What Are You Going As?

I can't remember the last time I dressed up for Halloween. I think it was probably in high school--for a school dance. I dressed as a "bum," which turned out to be sort of ... predictive. But I think I won a prize. I wore a pair of baggy jeans (probably my dad's), one of his old flannel shirts (stuffed with a pillow), and an old pirate mask I'd used another year--complete with eye patch and sneer. I must've worn a hat, too--but I can't remember what it was. I do remember that people didn't know who I was--generally, a good thing in life, right?

In earlier boyhood I'd gone as a pirate (see above), a cowboy (my favorite), but I can't remember any others. I probably did the cowboy year after year after year, for a cowboy, you see, is what I desperately wanted to be back in those days. There were many cowboy shows on TV; cowboy movies were a staple at the theaters; I was living in Oklahoma (and Texas for a couple of years)--definitely Cowboy Country. And now and then our family drove to Oregon (where Dad was from), traversing the very land I often saw on cowboy TV shows. I would stare out the window ... imagine.

I also do not remember when I quit trick-or-treating. Probably in high school--for it's in high school that you realize that, you know, you're (almost) an adult. Time to put away childish things.

Later, while I was teaching middle school in Aurora, Ohio, we sometimes had costume days at school. Kids would dress up--as did quite a few of the teachers. I never did. When the kids would ask me, What are you supposed to be? I would reply, A boring middle-school English teacher. No kid ever said, You're not supposed to dress up as yourself, but I'm sure a lot of them were thinking that very thing.

Our own little boy (now 47) loved Halloween and went as a cowboy (!), a fireman (see pic below), Luke Skywalker, and about every other thing you can imagine. (And, yes, we "stole" some of his candy.)

His own sons (14 and 10) are coming over tomorrow night. The younger one, Carson, loves Halloween as much as his dad used to. I've seen him as the Headless Horseman, a costume I really liked because I used to teach that story. The older one, Logan, also likes Halloween, though I'm not sure what he'll do this year. He just started his freshman year in high school, so ... will he be like his grandfather (whom he calls "Silly Papa") and eschew the costume--or will he give it one more whirl.

We'll find out tomorrow night.

Last year we had an adventure on Halloween. Earlier in the day we had noticed a deer was lying down in our back yard, in the very back corner by the fence. Hiding? Sick? Occasionally, she would rise, but not for long. Back down she'd go. She stayed there all day, and as evening (and trick-or-treating) approached, we began to get nervous. What if she ran out among a group of little kids? What if she sprinted across the street and got hit by a car?

So I slowly moved into the back yard, calmly. I was hoping to see her rise and trot off sedately into safety (for everyone). But I reached, I guess, her Magic Line--the one separating Stay and Get the Hell Out!--and she leapt to her feet, and with the speed of a superhero(ine), she ran out toward the street, did not stop to look both ways (no cars, thank goodness), crossed into a neighbor's yard, soared over his fence like an Olympic athlete, and disappeared into our past.

Whew.

Tomorrow night, we're hoping, will be calmer. We've seen no doe in the back yard--though the weather is threatening--perhaps even some snow flurries.

That bites, I just heard Dracula say.

Background!

pudgy Dan at grave of
William Faulkner
Oxford, MS
summer 2004

Back in youth, when I was a somewhat-less-than assiduous student (I preferred comic books, TV, the sports pages, and dreaming of my future in MLB and the NBA to all intellectual pursuits), my mother, deeply worried about me (as she ought to have been), used to ask me what I had been reading recently. When I replied with (a) a grunt, (b) a mutter, (c) a wee lie, she would say, with a burst of breath and energy, "Background!"

A warning and a prediction. Without "background," it seems, I would be adrift on the sea of life--no tiller, no oars, no sail, no hope.

What annoyed me the most? I knew she was right. But for the longest time I could not not do anything about it. (I'm glad she lived long enough--she died at 98 in 2018--to see me embrace fully--even obsessively—her "Background!" idea.)

Anyway, I was reminded of all this a couple of weeks ago, when I got an email message--a daily "SmartBrief" from ELA (whatever that stands for). It contained a description of a research study (and a link about it). Here's the info:

How background knowledge affects comprehension

Researchers have learned that students will have difficulty understanding text if they are unfamiliar with 59% of terms relating to the topic, indicating that readers who have greater background knowledge about a topic will be better able to draw inferences about a text on that topic. Teachers can help students build background knowledge by identifying common terms, giving low-stakes quizzes at the start of lessons to identify knowledge gaps, and sequencing and scaffolding lessons.

