What do you do?

It's one of the first 4 questions people in the US ask someone they meet.

It's been a long time since I felt comfortable answering the question. Not because I was ashamed or didn't have an answer. It was because it was hard to explain. What I used to do was hard to describe to outsiders and I usually defaulted to saying, "I teach teachers." It was a context people could understand.

Today, I get to say, again, "I'm an ag teacher and I teach future ag teachers."

I hadn't realized how much I'd missed identifying myself this way. The mantle has resettled on my shoulders like a warm, insulated jacket you pull out of the closet when the fall air starts to turn crisp. I hugged it around me and have

settled into it.

While I'm in a different place, with adult students, talking about the art and science of being a teacher, the coat still fits.

I'm back in the shop, dusting off my woodworking, welding, and electrical skills, and it feels like home and the jacket makes it even homier.

The pic is of me, sporting the Red Wolf hard hat, at the groundbreaking for the new Ag Mech lab Arkansas FFA is building to help train teachers in the latest innovations and technology so they can change even more student's lives.