Places Gone, 1

I was thinking the other day about all the places I once knew, places that are now gone. Razed, mostly. Some of them had enormous emotional significance to me (Hiram High School); other absences evoke mostly sorrow, regret, but not the psychic power of some of the others.

I think I'll do a little series about them--not every day, just now and then. I will try to do them in chronological sequence, but I know I'll mess up. In some cases I'll have pictures; in others, not. (In some cases the pictures are somewhere, but I'm not sure where--in some album whose location I can no longer remember.)

The first is the farm of my great-grandfather, Warren A. Lanterman (1866-1963). His daughter, Alma, would later marry G. Edwin Osborn, and their daughter was my mother, Prudence Osborn, born in 1919. (I and my son, Steve, share an "Osborn" middle name.)

For more than 90 years, Grandpa Lanterman (I never knew his wife, Persis, who died in 1946 before I was two years old) lived on a farm on Four Mile Run Road in Austintown, Ohio. I visited it in childhood and was stunned when he beheaded a chicken (for supper) and saw the thing, headless, sprinting around the barnyard--like, well, like a chicken with its ... Tasted good, though.

His farmhouse was one story. Simple. And in the evenings, in the spring, summer, and fall, he would sit there, his work done, and listen to his beloved Tribe on the radio--and dip ginger snaps in his coffee. And maybe take a snort of Old Overholt (his favorite brand of rye whiskey). He had a couple of sayings I remember: When I get to be 100, I'm going to start going back the other way. And I'm lookin' for a rich widow in poor health. He loved the horse races, too.

Back in the mid-1970s Joyce and I drove out to Four Mile Run and took photographs of the farmhouse (then converted into a duplex), of Four Mile Run Christian Church (his), and Four Mile Cemetery, where now he now lies with his wife and son, Bill, who died in 1951 when I was a six-year-old kid. The funeral of Uncle Bill was the first one I attended, and I remember, sitting close to the open casket and thinking He's breathing! I whispered this intelligence to my mom, who shushed me.

Anyway, Joyce and I put together a little album for my grandmother--the places she'd grown up--and gave it to her for Christmas one year.

The next time we drove to the site, the place was gone. Razed. And a small brick apartment building stood there. No indication that it had ever been a farm.

A Google image search just yielded nothing I can use here. I will look later through some albums and see if I get lucky. If I do ...

The pic at the top of this post shows Grandpa Lanterman and other family members (he's the oldest in the photo--duh) at Thanksgiving in, oh, 1956? 57? in Hiram, Ohio.

One more quick story: When Grandpa Lanterman finally had to give up his farm, he came and stayed with us in Hiram, Ohio, for a while--occupying MY bedroom! I remember he was horribly constipated, and the doctor came and ... relieved him. I was in, oh, 8th grade, maybe, and it's an image I will never forget. A bit later, he moved to Enid, Oklahoma, to stay with his daughter, who nursed him for a a half-dozen years until he died. Then ... back to Four Mile Run Cemetery.

Preparations

our 2016 gathering

As I posted the other day, tomorrow will probably be the last time we will host a family Thanksgiving. (It's time for the Next Generation--actually, it's past time, but we enjoy doing it so much that we, well, insist in our passive-aggressive way.)

We have been slowly preparing the past couple of weeks. I made the cornbread (both for turkey stuffing and "normal" consumption); I baked a sourdough long loaf that, until today, was chilling in the freezer. Joyce and I have done some shopping together.

Joyce has prepared the sweet potatoes, the cranberries. She will start the turkey roasting tomorrow. I will peel the potatoes for their later smashing.

Steve and his family (Melissa, Logan, Carson, and Melissa's dad, Bill) will bring some goodies, as well--including pie(s?). Side dishes, fruit, etc. (Super Steve will mash the potatoes I will have prepared for same.) They'll be arriving about 4, so that will give the Old Man some time to, you know, take a, you know, nap before they arrive. You know?

Joyce will be setting the table later today. I will help (or watch, depending on my ability/agility to offer a plausible excuse).

Tomorrow morning, I will read my quota for the book I'm reviewing for Kirkus Reviews this week (I do one/week for them--ain't allowed to mention the title or subject). Open Door Coffee Co. is closed tomorrow, so I will stay home and sip something from the Keurig as I read and take notes--and munch on a homemade maple-pecan scone, which, unlike me, is fat-free.

And we'll wait for the exciting sound of our son's car pulling into the drive--we'll greet them all at the side door--we will revel in their energy (maybe absorb some of it?)--we'll offer yet another thanksgiving for the privilege of hosting yet another Thanksgiving.

Joyce and I spent our first Thanksgiving together on November 27, 1969. Fifty years ago today. I can't remember where we were--did we spend it with her folks and family in Akron? did we drive out to Des Moines to spend it with mine? (We got in the habit, in those early years, of alternating: Thanksgiving with one family, Christmas with another.)

All I know is that on November 27, 1969, I was incredibly excited. For in less than a month, you see, we would marry--on December 20. And I knew already that I was enjoying a gilded fortune that I knew I didn't deserve--and was therefore extraordinarily grateful. A very special Thanksgiving indeed!

Working Out Regularly and One (Supposed) Benefit

In today's New York Times (in the Science section) is a little piece about one benefit of regular exercise. (Link to the article: "3 Hours a Week of Exercise May Lower Your Depression Risk.")

Here's a key sentence: The study found that almost any type of physical activity, whether strenuous or light, helped to offset people’s genetic propensity for depression, though the benefits were greater when people exercised more often.

Okay. I understand the logic of it--even the science of it. But here's what happened when I was reading that piece on my Kindle in the coffee shop today: I laughed. Maybe even sneered.

