I began reading Mr. Lucker’s blog years ago. It’s hard to believe, but yes, for years. He moved to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Whoa! That was way back in 2005? There’s a lot of little things he’s written over the years that stick with me mightily. Here’s a link to one of those:

…a sophomore who wrote an essay commenting on her sister’s positive attitude, and the inspiration the sister provides her younger siblings, including Brenda, my student. She lauded, in worthy prose, her sister’s ‘self of steam.’

Even with provided context, I still had to read it a few times to understand what ‘self of steam’ meant for Brenda.

Discussing her paper with her, I was met with a puzzled look as I tried to explain that what she meant was her sister had a lot of ‘self-esteem’ – even going so far as to having her look up ‘esteem’ in the dictionary. Still, she contemplated, paused, looked at her paper and the dictionary, then looked up at me standing over her and said, distinctly, and with a definite correcting me tone of voice: ”Yeah, it’s her SELF. OF. STEAM, Mr. Lucker…how good she feels about herself.” Read more..

Oh, Mr. Lucker, I think I had a daughter with a SELF.OF.STEAM. Today she’s a confident kindergarten teacher. It takes a lot of STEAM and a lot of self-esteem to be a teacher.

If you like this post by Mr. Lucker, his post about Sprite Rage pops into my head every time I fill my water cup in a fast-food restaurant.