Conversations With Random People --23

Monday following the encounter in the general store I stopped at the accountant's office to pick up my completed tax returns.  Yikes.

The lady who went over the details with me was a former student, junior high math, 1969-1971.

A block up the street to visit the post office where I needed to post a letter, thus standing behind the guy who was at the counter.  He turned and greeted me.

"Just yesterday a friend was admiring my chess board and your name came up in the conversation."

"Really?  Do you still play chess?"

"Well, I have some really nice chess sets."

"Likewise," I remarked.  "But I fear my game is pretty much gone."

"I know when I used to play against you that the best I could hope for was to drag it out as long as I could, because I knew what was coming in the end."

"The end?"

"Yeah.  Did you make the other guys play a game before you paddled them, or was I special?"

"Oh, you were special, no doubt."  Dorothy, the postal clerk, is grinning at this point.  "The question is, Did it do you any good?"

The people lined up behind us were clearly being entertained.

"You were the first teacher I ever heard swear."

"Say what?  When did you ever hear me swear?"

"On the bus lot at dismissal.  I threw an egg at a girl, hit her, too.  You were looking around to see who did it and I stepped up and said, I threw the egg.  You said, Mr. T, Monday morning first thing, my office.  Your ass is grass and I'm the lawnmower."

"I might have said that, I assented.  "So what happened on Monday?"

"Well, you went pretty easy on me, because the girl's mother had called and told you that her daughter had it coming!"

As we turned to walk out of the building he said, "I wouldn't have that job these days."

"Nor would I.  When I was principal I thought I had the best job in the world.  Still think so, but I wouldn't last an hour nowadays."

Farewells, nice talking with you, good to see you, and so on.

The Ice Queen #T

I graduated UT mid-term.  I am a substitute teacher with daily hopes that a full-time position will 
open for me.  I work almost exclusively at Jay Bird Middle School.  That is not the school's real name, and I did not choose it in honor of any avian creature, if you know what I mean.

Jay Bird is one of three middle schools that feed our local institution of secondary learning, Napoleon North High School.  Napoleon, Texas (don't look for it on the map, for I made that up, too) is in the middle of the state if anyplace is and whatever that means.  Suffice it to say that any place in Texas is at least five hundred miles from some other place in Texas.

Jay Bird has a full-time teaching staff of 51.  The teacher attendance rate averages 96%.  A bit of simple arithmetic will show you why, since I have become the principal's favorite sub, I work virtually full time at half the salary of a beginning teacher.  But I digress.  This is to be a story, not a diatribe.  Student attendance is worse, averaging 91%.  The Board of Education has tried various measures up to and including suspensions and expulsions for absenteeism, thereby giving the little birds exactly what they wanted.  The current policy simply encourages each teacher to do his best with each child with the goal being to send him on to high school at the end of his eighth grade year.

There exists the story of a high school star basketball player who has attended fewer than 30 days of school in the past six years, but that is no doubt apocryphal  and not to be believed.  Besides that is not the story I am telling here.

I am an eighth grade math teacher this week, a class I rather enjoy inasmuch as the teacher is top-notch and her plans are always up to snuff, and I don't have to wing it as I do with some.  Wednesday second lunch I am "on duty" in the courtyard, keeping an eye on the kids as they eat their sandwiches or ramen noodles, or whatever the day's offering might be.  Third lunch is my lunch time, but I usually stay in the courtyard sitting at a table off to the side, munching my salad and reading my latest penny dreadful.

Miranda, who is in my seventh period class, sits alone at the table to the left.  Her long dark hair hangs somewhat across her face and she has a rather vacant look about her.  Sophie sits at the next table beyond, also by herself.  Sophie's blonde hair is coiffed in the very latest style and so lacquered that it wouldn't move in a cat 3 hurricane.  Her artfully torn and shredded jeans no doubt cost the equivalent of three of my days' pay.  Her platform shoes are ridiculous beyond description.   I hear a long slurp as Sophie  sucks the last of her drink from the bottom of the paper cup.  This is followed by two quick make-sure slurps, then she rises from the bench and saunters toward Miranda.  She pauses briefly behind the girl, turns her cup and deliberately pours the ice over Miranda's head.  Then she strolls on

Miranda sits at table, ice chips sparkling in her hair, cascading down her shoulders, and smiles.  That's all.  She just smiles-- doesn't even brush the stuff off her hair or clothes.

Thursday, third lunch, same setting, same actors.  Same skit played out.  After Sophie was back in the building, I walked over to Miranda and sat across from her.  "Miranda, tell me.  Why is it that you simply sit there quietly when Sophie pours ice over you?" 

"Oh, that's easy.  Sophie's chauffeur drops her off and picks her up every day.  She doesn't have any friends, sits alone at lunch.  It's sad.  But her little joke gives her a couple minutes of pleasure, I'm happy for her."

"But why don't you join her and talk to her?"

"Oh, she wouldn't want to talk to someone like me.  And besides, it would spoil her fun."