Because here's the truth about my own exercise--something I've done regularly almost all of my life. 

PAUSE: Unfortunately, there have been periods when I've, uh, eaten more than enough--okay, far more than enough--to compensate for the caloric burn. Losing weight in my adult years has been a constant activity.

PLAY: As I've gotten older, just the thought of exercise has made me more depressed. I usually go out to the health club about 1:30 in the afternoon (I try for 5-6 days/week), and as that time approaches, the clouds move in, the drizzle commences, and I think of reasons--sensible and ludicrous--why I probably should not work out that day.

In my salad days* I loved exercise--from earliest boyhood on I was a dynamo. Even in later adulthood I was running six miles (or more) a day, and when my knees announced one day, No more running, well, I started walking a lot, riding an exercise bike, StairMaster, etc.

Then ... my 70s arrived. By then I was on Trelstar, a cancer-fighting med that also zapped almost all of my testosterone (the food of prostate cancer). Suddenly--and I mean suddenly--all joy in exercise vanished, replaced by dread ... and depression. Other meds contributed dizziness to the mix.

Yet I knew I had to keep exercising. (Prostate cancer also loves fat cells.) Do it and live a little longer; don't do it and die sooner. Simple. And hard.

So, yeah when I finish my workout (which consists these days of stationary bike about 30 minutes, walking a mile, rowing machine, some curls), I feel (momentarily) better--even virtuous (which I patently am not). But then the clouds begin to move in almost immediately because I know that if I survive until the morrow, I will be out at that Damn Club again, and the exercise will, for me, be difficult, draining.

And depressing.


*a phrase Cleopatra 1st used in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra; right at the end of Act I she says

My salad days,

When I was green in judgment: cold in blood ...

Sunday Sundries, 252

1. HBOTW [Human Being of the Week]: A young man named Cody who works bagging groceries, etc. at our local grocery store. He's always so kind to us--has a (clean) joke to tell us--has some information about the movies he's seen recently (he loves them!)--has questions about how we've been doing. He really brightens our experience there--and I hope we make his day a bit better, too. We look forward to seeing him every week.

2. I finished just one book this week--Rachel Cusk's 2019 collection of essays, Coventry.

I read (and loved) Cusk's Outline trilogy (thanks to former WRA student Alexxa Gotthardt, who introduced me to Cusk's work), and I'm going to dive into her other books as soon as I finish some other ... obsessions.

I really enjoyed the first two-thirds of Coventry, whose title, by the way, comes from an English expression--getting sent to Coventry (i.e., getting in trouble--usually at home, I guess)--and Cusk's second essay bears that title--and talks about it in her own life.

Early in the book are pieces about drivers (some annoy her as much as some annoy me--I guess this is an international problem!), a piece on rudeness, some ruminations about her (failed) marriage and motherhood and finding time to do her work. I was very moved by much of what she wrote--dazzled by other parts of it.

The final third of the book I didn't care for so much. Here are Cusk's essays on other writers and books, and my interest slid away like snow from a roof in sunlight. Yes, they are well written; yes, they are bright. But I find as I gallop into dotage that lit-crit just doesn't interest me so much (odd thing for a book reviewer to say, I realize).

Anyway, Cusk is a talent, and I look forward, as I said, to swimming through her other novels, ASAP.

3. Quite by accident we found on Britbox a show we're enjoying. It's called Shakespeare and Hathaway and deals with a couple of contemporary private investigators (one--Hathaway--is a former cop, whose boss was named Marlowe ... hmmmm). The stories take place in contemporary Stratford-upon-Avon (childhood home of ... uh ...), and in the first episode we meet Shakespeare (a woman's surname), who is actually, at first, a client of Hathaway's.

The writers have fun--lots of lightness (so far). In episode 2 we meet a character named Falstaff (!), and I know we're going to be seeing lots of this sort of thing as the seasons progress.

It's a good show with which to end our hour's streaming each night--not too stressful, amusing, and perfect for a couple of Shakespeare Nerds.

4. I was thinking this morning how odd it is that we have made such a social event out of eating, which, of course, is one of the grossest things we do: opening a hole in our faces, depositing therein some organic material, mashing it with our teeth, then propelling it down into our gastrointestinal system, where it ... well, you know ...

5. We haven't been out to the movies in quite some time. Something about the dark, the cold, keeps us at home with books and bed and streaming. It's weird, this change, because we used to go every weekend--sometimes twice--weather and light be damned!

6. Speaking of which: In less than a month the days will once again start getting ... LIGHTER!

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

     -  from dictionary.com

usageaster [YOO-sij-as-ter] noun

a self-styled authority on language usage

ORIGIN OF USAGEASTER: usage + -aster

-aster

a diminutive or pejorative suffix denoting something that imperfectly resembles or mimics the true thing: criticaster; poetaster

You've Got to Do It

Not long after our son was born (July 16, 1972) we bought our first house: 114 Forest Dr.; Kent, Ohio (see pic at top of this post). I think we bought it for $28,000--seemed a fortune--but Joyce's folks lent us the down payment, an amount we repaid, sans interest, when we sold it in 1978 as we prepared to move to Lake Forest, Illinois, where we would teach at Lake Forest College. Joyce taught English; I was head of the Department of Education, a position that sounds impressive but wasn't. (I was the only full-time member of that department!)

We stayed there a year. I didn't like it. Missed public school. Wanted to return to Harmon Middle School in Aurora--and eventually managed to do so in the fall of 1982.

I'm getting off the subject--Old Guy trait!

What I meant to say was this: When we bought that house, Joyce's dad (a very frugal man--as the Depression generation tended to be) told us: "You've got to put $1000 a year into your house, or you'll have major problems."

