Spin & Marty

I don't know what on earth just now caused Spin & Marty to pop into my head--or, I should write, Spin & Marty (though both are correct).

When I was a wee lad--living in Oklahoma, wishing I were a cowboy (knowing I'd be a cowboy)--I was a fan of Mickey Mouse Club (1955-96 on ABC--and, no, I was not watching it on into the 90s--just the early years). I didn't really care for Jimmy Dodd, who hosted the show, but there were a couple of (female) Mouseketeers who, uh, attracted my, uh, attention.

I knew I had no chance for Annette (every guy I knew at school was in love with her), so I focused on Doreen, who also "interested" me--and I spun lies with my friends at Adams Elementary School, lies that involved our being "pen pals."

No one ever bothered to ask me to produce evidence (whew!), but it was probably because they knew I was lying--and lying so patently that there was no point in calling me out.

In self-defense: I was only 10 when that show first aired.

I just checked: Doreen Tracey was a year older than I--and died in 2018. She'd been battling cancer and died of pneumonia.

Anyway, that old show had several features: an opening number (those kids could sing and dance--and Cubby, pictured above, could play the drums--and Cubby O'Brien is still alive), a closing cartoon, and in between ran some serial stories, including Spin & Marty, starring, respectively, Tim Consadine and David Stollery. 

It took place on a contemporary dude ranch where Marty, a spoiled rich kid, comes; Spin works there--he's skilled with horses and "real" life. There were lots of class conflicts (even a fight--see video below), but eventually they became friends.

The stories became immensely popular (they ran between 1955-1957)--even a series of comic books about them appeared. The boys become celebrities, as well--and Consadine had a decent film career afterward; Stollery became an industrial designer; both are still alive at 79).

So, this morning, my mind, roaming around, settled on these two--and, once again, the magic carpet whirled me back to the mid-1950s when all things were possible for a ten-year-old boy sitting in his elementary school classroom, a boy supposed to be dong an arithmetic worksheet but thinking instead of joining Spin and Marty a bit farther West. On a horse.

Link to some video.

PS--I just read, by the way, that there was an updated version of the series in 2000. Wikipedia (!) says it "bore almost no resemblance to the original."

When Words Sneak Away

Those of you who dip into this blog now and then know that I like to memorize poems--it's fun to be able to reel off, oh, "The Road Not Taken" or "Casey at the Bat" when an occasion arises (though I must admit: Some people I know are not, uh, patient as I do so!).

But the Dark Side? I have to keep practicing them (as I've written about here before). And, lately, even when I do practice regularly, some words sneak away, hide, dare me to find them (with Google I usually can).

One of the poems I learned fairly recently was "Then Follows" by Laura Riding (1901-91). I cannot remember where I saw that poem--was it on Writer's Almanac? I just looked: doesn't seem to be a connection.

But I do remember that when I saw it; I liked it; I memorized it. Here it is--not long at all:

Then follows a description

Of an interval called death

By the living.

But I shall speak of it

As of a brief illness.

For it lasted only

From being not ill

To being not ill.

It came about by chance--

I met God.

"What," he said, "you already?"

"What," I said, "you still?"

Clever, Concise. I learned it fairly quickly. And now rehearse it a couple of times a week.

And then--just a few days ago--I became unsure about a key word in the poem (where did that sneaky guy go?). Was it discussion or description early in the poem?

I could not find it online (though I have to say I didn't exactly knock myself out looking for it). So I thought I would just order a cheap paperback collection of her verse; I did; it came--see pic at the top of this post.

I was a bit annoyed that the thick volume (nearly 500 pages) had no Index of First Lines: That meant I had to page through the (lengthy) Table of Contents--it took a little while.

And there it was: "Then Follows," p. 174.

I turned eagerly to the page, found it--and found something far more alarming: The lines I'd memorized were only the opening lines of a very lengthy poem--six-and-a-half pages!

No way I'm going to learn all that. (No way, probably, that I could learn all that!)

I did recover the word that had sneaked away (description), but I felt ... diminished somehow. I didn't know as much as I thought I did.

Which, of course, is a monster of a metaphor for my life--for all our lives.

Laura Riding

*** Addendum to yesterday's post about Robin Hood. I forgot to mention--HOW COULD I?--that my passion for Robin Hood transferred to the "stage" of the old Aurora Middle School where I began my teaching career. (The "stage" was the gym floor.) The third show I wrote with students and produced there was Robin Hood; or, The Man with the Green Robber Band in the spring of 1969, just months before I met Joyce. Brian Rumsey, I recall, was Robin--I don't remember much else about the show and would have to go digging through boxes in the basement to find more. And basements can be tricky ...

