Blog Titles That Didn't Make the Cut

I thought of many possible titles for this blog before I settled on Okie Book Woman.

First, I wanted to call it "A Headful of Children." I figured that since I'm often thinking of my former students, characters in the kids' books I read, and characters I'm writing about, "A Headful of Children" would be appropriate.

Here are a few of the children that run around in my head. Aren't fourth graders wonderful? There are two teachers in the back of the group. I'm the old one.

And here are some more kids from my past. I think middle schoolers are wonderful, too. You just have to be as crazy as they are.


Dr. Lobo, however, had a question about "A Headful of Children." "Why would anyone want to read about a bunch of kids in a bathroom?" he asked. Hmmmm. I never thought of it that way.

Then I leaned toward "A Cluttered Mind." "Your readers would think you had dementia," Dr. Lobo said. Since I live in fear of dementia, which runs in my family, I quickly discarded that idea.


I contemplated "Recycled Teacher." Before I took my last teaching job, I spent a year at Mark Twain doing a little part time job coordinating tutors. So on my first day of teaching there, I explained to my children that although I had been the tutor coordinator the year before, I was now a teacher. Argenis piped up and said, "Oh, so you've been recycled." Now I think of myself as a teacher who has been recycled into a retired teacher. But again, Dr. Lobo reacted negatively.

I liked "Retired, Refreshed, and Remarkable" but I didn't even have to ask Dr. Lobo his opinion. Even I agree that it's way too awkward to catch on.

I also liked "Overgrown Fourth Grader" since I taught fourth grade for the last years of my teaching career and Dr. Lobo often accused me of teaching so that I could play with the kids. There's some truth to that. I'm definitely a kid at heart, and I often think I'm stuck socially and emotionally right around fourth grade. But "overgrown" sounds a bit negative, even if it's true, and I eventually decided I didn't need to call attention to my size, which is already--well--noticeable.

Here is a photo that proves I'm a kid at heart. It was taken at a wonderful children's museum, and I had as much fun as the students.

There were other ideas, mostly even worse than the above. Eventually I thought Book Woman summed up my current life, but since plain old Book Woman was already taken, I had to modify it. That's why you're now reading "Okie Book Woman."

Just thought you'd be interested. Or not.