As the kids were passing between classes after sixth period, Sophie walked by my door.  "One second, Sophie."  She stopped.  "Sophie, why do you baptize Miranda with your ice chips every day?"

Sophie snorted.  "Silly cow," she said.  "The lump just sits there smiling, never says a word.  Maybe if she'd get up and smack me or something I'd quit, but in the meantime, it amuses me!"

"Did you ever try to talk to her, maybe sit at table with her?"

"Seriously?  Are you kidding me?  No one, I mean no one, in this dump talks to me."

"I'm talking to you."

Sophie spun on her platforms and disappeared down the hall.

Friday, third lunch period.  Patio seating, same principals.

Sophie slurped her drink from the bottom of the cup and stood.  She walked slowly behind Miranda, but she did not dump the ice on her head.  She continued toward me and I saw Miranda stand and step behind the bench.  She started toward me, too.  Just as Sophie disappeared from my peripheral vision, I felt the ice chips pouring through my hair and down my back!  Miranda caught up with Sophie, they linked arms and hooted with laughter as they hastened to the entryway.

Good Old Golden Rule Days #T

Past these ivied walls
and through these hallowed halls

Two generations, three
 learned their "times" and ABC.

Now occupied by ghosts
and memories of hosts

of superannuated "boys" and "girls,"
and bats, and birds, and mice, and squirrels.

All good things give way
To better things in their day.




Madison Township, Tipton County, Indiana

Four-letter Words: A

The "Four-letter Word" series was scheduled to appear on Fridays.  Because I slipped "N" into last Friday's slot we will insert this one on Wednesday in place of the Pineville tales which may resume Monday if the muse favors us with another idea.

For the letter "A" the word I have chosen is:

able.

"Able" is an adjective meaning competent, equal to, prepared to, having the opportunity to, accomplish an end.  To say one is able implies that he is intelligent, skillful, accomplished, or talented.  Able is a powerful word and conveys confidence in the recipient of this descriptor.

Miss Lillian Bateman, my senior English teacher in high school  was given to nautical references, just one of her many fascinating tricks in her repertoire.   Often when she called on me she would favor me thus: "Mr. Lacy, Able Seaman, please explicate on the reading of the previous paragraph."

When she signed my yearbook she addressed me just so.  I think to this day that the lady was making a sincere attempt to educe the confidence she felt I had buried within me.  Other students had their pet designations, but to the best of my recollection I was the only one on whom she bestowed the adjective "able."  BTW there were many kids in that class brighter than I.   Too bad "bright" is not a four-letter word.  Have to look elsewhere for the next post.

Lunch Hour #T

Swimming was scheduled from 11:20 to 12:10.  That class was followed by lunch and I had no obligation to be any particular where until my next class started at 1:00.  Choices for lunch were many and as I like variety I availed myself of various opportunities.

At the top of the list was the brown bag, for Mom would make the sandwiches and cookies, Dad would pay for the victuals, and David ate well, but on the cheap.   Sometimes in the fall and in the springtime this lunch was consumed as Roland and I sat at a chess table in Acacia Park which was just across the street from school. Some days, though, as this student was usually pretty flush for funds as he had a job he worked twenty-eight hours a week a different option would be selected.

Next choice was the school cafeteria.  I remember little about it except that it was on the top floor and a walk back from the Y, climbing the stairs and joining a vast mob was not always an appealing option.  But like clockwork, I am thinking on Thursdays, the staff made and served Spanish rice.  Now why exactly I found this appealing I don't remember, but I liked it a lot in those days and I could get the full meal including milk and dessert for thirty-five cents.

My next choice was the cafeteria at the YWCA.  The YW building was another block yet farther south than the YMCA.  The YWCA building was a five-story affair on the corner of Nevada and Kiowa.  It was probably the second-tallest building in town and today would be referred to as a "low rise."  It has since been placed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

I could easily walk the block from the YM to the YW, ascend the elevator to the cafeteria and enjoy a luscious meal, a gustatory delight to a boy, full meal, for example. a pork chop with potatoes and white gravy, green beans on the side, for sixty-five cents, coffee included.  Cherry pie, fifteen cents, twenty-five ala mode.  Change left over from my dollar for a Nehi Cream Soda after school.  Too, the girls with the smiling voices, that is, telephone operators, worked at the exchange next door and several of them had lunch at the Y.

A block and a half north of the school was a "corner grocery" where a certain element hung out, before school, after school, and at lunch time.  I think they dined on soda pop, moon pies or twinkies, and candy bars.  Most importantly to most of them, though, was the fact that they could get in a smoke or two before class.  I never went there, but you know.  Word gets around.

Across Nevada Avenue from the YMCA was a hoppin' soda shop.  I stopped a few times after school but never took lunch there.  Most of those students who did lived on upper Cascade Avenue or Wood Avenue, Culebra Drive.  You know, out of my social stratum.

Finally, of course, which I have already mentioned elsewhere, were the days that the lunch hour was spent shooting pool at the Y.  Candy bars and RC Cola.

Bon appetit!