Well. Years passed. Decades passed.

And now? A thousand dollars a year doesn't really do much. Workmen we hired early in our marriage spoke, generally, in hundreds. Now it's thousands.

Two quick (recent) examples:

• We have a wooden (cedar) fence that lines our side and back yards. Our predecessors put it in. We have lived here now for more than twenty-two years. And the fence has been,well, illustrating the principle of entropy--or, if you prefer poetry to physics, of "things fall apart."
• Over the years we've replaced sections of it, but we weren't always assiduous about keeping up, and now almost all of it needs to be replaced; some is falling into a neighbor's yard. Not good
• So ... the "fence guys" have begun the demolition and construction, and by the time it's done, the total will reach ... into the thousands.
• We live in an old, century home, so one of the things we've learned (the hard way) is to have our sewer lines snaked every year and a half or so. (Since we've started doing that, we've had no clogs and basement cleaning adventures.)
• Yesterday, our plumbers were here and told us that we had a "problem" that would require opening up two sections of the floor, etc.
• The total will reach ... into the thousands.
• The joys of home ownership.

So ... in the next few weeks we're going to have to "pony up" (a phrase, by the way, with obscure origins). Otherwise, Joyce's late father will find out (somehow, somehow) and will remind us in his stentorian voice of our obligations to our home.

I won't like the message, but it will be great to hear from him. What a man he was ...

Sticker Morning

Seidman Cancer Center

This morning Joyce and I drove up to Seidman Cancer Center in Orange Village, where I got to "enjoy" a couple of needles: one to extract some blood, another to insert one of the meds I'm on (it's a bi-monthly shot), Xgeva, in my triceps area. (As the Beach Boys once put it  (with a minor pronoun and verb tense change), "And I had fun, fun, fun ...."). (Link to Beach Boys singing "Fun, Fun, Fun.")

The drive up I-271 was a different kind of fun--the kind that exists only when you arrive, when you can exhale (finally) and say: I'm alive! That freeway was filled today with about every variety of human (?) jerk.

• Drivers who ignored the posted speed limits (55) and were easily going 70--or higher.
• Drivers who refused to allow other drivers (uh, me) to shift lanes near the exit (we made it by the hoary hairs of my chinny-chin-chin).
• Drivers who seemed to determined to visit the other lanes, not intentionally but inattentively, drifting here and there (and in places those lanes are narrow: It's been a major construction zone since, oh, WW II). Must have been some important texts they needed to attend to.
• Drivers who forgot their vehicles are equipped with turn signals.
• Drivers who ... are ***holes.

The return trip was a little bit better--not much. But we're alive. Though I do have even more white hairs than I did two hours ago--which is saying something.

While I was checking in at Seidman, I chatted a little with one of the women who always check me in. She told me I was looking pretty good (I haven't heard that since, oh, about 1961), and I told her whenever I came up to Seidman, I was enormously humbled by all the quiet suffering surrounding me. 

And later, when I was leaving the blood-draw area (right near the check-in), I told her that every politician should be required--before he or she takes office--to sit in the Seidman waiting room, dawn to dark. No phones, no companions. Just sit there ... and take it all in. (She vociferously agreed.)

So ... the blood draw provided a sample for them to test my calcium level, for Xgeva's function is to transfer calcium from the bloodstream into the bones, for another major med I'm on, Trelstar, fights my metastatic prostate cancer (it's in my bones)--but it also weakens the bones. So I take 1200 mg of a calcium supplement every day--and get this (painful) shot periodically.

As I said at the outset, Joyce came with me. I'd told her she didn't need to--I was just getting an injection--but here's what she said: I would worry every moment you were gone.

And that, my friends, is LOVE ... the best medicine ever invented.

"Time out of mind"--one more Thanksgiving prep?

poet Mary Oliver

A few years ago I came across this short poem by Mary Oliver (1935-2019); loved it; memorized it:

When I Was Young and Poor

Mary Oliver

When I was young and poor,

when little was much,

when I was nimble and never tired,

and the hours of the day were deep and long,

where was the end that was already committed?

Where was the flesh that thinned and stiffened?

Nowhere, nowhere!

Just the gift of forgetfulness gracious and kind

while I ran up hills and drank the wind—

time out of mind.

I thought it captured so effectively the way I had begun to feel in my ... "later years." When you're young and vigorous, time is, indeed, "out of mind." You just are. And you will always have the energy to run up hills and drink the wind ...

Except, of course, you won't.

I've been thinking about this the past few days because Joyce and I have decided to give one more year--surely the last?--to the preparation of a family Thanksgiving meal. (The Full Meal Deal.) Our son and his family are coming up--and, yes, they're bringing some side dishes, some pie (!!). But we'll be doing the turkey, the mashed potatoes (though vigorous son Steve will do the actual mashing), the stuffing, the cornbread, the multigrain bread for the meal, the putting out of the dishes and silverware, the ... you know.

We will begin several days ahead of time. In fact, I'm probably going to bake the cornbread this week (both for the stuffing and for direct consumption). We'll set the table, etc. Then, on the Day Of, we will probably just have to do the turkey and the gravy and the potatoes.

And we will both be exhausted--especially me. The days of being "never tired" are long, long gone. Some of the meds I'm on greatly affect my energy, so I will do a lot of napping and resting and avoiding stress and strain as we prepare.

Because, you see, I really want to do this one more time. Who knows what kind of shape we will be in this time next year? I can tell you this: We will not be racing up hills after the meal; we will not be drinking wind. We will not be nimble and quick.

Instead, we will be filled with infinite gratitude for the ability to do this One More Time. We will be thrilled to have been in the company of our family, seated around our table. We will engage in a thanksgiving for all we have, for all we've had.

