The Papers of Victoria Frankenstein, Part II: 18

What a sensitive kid, I thought, looking at the phone now moaning its dial tone. Bruises more easily than a piece of soft fruit. As I sat there, thinking, it rang again, startling me so much I nearly fell over onto the floor.

“Stone’s residence. Victoria speaking,” I said, just as Father had taught me to do.

“Gee, that’s impressive,” said Gil. “You’re really well-trained.”

“Thank you, Underwear Freak,” I snapped.

Gil hung up again.

This time I remembered something: The handout that Mr. Gisborne had given us had two things on it I really needed to know: Gil’s last name and Gil’s phone number. (Even later I remembered I could have just hit *69. I guess I was just too nervous?)

I found my backpack, dug through my science folder, and found it:

Gil Bysshe. The name startled me.[i] But there was his phone number, too.

I returned to the phone and punched in his number.

“Yes?” It was Gil.

“Is this where Hazelnut lives?” I asked. 

Silence. Breathing.

“And don’t hang up!” I warned. “I’ve got your number now, and I’ll just call you back.”

“Okay,” said Gil in a small voice.

“I promise I won’t say anything more about underwear.”

“That would be nice.”

“You’re a weird kid,” I laughed.

“You should talk.”

I laughed again.

“So do you think Gisborne put the two weird kids together for this science fair project?” he asked.

“I’m not so sure about that,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because,” I explained, “that would mean that Gisborne actually thought about his schoolwork. I’m not sure he really does that.”

“I see your point,” said Gil.

“Gil, do you pronounce your last name like ‘bish’?”

“Yes,” he sighed. “It rhymes with ‘fish.’”

“Hazelnut Fish,” I said. “That’s quite a name.”

“Thank you,” said Gil. He started laughing so hard that he ended up with some kind of coughing fit.

When he quieted down, I asked him: “Do you know how famous your last name is?”

“Sure,” he said. “Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poet. His wife, Mary, wrote Frankenstein.”

“I’m impressed,” I said. And I was.

“Are you related?” I asked.

“My father doesn’t know,” he said. “But we probably are. I mean, it’s a pretty unusual name, don’t you think?”

“Very unusual.” And at that point, I decided to change the subject. After all, I still had not told anyone—not even Harriet—that my father’s family name was Frankenstein. He’d changed it to Stone for obvious reasons. I’d discovered it after the tornado the previous spring when the storm’s damage to our house had revealed a storage area in our basement, a place where Dad had hidden all the papers about our family history.

“Gil?”

‘Yeah?”

“Why did you call me?”

“Oh, yeah. I just, you know, wondered what happened in Mr. Tooke’s office the other day.”

Gil had been absent a couple of days, and I hadn’t seen him at all since Mr. Gisborne had sent us to the office.

“Not much. He called me a ‘fresh mouth.’”

“Where did he ever get that idea?” asked Gil with fake innocence.

“I don’t know,” I said, playing along. “It’s a real mystery, isn’t it?”

“So what happened?”

“Oh, he just entered me in his database”—I decided not to say anything to Gil about deleting the entry; I wasn’t sure how much I trusted him yet—“and predicted I’d be back.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Gil. “You’re not that type. I’ll bet you never get sent to the office again.”

“Thank you.” There was a moment of silence. “And what about you, Gil? What did Mr. Tooke do to you?”

“Nothing, really. By the time I got out of the nurse’s office, he was talking to some other kids, and he just sort of gave me a warning.”

“He didn’t put you in the computer?”

“Oh, yeah, he did that. But it’s no big deal, really.”

“And what did the nurse want with you?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Gil. “Just wanted to make sure I was all right. After I fainted and everything.”

“I thought just girls fainted,” I said.

“That’s right,” said Gil.  “Girls and guys named Hazelnut Fish.”

We laughed and talked a little more, and then we finally hung up.  It was getting toward dinner time, and I had to make something so Father wouldn’t starve. Now that Aunt Claire was gone, I had taken over the kitchen duties. She had taught me a lot about cooking, Aunt Claire. But in so many other ways she was a total mystery. The last I knew she had swirled up into that funnel cloud—and had seemed to enjoy it.

When I put the phone down and turned around, I saw Father leaning in the doorway, staring at me. He had a strange look on his face.

For some reason, I felt myself blushing.