 My Little World

Colorado Springs, Colorado

1951-1952

#11 Red Top Cafe.  I did not include it as a school lunch choice as I reserved this very special treat for my Saturday lunch.  Walked across the street from the office, #10, then thirty steps up the alley to the hole-in-the wall behind the theater.  The best burger in town ("one's a meal")--maybe anywhere--thirty-five cents.  Coffee, a nickel.
 #12 Shop mentioned on Bob's blog a few years ago. 
*Intersection of Pikes Peak and Tejon was known as "Busy Corner."  It was said you could meet up with anyone in town if you stood there long enough.  Second door east on north side of Pikes Peak, a broom closet-sized hot roasted nuts! shop.  A dime's worth of Spanish peanuts gave two boys an abundant snack!

Swimming at the Y #T

I transferred to public high school for my senior year.  My reasoning which sufficed to convince  the parents was that I needed to take physics and senior math which at the time was trigonometry and solid geometry.

Then I found that in order to graduate I would have to have credit in physical education.  So as a senior I enrolled in a  PE class.  I chose swimming.

*WARNING.  If you do not wish to have an image which you cannot unsee burned into your mind, STOP reading now.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
 
The swimming classes were held at the YMCA pool which was a one-block walk to the south of the school.  The routine required stripping and showering, soaping thoroughly, including the hair. (When did you last "shampoo" with bar soap?)  Then we entered the pool area.  You did not read the part about donning the trunks?  That is because there was no, I mean NO, clothing in the pool.  Twenty naked teenage boys lined up alongside the pool so Coach could call the roll, then into the water. The instructor shouted encouragement and humiliating taunts to each and all for the next thirty minutes.

Back to the showers where we rinsed the chlorine off our bodies, toweled down, then, some days, the fun part.  Snapping someone with a damp towel is much more fun than being snapped by a damp towel.  Coach knew this was going on, how could he not?  But he also knew when to step in and put a stop to it.  No permanent injuries suffered by anyone, so far as I know.

Once dressed, we ascended to the main floor where most of the guys checked out and headed for the school house.  Some of us who chose to fritter away the lunch hour stayed to shoot a couple games of eight-ball.  Nope, no "closed campus."  Lunch hour might make another post.

Oh, I passed the course, got my PE credit.

My Little World

Colorado Springs, Colorado

1951-1952

Pretty Lady #T

In the attic again.  Picking my way through the boxes and framed pictures, I stooped to pick up a picture lying on the floor.  General Palmer astride his bronze horse, tall  pedestal in the middle  of  the  intersection.  I flipped the snapshot  into  a nearby box and straightened up too fast and too much without regard for the rafter above my head.  I mean, squarely atop my head.

The birds were twittering and chittering in the elms shading the sidewalk as I hastened down Weber Street.  I had walked all the way across town to Memorial Hospital to visit short minutes with my friend, Mary, as she had a ten-minute break at six  o'clock.  We had not seen each other since I left for college those many months ago.  I still had a soft spot for her.   Our visit was pleasant but not very  informative, for what can one say in ten minutes?  So now I am hurrying home because I promised Mom I would go to meeting with her this evening.

Passed by the east side of the old high school and reaching the corner I turned right onto Platte Avenue toward the west.  The sun had dropped behind The Peak, light rays streaming upward and outward, a painting almost as a child would represent a sunset, yet so very powerful my heart leaped within  me!  God's creation is marvelous beyond our abilities to fully appreciate it sometimes.  Then  there are perfect moments such as this one.

What is that figure that just crossed Nevada Avenue and is heading toward me with a quick and purposeful stride?  A young woman.  As she passes the front entrance of the high school I am nearing the middle of the block.  I recognize her.  It is Gwen.  Gwen whom I have not seen since the night we crossed the stage to receive our diplomas more than a year ago.

Gwen and I had started our senior year here in this building that stands beside us as newbies, that is we were both transfer students, the only thing we had in common.  The half-thousand other seniors all knew each other, more or less, but a small subset of the class were new to the facility.  I noticed Gwen.  She would have been hard to overlook because she was easy to look at.

Gwen was one of the best-dressed girls in the school, but fashion did not dictate her choice in style.  Her skirts, for instance, were hemmed two inches below the knee in a day in which the style required the hem two inches above the bobby sox.  She often wore a bolero jacket, style dictating an angora sweater.  The jacket was almost always accessorized with a scarf, either around her neck or over her shoulder.  Her makeup was modest but exquisite, with one exception.  Her carefully-applied lipstick was just a shade too red. Gwen's hair was black and when one looked into her eyes he had to know that the hair color was as honest as the piercing eyes.

Gwen and I were friendly to the extent that we spoke to each other in the hallways, she smiled when she saw me and I thought she was visiting Earth from Olympus.  In other words, way out of my league.

The aura of mystery surrounding the young lady never entirely lifted.  It was known that she had moved into town from another city.  The guys whispered behind their hands, "She lives with her sister, you know.  No parents in that house."  From which I was to infer-- what, exactly?

