Volume I. Issue IV. Spring, 2006

Newsletter

What’s Up with MALLETT & COMPANY???

          LOOK FOR MALLETT & COMPANY AGAIN AT THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE GIFTED CHILD CONFERENCE IN CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA THIS FALL. For more information please visit www.nagc.org

     Also, CONFRATUTE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT IS TAKING PLACE THIS SUMMER!!! BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE INFORMATION. TEACHERS OF THE GIFTED AND TALENTED MUST GO!!! IT IS AN EXPERIENCE THAT YOU WILL NEVER FORGET!!! For more information please visit www.gifted.uconn.edu/confratute

     Remember to visit Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented at: www.txgifted.org for more information on the upcoming fall conference for parents and educators. This year the conference will be held in Austin, Texas!

     Mallett & Company is expanding! We will soon be offering Pilates instruction to individuals and groups. Deborah G. Mallett, soon to be certified by Peak Pilates, will offer the sessions. She is completing her certification and testing at the Good Space in Houston. Melody Morton, owner of the Good Space offers courses to anyone interested in becoming a certified Pilates instructor. Teachers, it is a great way to relax, reshape, and renew your tired bodies! Many gifted and talented students love it, because of the complexity and strong mind/body connection. More news about the sessions will follow! Educators, get ready to get into shape!!!

“ABOUT RITA”

     In my training sessions I always include stories about some student or person who has made an impression on me. I called that section, “ABOUT ….”

     This is “ABOUT RITA”. Unfortunately, she is not a she, nor a person at all. Actually, I hope I never hear about her again!!! I understand she has been retired!
(by the national weather association) This is part of my story…

     Time really does fly. They say it flies when you are having fun. I also flies when you are cleaning up after a natural disaster…Hurricane Rita! In this newsletter, I want to share with you some of the hardships and some of the funny things that happened to me during Hurricane Rita.

     My mother was in the hospital on September 16, 2005. She celebrated her 90 th birthday there. We were to have a big celebration with lots of cake, barbeque, and, of course, ice cream. Needless to say none of that happened. She was in a semi-private room and the lady next to her had to have a light on all of the time. It nearly drove me crazy. After a couple of days Mom got a private room. However, the lights on the street and parking lots in front of the hospital provide the glare! There was no way to win in this situation.

     Early on Tuesday morning as I was going back to my mother’s room with a tray full of breakfast treats, a lady said to me, “There’s a category five hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.” I laughed. My response was, “Are you kidding”? What I had taken rather glibly, turned out to be one of the most serious situations that I would ever find myself. I made a phone call to a construction person that I knew, asking him to board up all of the large picture windows on the house. This was on Wednesday morning. The panic in the city began to set in. This monster was not going to head into Houston; it was headed right towards Beaumont, Texas!

     By Friday afternoon, there was a massive evacuation. All of the hospitals and medical facilities would go first. My mother was on one of the first buses out to the airport. There were lots of very sick people were on board. As I looked around the bus, I began to pray. I called the 700 Club for prayer. We arrived at the airport at 5:30 pm, and sat on this bus until 11:30 before the evacuation took place. During part of that time I took pictures of the C-135 transport planes and of the evacuation process. After waiting on the bus until 8:30 pm with no progress being made, the bus driver decided to call the CEO of the business office to let him know of the situation. All medical help had been sent back to the hospital. There we were. I also spoke to him, telling him that something had to be done immediately. Patients were running out of oxygen and becoming very ill.

     I made mental notes of all the people on the bus and their conditions. I surveyed the situation and began to find out more information. There was another bus from the hospital with no supervision. I telephoned the business director again. He came at once. The bus started to be evacuated around 11:00pm. The driver and myself helped the medics, as they began to take patients off the bus one by one. Since there was no paper, I wrote their names on my forearm. I asked for paper! Someone found a tattered piece and on that paper I wrote the names and the problems that each patient had. One lady called me an angel. I told her I was just an educational consultant! She told me to her I was still an angel. (My family knows differently!)

     By 12:00 midnight the patients were on their way. Atlanta would be their destination, and sadly, the final destination for some. I looked at my mother and I asked her this question: “Mom, would you like to go home and eat some scrabbled eggs and toast or would you like to go to Atlanta, Georgia.” More poignantly, I asked, “Mom, if you were to die, would you rather be home or on this plane”? She said, “Take me home.” With that decision, I had peace. The bus driver took us back to the parking lot at the hospital. The town was deserted. It looked like something out of a movie that I would not have wanted to be in.

