As a retired teacher of many years who loves words, both spoken and written, my thoughts today are filled with memories of the effect my own words have had on the treasured people in my life. At the early age of 17, I started out teaching seniors in high school who were older than I was. I really had to watch my words with them. I quickly learned that words have a great deal of power and that I had to be responsible for whatever words came out of my mouth or from my pen. They can either h...