount. Without much fanfare, I entered the world. My middle name is meant to honor my dad's dad, Joseph Edwards, who died when my dad was a kid. The origin of Amanda is highly disputed (ha ha) -- one story says it came from a Reader's Digest story called "Amanda Miranda" while another says it was the name of a family friend with whom my parents bowled. At any rate, until I was about four, we lived in Overland Park (KS), then Cedar Rapids and then Des Moines, Iowa.

March 1987 | Des Moines, Iowa

My mom stayed home with us kids while dad worked for Wal-Mart in the early years and then took up a job working for the now-defunct building materials company Payless Cashways.  My earliest memories are from when we were living for two years in Des Moines in a blue four-plex with a giant field next to it where we ran around and flew kites. I also remember there being a big K-Mart way, way behind our four-plex near one of the main drags in town. My mom says that we once watched hot air balloons land in that field, too. I remember the snow there being so high sometimes that we could tunnel through it, and all of those times I've lied about never making a snowman were put down with this picture. The kid in the middle is named Steven, but I have no idea who he is. The kid in the red snowsuit is my older brother, John. I remember getting chicken pox while we were living in Iowa, and I have a distinct memory of a trip to Baskin Robbins that left me in the car -- ill with the pox -- while the family enjoyed some dessert inside.

I was a cute 7-year-old, right? My first day of first
grade. I'm pretty sure my mom made this dress,
and that barrett? Yeah, it's made out of balloons.

I think it was in 1987 that we moved to Joplin, Missouri, which is in the far, far south of the state. Most people know about Joplin now because of the tornadoes that ripped the town to shreds recently. What I remember about Joplin mostly revolves around my friends, my school, my seven years in ballet (that began while I was in Iowa), my art lessons, and monthly visits to Branson, Missouri, where my grandparents and aunt and uncle lived. We'd visit Silver Dollar City -- an old-time theme park with glass blowing and candle-making and cookie decorating -- regularly and my mom has the tin-type photos to prove we were there regularly. Most of my scent memories come from this period of time, especially smells of winter like burning wood and cider and fresh-baked pie. Those are the kinds of scents that launch me back to being a child.

We used to visit my dad regularly at his store on Rangeline Road in Joplin, which was near the Wal-Mart and not too far away from the Sonic we visited with shocking regularity. My dad had a normal-sized office with a fish tank in the corner, so we had to go there often to clean the tank. Us kids would play around with the stuff on my dad's desk and schmooze with the office staff. My favorite trips to dad's work were during Halloween and inventory. The latter because it was a late-night chance to hang out with his store crew, and the former because each of the departments would come up with creative ways to decorate pumpkins for an end-cap display. Plumbing was always the most creative, but they also had the easiest supplies to work with. My mom's albums at home are filled with those pumpkin pictures year after year. I also liked the familiarity that the employees had with me -- they knew I was Bob's daughter, and as such I had a sense of freedom and entitlement when I walked through the sliding doors. I was someone, and I was going somewhere!

We lived in a red, brick duplex at 1921 East 33rd Street -- an address I can't forget. Before we moved into the house, we went to visit and check the place out; that I remember. I recall my older brother and I playing Mousetrap with the tenant's daughter in the basement. We had a single tree outside in our front lawn that we'd decorate with hanging plastic Easter eggs in the spring and a yellow ribbon during the Gulf War. Below my window in the front of the house -- the big room -- was a line of those gigantic bushes that manage to live year-round. I got the big room in the front of the house out of pure luck, I think. The room had my gigantic multi-level Barbie Dream House, my white daybed, a walk-in closet that I remember being larger than life, and a three-tiered white shelf that matched my bed upon which rested a gum ball machine fish tank. By chance, my room also had a TV with the Nintendo hooked up to it, so the room was never truly mine. In fact, I have happened upon numerous photos of my mom or brother laying on the floor in my bedroom playing video games. Imagine!My parents' room was in the basement and my older brother's room was across the hall from mine next to the bathroom. We had a nice-sized dining room, a beautiful living room with a fireplace that had these huge wood shelves flanking it, and a kitchen that I also remember being huge, with a big, beautiful island and a skylight. In the back yard, mom sometimes grew vegetables in a corner garden that was blocked off by gigantic two-by-fours. Our neighbor, on the other side of the duplex, also was our landlord, and the houses that surrounded us I remember being much larger than ours. Our duplex seemed to be part of a different edition onto the neighborhood. When we were kids we always collected for the MDA Telethon, and I remember going to all of the gigantic houses in the neighborhood that were larger-than-life to ask for pennies and dimes for a cause I didn't really understand. But our duplex suited us fine, even after the horrible storm full of "wall winds" that destroyed our basketball hoop attached to the garage and sent us running to the basement.

My older brother, John, in front of our garage with the Taurus.

I was a normal kid doing normal things. Ballet. Art. No sports, no camp. We took trips to Tulsa to the zoo and Celebration Station and to Springfield. Sometimes we drove up to Kansas City to visit family there. We never took any big vacations to anywhere interesting. In fact, we didn't really depart from the environs of Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri. But as a kid, I didn't know there was anything outside of that world. I had my friends, my family, and a dog named Precious.

Stay tuned for Part II ... in which my little brother is born, we get rid of our dog, move to Lincoln, Nebraska, and I am hit with the reality that my friends aren't still my friends. 

Updates, Future Dates, and Some Sad Stuff

I hope you all have been enjoying The Tzniut Project -- and from the comments I've been getting on and off the blog, I'd have to say that the preliminary answer to that is yes. On that note, I really want to do a Men's Series on the same topic, with a few added/altered questions. Any volunteers? I'd probably start it up in about two weeks, so we've got time. If you're interested, shoot me an email!

In other news, I've been out and about around the web, and I hope you'll do some reading off-site.

I wrote a piece for Lubavitch.com about my Memories of Joplin, because, well, as you'll read there, I grew up there and everything that's been happening has been insanely emotional and devastating for me. If you click here, you'll see the Google Map of the tornado's path, and if you search for my childhood address (1921 East 33rd Street), you'll see that where I grew up is in the path. So, if you haven't already, please consider donating to the relief fund. The OU has set up a Disaster Fund for Joplin.

I also have a piece up on JDate.com in honor of the soon-to-come One-Year Anniversary of being all married and stuff. The piece is from my perspective, but in case you're new around here and haven't heard the story of how we met, it might be amusing for you. Man, I can't believe it's been almost a year; it feels like just yesterday. We made it!

Stay tuned for some real and meaty posts about the reason I have been MIA aside from The Tzniut Project posts. I'll cheat and tell you where I've been: At an iCenter Fellows meeting in Oak Brook, IL. And as a further teaser, the hotel we're staying in is on Hamburger University Campus (yes, that's McDonald's) and everything here is laden with McDonald's propaganda. I feel dirty.

And sad. I just found a street-map of the skating rink I wrote about in the Lubavitch article. Keeley's. The name was Keeley's. Sigh ... 


Note: I will be in Israel from June 6-23 most likely. Will need some meals and things, and I'll be in Jerusalem for the trip. Wahoooo! Let me know if you'd like me to crash your Shabbos table.