     I had been awake about thirty-eight hours by the time we got to Fairfield, Texas. I will never forget Fairfield. Yet, there was another adventure unfolding that night in the wee small hours of the morning before Hurricane Rita’s force would be felt. Mom got her toast and eggs. We crawled into bed together with her dog and mine. I slept one hour. My stomach was shaking like a leaf in the soon to be 147 mph winds. I called my brother and told him that the Lord directed me to take mom home, and now, I was terrified. What if she had a heart attack? What if her stomach started to hurt again? What if she really got sicker? It would all be on my conscious. My brother said not to worry. Get up get dressed and do what you need to do to get everything together. I did just that. I repacked…got the three dogs, food, water, and medicines, important papers and the like. Then I went outside to load the car. It was like fall. There was a cool breeze, gentle and blowing with almost a whisper. I packed everything I could, went inside, got mom, and left. As we walked out the door the mood had changed. The stillness was deafening and the air smelled like a stagnant pond. It was upon us…the monstrous storm.

     The traffic was flowing well, at first. My brother gave us five gallons of gas when we stopped in Woodville. We were on our way to Lufkin. It took three hour to go one block in Lufkin. Our hopes of making it to Tyler were dashed. I saw how badly the traffic was moving and had great concerns about Mom. She wanted me to drive right down the median through the grassy area!! I said, “No way!” We both knew we had to get out of there. I was afraid some idiot would pull out a shotgun, say something like, “give me your car full of gas” and then take off. I was not about to let that happen. I looked around and saw a way out of this mess. There was a turn around! I set the GPS system for San Angelo…WEST…anything WEST. The system guided us through a beautiful woodsy area with rolling hills and open fields. We even found gasoline in a small town. We thought of going to Fort Worth. However, Mom was in no condition to make it. Once I got to Fairfield I tried to find a place for our babies, as we call them (our dogs), to stay. I stopped at a veterinary clinic and went inside to see if there was availability. While inside, the horn blew on the car. The lady in the clinic looked outside, only to see my mother slumped over in the car. I rushed her to the hospital, dogs and all. She was exhausted and hot. The nurse cut her favorite Gap sweater off, so that she could breathe! The doctor gave her oxygen and stabilized her. The next day he told me that if I had put her on the plane, she would have died. He also looked at her records that the hospital had given her before boarding the bus. He said she was to remain NPO. That meant no food or water! God works in mysterious ways. He also speaks in that still small voice when we listen. I listened. Even the dogs were taken into good care. The lady from the vet clinic came to the hospital and took them to a great kennel! The nearly thirty-eight hours with no sleep had caught up with me. I was not able to eat the Mexican dinner one nurse brought to me. Shortly thereafter, the nurses on the night shift found me sound asleep on the floor! I had had enough of sleeping in the hospital chairs! I did overhear one nurse say to the other nurse that she wanted to wake me. The other one said no, “she is exhausted.

     Needless to say, Fairfield is the best little town in the country. They fed my mother. She got stronger. The fed me, too. However, Mom need more help than they could give her, so, we made our plans to go to Houston. We arrived at the Medical Center where she got the help she needed. We were at the hotel where there were the Katrina evacuees. Some of them were the very people that we had been helping in Beaumont, before Rita hit. We found friends and made more. For three weeks the Marriot graciously accommodated us.

     Once we got home, we had a massive clean up. Trees, Trees, Trees, and more Trees…but none hit the house. Leaves looked as though they had been in a paper shredder. They were all over the yard. Yet, how blessed we were. How blessed we remain. It has taken seven long months to get the house back in order. We still need the new roof and the remainder of the back fence; the house needs to be repainted, too, but we survived!

     It is difficult taking care of one’s own mother. It is even more difficult in such a dire situation. It is more than that…it is a privilege. Having her with me was the greatest blessing of all. She is still “alive and kicking”!

     Mallett & Company is still alive and well, too. It is and has been a pleasure to serve schools in Texas, both public and private, as well as train teachers nationally.

     Many thanks!

     Deborah G. Mallett, Ed.M., CEO