It's kind of a DUH discovery, isn't it? That the more you know about a subject before you read about it, the greater will be your comprehension?

We all know the truth of this, don't we? If we read an article or a book about something with which we're already familiar, connections vibrate within us.

For example, I recently finished Jeanette Winterson's 2019 novel, Frankkissstein, a novel that leaps back and forth from 1816 (when Mary Shelley first began writing Frankenstein) to the present--or near future--when A.I. and robots seem to be a hope (and worry) for all.

Now, followers of this blog know that I've long had a Mary Shelley/Frankenstein obsession (I've published a book about it on Kindle Direct: Frankenstein Sundae: My Decades-Long (and Sometimes Interrupted) (and Often Digressive) Pursuit of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley); as a result, I knew just about everything Winterson said about Mary and her novel--I could even tell you the books that were her sources. And so (I think) I "got" all of her allusions and references--and I was aware, as well, of a couple of errors, errors that could, of course, have been intentional (for narrative/dramatic reasons).

Anyway, I'm going to write more about the novel in "Sunday Sundries," so I'll say no more for now.

Throughout my teaching career I tried to give students lots of background before we dived into a text. My vocabulary lists were full of words that came from our readings; for my 8th graders, I did slide shows and other presentations about Jack London, Shakespeare, Anne Frank.

Later, teaching 11th graders in a prep school, I always introduced a new text with lots of info about the writer, the settings of the text, the historical contexts. During the summers, Joyce and I would drive all over the country (I taught American lit) to visit the homes and haunts and graves of the writers I would be teaching.

Did all this have an effect on students? You'll have to ask them.

Did it have an effect on me? You bet. It changed the way I read, the way I thought, the way I felt.

And when I stood, say, near the grave of William Faulkner in Oxford, Mississippi, I would almost cry aloud, "Background!" And hope that Mom would hear ...

Incontestable

Years ago--in grad school--I developed a habit that I'd learned had been a routine practiced by the young writer Jack London: writing down words I didn't know. Learning them. (He actually carried little slips of paper around on his person.)

In previous years (ah, youth!) I'd simply tried to infer the meaning of the word from context, and if I couldn't, well, I just figured it could not be that important, you know?

Anyway, one of the words I remember from Back Then (when I was writing them down) is apodictic. It means (in the definition from Merriam-Webster) expressing necessary truth :  absolutely certain.

I see a dire relevance in that word today because so many of us seem to believe that everything we think--everything we say--is apodictic. We admit no ... ambiguity. No possibility that we could be, you know, not completely right?

We see it on TV talk shows, on news panels, etc. (When was the last time you heard some panel member say to another, "You know, I never really thought of it that way--good point"?)

Social media have, of course, exacerbated the problem. I'll talk a bit about Facebook--I'm on Twitter, but mostly I just tweet links to my blogs and don't engage in any hostile back-and-forth with anyone.

But before I talk about Facebook ... I just remembered that, oh, about fifteen years ago or so I was on a Jack London Internet network, and I got into it with another London guy (like me, a published writer about London), and our exchange quickly escalated into the World of Nasty.

And then I stopped. I respected this guy's work, and what we were debating was a very trivial point. Yet rancor ruled. I apologized to him--told him I was sorry I'd written such sharp words to such a fine scholar. This immediately softened him ... and the world went on ...

Anyway, Facebook. I'd say that about 99% of my FB friends are former students (I taught secondary school English (and some college, too), pretty continuously, from 1966-2011).

I care deeply for my former students--all of them. Yet just about every day I see posts and memes from some of them that assail my political and religious beliefs--they don't attack me personally but positions similar to the ones I hold. I also see threads among these people that very quickly become very dismissive and hostile.

The message is: I am right, and you are wrong. But it's even more than that: It's I am good, and you are evil. And why am I evil? Because I happen to disagree with you.

That's quite a leap, isn't it, from disagreeing about, oh, medical care to being called a "libtard," a "Nazi," etc.?