Woozy Daze

The past few years I've become increasingly woozy--unsteady on my feet. I've had some tests to figure out what's going on (including a brain MRI, which came back "unremarkable"--which is not really a thing you want to hear about your brain!). Nothing has emerged. Perhaps it's my BP med? Or inner ear issues? Or just, you know, being an Older Guy.

All I know is that I must be extremely careful when moving around these days--no sprints up and down the stairs, no pick-up basketball games, no swings of a Wiffle Ball bat (one such swing sent me to the ground--immediately--last Memorial Day when I was playing with one of my grandsons in his back yard; there was no realization Oh, I'm falling ... I was just down).

I have to be especially careful out at the health club. It's when I'm on my feet for protracted periods that the dizziness grows worse. A couple of weeks ago, I ignored my body's warnings (oh, aren't we all good at that!) and kept walking my wonted mile around the indoor track. When I finished, I was virtually reeling. I headed toward one of the easy chairs they have in the little lounge area near the track, and I didn't quite make it. I fell into one of the chairs (not the soft part!), and deeply bruised my ribs. I've looked in recent days as if someone hit me with a baseball bat. (It's better--no pain--but I know my next bone scan up at Seidman Cancer Center is going to show a mess in my right rib cage.)

And yesterday, preparing the sourdough bread dough, I was operating the mixer when I inadvertently knocked over one of the little metal containers I use for storing the varieties of flour I use. It hit my coffee cup, which deposited its contents all over the kitchen floor.

I got some paper towels and bent over to wipe up some of the 16 oz when ... down I went. I could not stop myself, and there I lay, like a wounded warthog, unable to rise. I had my phone on me, so I called Joyce, who was upstairs, and down she hustled to help me--something she's done now for a half-century.

I lay down on the couch for a little while, and I "recovered"--not fully, of course. That now seems impossible. But enough that I could finish the bread prep and baking. And I could begin the battle against the deepening depression that affects me whenever my body betrays me--an all-too-frequent occurrence these days.

I find that I must be circumspect about all I do physically now  sitting down and standing up, walking over to the coffee shop, exercising at the club, turning around in the shower. Hell, breathing is probably next!

But, of course, I'm 75 years old. I'm not going to regain somehow my youthful insouciance about hurling my body around--lunging for a tennis ball, whirling around and dribbling to the basket, swinging a baseball bat, ...

In fact, I'm not even going to walk down the stairs without thinking about every single step--without realizing what a single misstep could mean ...

So from now on, I must be grateful for Memories: They are now among my most cherished companions.

Sunday Sundries, 251

1. AOTW: Coming home from W. Akron last week--from a dermatology appointment--I was nearly mashed on two separate occasions on I-77 N when two different pick-ups--in two different location--had failed to note that their lane was ending, and so they swerved in front of me, forcing me to brake--hard--both times to avoid collisions. A no-brainer this week--both this AOTW decision and the drivers of those vehicles!

2. I finished two books this week.

     - The first was Elizabeth Strout's 2019 sequel to Olive Kitteridge called Olive, Again. Now, I love Strout's work--have read all of it (and I also enjoyed the HBO mini-series based on the original OK), and, needless to say, I really enjoyed this one, too--although it has some dark, dark moments, moments that are, of course, common as we grow older and older, as Olive does in this novel.

In this story, Olive marries a man we met in the earlier book, deals with difficulties with her son and his family, encounters former students (she taught 7th grade math) in various scenarios, encounters diminishment and death here and there (don't want to give away too much). At the end she is facing her own Not-so-Brave New World--but in her own determined, courageous style.

Strout's technique in these two novels (and in her other ones, too) is to collect stories about her principal characters--there is not a traditional narrative flow--and, as is the case in all of our own real-life stories, sometimes we are the focus, sometimes not. And that's what she does here. In some of the stories Olive barely appears--or is only alluded to. In others, she is front and center.

I love it. We are always the major character only in our imaginations, not in reality. And Strout shows that brilliantly, over and over

     - The 2nd one is a novella by the remarkable Ian McEwan--The Cockroach (2019)

McEwan has some fun with Kafka's 1915 tale, The Metamorphosis, a story in which Kafka's character awakens one morning to discover he is ... a huge insect.

Here, an insect awakens and discovers he is a human being--and not just any human being but the Prime Minister of England, who then "guides" his country through a bizarre (and even insane) version of Brexit called "Reversalism," a mad economic plan that he is nonetheless able to convince his countrymen is the Best Thing Possible.

There is also an American President who will remind you of someone you've learned to know well the past few years.

Anyway, there is a surprise at the end about the PM and his Cabinet, and I'll not spoil it. The Cockroach is quick to read--simultaneously funny and deeply depressing. (Oh, are we a gullible species!) As the PM in his insect self comments about humans : "Their desires are so often in contention with their intelligence" (98). Aren't they, now!

3. Joyce and I enjoyed via Netflix a genial stand-up special with Seth Meyers, former SNL cast member and current host of Late Night. He told stories (often self-deprecating ones), and although he uttered a naughty word now and then, he was mostly interested in the amusing stories--not the shock value.
Link to trailer.

4. Haven't been to a movie in a while--something about the early darkness, the cold, the ever-increasing wussiness I'm experiencing as I age ... At this point I'm enjoying reading at night, streaming shows we like, snuggling (you know) ...

5. My dermatologist has left quite a few Freezer Marks, red ones, on my face. Always fun for a week or so until they weary of annoying me, scab over, drop off ...