And thus we met, mid-block, late afternoon on a lovely summer day.  "Hi, David!"  Had she not spoken first I would have passed her without a word, for my daddy taught me that a gentleman never addressed a lady before she spoke to him.  "Hi, Gwen!  How are you?  Haven't seen you in, well, in a year."  We stopped to visit a bit.  I told her of my college choice, my plans for the summer.  She told me she worked in the secretarial pool at a large company whose corporate headquarters were on Cascade Avenue.

Breaking eye contact with me, dropping her head just slightly, her right foot caressed the back of her left calf.  Gwen said, "You could walk me the rest of the way home, if you like.  I live just around the corner on Weber."

Seldom to that point in my life did I fear that my heart would leap completely from my chest.  I took two very deep breaths, blushing I know, for I could feel the heat rising from the top of my head.

"Uh.  Oh, wow.  I'd really like to, but I promised my Mom I would take her to her meeting this evening and I am running late now."

"Oh.  Oh, okay.  Nice to see you again, and good luck with your life.  'Bye!"

In the Present #T

We left Me standing in the attic, a copy of Plato's Symposium  in my left hand. I am recalling, though, a day in which Ben and I were having a heated debate, Plato's idealism, versus Aristotle's realism. Finally, enough time devoted to that on this day, in the opinion of Prof who said, "Enough for now.  You may take it up again on Friday.  But you will switch positions for the balance of the discussion."

"But, Doc.  That puts me at a severe disadvantage, for Alcibiades here is noted all across campus for his chameleon-like non-stance on anything.  He can switch allegiances in an instant."

"And so you must learn to do as well, Mr. Moore," quoth the good doctor, "for you will find in your chosen field of endeavor that you will have every dart and javelin flung at you, every sword the enemy can command will come into play.  To defend your position, you must be able to understand the other side.  And to do that well, you must be able to argue either side.  Point, Alcibiades."

Reverie over.  I dropped the book in the dust, retraced my steps and descended the ladder.

End the portion of the account that may contain some elements of fiction, and back to reality as I start the car, ready to carry out my mission for the day.

The years that followed saw Ben and Wes graduate, and  I, too, the year following.  Ben rather precisely followed his life-goals chart he had developed as a youth.  His career included a successful ministry including the establishment of an outreach mission to the city's down-and-out.  He wrote several books which were published and at least one of them sold quite well.  He might have extended his goals chart a few more years, though, for twenty-five turned out to be enough.  He died just days short of his 44th birthday, 25 years almost to the day that he pinned his Life Goals to his dorm wall.

He planned thoroughly and followed his plan.

RIP, Ben.

I, on the other hand, 41 years after Ben's demise, still live my life one day at a time.

Word of the day realism, in philosophy.

 The real Ben and what he wrote in my yearbook six decades ago.

Return to the Old Barn #T

I haven't been in  the attic in  a couple months.  Walking to the car I noted the rope just above my head.  Okay, I am not in a hurry anyway.  I had  to move two boxes from the spot where  the foot of the ladder lands.  Done; pulled the rope and set the contraption on  the floor.

Climbing the steps is not as easy as it once was; it is not as easy as it was two months ago when I last assayed to ascend above.  Atrophy: it's not just for  the mind; the muscles seem to be going as well.  Perhaps I should  attend more  closely when my Sawbones tells me to get up from the lounger more often, walk a bit, he says, chop some wood.  Well, it is easy for him to say.

Feet firmly on the floor and I turn  down the weed-strewn  path.  There is the  old barn where I found my clogged idea mill.  But.  The barn  had withstood the  vicissitudes of time for a century and a quarter (carved into the lintel over the main door was "1887.")  But January's wind finally laid the old structure more or less parallel to the earth.  Rubble was spread several yards to the east and the peak of  the  roof remained a bit above the dreary flatness of the landscape.  "Every  puppy has  its day," and every barn some day shall lie supine  upon the earth, slowly molder  away.

Just there lying open in the dust is a small, gray hardback book, its water-stained pages riffling in the breeze.  I pick it up.  Symposium, Plato.  Suddenly I am transported, as across a time-warp or through a worm-hole, sixty-five years into the past.

I am a philosophy major, as is my good friend Wes.  Also in this class along with six other stalwart and daring souls, is Ben Moore.  We are reading Symposium.  Ben has taken to calling me "Alcibiades" which he continues to do long after this class is over, even to our parting on graduation day.  Ben is a ministerial student, goal-oriented, knows where he is going.  True.  He has a chart hanging on the wall in his dorm room outlining his life for the next 25 years.  When he asked me what I was going to be when I grow up, I replied, "Who knows what the morrow will bring; sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

I call Ben '"Alvin," which is his given first-name.  He clearly uses "Ben" because for some reason he
does not like the moniker his parents tagged him with.  I persisted in this, though at one point I was tempted to call him "Memnon."  I thought better of it, and "Alvin" was sufficient for my purposes.

