I can remember years ago, my father sitting in his easy chair, contemplating life and telling me, "You do the best ya can." At the time I thought the words sounded trite and cliche'.
Some time back, I happened on an internet site designed to let people become penpals. That's all. Just people who wanted to meet people in other parts of the world. I used it halfheartedly for a short time and dropped it. About a year ago, I got an email from the administrators saying I had not been on in a while. And it arrived at at time when I was in the mood to entertain the idea again.
Since then I have had conversations with people from all corners of the earth. Everyone has tribulations in life. I know one young gay man in an African nation that is trying to enact a death penalty for anyone homosexual. I have spoken with people in refugee camps. One man lost his wife and daughter to malaria. Another told me, "I used to have a dog but the other men caught him and ate him."
The human condition of strife is rampant. But so is adventure and determination to succeed.
I have spoken delightfully with a Japanese violin maker who is on a sabbatical to Italy to learn from an 87 year-old master on the art. Last I heard he was studying shellacs. . .and with a widow in Tennessee who has a wonderfully complex sense of humour and a love for classic black and white movies, determined to give her daughter the best opportunities to excel in life. I am friends with an IT engineer who is moving to a new job in New Dehli as well as with a founding member of an Non-Governmental Organization (charity) that drills wells in remote villages of Africa.
I know a college student in far eastern Russia, a draftsman in El Salvadore and an engineer in France, each of whom wants to improve their English in order to improve their lives. It is fascinating to me to find myself as a writer and journalist to be discussing words like"of" and "that" (as a pronoun) as well as "that" (as a conjunction) -- which, naturally leads to a side of the discussion on how to decide on choosing "that" or "which" in sentence structure.
Knowing the basics and explaining them are vastly different. As the old phrase goes, "You teach best what you need most to learn." You have to know it very well and keep educating yourself. And with this site you have to be able to understand English whether it be British, Canadian, American or Australian. (Did you know the British have an abbreviation for the word "something")?
So, am I a good teacher? These folks seem to think so. My opinion? Not so much. But I am willing, armed with my dictionaries and style books, to do what I can. And primarily, they want conversation. But with someone who knows the language well enough to know it properly.
When I look at the people I have met. . . each is in a different locale, most in different societies, and each has their lives with both the ups and downs while in their own particular environment. I look at theirs and look at mine. They have their troubles. I have mine. The only real similarity is that each of us is doing the best we can; striving to be better. And that's really all you can do.
The natural end result of the process will be each of us doing a little better and getting a little farther. . . and, I believe, enjoying the journey a bit more along the way.
Pop was right, even though it has taken me close to twenty years to see it. In life, "You do the best ya can". . . . regardless of where you are.
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