Patience Is a Virtue!

When I began teaching seventh grade at the Aurora Middle School in the fall of 1966, one of my great young colleagues was Judy Thornton. Her husband, Pete, was the mailman in Aurora. And they had two great kids, both of whom I later taught. (Judy left teaching when her children arrived--did some schoolbus-driving for years thereafter.) She was, as I said, a wonderful colleague--a dear friend.

Judy and I shared the seventh graders that 1966-67 school year. We taught what was called "Core" (American history plus English), and we each also had a reading class. Our classes were large--about 40 students per. I thought this was normal. Soldiered on ...

Anyway, Judy was famous in her classes for many things--but one was declaring to them, "Patience is a virtue!"

That spring of 1967 I put on a show with some kids, and we had a performance for the entire school (grades 5-8), and at one point one of the characters declares in a stentorian voice: "Patience is a virtue!" The audience went nuts. Biggest reaction of the entire show.

Anyway, in recent weeks it's been Judy's voice and adage that have kept me from going through the roof. (I've written about this before; that's okay; bear with me; patience is a virtue.)

Quicken--which I've used for about twenty years--since it was a MS-DOS program--has lately been "under new ownership," and things are not good. For example, I paid $50 (a bit more) for access to their "Premium Support" phone number, which, of course, is invariably busy. It's been busy all morning today. I'm taking it ... well.

And their sister program, Quicken Bill Pay (which I have also used for a couple of decades), is, for me, totally screwed up. When I get through to an agent, he or she shuffles me here and there until I lose the connection.

I take deep breaths. Remind myself that I'm a ... "mature adult." Vow to try again tomorrow. And urge myself to remember that somewhere Judy Thornton will somehow know if I "lose it," and she'll cry into the night: "I told you, Dan! Patience is a virtue!"

And so it is. And so I need it--in vast quantities--dealing with Quicken and Quicken Bill Pay.