I liked to think that Ben named me Alcibiades because of my superb skill in debate and oratorical prowess.  Wes, though, maintaining a close friendship with both of us, disabused me of that notion.  "Clearly," he said, "Ben sees you as one who will take either side of any issue, picking  the one most to your advantage."*  Perhaps I could have twisted that somehow  to my benefit, had Wes not  gone on, dragging  something about  a snake into  the conversation.  Oh, well.

Ben, focused, serious minded, was from the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood of Philadelphia.  Wes and I had been raised "free range," Westerners, both of whom showed up  on campus wearing ten-gallon hats.

(If there is more  to this  story  it shall have to appear  in another  installment.  I've  things  to do.)
Word of the day:  Idealism

*Referring to Alcibiades, Aristophanes wrote, "Athens yearns for him, and hates him too, but wants him back."
^o^ Drawing, me, with apologies, sort of, to Bill Amend.

Margot Goes to Kindergarten: Reread

TBT:  I presented this little tale about a year ago.  Maybe I haven't run out of anything to say, but an encounter of sorts with Margot recently suggested it might be fun to revisit the five-year-old Margot, especially given that a new crop of kindergartners are starting school.
 
Little Margot sat primly at the table.  The pink bow tied her long honey-colored ponytail, the perfect accent to the pink-on-white polka dot pinafore she wore.  Margot's hands were folded atop the table and she listened intently as Miss Roz was giving first-day instructions to the new kindergarten class.  It was a bright, hot August day outside, but the whir of the air conditioning fans overhead promised comfort in the classroom.

The table accommodated five scrubbed and enthusiastic, or frightened, or subdued children and Curtis.  Miss Roz knew within moments of the day's opening exercises that Curtis would be a handful.  What she had yet to learn was that Tina, seated next to Margot and across from Curtis would,  over time, make Curtis appear to be angelic, in a manner of speaking.

Curtis was jumping in and out of his chair grabbing pencils and books that did not belong to him.  Miss Roz, not yet frazzled,  was making a valiant effort to corral the tyke. Tina leaned toward Margot and said, "That is the ugliest dress I ever saw."  Margot, stunned, never said a word, but a tear formed in the corner of her left eye.  And Tina said, "Why don't you cut off that awful hair?  It looks like throw-up down your back."  The floodgates opened and Margot's cheeks were inundated with tears.  She turned toward Miss Roz, but Miss Roz had heard what was going on.  She, too sweetly Margot thought, chastised Tina and asked her to apologize.  Tina turned to Margot again and said, "I'm sorry you can't take a joke, you skinny stick.  Bet your mama starves you so she can eat it all herself, the fat pig."

Margot turned full in her seat, faced Tina, put her pointer finger within an inch of Tina's nose and said, in a clear voice, "You're just a little shit."

This is essentially a true story, especially the last line which is a completely accurate quote.  I have lived to see Margot elected to the local Board of Education. Names changed of course to mask the identities of the real-life participants in this little tableau.

Word of the day: pinafore
 © 2015 David W. Lacy

April Showers

Sweet April showers
Do spring May flowers

--Thomas Tusser 1557  

                         Good Points of Husbandry

Or as we always said, "April showers bring May flowers."

As I was thinking of wishing you a pleasant April to come, this and the succeeding twenty-nine days, I recalled a little song we sang when I was in elementary school.  Why we were taught such things, I cannot fathom, but there it is, stuck in my mind.



Rosy Betsy, blue eyed Molly, Molly
April is the time for folly, folly
Blackbird's shouts ring round and round
While Jenny Wren is building in the Willow.

Put off your cloaks of grey and brown 
Run in you green shoes out of town
Run in the meadow up and down
While Jenny Wren is building in the Meadow.

 What nonsense that you learned in school is still stuck in your head?

May your flowers be bright and your feet be dry.  Happy April Days!

Christmas! Gone (Rerun)

What to do? indeed. Eldon is in the soup now. Only a week until Christmas! Eve, the night the Jolly Old Guy in the Red Suit makes his annual rounds. Not that that makes much difference now.

Well, it was Friday afternoon.  It had been a long, long week and a certain fourth grade classroom is insufferably stuffy in the afternoons. Anyway. Mrs. Hart surely must be as tired as I am.  I’ve never seen any evidence of this, thought Eldon, but she cannot be, must not be, Wonder Woman. Recess came at 1:45, an hour and twenty minutes before dismissal. Back into the classroom at two means what? an hour and five minutes before release for the week. I can’t make it, Eldon mused as he strolled aimlessly toward the far left side of the playground. It’s extremity bordered the creek, and anything within ten yards of the creek was off-limits. Yet sometimes, good fortune comes ones way.

The softball game was in progress, and a kid got a lucky hit, placing the ball thirty feet beyond Eldon. It landed just inside the forbidden territory. The fielder made a dash for the ball and Eldon saw his chance. Crouching, making himself small as possible., Eldon shot to his left and was behind an old mulberry tree in a trice. He peeked out. Teacher was still standing by the sidewalk looking the other way. Very soon she blew her whistle and her charges ran to the door.