This will never happen--not in this Brave New World of social media--but we really need to "back off," to listen to one another, to try to figure out what the other person is really saying and not simply consign him or her to the Fiery Furnace for the sin of disagreeing with us.

Of course, there are exceptions. There are extremist positions (racism, homophobia, etc.) that, in my view, are devoid of empathy. Inhumane. (I quickly scroll by.)

I have never "unfriended" anyone, though I confess that I have, now and then, "slumbered" someone for a month--not usually for political reasons but for ... other ones.

So ... I guess what I'm saying is: We need to quit acting as if everything we say and write is apodictic. We need to find ways--more amiable ways--to communicate with those who disagree with us.

I find that affection is the best salve for me. I remember my former students fondly. I cannot dismiss them for disagreeing with me. I also am not so naive as to think that I can change their minds by engaging in a public debate. In such venues our positions can become fixed--adamantine.

And conversation quickly descends to virulence and malignancy.

Sunday Sundries, 248

1. HBOTW [Human Beings of the Week]: Two former students from Harmon Middle School, Chuck Wilson and Dina Fordyce Luciana (whom I taught during the 1985-86 school year--they're now older than I was when I taught them!), stopped by Open Door Coffee on Saturday morning for about an hour, and we had a wonderful time talking about them-thar days + now. So wonderful to see them.

2. Although I've been ill for about 2 1/2 weeks, I did manage to finish a couple of books during that time.

     - The first is an 1880 novel by Wilkie Collins (whose complete novels I'm slowly reading--about a half-dozen to go!), Jezebel's Daughter, a complicated story mostly about a woman who is not what she appears to be. (And her daughter--see title!--is not at all like her and is engaged to be married.) The mother's name is Madame Fontaine and she has access to a rare and deadly poison ... let's guess if she ever uses it? An interesting subplot involves a man called Jack Straw, who had been residing in Bedlam before a kind woman takes him into her home--the home where Madame Fontaine is now a servant. Straw seems to know on some visceral level that something is wrong.

By the end (no spoiler alert) some good things have happened, some bad--and ... does everyone get what he/she deserves? Has earned? Well, it's like this ...  Wilkie Collins (1824-89) ... read the book!

     - The second novel I finished (I actually finished it just before Illness arrived) is the first novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer, 2019, a departure (in genre) for Coates who has over the past few years become a very celebrated writer of nonfiction (he won a 2015 National Book Award for Between the World and Me).

It's a story about slave in Virginia, Hiram Walker (his father is the slave owner), who becomes involved in the Underground Railroad--and gets to meet and work with Harriet Tubman. Coates has cleverly included some supernatural aspects to the story (a kind of teleportation), and there is a very important subplot--a love story--as well.

Coates deals bluntly with the brutality of slavery (some of this is very difficult to read) but also celebrates the courage and determination of people (some white) who were opposed to slavery--and did something about it.

For a first novel it's quite impressive--hell, many novelists never write a book this good. Here's hoping that more--many more--are in the works!

3. During my illness I couldn't do much but sleep and cough and blow my nose--man, it was an unpleasant couple of weeks. But Joyce was there. And we did some streaming of shows we like--Waking the Dead and Doc Martin. Oh, and we also finished a couple of episodes of a German mystery/police series, Commissario Brunetti. The original stories were by an American, Donna Leon, and the film adaptations were fun to watch--though odd: stories set in Venice, characters speaking German, English subtitles.

Joyce's former student (and our long-time friend) Tammy Eldredge gave us the DVDs of episodes 3 and 4. Now we are hooked and must needs acquire the other ones!

4. A shout-out this week to Reza Rais, a student whom I taught at WRA back (I think) in 1979-80, a loyal follower of this site, who, realizing I've been sick, posted on FB a version of Sunday Sundries last week. To say I was touched is an understatement. Thanks so much, Reza.

5. Last Word--a word I liked this week from one of my various online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from Oxford English Dictionary

prodnose, v.

intransitive. To pry; to be inquisitive.

Origin: From a proper name. Etymon: proper name Prodnose: the name of Prodnose, a pedantic and interfering character (representative of the general public as a whole) in the humorous ‘Beachcomber’ columns of J.B. Morton (1893-1975),

rare. 

1954  D. Thomas Quite Early One Morning  178 A failed psychoanalyst in this life who is even now prodnosing in the air above me, casebook in claw.

