January 10, 2014

    How long does it usually take to get used to writing 2014?  It seems to be more difficult each year.  2014 is really an awkward number.  Oh for the days of 1952 or even 1999, but even that last number was almost too many years to contemplate.  All the numbers used to be smaller.  You could buy a perfectly good new house for $8,000, the amount you might pay for a new car these days.  TVs had only four or five channels and just required a little adjustment to the rabbit ears to see the picture. Now the watcher must remember a momentous number of channels to keep up.  And passwords?  Don't get me going on that.  We have a file box stuffed with those and more are added weekly.  Some have been changed too, so it can take a few tries sometimes to get the right one if we haven't been proactively changing them when we needed to.
  
     Now that is my rant for the year and I promise not to do it again.  But why did the technological age have to coincide with my increasing age related inability to keep up?

    Our December meeting was well attended and very entertaining.  We were serenaded by the Southeast High School Chorus who were charmingly young and beautiful.  Their singing was angelic and so were their faces.  The Choral Director displayed her humor and light handed leadership with her charges, and she was a great pianist as well.  Here are some pictures of many of us enjoying ourselves.  Unfortunately, the stage at Renaissance is very poorly lighted and pictures of the chorus were too dark to use.

    Susan Darovec,  Legislative Chair, reminded us at the meeting the Florida Legislature will be once again attempting to change our Florida Retirement System.  Although our FRS is one of the strongest in the nation, the propaganda always tries to show the system as a drain on the taxpayers-- which it is not.  Despite a slip in the investments during the early days of the recession, the account has made up for its losses with good investments.  There will be more attempts to change beginning teachers to IRA accounts.  Should that happen, of course, the fund would be lost over time because there would be no new money invested.  One has to wonder again, why the Legislature is so against educators.  They fail to realize that we accepted lower paying jobs in order to teach children, with a promise that we would have a decent income after we retired.

    We will begin our sales of FREF Extravaganza donations this month.  Of course, we are still happy to receive donations for our local scholarship fund.  Please help us give some good students a leg up in their studies in education.  Surprisingly, there still are some who were inspired by a teacher or teachers to want to follow in their footsteps.  We should be proud of our ability to shine in spite of the demeaning way we are treated by the Legislature and some others.

    If you have not heard from your caller, please let Mary Ann Jensen know you need a reservation for Jan. 15 (756-7603).  Brynne Anne Besio of the South Florida Museum will be on the program. Try to arrive before 11:30 to avoid the line and have time to chat.  The usual location, Renaissance on 9th, is the spot.

See you soon,
Ellen