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

     - from wordsmith.org  I first encountered this word in The Taming of the Shrew. It's in that final speech that Kate makes to the other women present (and all said for the benefit of Petruchio, whom she's come to love--and vice-versa); the word appears in more than a half-dozen other locations earlier in the play, too:

KATHERINE: And when she [a wife] is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,

And not obedient to his honest will,

What is she but a foul contending rebel

And graceless traitor to her loving lord?

froward (FRO-wurd/urd)

adjective: Difficult to deal with; contrary.

ETYMOLOGY: From Middle English fro- (away, from) + -ward (moving or facing in a specific direction). Earliest documented use: 1340.

USAGE: “Sir Andrew, who was far from valorous, thought there might be wisdom in the Justice’s words, and remembered that he had troubles enough of his own with a froward wife without taking up the burdens of others.”   Rafael Sabatini; The Sea-Hawk; Martin Secker; 1915.

A New Book of Doggerel/Wolferel on Kindle

I've just uploaded my latest collection of doggerel/wolferel to Kindle Direct--and I'll let you know when it's available for purchase for the staggering price of $2.99 (the lowest price they will allow me to charge--worth every penny).

It's called Final Words from a Middle School English Teacher's Final Year--"poems" based on the final 200-wd vocabulary list I used my final full year at Harmon Middle School; Aurora, OH; 1996-97.

Here is the introductory material ...

Final Words from a Middle School English Teacher’s Final Year

And Other Doggerel and Wolferel

(July 14–November 1, 2019)

by

Daniel Dyer

Copyright © 2019 by Daniel Dyer

Dedication

To our son and his family:

Stephen Osborn Dyer

Melissa McGowan Dyer

Logan Thomas Dyer

Carson William Daniel Dyer

 

“Words, words, words.”

—Prince Hamlet in Hamlet, 2.2

Preface

            When I began my teaching career (seventh grade English, the fall of 1966), I didn’t pay much attention to vocabulary instruction. Oh, I taught spelling (you cannot overestimate the appeal to inexperienced teachers of something that’s either right or wrong!), grammar, usage. But for some reason I cannot recall, I just did not do much with vocabulary.

            That changed.

            Later on, I read in some teachers’ magazine a research piece that said that there was no One Best Way to teach it—but that some approach was better than no approach. And so I eventually settled on this:

            • I took all words from the texts we would be reading throughout the year (those final years it was The Diary of Anne Frank, the play script; The Call of the Wild; Much Ado About Nothing; a variety of short stories and nonfiction).

            • I arranged them into twenty groups of ten. (That’s 200 words, if you’re mathematically challenged.)

            • We reviewed them continually.

            • On quiz day, the students had to spell each word, write its definition (and make it accurate enough to be acceptable—for some years I made them write it verbatim), and be prepared to use five of them in sentences (they never knew which five).

            I retired from middle-school teaching in January 1997, so what you see here are the words from my final full school year, 1996–97.

A few years later (2001) I started teaching high school juniors in Hudson, Ohio, at Western Reserve Academy, a nearby boarding school (I could walk or bike to work), and I continued with the technique outlined above. The words were “harder” (though I still took them from our literary texts), and so I continued until the spring of 2011, when, once again, I retired.

            And all the vocabulary lists went into file folders in my study.

            Until I got the idea to write a series of doggerel about those middle-school words.

**

            This volume you’re now viewing on your Kindle device (or app) is one of a series of such volumes—a collection of doggerel (silly poems with little literary merit) that I’ve assembled from the posts I do on Facebook and from my blog Daily Doggerel (which lives on blogspot.com).

            In Daily Doggerel I focus on a theme—and usually crank out 100 or more, uh, “poems” on that topic before I shove it all into a Kindle book. (If you check my author page on Amazon, you can see how much of my time I’ve … devoted? … to this enterprise.)

            So … here in this volume you will find one hundred “poems” based on the vocabulary words I used with my eighth graders back in the mid-1990s. Each “poem” employs two of our words. I do them in order, list by list, all twenty of them.

            In this volume you will also find a section called “Desultory Doggerel”: These are lines I’ve written and generally, though not always, posted on Facebook—lines about various quotidian and/or silly things. Like changes in the weather, critters that wander through our yard (or don’t quite make it across the road), coffee-shop moments, memories, and so on.

            Finally, there is a third collection of lines, the sort that I’ve been, for quite a while, calling “Wolferel,” a word I invented many volumes ago, a word to identify lines that are a rung or two (or three or more) up from doggerel but not quite far enough up the ladder to qualify as poetry. A wolferel is a more serious doggerel, just as, you know, a wolf is a more serious dog.

**

            You’ll notice that there’s a bit of a break in mid-October. The reason? Illness. I came down with some sort of virus that basically shut me down—it seemed, at times, for good. And, at times, I was almost grateful for that. For … The End. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t drink. No energy. Slept about twenty hours a day.

            I ended up in the ER, where they re-hydrated me, and, for the first time, I saw on my interior GPS the Road to Recovery. And I hopped on it. Eagerly so.

            One result? This volume. So … don’t blame me for it. Blame the medical profession!

            —Daniel Dyer

            Hudson, Ohio

            November 1, 2019

Grim Winter (and it's not even winter yet)

outside my study window, right now

Yesterday, I shoveled our walks--twice. Yesterday, I had to clean the car--twice (both times employing a wide floor broom because there was so much winter piled upon that poor car).

I didn't like it.

I've never liked shoveling snow, cleaning cars. Yet since 1956 I've been living in winter-friendly Ohio--except for one academic year, 1978-79, when we were near Chicago, which that year had its worst winter on record. So ... I've been doing lots of shoveling and car-clearing for more than sixty years.

