Day 510 of 1000
This is a post inspired by comments made by Jon from Chile about a post I made yesterday. You can read the post here and the comments here. First things first. After Sunday morning meeting and a quick trip to Del Taco, I went to the Prescott Valley Public Library because I enjoyed it so much yesterday. It was closed. I was thinking of running to the Barnes and Noble because I need broadband wireless, but that is usually pretty crowded with limited seating, so I Googled the Prescott Public Library, found out it is open on Sundays from 1-5 and decided to give it a try. The library is in a more traditional looking building not to far from the center of Prescott with a lot of the buildings that formed the first Capitol of Arizona.
It seemed very nice, but nothing overly special until I went to the little coffee stand on the main floor. I was a little disappointed because it is a cash only coffee shop, so I told the lady behind the counter, “I only have plastic.”
She said, “That’s OK, what do you want?”
I said, “I can’t pay.”
She said, “That’s OK, you can pay me for two next time.”
I said, “Well, I am not from here.”
She said, “That’s OK, what do you want.”
I said, “A small black cup of coffee”
There it is on the picture above and it is a great cup of coffee. I am not sure it tastes so good because it really is good or because it was such a gracious thing to do.
Now on to the second item. I read the History section of the Wikipedia page on Prescott College. The hard left-wing Ford Foundation provided the funding for the college in 1966. It took them only eight years to go bankrupt in 1974. That cannot be much more than a few years before Jon studied Spanish there. I looked around a little, but could not find much about his teacher. Could this be her? Probably not–I could find nothing about Spanish associated with that person.
Hurray for Prescott hospitality, homespun trust-the-client service, and surely a no-sweat feeling even if they do have to absorb a few dollars for a newcomer. Love it!
Ken, re: my former Spanish teacher, Kristi, it could be her alright. At first I thought the surname rang a bell, but she was single at the time I took her class. As far as the picture, in all fairness, I don’t look much like my picture back in 1978 either! Ha. This lady’s got a pretty strong link with the college, as a former staffer, but no longer employed there. From the sounds of it, she doesn’t need to!! 🙂 Hard to know. Thanks for checking. I couldn’t find anything else that looked helpful.
Mornin Ken,
I’m embarrassed to put this as another reply in here, but I better ‘fess up: I realized –last night was it?– that it wasn’t Prescott College where I took that Spanish class, but rather Yavapai College, right there in Prescott. I didn’t realize that P’cott would have more than one college, so when you wrote about it, I immediately assumed that where you were was where I’d been, ha.
Can’t find Kristi with a Yavapai College search either. Oh well. She was still a great teacher! Her enthusiasm for grammar–of all things–made it less difficult (not to say ‘easier’) to really get into learning well my first foreign language. I’d like to remember this when teaching others, and when learning myself, that there is a right way and a wrong way to approach difficulty. When approached in the best way, it brings success and victory. Which makes me think of what I read in 1 Samuel 14 not so long ago. King Saul’s son, Jonathan, and his armor bearer wanted to get closer to a Philistine outpost, but the approach, as it says in 14.4, was sharp and steep, with two options for climbing up: One side was called Bozez, the other Seneh. What’s interesting is that Seneh means “thorny”, while Bozez means “surpassing white: glistening”…No question which way they went up that rocky ascent! The way we approach anything, great or small, can make it difficult for ourselves and for all involved, or we can chose Light, where all is clear and “steps assured along the way.” I’m trying to remember this in daily living situations. Choose Light!