All but one charge charged into the building, and the remaining one charged into the brush, jumped across the creek and was on his way to... He was on his way where? He certainly could not arrive home this early, and wandering through the village would be entirely too conspicuous. So, while his classmates enjoyed hearing another chapter of Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing Eldon wandered across a recently-combined cornfield, kicking at an occasional stob, picking up an occasional clod and heaving it toward an imaginary enemy.

His triumph was short-lived, because this solitude, while being in the great out-of-doors and free of the stuffy, smelly classroom miasma, was not nearly so much fun as the boy had imagined it would be. The hour dragged on and on, the lad’s fingers were miserably cold. Finally Eldon saw a bus pass on the nearby road. He could head home now.

“Hi, Mom,” Eldon enthused. That was weird. It was like pulling nails, and I mean fingernails, to get a word from Eldon when he arrived home. But Mom didn’t need to guess, because his truancy had been reported to her long before he arrived home. Funny how that works.

Color Christmas! black, Eldon thought. Oh, man, color Christmas! gone.

Master, the Tempest Is Raging

Heart Sick

 For the most part this blog has been light-hearted in tone, sometimes informative in nature, occasionally tinged with a bit of gratuitous sarcasm but just for the fun of it.  I have used it to express my faith in God but not so much to display my lack of faith in my fellowman.  I have avoided overly serious and heart-wrenching episodes because they are available elsewhere to those who want them.

But I cannot avoid this one.

My heart hurts as I write this, and I mean that in the most literal sense.  The physical pain that accompanies the emotional anguish is very real.

I had watched a football game and when it ended, I switched to NBC network news and that just in time to see them display the assassination of a young man as he lay in a fetal position, doubtless begging for his life.

Our visual arts media has fed us so much violence, gratuitous violence as entertainment that our society has become increasingly inured to it.  Inured to it to the extent that the gore and techniques of producing it become increasingly horrific. And now we see this result.  The producers of the news program think it not inappropriate to show a clip of a living terrorized human being being shot where he lies.

When I witnessed this my heart immediately clenched, the tears sprang from my eyes and my voice trembled so badly I could scarce convey to my wife the hurt I felt.

I do not know any of the principals, neither the slain individual nor the killer.  I weep for them to the extent that they are a part of the human family.  But the ache I feel, the sorrow I am enduring is for our society which has apparently reached such a level of hardhearted and uncaring insensitivity to our fellows that showing such an incident to the nation, to the nation's children, is acceptable and to be accepted and condoned.

Forgive me but I may have a difficult time finding it in my heart to forgive those who chose to air this atrocity.  But then, we are all guilty, are we not, for allowing the process of hardening our hearts through the guise of entertainment to make it possible for this to have occurred?

And now I weep for our children.

I sang in a mixed chorus when I was in high school.  This was one of my favorite numbers.  We performed it lustily!  Sixty-five years later I find this song still resonates with me, and I have found the Master to be faithful.  I can still sing it.  Sort of.

Master, the tempest is raging!

The billows are tossing high!
The sky is o’ershadowed with blackness,
No shelter or help is nigh.
Carest Thou not that we perish?
How canst Thou lie asleep,
When each moment so madly is threatening
A grave in the angry deep?

Refrain

The winds and the waves shall obey Thy will,
Peace, be still!
Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea,
Or demons or men, or whatever it be
No waters can swallow the ship where lies
The Master of ocean, and earth, and skies.
They all shall sweetly obey Thy will,
Peace, be still! Peace, be still!
They all shall sweetly obey Thy will,
Peace, peace, be still!

Master, with anguish of spirit
I bow in my grief today.
The depths of my sad heart are troubled
Oh, waken and save, I pray!
Torrents of sin and of anguish
Sweep o’er my sinking soul.
And I perish! I perish! dear Master
Oh, hasten, and take control.

Refrain

Master, the terror is over,
The elements sweetly rest.
Earth’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored,
And heaven’s within my breast.
Linger, O blessèd Redeemer!
Leave me alone no more.
And with joy I shall make the blest harbor,
And rest on the blissful shore.

Refrain

--Mary A. Baker 

Music by Horatio Palmer

1874

This is perhaps more professional than we were, but no more enthusiastic. 

Every School Day in Every Community

 

How in the name of all that is righteous can we look at this and not be incensed? 

 

Third Grader: A Repost #T

Washington School, Canon City: Grades 3 & 4. Building no longer exists, only the bell.  If you click on the picture to bigify it you can see my 1969 Thunderbird with suicide doors.  Cool wheels.

 Once again observing the little angels debussing at the end of their school day, little backs bent under the onus of heavy luggage, I take a look back to another time. Again.


Oh, Frabjous Day! School's out, teacher's let the monkeys out. "No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks."

But short-lived, and all too soon September returns again. The boy is going to a "new" school this year. That is to say, to the building where is housed grades three through five. I don't know why this structure, I just report, you decide. The main change in the school day routine is that now instead of walking half-mile to the north, The Boy must walk half-mile south.

Total report on inside-the-classroom for this year: 1) The Boy got his knuckles whacked once for something or other, and 2) he could not tell you the name of the teacher if his life literally depended upon it.