“Vickie?” he said. “That wasn’t Harriet, was it?”

“No,” I replied. “Not Harriet.”

I started to move through the doorway. “Well,” he asked, “who was it then?”

“A kid from school.”

“A kid? Boy or girl?”

“Yes.” For some reason, I was really embarrassed, and I didn’t want to talk about this.

“Which?”

“Boy.”

“Do I know him?”

“Probably not. He’s new. We have to work together on a science fair project.” I looked at my father. “The teacher, Mr. Gisborne, assigned us to work together. That’s all.”

“Hmm,” said Father. “You didn’t sound as if you were talking about a science fair project.”

“Father!” I exclaimed with mock surprise. “Were you listening in on us?”

My father blushed. “Oh, uh, not really. It’s just that I, you know—”

I finished the sentence for him: “—listened to your daughter’s private phone conversation.”

“I guess I did,” he admitted.

“And you’re ashamed, aren’t you, Father?”

He just looked at me. “Look, Vickie, I was wrong. I admit it. But don’t try to make me feel too guilty. Adults aren’t good at that, feeling guilty.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

---

[i] “Bysshe” was the middle name of Mary Shelley’s husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; his friends all called him “Bysshe.”  It was also the name of Percy Shelley’s grandfather.  

The Journey to RICHARD II: Part 14

Richard II
Shakespeare & Co.; Lenox, MA
July 2013

Beginning in the 1985-1986 school year I taught Shakespeare to my 8th graders every year. I had a lot of fun with The Taming of the Shrew (see earlier posts), but in the summer of 1993, things changed. Joyce and I went to see Kenneth Branagh's production of Much Ado About Nothing. I knew when we emerged from that theater that I would not teach Shrew again; from now on, it would be Much Ado, which I believe, even now, is the best film ever made of a Shakespeare play. (I've not yet seen the recent Much Ado, the one directed by Joss Whedon, but it's in my Netflix queue.)

But during the 1993-1994 academic year I was on a sabbatical leave. I had generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and spent the year researching my annotations for The Call of the Wild, an effort that resulted in my book The Call of the Wild by Jack London, with an Illustrated Reader's Companion (Univ. of Okla. Pr., 1995). I had a great year in London World that year--a year that culminated (as I've posted here before) with a hike over the Chilkoot trail from Dyea, Alaska, to Lake Bennett in the Yukon Territory, a trail that figures prominently in Wild.

But all that year I was thinking about Much Ado and how I would use it in my classes. I had only two worries about the film: (1) some naked (male) butts in the opening credits (Don Pedro's men leap into water to bathe after being off at war); (2) a kind of raunchy faux-sex scene involving Borachio and Margaret, an "act" to dupe young hothead Claudio into believing that his bride-to-be (Hero) is being unfaithful to him the night before their wedding. I described the scenes to my principal, Jerry Brodsky, who advised me to handle it all professionally (hey, who is more professional than I!?!?), and so off I went.

The school bought a classroom set of the play scripts; I found a great audio recording of a professional production, and I knew by the time I was back at Harmon School (post-sabbatical) that the film would be on VHS. It was. And--not long afterwards--on laser disc (remember them?) The school had some laser disc players, so I had both the VHS and the disc available to show.

When I returned to teach in the 1994-1995 school year, I was pretty sure I was going to be retiring in only a few years (I did: January 1997), so I went all out with the Bard during those few years. We listened to play, reading along in our books, stopping to talk; we listened to Elizabethan music; we ate hazelnuts (a favorite snack food then); we played an Elizabethan card game called Trumps; I organized a lunch-time competition in an Elizabethan table-top game called Slide-Thrift. (Scores of kids signed up.) I taught the fundamental differences between you and thou (thy, thine, thyself) and required the kids to use those words instead of you forms in class.  We watched the Branagh film (which, from my point of view, most of the kids loved).

But perhaps the most fun of all?  I married two of the kids to each other.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

The Papers of Victoria Frankenstein, Part II: 17

Seven

Blue Boils Over in Lamb

Pancras: Talented running back/linebacker Blue Boyle once again dominated this week as Southern Ohio Prep toyed with Lamb Middle School, disposing of them easily, 63–9. Lamb’s gifted placekicker, James Marshall, accounting for all of his team’s points. Boyle rushed for 232 yards and, again, made many crushing tackles against the overmatched Lamb running backs ….[i]

“Hello, Harriet,” I said into the phone.