Back in Oklahoma and Texas (where I spent my first twelve years) there was very little of it. In fact, as I think I've said here before, I didn't even know what a Snow Day was until we moved to the Buckeye State. (I came, swiftly, to treasure those days--both as a student and a teacher!)

In fact, the only Winter-Sucks story I can remember from Oklahoma is this one: an ice storm. I thought it was awesome, thought I'd ride our rarely used sled down our hill--out in the street, of course, where I quickly discovered I had absolutely no control over our Flexible Flyer (which, obviously, did not deserve its first name--though it did deserve the second, at least on that day).

So down the hill on East Elm Avenue I ... flew ... until I went under a parked car, where my head met something ... automotive ... and I stopped instantly. And dripped blood and tears into the house.

Ah, but in Ohio, I learned to love a major snowfall because, as I've suggested, it often meant No School. I remember one glorious winter (56-7? 57-58?) when we enjoyed an entire week of Snow Days in Hiram. My mom, who taught in nearby Garrettsville, had only three days off that week, so we had to hear some things about "standards" from her. I detected a note of ... resentment? ... jealousy? ... in her voice.

But not all of it is just a pain in the (frozen) butt.

For I had one consoling thought this morning. I realized that in only about five weeks, it will start getting lighter again!

Of course, much snow will most certainly fall after the solstice, but, out there in the cold, cursing the job, I will (somewhat) soothe myself with this soon-it-will-be-getting-lighter litany.

One of winter's most necessary survival skills: deceiving yourself.

On Reaching 75

A Birthday Doggerel to Myself

November 11, 2019

When I woke up today, I was seventy-five—

And a little surprised that I still am alive!

For young Billy the Kid didn’t live all that long—

Nor did Poe whose great gift was to turn words to song.

Nor did Shelley—not Mary nor Percy Bysshe, too—

And Lord Byron departed—his years were too few.

And the Bard didn't make it to my age--a shame.

(Though I have to admit he surpassed me in fame!)

And then poor Stephen Crane—he just vanished so soon.

(If his life were a year, he lived only till June.)

And some others—but I won’t proceed with this list—

For my eyes are developing some kind of a mist.

So instead I will thank you—my friends far and near—

And perhaps I will celebrate yet one more year!

Sunday Sundries, 250

1. HBOTW [Human Beings of the Week]: Once again--the wonderful folks at Open Door Coffee Company, who continue to help make my daily life on this "bent world" (stole that from Gerard Manley Hopkins--link to his poem, "God's Grandeur--a poem I first read with Dr. Charles McKinley back at Hiram College in, oh, 1964 or so). Anyway, the owner and the baristas at OD are surpassingly kind to me--and tomorrow, I'll tell you a story!

2. I see that this is Sunday Sundries post #250. That's nearly five years of them! I'm actually always quite surprised when I discover, a week on from my previous post, that I still have something to say. May it ever be so! (Ha!)

3. I finished just one book this week (though I am running out of pages in a couple of others), a book called Papa Goose: One Year, Seven Goslings, and the Flight of My Life (2018) by ornithologist  Michael Quetting, translated from the German by Jane Billinghurst.

Let me explain why I bought and read this book: Back in September, Joyce and I were talking about the myriads of Canada geese around here, and we were wondering if, when they, oh, parade across a busy highway--or fly in that remarkable V--if they always do so in the same order. I was guessing that they did (geese, I think, are even more habit-bound than I!). So I looked online for a goose-book, saw this one, thought it would be perfect.

It sort of was. Quetting tells about his project of raising a set of geese from egg to departure. And he did. He took them into his life (he did not live at home!), maintained the incubator, made sure they were used to his sounds, and by the time they hatched, they had already bonded with him--and so they stayed until they winged off for the final time (not all at the same time, by the way). He tells about taking them for walks, showing them their rural world, "talking" with them, naming them (he put colored bands on their legs so he could tell them apart), and, finally, soaring into the sky with them (he flew an ultralight).

The stories he tells are amazing.

But ... he never really answered my question, though, based I what he said about other things in the anserine world, I'd bet that, well, I was right!

(Just checked online via Smithsonian: I was wrong. In flight they change positions to ease the strain from wind and weather on the one at the head.)

(I'm not going to look on the Internet for any info about the order they walk in: I don't want to be wrong twice on the same day!)

4. I've been watching Amazon Prime's Jack Ryan (season 2) in bed for a few minutes a night as I wait for Joyce to quit reading and writing and join me--at which time we stream bits of "our" shows (right now: Doc Martin, Waking the Dead, + some comedians now and then). I can't watch a lot of Jack at once: I get too ... nervous (it's just great being older!)  ... so I shut it down before I have a heart attack.

Back in the Day, I read a lot of Clancy, finally giving up when (in my view) he got crazier and crazier. Admired his research and knowledge, though.

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

strepitous—or strepitant (STREP-uh-tus)

adjective

rare—noisy; boisterous

C17: from Latin strepitus a din

"With a Little Bit of Bloomin' Luck"

My Fair Lady (1956). Song: "With a Little Bit o' Luck." I was in 7th grade in 1956-57, and I'm pretty sure that this was my favorite song from the show. A bit irreverent. Naughty. (Just like the Me of Then!) (Link to song from 1964 movie.)

What does any of this have to do with anything? Well ...

On Thursday after lunch I had to eschew my usual journey--over to Open Door Coffee for more reading and writing and conversation with a good friend--because I had several other appointments of a more ... pressing nature.

• a haircut
• the Ohio BMV to get my driver's license renewed
• Office Depot to get some writing tablets (which I mostly use for notes on the books I'm reading)
• Office Depot to copy a draft of the next volume of doggerel I'm going to upload (soon?) to Kindle Direct

Okay. That sounds like an awful afternoon, right? With long waiting times guaranteed.

