Welcome, welcome, welcome. It's another beautiful day here in the state of Tennessee and hopefully wherever you are, my name is Suzanne M. Swain, EDS, LMSW, and I am a kid therapist and master teacher. And today, I would like to tell you that we are going to talk about what Abraham Lincoln, a dead bird, and the entire Cookville Fire Department all have in common. Because today, it's epic fails of my teaching career. Woo! I've been wanting to do this episode for a while because, boy, do I have some stories to tell y'all. A lot of them I don't know I should tell. But some of them I definitely want to share with you today. So I'm going to tell you a couple of stories, one about when I was a little kid and how we went to DC. And then the other one is about when I was an adult teacher and we were in the middle of state testing. So I hope that you'll enjoy this. As you can probably soon find out, I went through a lot to go through this, but now in hindsight it's funny. So it's kind of like that, you know, sometimes things that are kind of bad happen, but then later on in hindsight, as we say, you know, you look at it and it's like, oh gosh, that was hilarious. So like for example, when I was a kid, I kicked the ball into our neighbor's yard. And unfortunately, they had the nickname of being the slobs. So I didn't know any better. I went to the person's house and was like, hey, Mr. Slopp, can I have my ball back? Yeah, oops, epic fail. So it's stuff like that. So picturing West Palm Beach 1986. There is young Susie with, you know, she was very excited because she had recently become the captain of the school safety patrols meeting. You get a fluorescent orange and it was the 80s after all fluorescent orange belt that my chubby kid self barely fit into and felt like, you know, the jaws of life around me. But in any case, you know, an orange belt that may be one of the police of sorts of the school. So we got to yell things like you're reported and, you know, I got to learn how to fold a flag, which I thought was really an awesome thing. And but it was my first elected office and I took it very, very seriously. And I was told that we were going to be going to DC for the big trip where all the sixth grade safety patrolers were going to get to go and all the schools went and everything. My dad was going as he was a principal of another school. So anyway, we go to DC, we go on a train, which is amazing. A lot of kids have never been on a train, but luckily we had done that with our family and gone across country one year. So I was absolutely stoked to be able to do that. Well, we get to DC and we get settled and whatnot. And we're going to go see the Capitol retender. And of course, I'm really excited. And my father was so kind as to give me about two weeks of civics training before I went. So I knew what I was looking at and everything, which I greatly appreciate. If you haven't had a chance to go to DC, please consider taking your children. The museums are free. We stay outside or DC can be expensive, but there are ways to make it less expensive. But it's such an important thing for young minds to understand our governance process. So box there. Anyway, so we're going to the Capitol retender and we're walking in a group and I'm in charge of a group of kids because, you know, why not let 11 year olds do that? But we were all walking kind of together. So it was fine. So I had my best friend D and several of my little cohorts from my Girl Scout troop who were in my group. Well, we're walking by and on the ground we see a dead bird. And I was like, Oh, that's so sad, you know, and it was a cute little thing. Well, D just lost it. Poor thing. She's such, you know, big heart for animals. So she ends up crying over the dead bird. Well, we're trying to console her and be good friends. Well, all of a sudden we looked up and everybody's gone. They gone like poof. And here you have several, maybe like 10, 10 year olds, 11 year olds stranded in the middle of DC. And we're like, Oh my gosh. So I was like, All right, here's what we're going to do. So I put on my leadership hat of sorts and polished up my captain's badge and said, All right, we're going to go in the Capitol and we're going to follow each other. And we're going to make a big snake until we find our people with a line. Okay. Great. So we walk back into the Capitol retender. And after about an hour, we finally meet up with our teachers who were livid. There was Mrs. Sollenbach and Mrs. Adams. Mrs. Sollenbach got rest her soul. She was about 47,000 years old back then. And, you know, but she just loved teaching and she just kept on kept on kept on. So up in the great beyond somewhere, Mrs. Sollenbach, this one's for you. Well, this song was absolutely hot and livid over the fact that I had lost people in the middle of DC, which granted, I knew I was, I was just afraid someone's going to call my dad or something. Well, so we had punishment. So the punishment was, was that the next day when we were going to get to go to all these different fun places that I was going to have to the long one cohorts, sit on the bus and miss out. So clearly I was not happy little, little little fox there. I was absolutely furious. So the next day I'm sitting on the bus, well, the bus driver turns the air off in the bus. So we're sitting there in