“It’s Gil,” said Gil.

“Oh.”

Whenever a phone call was for me, it was always my best friend, Harriet Eastbrook. And so I had gotten into the habit of just saying “Hello, Harriet” when Father called me to the phone.

“Who’s Harriet?” Gil asked.

“Harriet Eastbrook. Do you know her?”

“That cheerleader?”

“Yes. But don’t hold that against her,” I added quickly. “She’s just going through a phase.”

“A cheerleader phase?”

“Yes.”

“Never heard of that one.”

“Well, it’s real.  I mean, think about it … how many adults have you seen walking around in cheerleader outfits?”

“Not too many.”

“See? It’s a phase. For everyone. But especially for Harriet.”

“I see.”

“You do?”

“No. But the more you explain it, the more confused I get, so I just decided to lie,” laughed Gil.

I laughed, too … but then realized I was talking to Gil on the phone! No one except Harriet had called me in years. And now I was talking to Gil Whatever, just as if talking to him was the most normal thing in the world. It wasn’t.

Gil noticed the silence. “Victoria?”

“I’m here. And why do you call me ‘Victoria’?”

“It’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but everyone calls me ‘Vickie.’”

“Is that what you want me to do? Call you what everyone else calls you?”

I thought about that a moment. “Forget it. ‘Victoria’ is fine.”

“Okay … Victoria.”

“But now it’s your turn,” I said. “Your name is Gil, right?”

“Right.”

“Is that short for ‘Gilbert’?”

“Yes, but don’t call me that.”

“Why not?  ‘Gilbert’ is a nice name.”

“No. It rhymes with ‘filbert.’”

“So?”

“Don’t you know what a filbert is?”

“No.”

“It’s another name for a hazelnut.”

“So?”

“How would you like to be named ‘Hazelnut’?”

I laughed. “Gil, you’re not named ‘Hazelnut.’ You’re not even named ‘Filbert.’”

“I know … but rhymes count.”

“Well,” I went on, “rhymes aren’t the only thing that count. Think about me, for example.  Think about Victoria’s Secret?”

“Think what about it?” Gil’s voice sounded so suddenly weird—so small and tight and hushed—that I was surprised. But just for a minute. For then I knew that he was embarrassed that I’d mentioned underwear. It was the first time I’d ever heard a blush!

“Gil,” I teased, “do you sneak around and peek at the merchandise at Victoria’s Secret?”

Gil hung up.

---

[i] Once again, Vickie annoys, awarding names from Mary Shelley’s life to characters and places in her story. Charles and Mary Lamb were good friends of her father, William Godwin—as was James Marshall. Need I say that there is no “Lamb Middle School” in the state of Ohio?

Kathy Sapp Gilchrist: A GREAT Teacher ...

I can't remember when Kathy Sapp joined the faculty to teach sixth grade math at the old Aurora Middle School at 102 E.. Garfield Rd. The first yearbook that features her picture is 1972-73. I don't see my own picture there--was I on sabbatical that year? Could have been.  But I was in touch with everyone back at AMS during that year, and I had heard about Miss Sapp. The kids loved her--as did her colleagues--and I figured that Mike Lenzo, the principal, had just hired another great teacher. He was good at that.

1972-73
Aurora Middle School Faculty

The 1973-74 yearbook is the first one that shows the two of us. That was the year we made our move to the new school over there at 130 Aurora-Hudson Rd.--Harmon School. When the School Board adopted the name "Harmon," I asked at the meeting why not "Harmon Middle School." The answer: They weren't sure what configuration of grades would be there in the future. I thought that sounded kind of ominous--but nearly forty years have ensued, so maybe I can breathe more easily?

Do you notice how I've been avoiding the subject? I don't want to talk about the death of Kathy Sapp. She was a friend. A tremendous colleague. One of the finest human beings I've ever known. I don't want to think about this cold world without her.

What do I remember about Kathy?

There used to be a cartoon in the Plain Dealer called "Miss Peach." It was about an elementary school teacher, and I remember kind of liking it. One of the running gags in the strip involved the kindergarten class. Whenever you saw them, they were in a tight cluster around their teacher--an almost indistinguishable mass of wee humanity, like breathing electrons around the teacher at the nucleus. That was Kathy Sapp. Out at lunch, before and after school out at the buses, on our field trips, kids were always swirling around her. She magnetized them in so many ways. (Re: the picture below--I couldn't find one with the kindergarten--but this will give you an idea about the strip itself.)

