A little something to look at, if you’re enjoying the weekend looking at stuff

We had a Radio Shack here in town for a lot of years, but not as long as till 2015. The manager/co-owner also had a story in another, larger city, and eventually moved there. He and DH were really good friends before I came along, and then we all made friends. I used to do volunteer literacy tutoring; one time, our director asked me if I’d try working with a young woman who could read and pronounce English, but had no idea how to converse, having only ever used Farsi for communication. Of course I tried it. It turned out she was our Radio Shack friend’s sister in law! I still am not really sure I taught her much; she already knew how to greet people, and some rudimentary questions and answers, “What do you think about this weather?” “Do you know whose cat that is?” But, she was not confident. She could comprehend and repeat, but not necessarily always apply and respond conversationally in English (her husband sometimes came along, and did translation.) I worked with her for a few years and she seemed to feel better about it all and I saw improvement, but no real click. One time, they didn’t show up for a session, and I’ve never seen them again. I’d heard that our friend had had a little trouble, too, here in town; this would have been a few weeks after the plane crashes in Sept. of 2011. I finally got up the nerve to just ask him if they were OK. He said they moved a little farther East, by some other relatives. They were doing fine, and he’d tell them I said hello. I asked him to tell their little girl that our son said hello, too; she had a crush on him because he read to her while I was working with her mom. I guess I just needed to share that story; this Radio Shack piece reminded me of all of that. Thanks for hangin’ in with me on this!