1969 Daily Tel.  31 Oct. (Colour Suppl.) 20/1 It is perhaps high time that the industrial psychologists who are encouraged to prodnose into most things got to work on the Press. 

Derivatives

prodnosing n.

1958 Spectator  3 Oct. 430/1 At this time [sc. the 1940s] the social virtue of prodnosing..was still at a fairly harmless stage of development.

"The more vile we are ..."

So--as I recently posted on Facebook--I finished reading Wilkie Collins' 1880 novel, Jezebel's Daughter last night. I've been slowly reading my way through his complete novels--and still have nearly a half-dozen to go. (How did he not have writer's cramp!?!)

I will write a bit more about the book and its story in my Sunday post, but for now I want to take a look at something his narrator says very near the end of the book. He is talking about, well, narcissism,* a trait most evident in the title character of the book, a devious woman called Madame Fontaine.

Here's a couple of things the narrator says:

We are all interesting to ourselves--but the more vile we are, the more intensely we are absorbed in ourselves. ...The better we are, the more unselfishly we are interested in others. The worse we are, the more inveterately our interest is more concentrated in ourselves" (223, Pocket Classics edition).

A simple (if not simplistic) formula: Our worth is based on how much we care for others.

Throughout my life I have known people--not a lot, but some--who were absolutely devoted to others--to their health, their education, their well-being, their economic status.

But these people--these charitable souls--must nowadays work in a climate of Me-First--in a world in which, more than ever (it seems), a person's worth has a dollar sign on it. Things and brand names have become marks of our value as human beings.

Our popular culture swarms with the message that who you are is based on what you have. TV and Internet ads are everywhere, and so many of them seem to say: Buy this thing, and you will immediately move up in the world--people will think better of you.

It's a hard message to resist; its ubiquity seems to certify its truth.

But I'm with Wilkie Collins' narrator on this one (and, yes, my failures in this regard are not ... few). The better people among us are those who care deeply about others. It's a trait I look for in my friends, my family, my political leaders, and so many others, including myself.

It's a trait we need to cultivate more assiduously, for our country (our world) is full of people who require our empathy, our support. Our hearts.



*Coincidentally, yesterday's word-of-the-day on dictionary.com was ...

solipsism  noun

Philosophy. the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist; extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one's feelings, desires, etc.; egoistic self-absorption.

Well, THAT was fun ...

... except it wasn't.

A week ago Thursday I woke up in the middle of the night with a bit of a sore throat. Uh oh ... here we go.

I called the coffee shop early in the morning to let them know I wouldn't be there--no need to save "my" table for me.

And then proceeded to get worse and worse and worse and ...

Deep congestion. Low-grade fever. Nausea. Dizziness.

Of course, all this "worsening" occurred on the weekend: doctors' offices closed. So I resolved to "hang on" until the Dawn of a New Day.

Mistake.

By Monday I could not eat or drink anything without ... consequence. I was incredibly weak, could barely get out of bed when I needed to. On my feet, I was woozy, unstable.

(Why didn't we call the doctor? I still thought I would just, you know, get better. I always have ....)

Early Tuesday morning (about 4) I had to get up--nausea. Joyce, who'd moved to the back bedroom, could not hear my weak cries for help. So I crawled back to the bed and somehow found the strength to pull myself into it.

I woke two hours later and told Joyce this was it.

She called my doctor, got an 11 a.m. appointment with the NP, who took one look at me and told me I was completely dehydrated and said I needed to go up to Twinsburg, to the ER there (associated with University Hospitals), and start infusions.

The EMS vehicle came, loaded me in the back (where I promptly ... lost it), and off we zoomed to Twinsburg, where I lay in a room most of the afternoon (with Joyce at hand) while fluids dripped into me. They also did a flu test (nope) and a chest X-ray (not pneumonia).

We got home a little after 5, and I felt halfway decent for the first time in ... a long time. Forever, it seemed.

But the congestion/coughing lingered on and on. And so I didn't want to go out in public to "share" my condition with others.

This past weekend things finally improved. I still have a bit of congestion (nothing like what it was), but I have bursts of energy; I can eat and drink; I even drove the car early Sunday evening (over to the Aurora McD's for Diet Cokes with Joyce).

