Coronation

I'm just back from a coronation.

Mine.

Yes, I'm back from almost two hours at the dentist's office where I got one of my upper molars crowned--an upper molar I'd somehow cracked recently (I'm sure it was not the popcorn at the movies, right? No, it was something some Evil Thing performed on me while I slept), and when I was in for my "routine" exam not long ago, I got the coronation news.

My dentist actually said to her assistant (as if I were not even in the room): "Look! It's the last of his six-year molars without a crown!'

I failed to feel the same excitement. All I know is: I'll be making my dentist's next yacht payment for her.

I just found this tidbit on a pediatric dental site on the Web: The first permanent molars, or 6 year molars, come in around the age of 6 and they erupt behind all of the primary teeth. That's a daunting word, erupt!

So ... that means I've had these particular teeth since about 1950. Truman was President.We were living in Enid, Oklahoma. My dad was back from World War II, teaching at Phillips University (RIP) there in Enid. My mom had three little boys (9-6-2) and was dreaming of a professional career (she would have one). I was in first grade. Adams Elementary School. And for the life of me I cannot recall the name of my teacher--the only teacher I've had whose name I can not remember. A puzzle--because I liked her. (See, I'm not totally gone: I can recall my teacher's gender!)

So now I'm home from the dentist. I have only the foundations of those teeth that erupted (!) back in 1950 (or so) in Oklahoma's Garfield County. And I'm trying to avoid seeing all of this as too ... metaphorical. You know? Loss as we age? That sort of thing ...

There was one moment of amusement as I was leaving. I was at the counter, setting up my subsequent appointment when I will get the True Crown (only a temporary so far). One of the two receptionists was going through the routine for billing and payment.

The other one--a veteran--interrupted. "Oh," she said, "no need for this. He knows the drill."

I told them that was not a kind thing to mention in a dentist's office. Knowing the drill! Oh, do I!?!!?!?

Sunday Sundries, 51

1. AOTW. Good news: No one qualified this week. In fact (as usual), I came very close to winning the award myself on a couple of occasions. I guess I'll just have to try harder?

2. I use Quicken Billpay for a lot of regular payments, and this week I got to send off to Toyota the final payment on our 2010 Corolla, a car that has served us very, very well. Sixty payments. Whew!

3. This week I finished the penultimate novel by Tobias Smollett (1721-1771),  The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (serialized, 1760-61), a novel with some obvious connections to Don Quixote but with some very funny and some very moving moments. (He takes the entire book to win his Lady Love--no surprise there, really: This is the sort of thing that occurs usually in the first chapter.) And some biting moments of social satire. Near the end, he takes on the whole idea of mental institutions (where Launcelot finds himself briefly held against his will):

Finding himself agitated with impatience and indignation, he returned to his apartment, and the door being locked upon him, began to review, not without horror, the particulars of his fate. “How little reason,” said he to himself, “have we to boast of the blessings enjoyed by the British subject, if he holds them on such a precarious tenure; if a man of rank and property may be thus kidnapped even in the midst of the capital; if he may be seized by ruffians, insulted, robbed, and conveyed to such a prison as this, from which there seems to be no possibility of escape! Should I be indulged with pen, ink, and paper, and appeal to my relations, or to the magistrates of my country, my letters would be intercepted by those who superintend my confinement. Should I try to alarm the neighbourhood, my cries would be neglected as those of some unhappy lunatic under necessary correction. Should I employ the force which Heaven has lent me, I might imbrue my hands in blood, and after all find it impossible to escape through a number of successive doors, locks, bolts, and sentinels. Should I endeavour to tamper with the servant, he might discover my design, and then I should be abridged of the little comfort I enjoy. People may inveigh against the Bastile in France, and the Inquisition in Portugal; but I would ask, if either of these be in reality so dangerous or dreadful as a private madhouse in England, under the direction of a ruffian?” (from Chapter 23)

Smollett would love to write only one more novel--The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, published in 1771, the year of his death. I've started reading it ...

4. Yesterday (Saturday), I had the pleasure of seeing and listening to a former student at Harmon Middle School, Cori McCarthy, now a noted YA author who has been on tour promoting her latest, the exciting Breaking Sky, which is now in the process of being transformed into a movie--or so we all hope. (Sony is working on the production.)

