Tag Archives: Master’s Degrees

The Road to Diamond, Day 123: Listener

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 31, 2025- “You are a good listener”, the slow-eating, but very intense gentleman said, after telling me of his experiences with others of my generation. He values the sanctity of his person, and does not like to be touched by strangers. I understand him, being on a milder place on the same autism spectrum than that which he occupies. He thinks at a higher level than many, and has two Master’s Degrees to show for it. I understand him, because Penny was at that same intellectual level. I understand him, also because so many of my students, in later years especially, were those who did not like physical contact.

Yes, my listening skills have vastly improved since the time of my wedding, in 1982. They have gone up, as the level of self-absorption has gone down. It is hard to live in a bubble and be a good listener. It is also lonelier in a bubble, and so I upped my listening game, and became the happier for it. Working as a counselor helped in that regard. One cannot counsel and live in a bubble. One cannot counsel effectively and hold onto outmoded concepts of hierarchy and discipline. A hard taskmaster does not often listen well, having all the answers-in own mind.

Working with the homeless is just one of the tools that has honed my listening skills. Spending quality time with both liberals and conservatives impels careful listening; discernment. Doing a variety of activities, broadening thinking, cements the concepts of which I hear. Then, too, I listen to my own inner voice, and to the spirit guides who tell me things in the quiet “alone hours”.

I am delighted to be viewed as a listener. It shows that there is a need for my presence.

Seventy Years Ago….

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Posted by on in collaborating, Education, Family, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

September 30, 2024, Puerto Princesa- An ecstatic woman, in Long Island City, NY, screamed with delight, at the news she had just been given. Her first granddaughter, after two sons and a grandson, was born. For the Fellmans, of Long Island City and Jamesburg, NJ, the birth of little Penny righted a top-heavy ship.

She would go on, transcending a congenital defect, for over 45 years, building an Intelligence Quotient of 161, graduating summa cum laude from the University of Virginia and earning three Master’s Degrees-all in the field of education. As a member of the Baha’i Faith, from 1977, she would serve with distinction, as an educator, on the Navajo Reservation, in Jeju, South Korea, and in El Mirage, AZ. In the latter town, she would be led out to retirement, gently and with gratitude from the Superintendent’s Office, even as she was attacked by those within the school who had no understanding of her struggles.

I met Penny in December,1980, as the snow swirled around Zuni, New Mexico, as a house blessing ceremony, called Shalako, took place in a cozy, but crowded home. We took turns sitting in a single chair and became enamoured of one another. We would date, off and on, for eighteen months, and married in June, 1982. We met some auspicious milestones-Valentine’s Day engagement, marriage on the sixth day of the sixth month-and welcoming our son on the seventh day of the seventh month. Marriage was often stormy, but never rocky, and through her final eleven years, she had her men beside her-to her last breath.

Penny missed joining the Seventies Club by thirteen years and seven months. I could tell that she would have loved this day, though she was adamant about not making a big deal of her birthday-or mine, for that matter. There was always that twinkle in her eye, when she was honoured. I feel her light, shining through the veil-telling me to continue on my path. So, on I go.

No Backward Pivot

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Education, Family, Historical, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 8, 2024- My mother was a stay-at-home housewife, who also had a marketable skill: Hairdresser/cosmetologist. Our kitchen was her workspace, and I was honoured to make runs on a bus, to downtown Lynn, MA, from our home in Saugus, to purchase items that she needed for her trade. She is well-read, well-spoken and has kept up with current events, even in her 90s. Mother is nobody’s fool, and the four of us, her adult children, are all the better for it.

Today is International Women’s Day. Besides the maudlin truth that I would not be here today, were it not for a woman, it stands that I would not have had any kind of a life worth living, were it not for the life lessons imparted by Mom, by the six women who taught in our Elementary School, by several of the teachers in Junior High and High School (most notably Mrs. Katherine Vande and Miss Gladys Fox) and the devotion of my late wife, Penny. I would not be living as full a life as I have now, without the friendship of at least two dozen women, including someone I adore the most., but ALL of whom I love dearly.

There are those, both male and female, who harbor a thinly-veiled desire to put women “back in their place”, harkening back to the time when Mick Jagger could sing an abysmal tune, like “Under My Thumb”, or John Lennon croon a wretched song like “Little Girl”, and get away with it, even making a fair amount of money in the process. Maybe they want to go even further back, to the time when women were legally their husband’s, or father’s, chattel.

The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. It is ironic that many of the women who spout “traditonalist” views are self-made professionals, who have even told me that they are perfectly fine without a male mate in their lives. In that last pronouncement, they are right, in my humble opinion. Going back to the time when I was first contemplating proposing marriage to Penny, I weighed, very carefully, just how much I would add to the already distinguished and successful life she had made for herself. I am glad to have fully supported her further achievements, of two more Master’s Degrees and the implementation of three innovative programs, in schools where she subsequently worked. The woman was a genius. She was a fine wife and mother, but she would never thrived in a stay-at-home role.

In the Baha’i writings, it is stated that, given a choice of only educating one of two children, a son or a daughter, it is preferable to send the daughter to school, as the first teacher of a child is the mother. Cases in point: It was my mother who taught me to read, and to write in cursive letters. She was professional and exacting, and the lessons stuck. It was Penny who taught our son, Aram, to read, and to be careful in researching various aspects of life, before making a decision. Every one of the mothers among my female friends has had an outsized influence on the achievements of those of their children who have reached adulthood. That includes my sister, who has raised four strong and successful professionals.

The clock cannot be turned back. Thank God.