Kathy's emotions always lay very near the surface, finding quick exit in her warm, expressive eyes (I saw them filled with tears--many times), her skin that was ever ready to blush, her laughter to erupt.

Her joy. Kathy Sapp loved teaching, loved her students. There was no concealing it--not that she ever wanted to. She was, in many ways, that Ideal Teacher we so infrequently encounter in our lives. The one who knows her stuff, knows how to communicate it, loves her students, loves her job, loves her colleagues. She was one of the first to arrive each day, the last to leave. Oh, if we could only populate the schools of America with her clones!

Her willingness to do just about anything to make Harmon School a better place. She went on the Sixth Grade Camping Trip, the Eighth Grade Washington Trip; I see a photo of her in the 1977-78 yearbook as a coach of the girls' volleyball team; in 1983-84--she's with the Bowling Club (the photo is jammed with kids--maybe as many as 70!).

I see in the 94-95 yearbook that she is now "Mrs. Gilchrist" (our pictures are side by side: I like that). I think she met her husband at the gym where she worked out regularly, and they had a grand life together; he passed away a few years ago, a death which helped precipitate her move from the Cleveland area down to the Columbus area, where she was nearer to her family.

I knew Kathy outside of school too, a bit. Some of us from around the district would sometimes gather on Fridays after school over at the Aurora Inn, where we would laugh and cry about our week, laughs and tears mixed with draft beer (50 cents a glass!). I loved talking with her, often because she reminded us of what was best about the kids. She had something good to say about all of them--a rare, emotional gift.

When the news came that her doctors had diagnosed her with ALS ("Lou Gehrig Disease"), I was horrified. I just couldn't see Kathy imprisoned by her body. A few of us old timers went down to see her a couple of times where she was living in her own place, her sister helping out mightily. The first time was 2 April 2010; among the other visitors that day--Mike Lenzo, Jerry Brodsky, Eileen Kutinsky, and Bob Luckay. We laughed and talked about the "old days," as you might expect. The second time was Sunday, 25 March 2012. I wrote this in my journal:

Kathy is now in a wheelchair and is losing her voice, but she is there—bright, funny, and quick as always; so sad to see … Mike Lenzo, Cindy & Jerry Brodsky were there ...

I'm ashamed I didn't see her more often. I have no excuse, only cowardice, I guess. It's surpassingly hard for us to watch the gradual disappearance of a loved one--though the "Kathy" part of Kathy remained, sturdily remained while her body betrayed her.

Kathy always loved going on the Washington Trip. On the 1985-86 trip we shared responsibility for one of the buses (Bus 3 rules!), and I remember a moment on that trip. We had left Breezewood (where we always stopped at/invaded the McDonald's) and were cruising south and east on I-70 toward the city. As we began heading down out of the mountains, Kathy and I were in some busy conversation about something or other, and then she shushed me (she was good at that). "This is my favorite view on the trip," she said, and she turned toward her window and throughout the entire descent she stared at the valley below, lit in sunlight, the farmlands spread out before us like a dream.

I hope that glorious image was in her mind, right to the end, along with an endless slide-show of memories of students, all gathered tightly around her, swirling, reaching for her, touching her, even as she had touched their hearts, changed their lives.

1993-94 Faculty
Harmon School
(Kathy is in front row, far left)

The Papers of Victoria Frankenstein, Part II: 16

Using only one finger, Mr. Tooke was typing my name into the search window of his computer database. I had to spell Victoria for him … twice. While he was punching the keys, I looked at him. The assistant principal didn’t look like a very happy man. His hair was completely white, but his bright pink skin told me he was younger than his hair would indicate.  He wore black shoes, grey slacks, a short-sleeved blue dress shirt that bulged at the belt, and a wide maroon tie spotted with the droppings of many breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. He was a very heavy man who wore his trousers hitched high at the waist, his belt circling him almost at his armpits.

“Hmmmm,” he said, “I don’t have any record of you here.”

“I’ve never been to the office before,” I said. “Not for disciplinary reasons.”

He turned sideways in his chair to look at me. “‘Disciplinary reasons’?” he repeated.  Those are big words for a little girl.”

