We all know that moving house is one of life's most stressful activities. This couple decide on a courageous "big move" from their home where they have lived for thirty-four years in Long Island, New York, to a gated community area in Gilbert, Arizona. In readiness for the sale, they get some improvements made to their current house and fix some outstanding problems. Sounds like hard work? It was, from battling with unreliable building professionals to fighting off a persistent raccoon very much attracted to their garbage cans. The couple might have hoped for a break when it came to settling...

Everyone seemed so overwhelmingly friendly and the
atmosphere was very different from the school systems
in New York City and Commack, Long Island
where I had previously taught.

After thirty-four years as a social studies teacher, Richard Charles faces bereavement stoically and finds a remedy in work. His experience of the Arizona schools system as a guest teacher (and technophobe) is varied to say the least. Spitballs, locker room horseplay, jinxed VCRs and Chasidic protests at the use of the plus sign (a cross, no less) are just some of the hazards along the way, and one senses the genial...