On the playground, the little guy found his metier, so to speak. For his father had taught him the correct method of shooting marbles. He was virtually unbeatable. The favorite game was a "golf" style game played with a rectangular array of holes in the dirt, with a fifth hole in the center. Plenty of marbles were thrown into a ring, too, and The Boy could knock the dickens out of them. There was, however, a small problem attendant to this exercise. The Boy, son of a preacher man, was not allowed, in fact was taught it was wrong, to play for "keeps." He could have been the richest marble miser on the East Slope of the Rockies, if only.  

Yet another entertainment, almost as important as the playing of marbles itself, was the trading of marbles. The kids had them all categorized and had developed some sort of table of values in their heads, a virtual Kelly Blue Book of marbledom. The Boy specialized in the collection of "cons" (he lived in a prison town.) This required shrewd dealing, because cons* were worth three or four, or even more glassies.

Ooh, how The Boy hated to hear the bell that ended recess. Ended life, really it did, until the next time they were released to the playground.

*Cons were basic white marbles with gray striping. Get it?

5 comments:

Jim said...

Okay, why was it okay to trade marbles but not win them?p

June 4, 2010 at 7:14 AM

Secondary Roads said...

Yah, I get it. I was more into comic book swaps than marble games. The ditty we used to recite at the end of the school year was:
School's out. School's out.
Teacher let the fools out.
Open the door and ring the bell.
Tell the teacher that she's swell.

At least that the way I choose to remember it.

June 4, 2010 at 9:36 AM

Vee said...

Whatever happened to marbles and jacks as favored playground activities?

June 4, 2010 at 9:39 AM

Lin said...

Playground?? Our kids could barely cram their lunches down in the short time they had for lunch break, more or less have time for jacks or marbles. Teachers unions have killed our school day--reducing the time for lunch/recess to 20 minutes. It's sad for the kids not to have that time for such fun. Recess was a blast when I was a kid.

June 4, 2010 at 9:24 PM

vanilla said...

Chuck, my friend Wes and I kept our "shared comics collection" at his house. Though our parents were ministers, his were perhaps a little less rigid. I did bring the comics home one or two at a time and when questioned as to origin, ownership, etc. I would say they belong to Wes. Conveniently forgetting to add "and me." I like the way you recall the verse.

Vee, I don't know authoritatively exactly when and how those wholesome pastimes disappeared, but it happened somewhere between the time I finished elementary school as a student and started elementary school again as a teacher.
During that time frame the following occurred:
1) Television became pretty much universally broadcast and pretty much received in most American homes.
2) Ray Kroc's enterprise pretty much overspread the country like a fast-growing fungus.
3) Many homes, it seems to me, became "roosting places" for the few hours between the time frenetic activities ended and the alarm sounded to awaken the inhabitants to another round of more of the same.
I am not necessarily making an argument that there is a cause/effect relationship to be inferred. I understand that in certain technologically less advanced parts of the world, marbles (and perhaps jacks) are still played.

Jim, the second is gambling, which is a vice; the first is commerce. If I were to "put up" a bunch of marbles against a bunch of yours for a shootout, winner take all, one of us would go home deprived, the other sated. Oh, and should I happen to know that you didn't have a chance, I would be running a con. Mom didn't want to raise a hustler. (I wasn't allowed to play pool, either.) If we are trading marbles, we come to an agreement that is mutually satisfactory, each of us getting something we want. Suppose I offer to trade to you my 2009 Escalade and my 50" HDTV for your cherry 1964 Pontiac Catalina Safari. You have the option to trade or refuse. Either way, no one is hurt. Always happy to provide an ethical insight. ;>) btw, I don't have an Escalade.

Amen, Sister. Preach it Lin. I was a school principal for eighteen years, and had to fight tooth and nail to keep recess times for the kids. I think we still have a couple (I've seen kids on the playground from time to time) but it is a shame that children today are not allowed time for free play and kid-to-kid interaction without some adult "organizing" everything.

June 4, 2010 at 9:55 PM

Margot Goes to Kindergarten #T

Little Margot sat primly at the table.  The pink bow tied her long honey-colored ponytail, the perfect accent to the pink-on-white polka dot pinafore she wore.  Margot's hands were folded atop the table and she listened intently as Miss Roz was giving first-day instructions to the new kindergarten class.  It was a bright, hot August day outside, but the whir of the air conditioning fans overhead promised comfort in the classroom.

The table accommodated five scrubbed and enthusiastic, or frightened, or subdued children and Curtis.  Miss Roz knew within moments of the day's opening exercises that Curtis would be a handful.  What she had yet to learn was that Tina, seated next to Margot and across from Curtis would,  over time, make Curtis appear to be angelic, in a manner of speaking.