At home, I was able--finally!--to read from my bedside stack of books.

Hope is the thing with feathers ...

This morning, I rose at my usual time (5:40--no alarm necessary), walked over to the coffee shop, did my readin'-and-writing', walked home, feeling stronger and more confident with every step.

And so ... here I sit, writing the first blog post I've done in a couple of weeks--the first I've been able to do. (I'd also suspended my Daily Doggerel blog--but did a post there this a.m.)

And I'm feeling moderately hopeful. Colds/infections have not ever knocked me down for as long as this one did. I'm hoping it's an anomaly, not a preview of coming attractions!

Seidman Cancer Center, cont'd.

Seidman Cancer Center
Orange Village, Ohio

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Tomorrow morning Joyce and I will drive back up to Seidman Cancer Center for my ga-jillionth appointment with my oncologist (and my continual joy dealing with I-271). As I've posted here before, my dealings with prostate cancer began almost exactly fifteen years ago when my family doctor told me, in my annual physical, that she'd "felt something" that I ought to have checked out. I did. And ... I've told the story many times ...

This will be, in some ways, a "normal" appointment for me--quarterly--capped off with my quarterly injection of Trelstar, a drug that suppresses testosterone, the "food" of prostate cancer; it's a drug with a number of unpleasant side-effects (which I have written about here before ... I don't experience all the dire (!) ones, thank goodness ...interested in more? here's a link about them).

Two things have happened since I last saw my oncologist: (1) I've had a nuclear bone scan (oh, am I getting familiar with those!) to see if there's any new "hot spot" that might need some attention since my last radiation treatments (more than a year ago) dealt with one of my naughty vertebrae. (2) My most recent PSA test (Prostate Specific Antigen) indicates a slight reversal in fortune. Since my immunotherapy sessions and since the radiation, my PSA had fallen rather steadily, even dramatically, as the chart below indicates.

6 August 2018	20.13
12 September 2018	11.98
16 October 2018	3.36
9 November 2018	1.93
15 January 2019	1.07
18 April 2019	0.33
10 July 2019	0.29
11 September 2019	0.63

Since a Cleveland Clinic surgeon removed my prostate gland in June 2005, I should have no measurable PSA at all, but (as I've said here numerous times before) prostate cancer also produces it, and in this case, the more is definitely not the merrier.

So ... I will see how concerned my oncologist is about this ... uptick. I mean, it's still below 1 (very good), but it's also more than doubled between July and September. Is that significant? I'll let you know later on when I return.

So ... more news tomorrow when I will supplement this post ...


To be continued ...


Wednesday, October 9, 12:55 p.m.

We got back home from Seidman about 12:15 and have just had lunch. And I am recovering from three different "puncture wounds": (1) my Trelstar injection in my, uh, "hip"; (2) an Xgeva (bone strength) shot in my right arm (quad) (a shot I did not know was coming today); (3) a blood draw taken from the back of my left hand (the veins in my arms were hiding today), a blood draw I did not know I would be getting, but my doctor wants to double-check something: My liver number was a little off-kilter last time. Wants to make sure.

So ... bandages on my butt, my arm, my hand. Quite a special day.

The actual exam by was oncologist was encouraging. He likes my PSA below 1.00; he likes my recent bone scan, which, he says, shows that the tumors the last scan had shown are "dead or dying." He used the word "remission" for the first time today. It's a word I think I like. A lot.

All that--the meeting with him--lasted, oh, five to seven minutes. Then he was out of there, and about an hour and a half ensued: waiting for the shots, waiting for my turn with the phlebotomist, and--most time-consuming of all?--scheduling my next appointments and events.

(BTW: While I was typing "time-consuming," I inadvertently typed "time-cursing"; are you smiling, Dr. Freud?)

In the next few months I'll be "enjoying" the following: another Trelstar injection, another Xgeva injection, another PSA test, a CT scan (abdomen), another nuclear bone scan. There may be more--I'm too much of a Debbie Downer right now to go check my calendar.

But I should say: While I was sitting there with the woman doing my (complicated) scheduling, while I was sitting there feeling somewhat sorry for myself, I heard, in the next stall, a man tell his scheduler that he needed to get a brain MRI. Is there a quicker way to suddenly feel like a jerk?