I wrote recently here about Cori's novel Breaking Sky (link to that post), and I noted that Cori was in 8th grade the year I retited from Harmon Middle School (1997), and I didn't know the 8th graders very well that year for a couple of reasons--for one, I retired in January; for another, I had a student teacher in the fall.

And I especially didn't know Cori very well because for 8th grade English she had not me but a wonderful young teacher, Karl Norton, who had recently come to the school to continue his teaching career. Cori is grateful to him (as she should be), crediting him for helping awaken her interest in literature, especially through the poetry of Walt Whitman.

I did know Cori's family. Her older brother Evan had been one of my finest students, and we are still in touch via Facebook.

Anyway, there was a nice Saturday afternoon crowd at the Aurora Memorial Library yesterday (50? more?), including many of Cori's friends from school days--as well as neighbors (and a teacher or two).

She spoke without notes about her decision to become a writer--about things that had gone well and not gone well in her career--about the difficulties you face with agents, editors, publishers, publicity--about her "writing process." She writes the first draft of a novel very quickly, she says (about a month), then spends months rewriting and revising and, especially, looking for the novel's heart.

Most affectingly, she talked candidly about how she invests herself in her characters--even identifying individuals in her books who are in fundamental ways like her. She talked about how injecting her pain into characters on the page has helped her--and, she hopes, her readers, as well.

There were quite a few local students there in the crowd, and they were riveted by her.

Afterwards, we chatted briefly as she signed her two books for me, and I told her, as I was leaving, that I wished I'd retired a year later than I did. We teachers hate missing special young people.

5. Jocye and I tried to watch the Hitchcock film of Dial "M" for Murder not long ago (link to trailer for the 1954 film). We had recently seen the stage production up in Cleveland and wanted to see how Hitchcock adapted it for the screen (he shot it in 3-D, his only film using that technology). The screenplay, by the way, was by Frederick Knott, who'd written the stage play. But we didn't last long with the DVD. It was so similar to the play that we got kind of ... bored (surprising for a Hitchcock film) and turned it off after the near-murder about 1/3 of the way through. Enjoyed seeing Robert Cummings, though. When I was a kid, I loved his TV show--The Bob Cummings Show--back in the 1950s. He played a daffy photographer--who was a bit of a ladies' man.

6. Finally ... last night we both enjoyed the DVD of Hey Boo: Harper Lee & To Kill a Mockingbird,  a 2010 documentary (available from Netflix) that was shot, of course, before news of the "new" Lee novel exploded in the media last year. The film was almost entirely positive. It explained the background of the writing, Lee's later retreat from the spotlight, her friendship (later fractured) with Truman Capote. The filmmakers interviewed on camera a number of notable contemporary writers (James McBride, Lee Smith, Rick Bragg, Richard Russo, and others), all of whom spoke with great admiration for the book--and for its transformative effect on them as young readers. Seldom was heard a discouraging word.

Lee gave her last interview in 1964, and it was eerie to hear her voice. Even more eerie? The time-shredded voice of her 99-year-old older sister (who appears several times), who, at the time of the film, was still a local lawyer, still in practice.

I've got this other quiet little blog ...

I've got this other quiet little blog. Daily Doggerel, it's called. And I just noticed a day or so ago that I had reached 200 posts on it. Not many people visit the site, which gives me hope for the human race.

My Facebook friends know what it is, probably--the site where I send into deserved obscurity the doggerel I post on Fb now and then (well, daily, for the most part). I've got a few followers on the Daily Doggerel site, but I don't bother re-posting each day on Fb since those poor folks have already seen that day's ... offering. I do Tweet the link each day, but I doubt there's much of resulting ruffle of feathers in the Twittersphere.

Anyway, I'm (sort of) pleased that I've kept it going this long. It shows I'm still in harness--never a threat to a lead dog (like Buck!)--but still pulling a little weight now and then even though I know I'll probably not reach the goldfields. I'm just enjoying the scenery along the way.

Here's a link to Daily Doggerel for those of you who have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon.

Frankenstein Sundae, 124

As the hours went on, I knew my time in Wales was dwindling, as was my time pursuing the story of Percy Bysshe Shelley alone—sans Mary. It was because of his return from Tremadoc—and his near assassination—that he visited the Godwins in London, and there he would meet young Mary, who was only fifteen the first time (if, indeed, that first time happened in 1812—no firm evidence) and was just sixteen at their subsequent meeting in 1814, which, of course, would eventually lead to Frankenstein.

