1. HBOTW (Human Beings of the Week): Former students Chuck Wilson and Dina Fordyce Luciana, whom I taught in 8th grade at Harmon School, 1985-86, showed up at Open Door Coffee Company last week, surprising me beyond belief. Lots of talk and laughing about Them Thar Old Days. (Both were in stage productions I directed back then.) So wonderful to see them both ...
2. AOTW: Those people--and there seem to be so many of them now--who, waiting at a side street or driveway, simply gun it out into traffic (i.e., right in front of me), forcing me to B&C (Brake and Curse). Does Impatience entirely rule right now? Or--older now--am I just hypersensitive about it?
3. Our son and family are off to Paris and London for the next ten days. Daughter-in-law Melissa is making a presentation about human trafficking, and, afterward, they are going to show their boys (ages 10 and 14) some wonderful sights/sites, including, they've said, the Globe Theatre!
4.Per a recommendation from friend Chris, we've begun streaming a Brit series Waking the Dead, about a cold-case squad. One of the things I really like? The unit is not One Big Happy Family: They squabble and argue and gnash teeth and roll eyes and ... you know? Much more plausible that a lot of shows we watch. Link to a trailer.
5. I didn't get much blogging done last week--none, in fact. Stuff happens (and doesn't happen). Sigh.
6. I didn't finish a book this week ... well, I finished one--the one I reviewed for Kirkus--but, as I've said, I ain't allowed to say what it is. So, you know, you'll just have to trust me.
I am very nearly finished with The Last of the Mohicans (1826), the 2nd in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. I'm reading the five books not in the order that he wrote them but in order of the age of Natty Bumppo, the hero, who goes by the names Deerslayer and Hawk-eye and Pathfinder, etc.
Following Pathfinder: The Pioneers, The Prairie. I've got them ill in the two Library of America volumes.
7. For some reason I remembered today something once said by my late high-school basketball coach Robert Barnhart (1935-2017) back in the late 1950s. Link to his obituary.
SITUATION: He'd made a mistake about something.
COACH: That's only the second mistake I ever made.
US: What was the first one?
COACH: One time when I thought I was wrong.
8. Wonderful lunch in Kent last week with Joyce and Eileen Kutinsky--the much-beloved "Mrs. K." When I began teaching at the old Aurora Middle School in the fall of 1966, she was already on the faculty, teaching sixth grade science. I recognized right away that she was a Wonder. And throughout our years together she proved an inspiration, an amazing friend. She taught me to "loosen up" with kids, to enjoy my job, my time with the youngsters. She showed me how you can be imaginative in the classroom, how "fun" and "education" are not at all two discrete things.
(Oh, and I also had the privilege of teaching all three of her sons: David, Ron, John.)
She is now 90-ish and still working her family farm--the place where she grew up--down near Atwater, Ohio.
Sharp as a tack, funny, compassionate, kind--these are traits she's always had, traits that have endured.
9. At the Hudson Library and Historical Society this week we got to see/hear novelist Stephen Markley, whose book Ohio: A Novel caused quite a splash last fall (which is when I read it).
It tells the tale of a failing small rust-belt town in northern Ohio--and about the lives of several high school classmates who find themselves--not on purpose--back in town for various reasons. A principal issue: drugs and hopelessness. And the Past reigns over all; the Future seems dark.
His presentation involved a reading of the opening section (a stage-setter), then ... Q&A. Just before he finished, I sneaked out to the signing area, where--as is my wont!--I was Number One in Line to Get My Book Signed.
10. Last Word: a word I liked this week from my various online word-of-the-day providers:
- I love this one from the Oxford English Dictionary ...
tarzy, n. Chiefly in Middlesbrough: a makeshift rope swing across a
river or stream, typically suspended from a tree. Cf. Tarzan swing n. at
Tarzan
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈtɑːzi/,
U.S. /ˈtɑrzi/
Forms: 20– tarzee, 20– tarzey, 20– tarzie, 20– tarzy.
Origin: From a proper name, combined with an English element. Etymons:
proper name Tarzan, -y
Etymology: < tarz- (in
the name of Tarzan: see Tarzan n.) + -y suffix6.
Compare the following earlier example of tarzy swing, apparently
denoting an act of swinging hand by hand from tree to tree like Tarzan:
1984 S. Unwin Deep Joy iii. 23 Along the top of the mound were
sycamore trees which we climbed from time to time, crossing from tree to tree
like a monkey,—rarely leaping, of course, but I had seen one chap do it like a
tarzy-swing—it was considered a brave and expert thing to do.
2003 Evening Gaz. (Middlesbrough) 7 July 14/1 I took 'em out ter play some real
games..—kerbie,..beck-jumpin', chicken. Only fell off a Tarzy didn'a, eh?..
What a doyle!
2005 A. Bissett Incredible Adam
Spark 73 Mind jude that time i was
swingin on tarzy that goes over the burn and i fell and landed on a rock and
broke ma arm?
2015 A. Hulse Forever &
Ever xxiii. 144 ‘Billy, throw the
tarzee!’.. Tony caught the rope expertly and swung across the river without
looking back.
2017 @kitschfinder 20 June in
twitter.com(O.E.D. Archive) Fancy damming a stream & mekin a tarzy, or
building a den or going down t'park—I've got pop money?
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