"So, How's Life Treating You?" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading my latest "Millersville University Review."  It was from Millersville University (known as Millersville State Teacher's College when I attended) where I had graduated in 1967, five years after I began attending Millersville.  I actually began teaching a year before I graduated, since teachers were in such great demand, especially in the Industrial Arts area of high schools.  I had all the necessary courses needed in the Industrial Arts Department for graduation, so I was allowed to pick up additional courses after I began teaching.  Seemed a bit unusual going to class to teach and then going back to college the following summer to graduate from the college.  Teachers were in great demand and as long as you had the needed credits in the area in which you would be hired to teach, it was allowed.  I had already spent a semester student-teaching during the final half of my 4th year at Millersville.  That would have been the only way that I could have began teachning without having graduated.  I student-taught in Industrial Arts at a high school in York County, Pennsylvania, returned to Millersville the summer after to get the needed credits, and graduated at the end of the summer session at Millersville.  And, for high schools in the state of Pennsylvania to obtain full financial aide, they were required to have Industrial Arts and Home Ec. in their curriculum.  There are very few State schools in the State of Pennsylvania that have Industrial Arts as a Major.  If you aren't sure what Industrial Arts might be...it is commonly known in high school as SHOP!  You know.... wood shop, metal shop, etc.   I found it impossible to make it through college in 4 years since I had to work throughout my college career at a grocery store in order to pay for my education.  I began saving for college when I turned 16, since it was at that time that I knew I wanted to be an Industrial Arts teacher, just like Mr. Ehemann, who taught Industrial Arts at Manheim Township High School.  He was my "Hero" and helped me understand what was necessary in order to become an Industrial Arts teacher in high school, just like him.  He was the one who talked Manheim Township High School into hiring me before I graduated and made sure I kept up with all my school work until I finally graduated the summer after my first year of teaching.  Mr. Ehemann was the chairman of the IA department at MT and knew just how hard it was to obtain Industrial Arts teachers, so he was looking ahead when I told him, while still in high school, that I wanted to be a shop teacher just like him. I ended up teaching Industrial Arts for 35 years before retiring from Manheim Township.  I did spend a few years after that working in the Graphic Arts shop...doing all of the in-school printing needs.  I still, to this day, was so glad with the path that I chose while I was a young boy.  Loved teaching and working in the shop with my students.  But, I find that retirement, and writing a story each day, is almost as much fun as teaching high school Industrial Arts.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.