Here are some edited passages from my journal about my final hours in Wales early in May 1999—and my own return to London.

9:55  Earlier this a.m., I nearly laughed aloud when I saw a 3^rd or 4^th grade boy (kids wear school uniforms here), his shirt untucked, his tie loose, his book bag drooping from his shoulder (I thought: “the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face creeping like snail / unwillingly to school.”)

10:06  Aboard the single car that will take me—well, I’m not sure how far …?  This route—had I used it yesterday—would have gotten me here much more quickly: It’s a regular line, not a

William Madocs

tourist/narrow gauge. It passes about a half-mile behind the Cob, which is, indeed, what William Madocs envisioned: usable land, sheep, stone fences dividing pastures. The first stop is at the end of the Cob, & then we pass underneath it.

The conductor just gave me the bad news: £40 to London—so this little side trip cost me an extra £67 for train & room, about $115—WORTH IT!

Did I mention that I took a bit of shale from the Cob this a.m.? [Where is it now?]

A strange little conversation with the owner/prop. of the hotel this a.m. Knowing I’m an

Wales & shale

American, he asked where I’m from; I told him—& then mentioned that May 4 was an important day in our part of the world; he said he was 10 in 1970 (he looks 10–15 year older than I) and doesn’t remember, but he did comment on the Colorado school shootings—reminding me, as well, of the school murders in Scotland some years ago. I said I was a retired teacher. He: “My mom’s a retired teacher, too … Well, she was a retired teacher; she’s dead now.” And then he told how frustrated she was at the end of her career—a science teacher; she wanted strict discipline, could no longer achieve it. Once, as she was reprimanding a student, he broke a beaker and shoved it toward her face, defying her, daring her to do something. She did something: she retired. The best part of this story is that the guy (sans a few teeth) acted out the assault, waving before me an invisible broken beaker & daring me to do something about it.

10:30  We’re at the little town of Harlech—surely “The March of the Men of Harlech” is not about this little burg?! [It is: I just checked. It deals with the siege of the local castle—1761–68. Link to YouTube version of the march.] 

The train must whistle repeatedly to get sheep off the tracks.

Just approached the Irish Sea so closely, I had to take 1 of my last 2 shots.

In a little shop this a.m., I bought an interesting little paperback, The Wordsworth Dictionary of British Social History, which defines things like the types of carriages—illustrated! A good little reference for £2.99.

It is just a spectacularly beautiful day on the coast of the Irish Sea—very Oregonian in places. Sheep look funny when they run: like thick cotton balls (woolen balls!) with little stubby legs that whirl like mad as they flee in terror from the sound of the train.

The sea, which comes right to the edge of the tracks, cannot soak us because of the huge piles of shale put there by engineering crews. So many of these little seaside communities feature domestic & commercial construction of stone & slate—on a real postcard day here in Wales.

  Here in Barmouth is the 1^st large sandy beach I’ve seen. Outside B. a lovely cantilever bridge crosses an inlet of the sea; we creep across it. And I just took my last shot from it! There are many places here that must look as they did when PBS & Harriet were here—in 1812.

An old man struggled aboard at Barmouth—a thin gentleman in a worn tweed blazer, a green knit cap pulled over his head, a cane, a little rucksack—& he was protecting with all his frail energy a bouquet of bright red & yellow & white flowers. He got off one stop later to deliver his treasure. I had tears in my eyes as he struggled by the window after leaving the train.

As we climb the mountain, the sea & the seabirds fly below us. This has got to be one of the most spectacular train rides in the world. (Do it in the a.m.—the sun is right for photos toward the sea—not that I have any film to use!) And now between the train and the sea are bright green pastures, divided in squares by low stone fences. Above us, too, are the same sheep meadows & fences, but the slope of the hill defies squaring. These fences are held by no mortar: Each foot of it was laid by hand, an inconceivable amount of labor.

An observation: Unshorn sheep know how to find shade. And I understand “gambol” for the first time, watching miles of sheep through central Wales: The frisky lambs sort of prance in an undulating, hopping run as they burn their youthful hormones. Older sheep don’t gambol; they eat.

12:55  As we move east, nearing England, the land is flattening out. The principal buildings are red brick, and it becomes evident that my little Welsh holiday is over.