the hot sun and just waiting and waiting. This is like June, maybe. Well, I had to get in migrating because unfortunately, the heat is just a lot. And so when everybody came back, they went to, I don't know what, some museum or something, and I had to sit out for that. But what really made me mad was that I was not allowed as my big punishment to go to the US Mint. Now kids, the US Mint is where they print the money. So one of the things that you can get at the Mint is a bag of shredded money. This was money for us. We were like, oh, yeah. So it was like the big thing that everybody wanted to come home with. So I was so mad that all of my friends and I couldn't go to the Mint and get our bag of shredded money. Not that I had money to buy money with, but that's another story. So because of this, I was especially angry and with a migraine, which unfortunately made me very physically ill. So the kids come back from the Mint and everybody's like, so mad, jealous as all get out. And so our next stop was Ford's Theatre, which is where Abraham Lincoln went and saw the play where he was shot during the play and then proceeded to pass away. Very big part of American history. So this theater is a big deal. So we go to Ford's Theatre and we piling in and there's a couple schools there. But luckily we were the first to get there. So we got to sit up in the front. Well, because I was in captain, I got one of the really primo seeds kind of over to the right and but in the front. And so I thought that was really cool. So I still didn't feel good at all. I was still way sick, but that's okay. And so they were giving a speech about what happened with Abraham Lincoln and why we're all here to use this as a historical landmark. And all of a sudden I was like, Oh gosh. And you know, when that moment happens, y'all know that moment, that moment of absolute terror that something projectiles gonna come out. So in any case, I was like, Oh no. And I was so embarrassed. So I just, I didn't know what to do. So I looked over and there's a door and I was like, Okay, so I ran out like I just jumped up and tried to run well in my own little way, waddle out the door and try to just go somewhere because I knew that what was ever in my stomach was probably going to come out because usually that was how my migraines would start to go away. So I flew open this door and went running up the stairs while this guy was giving his lecture. And then I heard this horrible sound. I get to the top of the stairs and I fling open another door and I just lose my stomach. But here's the thing. Right at that moment, the tour guide said up there in that balcony is where Lincoln was shot. Everybody looked over there. Well, when they looked over there right behind the curtain, they heard someone. Well, you get it. And then the entire crowd once I finish and I feel like I'm going to die. I hear the entire crowd go. Apparently I'd run up the stairs and vomited in the area where Lincoln was shot. I am still part of the tour guide or the tour of Ford's Theater. In fact, I had a fellow teacher friend who went to Ford's Theater and they said that was part of the lecture. I was like, Oh, that was me. She's like, What? Yes. Yep, that was me. So anyway, so I'm sitting there at the top of the stairs and waiting because I was so sick. Well, Mrs. Salabak and Mrs. Adams, you know, come up the stairs. I see Mrs. Salabak and she is hot like raging on fire. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to die. She's, Oh, no, I'm going to be expelled or something. I have ruined American history as we know it. I will fail everything on the Civil War for the rest of my life now. Abraham Lincoln's ghost will follow me. Well, Mrs. Salabak comes up to me and she goes, Suzanne Swain, I just, I do not have words. I do not have words to describe what you have done. This is a disgrace. You, this is you have desecrated a sacred space and I'm like, Oh, I mean, and I just feel like I'm like, Oh, let me, Oh, just let me melt into the floor and disappear. And she says to me, she's like, I am going to make sure that this trip, you are not participating in many, many things. You wait till I get to find out what that schedule is going to be. And I'm going to get you. And I'm like, Oh, no, more bus time. And she goes storming off. And I'm like, Oh, and she was my main teacher. So I was like, Oh, I'm dead. I'm probably not going to be captain anymore. Well, Mrs. Adams comes up and she looks at me and she's like, You okay, kid? I'm like, I don't feel good. No, I'm not okay. Rolling around like a little ball on the floor. And she stops and she turns around and she goes, girl, she's like, I can't believe you just vomited on the, Oh my goodness. Oh, no, you did not know you did. You got, you've got to be kidding me. She's like, girl, I don't even know what the process about that. She's like, I'm going to, wow, wow, like all the places you could puke, you had to do it there. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. And she just made it like it was like the funniest thing she had ever heard. And so I'm still in the tour apparently at Ford's Theater. So as a teacher, you know, you have some really weird things happen a lot. And you know, I can't even imagine if I had one of my kids like vomit all over a national landmark. I just don't know how to process that. But Mrs. Adams was like, girl, you can't get in trouble. She's like, I don't even know, you could probably get deported for stuff like that. You can't even be an American citizen anymore. They would be like, Oh, God. Yeah. So the other story I was going to tell you real quick is when I saw I grew up, of course, to be a teacher, much to my family's dismay, they wanted me to go be an animator or something like that. But love being a teacher and was having so much fun. Well, one year I got some seventh graders and I was strictly eighth grade for a long time. And then I got a little group of cute button little seventh graders and boy, did they, they wore me out, but I loved them to pieces. They had the biggest, biggest, hard to ever want to know. And so we had to take our T-cap test, which is like our Tennessee state test. Well, we were trying it out on the computer for the writing assessment test. So they had to, you know, do a little assessment saying whatever. Well, it was really long. It was like four hours in the computer lab and whatnot. So we were on a break. And I told the kids was like, All right, you know, you got 10 minutes to go to the bathroom, whatever, if you want to get your water bottle, if you want to eat a snack, you know, whatever you want to do. And now we're going to do part B of the test after that. Okay. So I was like, All right, you know, I'll just sit in the computer lab all day. That's, you know, I can't do much on testing day, of course. So I just, you know, read or do lesson plans or something. So anyway, so I go to hold the door and it's this big like oak kind of door. And I go to hold the door for this, you know, the kids. And so the boys are leaving. And of course they have lots of energy. They're like 13, you know, and so they go like barreling out of the door. Well, as it turns out, one kid was left behind. And he was actually one of my favorite students and he was the littlest guy. And I'll tell you this, he used to every now and then my back would go out. And so I'd lay on the floor and I'd make him like step on my shoulders and pop my back, which is totally not okay. But it really helped. And he thought it was hilarious. And he thought he wanted to be a chiropractor after that. So who knew t tuple moment. Anyway, so this little dude, is like, Oh, no, I gotta go to the bathroom. So he flings the door open. This door is right behind my head. So as he flings the door open, this thing, this door like clocks me. I mean, absolutely clocks me upside the head. And I'm just like, and I don't even know what to do. And I'm like, I can barely parse words. I'm just like, I'm just like, and I'm like, I mean, really, I was just babbling. And I didn't I was like, Okay, so it clocked me pretty darn good. If I could have seen little stars and birds like on a looney tunes cartoon, it probably would have been that way. So I ended up passing out. Okay, so can you imagine the poor kids and what they must have thought. So this little guy who is, you know, really sweet and everything the one who opened door and he's like, I heard, Oh my God, I killed Miss Swain. And the kids were all like, I'm freaking out. Well, I was out, but kind of like lucid a little bit. So I was knocked out. But then I came back to life and was just a little like, you know, I wasn't dead or anything, but I came back to being lucid. And but then I couldn't walk. I started stumbling all over the place and everything. And I'm like, I got to go to the nurse. So I sort of stumble into the nurse where the kids are helping me and some other kids start helping along the way to get me to the nurse. Well, I lay down in the nurse's station and they're like, we got a call EMS. I'm like, no, it's fine. I'm gonna go back to class. Sweet. No, not sweet Suzanne be quiet. So they call over the Cookville fire department and EMS. And let me tell you every teacher in that school that day suddenly had business in the office. I was like, Oh, I have to make copies. And Oh, I just wanted to check my mailbox. When the hunky firefighters all show up, that's when everybody comes around. So I ended up going to the hospital and had a concussion and things like that. Now I've had a flesh eating bacteria that came upon me when I taught school. I had MRSA at one point and had to teach school with a gaming horrible flesh eating bacteria. You know, I've taught school when I had a big surgery on my lower portions and a very, very big surgery and still taught school from the bed in the hospital via Skype on the first day of school. So our commitment to teaching is strong. You know, we love being a teacher because there's no two days that are ever, ever the same. Every day is something weirder than the next. And I have to say when I look back over my epic fails, I had a great time along the way and I'm glad I can share these stories with you all. Oh, also as for national monuments, by the way, also when I was a little kid, we were out West and apparently the first man killed in the Pacific. I was taking a photo up with my father and we were on a trip and apparently I knocked over the headstone and it split. So I may be haunted by that guy as well. Yeah. So keep on keeping on everybody and stay clever little foxes and I'll see you next time. 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