“Sorry, should I use smaller ones?” I wished I hadn’t said that, but the words were out before I could recall them. Mr. Tooke, however, didn’t seem to notice my sarcasm.

“So why are you here this time, little lady?”

“I’m not really sure.”

“Are you saying one of our teachers used poor judgment? Didn’t know what he was doing?”

“No. I just am not sure why Mr. Gisborne was so upset with us.”

“Us?”

“With Gil and me.”

“Don’t you mean ‘Gil and I’?” he smiled.

“No,” I said. “It’s ‘with me,’ not ‘with I.’”

“You think you’re a pretty smart one, don’t you?” he snapped. “I think I see what got you in trouble. You got a fresh mouth on you, young lady. You don’t know what’s right in English”—he paused—“or in respectful classroom behavior.”

“Sorry.”

He was typing again. “What … I’m … doing … here,” he said, saying each word in unison with each letter he typed, “is … entering … you … in … my … database ….”

“I see.”

“… so that the next time you come in here, I can just punch in your name and see what kind of trouble you’ve been in before.”

“I don’t plan on coming here again,” I said.

“Not many people do,” he said. “But you’ll be back. Fresh mouths always end up back here.”  He nodded knowingly, staring at me. “Fresh mouths always end up back here.”

I decided not to reply. I’d keep my fresh mouth … fresh.

“And when you do end up back here,” said Mr. Tooke, “let me tell you what’s going to happen, Miss Fresh Mouth.”

He waited for a response, but I didn’t give him one.

“You’re going to regret the day you ever saw this school. You’re going to regret the day you ever saw me.”

I didn’t have to wait any longer to feel that way. I already regretted those things.

“Is that understood, Miss Fresh Mouth?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Get a pass from Mrs. Inchbald and return to your class. Oh, wait. What about this Phil character you’re in trouble with?”

“Gil.”

He sighed. “A fresh mouth. Nothing but a fresh mouth.”

“Gil is with the school nurse,” I said. “He fainted.

“I do that to guilty students,” he said.

“I’m sure,” I said, trying to sound as if I were agreeing with him.

“And remember,” said Mr. Tooke, “you’re in the computer now.” He patted it like a pet. “You have a record. A history.”

Not for long.

That night I hacked into his database. He had the silliest password: Discipline. And with a couple of quick keystrokes I no longer had a record. Or a history. And neither did Gil.

Purr More, Hiss Less

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday ... it's at the bottom of this page.  And it got me thinking ...

Lately, I've noticed on Facebook some memes that assail welfare cheats.  Here's three of them ...

All three communicate the same message: People on food stamps and other forms of welfare are cheaters--and, by implication, the rest of us are fools for supporting them, and the government is wasting our money on them. Oh, and they don't want to work--and why should they? Life on welfare being so desirable and all?

Okay, let's begin with this: I have no doubt whatsoever that there are some people on public assistance who are gaming the system. Cheating. No question at all.

But, of course, the same could be said for every other field of human endeavor, as well--from the Tour de France to the top of a Wall Street office building, from your local parish to your local school, from the banker to the grocer to the lawyer to the person who plows your driveway to Major League Baseball to ... well, as I said, to every field of human endeavor. And I wonder ... how many of us are, uh, perfectly frank on our IRS forms? And elsewhere in our lives? (I read somewhere something about throwing the first stone?) Just this morning (Sunday) I read a page-one story in the New York Times about con men (and women, presumably) who are preying on people re: Obamacare--conning them out of money (Con Men Prey on Confusion). And that foul practice made me remember how some Evil One on a Telephone swindled my poor mother out of $10,000 a few years ago. Sometimes we humans do not exactly glisten in the moral sunlight, do we?

In my own cherished profession (education)--we read about cheating all the time. Teachers who alter answer sheets on standardized tests, teachers who step over the line in other ways (drugs, sex), teachers who embezzle and steal. Early in my career one of my colleagues was caught stealing money from school activities. He'd always volunteered to collect money at events--that sort of thing. But he was keeping chunks of it. Gambling. (Losing, of course.) Needless to say, he moved on.