But Fortune (not the financial kind) must have been with me that afternoon because ...

• When I got to the barber shop, one guy was in the chair. No one else was there waiting. (My barber takes no appointments--first come, first ... you know.)
• When I got to the OBMV in Stow, I was imagining the worst. I walked in the door. No one else was there waiting. I was #1. By the time I left, though, there was the proverbial Line out the Door.
• When I got to Office Depot, I grabbed a pack of tablets and headed over to the copy area. No one else was there waiting. All done in a matter of minutes.

So ... I'd left home for the barber shop about 12:15, and I was home--all things done--by 2. I was shocked: I'd especially been expecting hours of waiting at the OBMV (where I got that newer form of license that will enable me to, you know, get on an airplane--not that I'm likely to do that ever again).

Of course, no one really "deserves" the luck (good or bad) that he/she experiences.

The roll of those most fabled dice

Can turn out naughty, turn out nice.

It really has no thing to do

With me, of course--and not with you.

And we cannot blame any stars--

Or any phase of moon or Mars.

It's just the way the cards are dealt--

We get a stroke of love--or welt.

The Age of Innocence

In yesterday's New York Times, in the Book Review, there was page-long essay about Edith Wharton's 1920 novel, The Age of Innocence. (Link to the essay.) And memories came flooding back, not so much about the novel itself (about which I have far too few memories!) but about what was going on in our lives when that novel entered our story.

It was the summer of 1972. Joyce was pregnant. We were both nearing the end of our coursework for our Ph.D.s at Kent State, and Joyce (was it for a class? for edification?) was reading Wharton's novel.

And then, in mid-morning, July 16, son Steve decided it was time to arrive.

We were ready (we thought). We'd taken a Red Cross course in "natural childbirth"; we'd packed a bag; we'd bought the crib and the clothes and the toys and the mobile; etc.

And off we went that morning to Akron City Hospital (where Joyce, too, had been born). Among the things Joyce took with her: The Age of Innocence.

Her delivery was a rough one--and the rules then stipulated that I had to leave the room once they administered a sedative. So all I could do was go out in the waiting room ... and wait. Her screams accompanied me down the hallway.

I don't remember how much longer before Steve arrived (we hadn't known the gender of our child until Arrival). But then ... there he was. In her arms. Where--literally and metaphorically--he has remained ever since.

Things got complicated. Steve got an infection and was transferred to Children's Hospital, to the neonatal ICU. The second time I saw my son, he was there, in that unit, with an IV in his scalp, and his doctor was telling us: "Sepsis is the great killer of children."

I refused to believe it would happen. Not our child!

And it didn't--though it had no relationship, I'm sure, to my refusal.

Joyce, meanwhile, had become ill herself, and for about a week I was driving back and forth between City Hospital and Children's, visiting my wife, my son.

She didn't read much of Wharton during all of this--though, I know, she finished the book later on.

We no longer have the copy she read (it was a Modern Library edition--just like the one in the pic atop this post)--we replaced lots of books when we joined the Library of America and began receiving titles from major American writers--including Wharton, of course.

Life went on--though never, really, in the same way (as all you parents out there understand).

Now our son is married (they had their 20th anniversary last summer); they have two sons, 14 and 10.

And the age of our innocence has seemed impossibly far, far away.

Until yesterday morning, sitting in Panera with Joyce, having coffee and a bagel, reading the Times, finding the essay ...

Sunday Sundries, 249

1. AOTW: All those who devote themselves to dividing us.

2. I somehow finished three books this week, one of which I've been reading each night, ten pages or so/night.

     - The one I've been reading slowly was Steve Brusatte's written-for-a-general-readership book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World (2018.) And I learned a lot! (Now ... if I could just, you know, remember most of it!)

Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh, begins pretty much at the beginning: continental drift, the evolution of some of the largest creatures this planet has ever known, the most recent discoveries about them (a surprise to me: even some of the largest had begun developing feathers, probably, he says, for display purposes--one result: all the birds now flying around on the planet).

There is a wonderful (but grim) three pages or so about what happened when that asteroid hit the earth and very quickly ended the lives of the dinosaurs and myriads of other species. Fortunate for us: our distant mammalian ancestors survived, and here we are.

Really fun (and enlightening to read)--full of pictures of people and bones and critters. One odd thing: For some reason Brusatte seemed intent on reminding us, over and over again, that he has a Ph.D. He must've mentioned it twenty times--or more. !?!??! I got the point the first dozen mentions.

     - The second was a terrific 2019 novel by Jeanette Winterson (whose work I really admire), Frankissstein: A Love Story.

The story shifts back and forth from the life of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley (1797-1851), author of Frankenstein (1818), and Winterson does a wonderful job of telling those stories (the actual Frankenstein summer of 1816 is especially great) to the present, or near future, when robots and A.I. are all the rage. (Do we see a connection?)

A scientist/entrepreneur is trying to figure out a way to preserve the brains of people (never mind the bodies!), and another guy is interested only in developing, well, sexbots. The latter's name is Ron Lord, and here we see Winterson's playfulness. One of the principals in that 1816 summer was, of course, Lord Byron (not much to convert that to Ron Lord!)--Lord Byron was known for major-league hanky-panky and a boundless libido.

One other principal character is Ry Shelley, a trans figure (take away the Ma- from Mary's name, and what is left!). Ry gets sexually involved with Victor Stein (!), the guy who's trying to preserve brains. And on and on and back and forth we go.

Winterson has some things a bit wrong about the Shelley story. For example, she appears to accept the very questionable notion that Castle Frankenstein (along the Rhine near Darmstadt, Germany) was the source for the name of Mary's character and novel. Makes sense--only there's no evidence. Winterson says that the Shelleys saw the castle from the Rhine; not possible--I've been there. You can't see it, even when you know it's there and are looking for it!