And speaking of jerks ... I-271 today was heavily populated with them. I'm beginning to think that impatience is the most prominent trait in contemporary Americans--especially American drivers. I came close to flipping off one guy, but my hand was still bandaged, so, you know ...? I just muttered the appropriate words, those two Magic Words that are kind of redundant when you flip someone off.

Anyway, I'm grateful for the good news today, darkened by all that is upcoming, relieved that I was not alone, for Joyce, as she has been for the past half-century, was at my side, her hand on mine.

And now I will head upstairs for a nap and hope that Morpheus will (a) find me, (b) transform my mood.

Those Encounters When Time Melts

Today, early, sitting in the coffee shop, reading, I heard a knocking at the window beside me and saw a former 8th grade student of mine (from the 1985-86 school year) jogging by in the dark of the pre-dawn. He's in his late forties now, but when I saw him, my mind ignored the present and carried me back to those middle-school years when he was in my English class, when he acted in a number of shows I directed.

I said "acted"; I should have said "starred." He was one of the most riveting kids I ever saw on the stage--he took command when he was up there, and this, I know, could be hard for some of you to imagine: a 7th and 8th grader reigning on the stage?!!?

But reign he did. I was pretty sure he was going to have an acting career, but he went another direction. Law enforcement. And from what I can tell, he has done a great job--no surprise to me.

I confess that I have this feeling often when I meet former students (some of whom are now in their mid-sixties--are grandparents). Of course, I see them now--but my memory sees them in other settings, as well: in the class, on the stage, out on the playground, in the lunch room. There are even times when I see my own son that way (I also taught him in 8th grade in 1985-86). I see him with his friends, on his bike preparing for a Bike Club jaunt, in the band with his saxophone, and, of course, up on the stage where he, too, was such a strong actor and singer. (He ended up with a rich baritone that far surpassed my own.)

And this past weekend, I had a special jolt (as I wrote here yesterday) when I spent about an hour and a half with a half-dozen or so students whom I'd taught in 1984-85, whom I'd directed in productions both at the middle and high school. They are, of course, now in their late 40s, but when I sat there, laughing with them, looking at them, listening to them, I couldn't help but see and hear them, as well, back at dear old Harmon Middle School (a truly great school, if I may say so!), romping through the halls, doing oral book reports, performing on the stage, laboring backstage.

Time melts, as I said.

And what makes it melt even more quickly: All those former students whom I've mentioned here are older now than I was when I taught them.

In The Great Gatsby narrator Nick Carraway knew all about this and closed his tale with those famous words that have been on my mind so much lately:

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Sunday Sundries, 247

1. HBOTW [Human Beings of the Week]: Late Saturday morning I drove over to the Aurora Starbucks, where I met a group of young people (well, "young" compared with me!) whom I'd taught back in the mid-1980s at Harmon Middle School in Aurora, Ohio; they were in town for their 30th high school reunion. The picture below shows us, and I have to say that I was extraordinarily moved to see them all again. They'd been involved in my middle school shows (and, some, in two high school shows I did later--Grease and The Merry Wives of Windsor). It was wonderful--"catching up," laughing, telling stories, remembering those no longer with us I confess to a few (okay, a lot) of tears on my drive home.

L-R: Will, Kim, Jason, Rob, DD, Jennifer, Carmen

2. I finished just one book this week--Beautiful Girl,  a 1979 collection of stories by Alice Adams (1926-99). a writer Joyce has read, a writer I've known about for a long, long time, a writer I've just never gotten around to ... till now. And am I glad I did!

She writes in a deceptively simple style, for the stories are complex and, eventually, revelatory. They deal with relationships, with discovery, disappointment, shock, and surprise--in other words, they deal with our lives. She won numerous awards for her fiction (she wrote novels, as well).

I have bought a thick collection of her stories--and then I will start on her novels. I've got a new obsession!

Link to her obituary in the New York Times.

3. No movie-going this week, though we continue to stream bits of "our" shows on various sites: Elementary, Waking the Dead, Doc Martin.

4. Thanks to Joyce, I've found yet another addiction: the "mini" crossword puzzle on the New York Times website. Joyce has been doing them for quite a while; I've been doing so for a few weeks. I will not reveal that there is some, uh, competition between us concerning the speed with which we complete them (the site provides minutes and seconds when you finish). That would be self-destructive, you know, competing with your beloved spouse like that ... then blogging about how you ... never mind.

