Life has been full<\/p>\n
in my fortunate, charmed life.<\/p>\n
Some hard spots, of course.<\/p>\n
Balanced, or maybe over-compensated<\/p>\n
by the favors.<\/p>\n
A decade ago, unemployed<\/p>\n
and a bit old to expect another offer.<\/p>\n
I learned about an opening<\/p>\n
that would not pay well,<\/p>\n
but would fulfill a teen-aged dream.<\/p>\n
Having read CHRISTY<\/p>\n
about a woman who answered a call<\/p>\n
to help the most needy.<\/p>\n
My tough times had been endurable;<\/p>\n
maybe I could give back.<\/p>\n
VISTA = Volunteers In Service To America,<\/p>\n
like the Peace Corps;<\/p>\n
but we give time and talent in our own community.<\/p>\n
My year was spent helping the local foodbank.<\/p>\n
meeting local unofficial saints in action.<\/p>\n
Ten more typical years since then,<\/p>\n
but it was a sweet gift.<\/p>\n
In one year, I gained familiarity with<\/p>\n
the four counties and a few more tech skills<\/p>\n
and met terrific folks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Life has been full in my fortunate, charmed life. Some hard spots, of course. Balanced, or maybe over-compensated by the favors. A decade ago, unemployed and a bit old to expect another offer. I learned about an opening that would not pay well, but would…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7,2114,1136],"tags":[5837,5836,5835],"class_list":["post-127731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-announcement","category-official-marathon-prompts","tag-unofficial-saints-in-action","tag-food-bank","tag-vista"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127731"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145295,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127731\/revisions\/145295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}