Bodenhausen and the heart of a volunteer

by steve tinnen leader publisher emeritus

You know you’re growin’ older when... the clothes you’ve put away until they come back in style have actually come back in style.

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When George H.W. Bush was running for president, one of his better ideas was entitled, “1,000 Points of Light.” As part of his inauguration speech, he said:

“We can find meaning and reward by serving some higher purpose than ourselves, a shining purpose, the illumination of a thousand points of light. We all have something to give.”

The last sentence, “We all have something to give,” is so important. And that giving spirit has been the hallmark of Maurine Bodenhausen.

After retiring as an elementary teacher at Ellis Elementary in 2000 after 27 years, she began to volunteer at the Plattsburg Food Pantry and Senior Center (Gathering Place). She managed the desk at the food pantry every Thursday for a very long time. Years, not months. She served on the Senior Center board for years, including time as the president. She has recently decided to give others a chance to serve.

“It was time for someone else to take over and that was not going to happen as long as I was in those positions,” Maurine explained. She will remain on the Gathering Place board but will not be serving as president. Jo Hawn will assume those duties. Her job serving at the desk at the Plattsburg Food Pantry is over. Rev. Shelton, president of the Plattsburg Ministerial Alliance, said that there is a group of ladies who will now rotate handling the desk duties, Kathy Liles (secretary), Connie Collins, Paulette Taylor, Linda Hoskins, and Berdyna Proctor. Judy McKown will continue as president of the Board. There is little doubt that volunteers are harder to find than hen’s teeth. Thankfully, Plattsburg just found those hard-to-find volunteers.

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Trivia question: What was the 50th state added to the United States? A. Alaska; B. Hawaii; C. Puerto Rico; D. Guam (answer is nearby). * * * *

A smile from my friend Jim Nicholson, Honolulu, Hawaii...

An amazing two-letter English word...

A reminder that one word in the English language can be a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition – up.

This two-letter word in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word.

It’s easy to understand up, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake up? At a meeting, why does a topic come up? Why do we speak up, and why are officeholders up for election, and why is it up to the secretary to write up a report? We call up our friends, brighten up a room, polish up the silver, warm up the leftovers and clean up the kitchen. We lock up the house and fix up the old car.

At other times, this little word has real special meaning. People stir up trouble, line up for tickets, work up an appetite, and think up excuses.

To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed up is special.

And this up is confusing: A drain must be opened up because it is stopped up.

Letter To The Editor

We open up a store in the morning, but we close it up at night. We seem to be pretty mixed up about up!

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of up, look up the word up in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes up almost 1/4 of the page and can add up to about thirty definitions.

If you are up to it, you might try building up a list of the many ways up is used. It will take up a lot of your time, but if you don’t give up, you may wind up with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding up. When the sun comes out, we say it is clearing up. When it rains, the Earth soaks it up. When it does not rain for a while, things dry up. One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it up, for now; my time is up!

Oh, one more thing. What is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night? U-P! (Trivia answer: Hawaii).

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Food for thought: “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” – Albert Einstein

Talk to you next week! Steve Tinnen stevetinnen@yahoo.com