5. Last Word: A word I liked this week from one of my various online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from wordsmith.org

delphinestrian (del-fi-NES-tree-uhn)

noun: A dolphin rider.

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin delphinus (dolphin), on the pattern of equestrian. Earliest documented use: 1820.

NOTES: If you ever get the urge to ride a dolphin, please leave them alone. Find yourself an inflatable one instead. In general, if you find yourself wanting to do things to any sentient being without their permission, find yourself an inflatable one. Also see, wooden horse.

USAGE: “A boy venturing to swim farther out than his companions, was met by a dolphin, who after playing about him a little, slipped under him, and taking him on his back, carried him out still farther, to the great terror of the young delphinestrian.” Leigh Hunt; The Indicator; Joseph Appleyard (London, UK); 1822.

FYI: Leigh Hunt (look in the lines just above) was a friend of the Shelleys, and it was after a visit to the Hunts that Bysshe Shelley drowned off the coast of Viareggio, Italy, in July 1822 in a boating accident.

Social Life? I Think I Remember ...

As the years flow along--sometimes placidly, sometimes not--my social life (such as it was) has diminished. Student years, career(s)--all featured opportunities for me to, in one sense or another, "party on."

My mom and dad used to have good friends--and always seemed to be doing things. Until they no longer did. By the time they were near the end of their lives (1999, Dad; 2018, Mom), their "social lives" comprised conversations with aides in nursing homes and visits from their sons and their families.

I'm not quite there yet--getting closer with every breath, of course (as are all of the rest of you--so don't go all arrogant on me!).

But here's a strange thing I've found: I like being with Joyce, like being by myself. For weeks on end. Months, even. (Not counting coffee-shop encounters, of course!)

Yet every now and then ... stuff happens. My calendar pages, normally fairly empty (except for visits to doctors), somewhat fill up.

Let's take this week:

• Thursday evening I drove over to the Aurora Inn for the induction of a former teaching colleague, Ted Linden, into the Honored Educator Hall of Fame, an award recently created by the Aurora Alumni Association. A dinner. A program. Speeches. Some tears. (You know.) I got to see and sit with some dear former colleagues--got to see and talk with some wonderful former students--got to have a free meal (eschewed dessert: I have standards!).
• Friday evening, Joyce and I had dinner with some good friends here in Hudson--over at the Thai Gourmet in Stow (a place we really enjoy). Lots of laughter and stories and affection.
• In about an hour I will head over to Aurora to a coffee shop to meet with some former students who are in town for Aurora High's homecoming weekend. Some of them I have not seen in many, many years. I'm looking forward to it.

And--I have to say--this week has wiped me out. My Social Battery is about out of juice, and I know (from Sad Experience) that if I do much more, I will regret it. I'm on some energy-sapping meds, and they don't mess around. And I've learned (the Hard Way) that I should not mess around--too much.

The Good News: I've had a very good time. More Good News: Nothing "on" next week except for a doctor's visit.

Back to normal.

But with some fond memories to hold me over till next time when the Calendar Gods decide it's time to get me out of the house.

I Can't Find a Couple of Damn Books!

Let's be up front about it--and perfectly frank: My study is a mess. My grandfather Osborn (a scholar so neat that he made certain that in his desk drawer his paperclips were all pointing the same way) and my mother (also an Osborn--also ... fastidious) would take one look at my study and immediately require me to take a DNA test.

So, yes, clutter everywhere--projects in various stages scattered around--a general impression that whoever uses this room is but a variation of a Cat Lady.

But some books--key reference books?--I know where they are. And the two that are missing are the first two volumes of the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, volumes A-G and H-O, published in the mid-1990s (subsequent volumes never appeared--not sure why, but I'm sure the answer is on the web--just too lazy to look right now).

Anyway, the other day I went to the shelf where I keep those two books--empty space. My first thought: Okay, where did I leave them? I recalled having taken them out recently to check something ... Did I not put them back?

I gave my study a cursory once-over. Couldn't see them.

And then my mind--against my better nature--began to grow suspicious, paranoid. Did someone take them? Who? Why? When?

I casually asked Joyce if she'd "borrowed" them, but we looked in her study (much more organized than mine): nope.