2:15  About to leave Wolverhampton for London. I’ve converted my ticket to 1^st class the rest of the way (an extra £33, an extra $56), but I’d been jammed in a 2^nd class cabin for 4 hours & could no longer stand it.  So … I’ll eat bread for supper & flagellate myself later for my sin of pride, but I’ve had enough of communal “interfacing” for one day, thank you. Right now, I am the only one in this car, and that’s the best news I’ve had all day—except, of course, for the spectacular weather along the Welsh coast of the Irish Sea.

Passing 1200 Posts

This one sneaked by me.

I just happened to see on Blogspot that today's post will be the 1202nd I've published since I began DawnReader back on January 6, 2012 (link to that original post).

How can this be?

Like so many other things in my accelerating life, numbers of blog posts pile up without even my dimmest awareness. I wrote here not long ago that I retired from public school teaching more than eighteen years ago--the same number of years that would take you, say, from birth to your freshman year in college. I wrote on Tuesday this week that in August this year my sourdough starter will be twenty-nine years old--but didn't I buy it just last week? And twenty-nine years?!!? When I turned 29, our son was barely a year old. He will turn 43 this summer. He has sons who are six and ten.

This is wonderfully horrifying.

As is my wont, I just checked the total number of "hits" that DawnReader has received: 227,068. (I check only after each 100 posts.) Dividing that by 1201 (no one, of course, has yet "hit" today's post), I see that I've had an average of about 189 hits/post. Not bad (though puny--nay, invisible--by Major Blogger standards). On most days it's far fewer than 189. It's only when I write something controversial (not very often) and/or naughty (even less often) that the numbers increase dramatically. So it goes. But I write principally for my own entertainment--and for Joyce's--and if other folks like to check it out now and then, well, that's good, too.

I guess I'm surprised that I haven't run out of things to say ... then again, maybe I have and I'm just endlessly recycling. Whatever ... I still find that when I sit down each day to do this, I don't have to strain for a topic (maybe I should strain a little more?).

Stuff just keeps happening. I've read a book; I've seen a film; Joyce and I have gone somewhere interesting; I remember something; I feel or think something. I see something ...

This morning, for example, sitting here early, I saw a confused doe standing across the street. (We've lived here nearly eighteen years, and I've seen deer in the neighborhood only rarely--munching, for example, the blossoms on our day lilies.)

I headed off to grab my smart phone (it was quielty charging in another room) and slipped out the front door to take a picture. But the doe heard me (no Pathfinder or Deerslayer, I) and started to trot; I snapped off a blurry image (see below), and, of course, it got me imagining what a doe must think when she sees 30 Church Street, Hudson, Ohio--what she must think when she sees a grizzled creature out on the front porch holding up near his (her? does it matter?) face a little black device that makes a soft clicking sound--what she must think as she's trotting east, looking for woods, for quiet, for safety, and wondering what on earth the world has come to.

So ... this is Post #1202. And off we go toward #1300 ...

Frankenstein Sundae, 123

On Tuesday, May 4, 1999, I spent most of the day in Tremadoc and environs. My journal doesn’t record that it was the twenty-ninth anniversary of the shootings at Kent State University in 1970—Joyce and I were both graduate students at KSU at the time (because I was teaching middle school English full-time, I was taking night courses only), living in Kent, and it was a traumatic experience for both of us. Military personnel guarding the entrances to the campus. Armored vehicles rolling on the streets of Kent. Helicopters with searchlights circling the community all night.

But that May day in 1999 I was focused more on the Bysshe Shelley story—and how so much began to unravel when he was in Tremadoc. Yet another of his impulsive ambitions ended in failure—and, as I’ve written, his life nearly ended in gunfire on a late February night in 1813 in their home, Tan-yr-allt. Below are some edited excerpts from my journal:

            I just got to do something that PBS never got to do: walk across the Great Embankment (and back). A loud garbage truck woke me up at 5:30, and I could tell I was not going back to sleep, so—as quietly as I could—I got up, bathed (no shower), and headed out in the early gray morning to walk “The Cob,” as they call it here. When I reached the little Flestininog Rail station, there were sheep out on the platforms eating scraps and garbage left by the restaurant-eaters from the night before. A few scattered when they saw me, but a couple stayed on to eat—& paid the price of being recorded on film. On my walk across, I met one man coming the other way; on the return, the same (different man); both times “Morning” was exchanged. As I was coming back, I noticed a white house similar in shape to Tan-yr-allt above Porthmadog—had I photographed the wrong house yesterday, over in Tremadog? I figured out the simple sequence of streets that took me there: It’s a nursing home, and it’s for sale. But, closer up, it didn’t look quite right, so I headed back down to the little newsstand (where, earlier, I’d bought a Times) and found a local survey map which showed Tan-yr-allt to be the house I thought it was yesterday. So I walked around a little more in search of an open coffee shop, had no luck, & so came back to the hotel, where, alone, I’m sitting in the little lobby, waiting for the “breakfast” part of the “bed and breakfast”—I’m just not sure when that is.