What troubles me recently is the response to all of this. When we catch someone on public assistance doing something dishonest, a common reaction is this: Let's get rid of public assistance.  But does anyone say the same about MLB? Some players took illegal substances, so let's break up MLB? Or the Roman Catholic Church? Or the Tour de France? Or Penn State? Or whatever?  And we mustn't kid ourselves: These organizations are not totally self-financed. Many baseball parks are built with public money; religious and philanthropic organizations can raise money, tax-free. And, of course, all American institutions have the "American advantage"--i.e., they operate, generally, in a safe place with substantial infrastructure in a society with a functioning legal system that (at least in theory!) protects the rights of minorities, the defenseless. And on and on. This is a great place to live--to have a business. No question.

Of course we need to do all we reasonably can to prevent cheating--in all arenas. But we mustn't become so determined to do so that, in the process, we make it even more difficult for those living day to day, meal to meal, to get the benefits they need.

I did some checking. SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) offers $4.38 a day per person. At our local market the other day I spent more than that on a  single container of blueberries, another of strawberries. I can't imagine trying to eat on that amount each day. Other government programs are equally chary. No one's eating like royalty on SNAP; no one's getting rich on welfare--despite some memes and some public perception and some grotesque misrepresentations.

Yet for some reason many people insist on looking at welfare cheaters and insisting that they are representative of the group(s) they belong to. I don't think so--at least not any more than cheaters in other enterprises are representative of their groups. Are all/most priests pedophiles? Are most baseball players taking illegal substances? Do most teachers have illicit relationships with their students? Are most lawyers charlatans? Most businessmen and -women dishonest? Are most people on public assistance cheating? No way.

I've never been poor. I have been extraordinarily lucky. My parents never lost their jobs in my lifetime. (And, of course, the government supported them both after retirement--Social Security, Medicare, my dad's Air Force retirement plan; they both collected far, far more in benefits than they contributed. Mom, 94, is still collecting--more than thirty years after she retired.) Not only that ... I am male, white, Christian, English-speaking, straight, reasonably intelligent (thank you, Dyer and Osborn genes), and living in America; my parents stayed married for sixty years, valued education, taught us humane values. Etc., etc., etc.  (How's that for a head start down the Track of Life?)

The closest I ever came to poverty was during my first few years of teaching 7th grade in Aurora, Ohio. That first year (1966-67), I was paid on the first and the fifteenth of each month: $168.42 take-home.  My rent was $75 (utilities were extra); my car payment was $60.62. Gasoline. Telephone. Clothing. Oh, and, you know, food?  I had no health insurance, no dental. By the end of each two-week period, my poor checkbook registered only cents in my account. I had no spare cash for movies or plays or evenings out or anything else, for that matter. By the end of each pay period I was eating baked potatoes and peanut butter. Or Kraft Dinner. My entertainment? An old black-and-white TV (rabbit ears) that my parents had left for me--I had to bang on it sometimes to get the picture to clear up. My living room "furniture"? Some old lawn pieces (aluminum frame) my parents had decided to leave behind when they moved to Iowa in the summer of 1966. Comfy--though it left marks!

Yes, I had a job. (A job I loved, by the way.)  But I had no discretionary money, none at all. And much of the time--when I allowed myself to think about it--I was depressed. Fortunately, there were a couple of families in Aurora--the Frenches, the Bissells--who were especially alert to my situation and often invited me to meals. Sometimes I even started showing up at the Frenches' at meal time--on an important errand, mind you!--and feigned surprise (and felt weepy gratitude) when they offered to feed me. Some of my colleagues were also generous with their kitchens--especially Eileen Kutinsky.

But here is a big difference between my case and the cases of many others who find themselves wondering how to buy their food: I had somewhere to go, someone to ask. I knew that if I became especially desperate, I could call home, and Mom and Dad would help me out. (In fact, my parents made the down payment on my first car, paid my first month's rent.) I did it only once that first year--calling home for $20, which came in the mail a few days later. I also knew that if I lost my job, I could just go home and live (and eat!) until I found another position. Very few of our most impoverished fellow citizens have those sorts of options, do they?

And one more thing to think about. Many people living on public assistance of various sorts are folks who live in dangerous communities, folks whose children attend some of the worst public schools in the country, folks who live in areas where there are few employment opportunities, folks who have not been able to figure a way out of the cycle of poverty afflicting their families. Many are working full-time; many have more than one job. But they are McJobs--low salary, few or no benefits. I admire such people; they humble me, make me enormously grateful. And never angry.

