I had avoided telling my parents about anything involving activism or really any socializing with other LGBTQ people. To my parents at that time, I was a docile gay who was renouncing that “lifestyle” to grow closer to God. But after that march, I knew I had to go to them and come out as an on-fire activist. I spent days writing what I was going to say to them before I had to go back home.

The Markets and the Financial Media were stunned by the August Jobs report, which said there were no net jobs created in August. Whatever gains there have been in certain sectors of private industry, every parent in the country with school-age kids can tell you how a sizable chunk of those gains were erased.

Cuts to school budgets.

Serious business leaders know that poor schools today means less qualified workers tomorrow. Local chambers of commerce get it, but if you expect the US Chamber of Commerce to come out in favor of more actual spending for school districts . . . well, I’ve got an abandoned school building to sell you.

In one of the local Kansas City area school districts, a proposed levy increase that would have put an end to three years of major budget cuts failed, and so the cuts continue even as enrollment rises. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, cuts are driven not so much by the economy but by union-busting politicians. Elsewhere in the US, teacher layoffs are being announced. ‘Tis the season . . .

And yet, despite all this, the teachers still teach.

I am so grateful for those who taught me, and even today I am still realizing just how much of a gift they gave me.