9:30  On the train platform (BritRail) at Porthmadog ready for the 10:06 out of here—supposedly gets me to London about 4:20—we’ll see! After the spare breakfast (granola cereal, OJ, coffee, toast/marmalade) (okay, I could’ve had eggs & sausage, but didn’t), I went back out to the Cob & shot some photos in better light. Stephen (the taxi driver) picked me up & took me back to Tremadog, where the light was nice. Tan-yr-allt is now a little private school, & parents were arriving w/ little kids (5? 6? 7?), so we had to weave our way around—but I got closer this time, taking photos only, however, of one side. Then a stop in Tremadog, where I mailed some postcards & shot a couple of bldgs. in more favorable light. Stephen helped me pronounce 3 Welsh words of relevance:

            Tan-yr-allt = tahn-uhr-ACHT (with a slurping, tongue sound on the final syllable)

            Porthmadog = porth-MA-dogg (short a—as if fat)

            Tremadoc = trey-MA-dogg

He then dropped me at the station & I gave him £10 (a £4 tip)—good thing I’d popped another £50 out of an ATM earlier this a.m. The waiting benches here are all in bright sunlight, so I’m standing in the shade as I try to write.

home of T. H. Lawrence (of Arabia), Tremadog

Tan-yr-allt (back in the day!)

Tan-yr-allt

Tan-yr-allt

Tan-yr-allt (from distance)

Tremadoc

Tremadog

sheep at Porthmadog station

Owens Hotel, Porthmadog

Butting Heads

I have just uploaded to Kindle Direct the latest doggerel (about butts and heads) that I've been posting on Facebook in recent months. It will be available later today on Amazon for $2.99. What a deal! Here's the Foreword to that deathless volume:

Foreword

Fundament: noun

1.the buttocks.

2. the anus.

3. a base or basic principle; underlying part; foundation.

So says dictionary.com—just in case you’ve never realized that fundamental has a whole different meaning from the one you always thought it did (i.e., basic or foundational). Actually, the Oxford English Dictionary notes that fundamental (unlike fundament) almost always refers to underlying principles and the like. It’s only in the OED’s seventh definition that we find this:

 7. jocularly. Of or pertaining to the fundament or “seat,” posterior.

So, it’s only in a jocular way that fundamental has anything to do with … you know? … butts.

Jocular—characterized by joking, says the American Heritage Dictionary. Like doggerel.

A few months ago I got the idea to write a doggerel series about all the euphemisms and other expressions we use for our … fundaments. (I kept the thing PG, maybe a tiny bit PG-13, because my mother is still alive at 95, and although she is no longer on the Internet, I just knew that she would find out I had written—published!—some naughty words. It just ain’t worth it. Believe me.)

Anyway, I posted an installment each day on Facebook, and when I finished the series (without, of course, exhausting the subject; only my readers were exhausted), I thought about other slang synonyms we use for the human head. There are quite a few, though not nearly so many as for fundament. (Which is interesting in itself, isn’t it? Are there more asses than brains in the world?) So I launched another doggerel series about words for our heads. Until, once again, Reader Weariness arrived, armed and ready, so I quickly capitulated (if you didn’t take Latin, look up capitulate for a little sly surprise about its origins).

As I think about it now, I could have proceeded with a series about expressions that combine the two: butthead, assface, and the like. But there aren’t a lot of PG ones, you know? And my mom …?

Anyway, the title of this collection—Butting Heads. Clever, eh? (Butt. Heads. Get it? My mother would be proud ... wouldn’t she?) By the way, I cut out one piece that failed to rise to my abyssal standards.

I’ve included some other verse I wrote now and then and also posted on Facebook. So there’s quite a little collection here that displays all sorts of things, most of them worrisome.

PS—Please don’t tell my mom.

Daniel Dyer

May 12, 2015