As for me, I'm proud that I live in a country with a government that asks me to help my fellow citizens. (Remember: Our Constitution includes in its preamble the phrase that we are forming a government, among other reasons, "to promote the general welfare." We Americans have always believed in helping one another--in non-governmental ways, sure (religious and philanthropic organizations) and in governmental ones. It's right there in the Preamble.

Of course I want to make sure that people don't cheat--in public assistance and in every other arena. But--as I said above--I don't want to do so in such a way that it's going to make things more difficult for people who already face fierce difficulties. If we overreact, if we make stopping cheaters our first priority, we join the ranks of the cheaters ourselves: We are cheating the very people who need us the most.

And as for those memes above? I guess I'd urge us all to be a little more humble, more empathetic, more grateful. I hope we'd all exercise our imaginations a little more. Imagine that you weren't born with the advantages you have? Imagine that you and your children had to attend the worst public schools in the country? Imagine that the only job you can find is a McJob? Imagine that your race or gender or religion or language or sexual orientation or whatever alienates or angers or disgusts the very people who are in a position to help you? Imagine that ...

As I said, I saw this bumper sticker yesterday. It made sense to me. I think I'll purr for the rest of the day ... and for as long as my breath endures.

The Journey to Richard II, Part 13

Richard II
Shakespeare & Co., Lenox, MA
July 2013

In 1985-86 I taught Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew) for the first time to eighth graders--and I had such a good time that the Bard never again left my classroom--not until I retired. I know that the kids enjoyed much of what we did (though I think they were always a little puzzled about my affection for it all), but I probably would have continued with it anyway for a simple reason: I'd become obsessed, and my obsessions generally found their ways into my classes--or onto the stages where I directed plays.

By the time the early 1990s came along, I had read all of the plays-sonnets-poems of Shakespeare (some more than once); I was going to see--and often taking students with me--every Shakespearean production in the area. And the activities in my class were becoming more and more involved, consuming more and more days and weeks. I didn't care; I was having a ball. And ... there were no Shakespeare-less standardized tests around to blow cold breath on my fire. (They would come later--and not much later, either.)

A highlight: In the summer of 1986 I was in London with my older brother, Richard, and there we saw Vanessa Redgrave and Timothy Dalton (who would later become James Bond) in rep with The Taming of the Shrew and Antony and Cleopatra.  On that same trip, I went to Stratford-upon-Avon for the first time, visiting the various shrines.

So ... throughout the early 1990s my students were reading/listening to the play, memorizing lines from it and from other plays and sonnets, sitting in a classroom whose walls were covered with posters from Shakespeare plays and films (including an original movie poster from the 1967 Zeffirelli film). And--to my students' great delight--there was in 1986 an episode of Moonlighting (the very popular TV series with Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd) that was a take-off on Shrew, including a wedding scene during which Petruchio (Willis) breaks out into "Good Lovin'"; the whole church joins in. We watched on a video tape I had.

We were also learning about Cole Porter and read Kiss Me, Kate (the musical based on Shrew) and

watched the 1953 film that featured a little-known (at the time) dancer named Bob Fosse. And that led to watching Fosse in his other films ... and on and on I went. (Link to song from production--not with Fosse. And a scene choreographed by Fosse--he's the guy dancing, too.) Another dancing star in the show: Ann Miller. Here she is doing "Too Darn Hot."

Of course, the kids were also writing about Shrew, as well. In my son's file from his 1985-86 year in my 8th grade class is an essay he wrote. Here was the assignment:

By reading (and watching) The Taming of the Shrew you should have a pretty good idea of what a "shrew" is. In this composition you are going to write a definition of a "shrew"; however, you will not just write a definition such as you would find in a dictionary. Instead, you will tell what a "shrew" is by giving examples of what Shakespeare's characters considered "curst and shrew'd" behavior. On the back of this sheet is an example of such a description, only this writer is defining something different ....

I could not remember what that "something" was until I looked myself: It's several paragraphs from Barry Lopez's book Of Wolves and Men. Wow! I'd found a way to integrate Shakespeare and The Call of the Wild!

The kids also wrote other, more "creative" pieces, too--including an imaginary visit to the Globe Theater. But let's save that for another day.  I'll leave you with this sentence from Steve Dyer, 1986, age 13: "Another incident of shrewishness was when she smashes a lute over Hortensio's head."

I'd say so ... though Hortensio was a dork.