There are a few other things, too--but who knows why she did it? Perhaps for narrative purposes?

But, hey, I cavil. I loved the book.

     - The final book I finished this week was Jacqueline Woodson's Red at the Bone (2019), a multi-generational story about an African American family. Each section focuses on a different person, and it takes a while to catch on to who all these people are. (Unlike Faulkner in As I Lay Dying, Woodson does not give each section a title that is the principal character's name.)

Once I figured out who everyone was--and what Woodson was up to--and what was going on--I had a great time. There are some wrenching scenes (a family break-up), some stories of struggles to "make it," some painful moments at Oberlin College, where one character discovers that lying to a lover is not really a good idea.

It's not at all "hard" to read; what's (moderately) difficult is to get the characters straight in your head. But once you do? Moving.

3. We didn't get out much this week (still slowly recovering from that Damn Infection that leveled me), but I did make it to the health club five days, started (slowly) back into my routines. Last night (Friday) was the first night we actually went anywhere--off to Books-a-Million near Chapel Hill Mall, where I dropped more $$ than I had intended to ... but they had a signed copy of Coates' The Water Dancer, so ... had to pop for that ... right?

4. We've been "winterizing" around here--storm doors, etc. Tomorrow, we will shut off the outside faucets, cover the A-C outdoor unit, creep under our covers and try to Stay Warm for the next six months (or whatever).

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

     - from wordsmith.org

I picked this word because--many years ago, back when I was a wee lad living in Enid, Oklahoma--we had a cat that we named Scheherazade. (It was probably my older brother who did so?) Oddly, I can't remember any of the stories that cat told us--and one day ... she was gone ... don't remember in what fashion ...

Scheherazade

PRONUNCIATION: (shuh-her-uh-ZAHD, -ZAH-duh, -dee)

noun: A storyteller, especially one who tells long, entertaining stories.

ETYMOLOGY: After Scheherezade, the wife of a king in One Thousand and One Nights. Earliest documented use: 1851.

NOTES:In One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of stories from the Middle East, the king Shahryar discovers his wife being unfaithful. He learns that his brother’s wife is unfaithful as well. He kills his wife and decides to take revenge on all women by marrying a virgin every day and having her executed the next morning so she never gets an opportunity to cheat. One day it’s the turn of Scheherezade, the vizier’s daughter, to be the bride. She asks the king if she could say farewell to her sister Dunyazad first. The king agrees and the sister, who has been prepared in advance, asks Scheherezade to tell a story. The story is engrossing and the king is awake listening. Scheherezade stops the story just before dawn saying there’s no time left to finish. The king spares her life to find out what happened. The next night she finishes the story and starts another, even more captivating story. And so it goes for 1001 nights and by that time the king has fallen in love with her beauty and intelligence and makes her the queen.

Sheherazade is the patron saint of television script writers, who decide just where to put commercial breaks in a TV show.

USAGE: “Yes, [Rachel] Cusk is a Scheherazade here, holding us fast with stories.”

Karen Brady; “Framework of Narrator’s Life Emerges Through Others’ Stories”; Buffalo News (New York); Jan 31, 2015.

Old Guy Paranoia

So, I'm reading along in this 2019 novel (a good one, by the way) (I should finish it this afternoon) (I'll blog more about it tomorrow in "Sunday Sundries"), and a character refers to a dude in a Brooklyn neighborhood as an "OG." (148).

"Paranoia strikes deep," sang Buffalo Springfield in "For What It's Worth" (1966--I was in my first year of middle-school teaching when that song came out, and I could already relate). (Link to song.)

And so, reading this morning, I immediately thought "OG" meant "Old Guy," and I was appropriately offended.

Then thought I'd check the Urban Dictionary. Turns out, it's "Original Gangster"--so this OG in the novel is a ... presence ... in the neighborhood Jacqueline Woodson is writing about.

But still ... old people comprise one of the few pieces of the human pie still somewhat safe to joke about. (Hell, Shakespeare did it ... remember old Gremio in The Taming of the Shrew? He also made fun of people who are, uh, intellectually challenged--think of Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing.)

I just Googled "jokes about old age" and got--maybe you'd better sit down?--about 128 MILLION results.

Now, I'm not a snowflake--especially when jokes are not about me. It strikes me as odd (and maybe offensive!) that people who are not in a group sometimes remark that people who are in a group should not be offended by a joke or comment or image or whatever.

(I think, for example, of people who say Native Americans should not be offended by the Tribe's Chief Wahoo. Don't want to start anything--just saying.)

Joyce and I have been streaming the new Netflix stand-up special with Arsenio Hall (about 10 min/night or so), and in the portion we watched last night, he talked about how difficult it's become for comedians--the wrong joke, he says, can bury you.

Lots of people in recent years have condemned snowflakes, have said that people shouldn't be so sensitive about identity, shouldn't be so politically correct, etc. Of course, most of these folks are talking about other people in groups to which they do not belong. Easy to do that.

Somewhat less easy? Hearing a joke--laughing at a joke--that makes fun of some aspect of your identity. Your weight, your religion, your race, your age, your gender, your height, your  region of the country, your whatever.

So I guess what I'm saying is this: Most of us need to back off a little. Relax. Laugh.

I say "most of us" because there are groups of people in this country who have endured such historical belittlement and humiliation that they don't need to hear any more jokes about their status--maybe not for another century or so.

Meanwhile, I was annoyed with myself this morning when I got mildly huffy (ignorantly so) about "OG."

Time to practice what I preach. Never an easy thing to do ...