Celebrating My Buddy Teacher's 70th Birthday!

My teaching buddy celebrated his 70the birthday recently in Toronto

Herb and I go back a long time! He was my best friend on staff while I was teaching  at one of the middle schools in Toronto in the 1990's.

A beautiful birthday cake for Herb!

I was young and on my way up in my career. Herb and I were teaching on the same Grade 6 team. I was teaching a special education class while Herb was a regular class teacher. It was a fairly big staff with almost fifty teachers.

Many people came to celebrate with Herb on his special day.

 It is funny that in our lives, we could work with some colleagues for many years yet unable to develop any real friendship or relationships beyond the "how are you" superficial level.

 But Herb and I hit it off during my first year at the school. During the course of my teaching career, I was fortunate enough to make at least one really good friend for life at each school where I taught.





 We had a lot of fun together! V.P. had the best staff I had ever worked with. While many people experienced Monday blues calling in sick after the weekend, I never had this problem while teaching at V.P.

I loved going to teach everyday; I could hardly wait jumping out of bed and going to work! All because of teachers like Herb!

I had a blast teaching with Herb in the same school many years ago

Students were not the only ones looking forward to lunch recess. Teachers too!

 I remembered every lunch hour rushing down to the staffroom, taking my position at our favourtie lunch table with my teaching buddies, taking out my lunch, eagerly comparing our lunches with each other as if we were kids, chatting and telling jokes with each other.

The birthday boy!

Herb, the birthday boy, was the life of the party, always making us laugh with his never ending Newfie jokes along with hilarious stories from Ossie, Dalaney, Carter, Deb, Cummins and Hicks.

 What a whale of a time we had every lunch hour at school!

Teaching can be very stressful  in a middle school dealing with unpredictable and mischievous teenagers as we assume many roles besides teaching.


However, I was lucky to have worked with dedicated teachers who were open, friendly, welcoming and with a great sense of humor.

Herb was the first one on staff who went out of his way to make me feel welcome and a part of the school community. If I had a tough day, he would say something funny to make light of the situation. He would drop by my classroom and say hello to me or something wacky to make my day.

The birthday boy cutting his cake!

 It was teachers like him who helped lessen the stress and made teaching a lot of fun.


We went through some challenges in our personal lives respectively later on but Herb and I collaborated together and covered each others' classes when the needs arose.









We created a fun and happy learning environment for our students as we planned and worked well together.

There were so much delicious food served at the party!

We often partnered together and took our kids to field trips such as the Jays baseball games at the Skydome, a week long outdoor education program at the Sheldon Valley Outdoor Education Centre for at least two to three years.

Everybody at V.P. knew that Herb and I were really good friends and I was sure some of them were jealous of our friendship.

My favorite dish at the party -Winterbrew Chicken Curry made with beer!

We also worked on a board wide committee as co chairs and organized a successful full day professional development program for all the elementary school teachers at the board of education

Those were hectic busy but wonderful days!







Herb has become my best friend, and a family friend.  One summer in the 2000's, m husband and I flew to Newfoundland to visit him and his family for a taste of the Newfie culture and life style.

We were not disappointed! The famous hospitality of the people of Newfoundland and Herb's relatives were heart warming. It was a memorable trip for us!






Herb retired in the early 2000's while I went on to take up new responsibilities at other schools.

We still keep in touch with each other over the years.  We were delighted to receive the invitation to Herb's 70th birthday as we would not miss this for the world!

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Herb is living downtown in a beautiful condo on the 32nd floor with a commanding view of downtown Toronto.

It was a good opportunity for us to visit him in his new luxurious abode.

There were quite a few people at the party. It did not surprise me at all to see all those wonderful people celebrating with Herb's milestone birthday.

Herb has this ability to make friends across all age groups

That is the kind of guy he is: outgoing, gregarious, friendly, helpful and a people person.

The Roger Building as seen from Herb's living room.

It doesn't matter where he goes, Herb will always make a lot of friends.

Herb's downtown condo commands an excellent view of Toronto!

I was thrilled to visit him at his new beautiful condo, had the opportunity to catch up with one of my best friends from my youthful teaching days.

A beautifully handmade quilt!

It was indeed a joy and a privilege for us to be a part of this special celebration with him!

Happy 70th birthday, Herb! May there be many happy returns!

R.T.
Toronto
p.s. I love handmade quilts! Using beautiful quilts made by his loved ones from down east to decorate his downtown condo, Herb has created  for himself an oasis in this urban metropolis. The quilts are so awesome, I have to include them here! 

Home made quilts adorn Herb's bedroom wall

 

Retirement - The Beginning of a New Chapter in One's Life

Some of the projects done by the company

My better half has been working for his current company for over ten year looking after the electrical designs of the condo buildings in the greater Toronto area.









He worked for over forty years as an engineer and has had a rewarding career in Canada.
However, it is time for him to retire and enjoy some leisure time!

His company is one of the few companies that really cares for its employees.

Good bye to the 9-5 job after four decades of services!

I know some friends who worked for years for their companies giving them their dedicated services but when they left or retired, their employers did not show any appreciation or gave them a parting gift. I was really glad when I learned about the retirement party for S.











It is unfortunate that in North America, we seem to define ourselves by what we do and attach great significance to how much we earn in our jobs.

Many people feel a huge loss or even become depressed once they retire from their professional jobs.