Curtis was jumping in and out of his chair grabbing pencils and books that did not belong to him.  Miss Roz, not yet frazzled,  was making a valiant effort to corral the tyke. Tina leaned toward Margot and said, "That is the ugliest dress I ever saw."  Margot, stunned, never said a word, but a tear formed in the corner of her left eye.  And Tina said, "Why don't you cut off that awful hair?  It looks like throw-up down your back."  The floodgates opened and Margot's cheeks were inundated with tears.  She turned toward Miss Roz, but Miss Roz had heard what was going on.  She, too sweetly Margot thought, chastised Tina and asked her to apologize.  Tina turned to Margot again and said, "I'm sorry you can't take a joke, you skinny stick.  Bet your mama starves you so she can eat it all herself, the fat pig."

Margot turned full in her seat, faced Tina, put her pointer finger within an inch of Tina's nose and said, in a clear voice, "You're just a little shit."

This is essentially a true story, especially the last line which is a completely accurate quote.  I have lived to see Margot elected to the local Board of Education. Names changed of course to mask the identities of the real-life participants in this little tableau.

Word of the day: pinafore
 © 2015 David W. Lacy

A Memorable Christmas

It was perhaps the year I was nine though more likely when I was eight. I am thinking eight because that was the year I was in grade three, the year I had the tonsillectomy, the year I missed nearly as many days of school as I attended; the year the teacher had no name.  Okay, she had a name, I suppose, but I cannot remember it.  I may have erased her the day she smacked the back of my hand with the ruler, which is about the only thing I remember about her.

This account is written in the first person whereas in most of my school tales I have identified myself as "The Boy."  This is not a school tale as such.  This particular year as the Christmas wish book arrived from Monkey Wards I began to dream my Christmas dreams.  And I wanted one thing under the tree this year.  This item was so precious, so dear in cost, that I knew to dream of more things besides would place me squarely in the realm of fantasy.  I wanted This. One. Thing.

A Wood Burning Set.

I had never used such a thing.  So far as I know I had never even seen such a thing but Montgomery Ward told me it existed.  And that I needed it.  Lust began.  But dare I hope?  Well, I did.  Hints dropped, days passed.  Hints became less subtle to the point that even Father knew what his only son wanted.

Then Christmas came, as Christmas will.  Sister and I, still p.j. clad, rushed to the tree, and behold there was a package for me which approximated the size I imagined would contain

My Wood Burning Set.

And it did!

I played with that thing a bunch yet no memorable events occurred, neither untoward accident nor fantastic creation.  No physical mementos of my efforts survive.  If I created anything no one remembers it nor do I.

And eventually I did not use The Gift  anymore.

But what do we say about kids and their toys, and the boxes they came in?

Word of the day: tonsillectomy

Happy birthday to my beloved daughter, Ivanelle, aka Ivy.

Homogeneity

Homogeneity.  Sociologists abound and their studies are legion.  This is no scientific analysis of human behavior.  It is simply some observations regarding humankind's proclivity to flock with like birds.

What portion of homogeneous divisions among us are natural and what percentage of them are artificial would be an interesting study.  Also, who believes what regarding these divisions would be of interest.

I recall an incident that occurred during my tenure as a public school administrator in which we were proposing a cross-graded continuous progress segment, a school-within-a-school, so to speak, in which students from ages six through eleven would be grouped together.  Ignoring the obvious fact that this is a homogeneous group in some broader definition, we found that when we opened the proposal for public discussion  some on either end of the liberal/conservative spectrum wanted to ignite a firebomb and throw it into the mix;

The ultra-conservative members of the community were armed and ready with charts and arguments all the way back to Adam and Eve to demonstrate that the "natural order" of things required that children should be grouped in  much narrower homogeneity, namely traditional graded age groups, else society would ultimately topple.

On the other hand there were those who adamantly pursued their own agenda, that is pipe-dream, that no order should be imposed at all, that the natural developmental processes of the human social and intellectual growth would take care of themselves, should we simply let children "decide" in their own time when they are ready for any given stage.

Our proposal was ultimately approved and a large number of students over a period of years functioned quite well in the broader "family" setting, but that is not the point of my rambling.

Last evening I attended a meeting of a group of people of "a certain age."  These people could correctly be identified as older people, but we are given to euphemisms, e.g., "Seasoned Citizens," "Keen Agers," "the Golden Years," and so forth.  Our group is called "Best Years Fellowship."

I have lived long enough now that I have been lumped in with the very students I taught when they were children in the public schools, for a number of the members of the group did indeed sit in my elementary classroom, lo those many years ago.

Where is the homogeneity?  Well, the groups would ultimately get pretty small.  There were but two people in the room besides me who were my age or older.  And the ninety-six-year-old guy could comprise a group all by himself.  I mean within our social reach, he has no peers.

The whole "age" thing is pretty dumb, anyway.  We are born, we live, some longer than others, and we die.  What our group has in common more than "age" is like-mindedness with regard to the way the world works and the ways in which we should work within it.  Instead of developing insular social groups in which people of like age "relate" to one another, why not a broad spectrum which includes everyone relating to each other?

I do not need interaction with other old poops so much as I need the stimulation of new ideas, new ways of viewing things.  And where will I find that?  Younger people, of course.  And trust me, the younger people would be well -advised to get close enough to their elders to allow some of the wisdom to rub off onto them.