So, I did what every reasonable person does: I looked in the exact places I'd looked before. And--surprise! surprise!--they still weren't there.

Last night I woke up in the early hours and for the life of me could not get back to sleep. I was considering possible thieves (whom, out of respect, I will not name here).

But here's the thing: Those volumes are large and heavy. And most people don't give a damn about historical American slang. So--as I see on Facebook all the time--WTF!?!?!?

I see on ABE (Advanced Book Exchange) that I can buy replacements for ... not all that much.

But I'll be damned if I will. I am going to find those volumes. Or ... I am going to find the one who purloined them--and he/she will wish she/he had never been born!

Nah. I'll just look around some more, give up, buy replacements. Why? I'm a wuss.

Mont Blanc--the pen, not the mountain

my pen!

I have seen the actual Mont Blanc. In the spring of 1999 I was traveling around Europe (on a very sad budget), visiting sites that had been important to Mary Shelley (1797-1851), sites that, in some cases, she'd used for Frankenstein (1818).

I took a train up into the French Alps, heading to Chamonix, France, to see the Mer de Glace (sea of ice), the (once-) magnificent glacier which she had used for a key scene in Frankenstein, but the clouds were heavy that day (grrrr), and the little tourist train up to the glacier itself was not even running. So back to Geneva I went, but as we were rolling along, the clouds cleared, the sun flared, and I saw the glistening glory of Mount Blanc.

But I'm not talking about the mountain then--but about a fountain pen (get the rhyme!).

BTW: This morning, thinking about this post, I wondered why it's called a "fountain" pen. I looked it up. DUH: Because it contains within it a kind of mini-fountain (of ink).

Some thirty years ago I attended a family reunion out in Oregon (where my dad was born--where scores of Dyers still live). On the way home, waiting for my flight in the Portland airport, I was using a mechanical pencil to take notes on a book I was reading. I ran out of lead.

But I remembered I'd seen a stationery shop in the airport, so off I went to get my $1.29 supply of lead.

And while I was in line, near the register, I saw a display of Mont Blanc fountain pens. The credit card nearly flew out of my back pocket like a ravenous bird and presented itself to the cashier, who rang up the sale: $1.29 for lead, $275 for the pen. (Impulse shopping at its acme.)

I've been using it ever since. But not for everything. Principally, I use it for two things: (1) handwritten notes and cards which I mail to folks, (2) notes on the book I'm reviewing that week for Kirkus. And that's all. The rest of the time it remains clipped to my datebook (yes, I still use one of those instead of the calendar on my iPhone). But when we're traveling somewhere, I leave it behind. Don't want to tempt Fate. So, for example, for those many summers Joyce and I spent a week in Stratford, Ontario (for the theater festival), I always left it behind, took my notes with a regular old ballpoint.

I lost the pen twice (I thought): (1) I'd stopped in the local telephone office (pre-cell days), left it there by accident--returned a couple of hours later--found it where I'd left it; (2) I left it once at Caribou Coffee here in Hudson about a dozen years ago--returned a couple of hours later--found it where I'd left it. Since then, I've been more ... careful.

I've had to ship it off a couple of times for modest repairs, but, for the most part, it has served me well--more than well. I just like the feel of it--the look. And it reminds me of, oh, nearly 70 years ago when, at Adams Elementary School in Enid, Okla., we had a penmanship period every day (with workbooks published by the Zaner-Bloser Co.--still in business, I see on the web), and we learned how to write with a pen we had to dip in little bottles of Shaeffer's Skrip ink that we were required to buy. (Would you say that times have changed?)

Anyway, I love that pen, and I may have to leave instructions in my will to have it buried with me. You never know, lying underground, when you just might get the best idea you've ever had.

"Poem" in October

"Poem" in October
(not to be confused with the poem-of-the-same-name by Dylan Thomas--link to his) 

One sandal felt a little rough
As I was walking home.
I stopped; I checked; you know that pain--
My-Sandal-Hurts syndrome?

And there inside I found a leaf--
From some sad maple tree,
Whose children now float to the earth,
Find ways to bother me.

The leaf was perfect--hint of gold--
No imperfections--none.
I toed away the leaf with ease,
Walked on in morning sun.

Today it will be ninety, but
My sandal makes it clear:
It may seem summery, but now
October's really here.