S. has mixed feelings about his retirement

My neighbor, who was a school principal, became extremely depressed after he retired from his work.

 As he did not have much to do post retirement, we often see him walking past our house three or four times a day.

Stan. has wonderful colleagues at work!

Stan  has mixed feelings of his retirement because he loves his job as the senior engineer at his company.

What's more, he works with a great bunch of professional colleagues who pull their weight and work together as a team collaborating and supporting each other at work.

Everyone works as a team and tries their best to get along!

While I was working, I often went home and ranted my frustrations to my family regarding all the office politics at work, the interferences by the various powerful unions and the crazy decisions made by the top tier of the management.

I once was so unhappy that I had a sign hanging in our house  that
 read " It's hard to soar when you work with a bunch of turkeys!"

That expressed exactly how I once felt!

A former colleague made a special effort to attend the retirement party!

With my husband, it was a totally different story as he has been very fortunate to have worked with some great people!

Molly, normally not at the office also came to wish Stan well.

I have always been a little envious of the Stan's work environment as I rarely heard of my husband complaining about his colleagues or anything related to work at home.

Eric has created a positive company culture and a pleasant work environment

His colleagues are always very civil and nice to each other.  I think that credit goes to Eric P., representing the management of the company.

Eric's  respect and compassion for the company's employees filters down to everyone. He has created a positive culture within the company and a pleasant workplace environment for everyone.

This is the best company my husband for which he has worked in his career.

The company's caring and compassionate attitude was evident during Stan's illness last year.











 We received many emails, calls, text messages and visits from his colleagues and the management.

On his official last day of work last week, the company put on quite a spread for Stan. They ordered an Italian party size porchata, huge trays of suishi, fried chicken, fresh fruit, salad and various kinds of roasted vegetables.  They also invited staff members including those who left to join in this celebration.

Stan is not a flamboyant person and he is a little shy. He would not feel comfortable in a formal retirement dinner.

Celebrating and wishing him well on his last official day of work

Saying good bye and concluding his professional career surrounded by the awesome people with whom he has worked for the past decade and to a job he absolutely loved in this causal yet dignified setting was a perfect way to end a four decade career.

He was moved by the thoughtful messages and generous gifts he received and the presence of the people such as Molly, and former colleagues who made an effort to be there to wish him well. 

Happy Retirement, Stan!

 

As for his post retirement life, Stan  is looking forward to being a consultant working only one day a week.

However, he is not sure what he would do with his time at home. We will sit down and work out a schedule together so that he would have meaningful activities to fill his days and that his retirement would be a golden opportunity for us to share wonderful time together, to give back to our community and to serve God!

R.T.
Toronto

Sending Our Love Across the Miles Via Canada Post

Time flies! It seemed like yesterday when we brought our younger new infant home from the East York General hospital in a baby basket with us more than three decades ago!  In a twinkling of the eyes, they  are grown, healthy, working and leading their own independent lives. We thank God for all His blessings upon our family for the past many years.

 Though our two grown children do not live in the same city as ours, we do keep in close contact with them via social medias such as emails, text messages and Skype. We talked to J. who is living and teaching in South Korea today and he told us that he received our birthday parcel a day after his birthday at school. He said when he opened the gift from us, he had tears in his eyes as he looked at how much it cost us to send it to him. He felt so much love from us and it was the thought that counted. He was going to enjoy his treats slowly as he knew that these were treats of love from his parents. I was very happy to hear that!!! The expensive postage was worth it!

I always wonder how long does it take to have a parcel sent to a foreign country from Canada via post mail? I got my answer this time. It took  ten days ( including Saturday and Sunday) to have a parcel delivered via Canada Post's Express Mail service from Canada to South Korea. This was important information for us as we need to remember that for the next time when we want our loved ones to receive our packages of love in time for any special occasions!

A week later, it was our first born' child's birthday. I looked up the address for his company and we also sent a birthday parcel to E. in San Fransisco. Since E. is working in the States and he could buy anything we can buy in Canada, I used a smaller parcel box.

 What should we send our grown son for his birthday?  I spent days trying to send him something which was meaningful and he would enjoy.  Finally, a light bulb went on in my head! 

 E. loves playing games! Why not send him a game that would challenge his grey matter?

I got him a 3 D puzzle which came with three levels of difficulty. Knowing how much he enjoys challenges, we picked a Level 3 which stated in the package "As in Calculus" ! That did it for me! Calculus was not easy for me, therefore it should not be too easy for E., I hope.

To give our son a taste of home, we also included a box of P.C. Birthday Cookies, a P.C. Ginger Peach Herbal Tea and couple other little package of chocolates to fill up the box.






This time I was a little smarter. Before we paid for all the little treats, we made sure they could all fit inside the parcel box and the weight was within a certain amount. For a parcel that was just a little over one kilogram it was around Can.$ 25.00.

 We packaged it and sent it on Wednesday evening the week of Good Friday.  We were told that it would take around four business days.

 E. sent me a lovely email to thank us on the following Wednesday, which meant discounting the holidays and weekend, it took 3-4 days for  Canada Post's Express Mail to deliver a package to our son in San Fransisco. Not bad at all! 

Judging from the reactions and the emails we got from our two grown children, no matter how old we are, we will always be happy to receive a birthday  gift! The gift does not have to be expensive, just some thought about the person, that's all it counts!

R.T.
Toronto