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding Through the Glen

Facebook reminded me this morning that it was four years ago when I posted this Free Range cartoon about Robin Hood. My hero.

I have written about Robin Hood before. I don't care. I'm going to do it again.

I think I first became aware of him when I saw (on TV?) that old film with Errol Flynn, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). I loved it immediately, And, almost immediately I became Robin Hood. It was a role I would not surrender willingly--in fact, I'm still not sure that I have surrendered it. (Link to some video of that movie.)

Later in boyhood I loved that TV series with Richard Greene (aptly named), The Adventures of Robin Hood, which ran from 1955-59 (the years I was in sixth grade through the end of my freshman year at Hiram High School). The title of this post comes from the song that ended the show. (Link to footage with song. Zip through the video to get to the song. Also, entire episodes are available on YouTube.) I must say, I never before (or after) heard from a flying arrow the noise that emanates from R. Hood's arrow in the opening of each show.

Years later, I was surprised/shocked to learn that Greene had played a role in another film I loved, Stanley and Livingstone (1939), another obsession I will not get into (right now).

When we moved to Hiram, Ohio (a very small town with a wonderful college, where my father would teach) in the summer of 1956, Sherwood Forest was everywhere. I ran around, doing my best to look as if I were wearing Lincoln green, shooting arrows at trees and animals that I always missed. My parents began to worry--and told me as much--that I was not ever going to grow up. (They were right.)

One day, I was teasing my little brother cruelly (I'll admit it now) in the living room. He picked up my bow and arrow and let fly. Fortunately, like me, he had poor aim. Unfortunately, he hit the TV set. Fortunately, he hit only the wooden frame around the screen. Fortunately, we could sort of glue back on the little piece that chipped off. Unfortunately, Dad noticed, right away.

As the years went on, I stopped playing RH out in the trees and streets, stopped wearing the costume that (I'll now admit) in no way resembled what R. Hood wore.

But I never lost the passion for the story--saw all the movies, often multiple times, including the fairly recent one with Taron Egerton as R. Hood and Jamie Foxx as Little John. Quite a lot of liberties they took with the story, but, hey, it's all fiction, right? (Link to some video.)

Oh, those days when I dressed as Hood for Halloween! When I ran around the woods of Hiram with my (imaginary) Merry Men, battling the (imaginary) forces of the Sheriff of Nottingham!

And I have to say, that when I was in the actual Nottingham in the spring of 1999, I was there to visit Newstead Abbey, the former home of Lord Byron (I was deep into my obsession with Mary Shelley and those who knew her), but when I got off that train--I felt something I honest-to-God felt something, and when I walked through the woods approaching Byron's place, I could have sworn I heard a voice, "Great to see you here at last."

And this I swear is true: A man and a woman on horseback approached me ... passed me ... who else could it be? Although I saw no bows and arrows ...

When Your Bucket List Becomes a Thimble List

On the Chilkoot Trail, summer 1993

I've realized in recent years that I'm not going to get to see a number of the things that I'd hoped to. So it goes.

I have seen some amazing things: the summit of Vesuvius near Naples, the summit of the Chilkoot Pass on the border of Alaska and Canada (let's get the summit stuff out of the way early!), the re-built Globe Theatre in London (I toured it--no production, but our son and grandsons managed that one for me), the graves of Shelley and Keats in Rome, the grave of Mary Shelley in Bournemouth (England), every U. S. state except Hawaii, Stratford-upon-Avon, Mont Blanc (the mountain, not the pen), the residence of Lord Byron in Cologny (Switzerland)--the place where occurred the ghost-story competition that resulted in Frankenstein, the farm in north-central Oregon where my father was born, the town in W. Virginia where my mother was born, the graves and homes of many American writers (Hemingway, Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin, Tennessee Williams, Emily Dickinson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many others).

But, oh, the things I've not seen: Scandinavia, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, China, Russia, Iceland, the polar regions (north and south), South America, Central America, Mexico (I dipped in there once, quickly, but just so I could say I'd been there), the Philippines, lots of countries in eastern Europe ... I'll not go on: don't want to deepen the depression I feel swelling with every character I type.

There's no way I could travel much distance these days--mostly because of my instability and dizziness. Even local jaunts to the grocery store are ... dangerous (is that too strong a word?). Fortunately, I am not bothered by it when I drive--or lie down. It's just that being on my feet very long is, uh, stressful.

Sitting doesn't really bother me, either--not until I stand. And then ... watch out!

Enough whining. I have been incredibly lucky to have done all that I've done. Until I was in my mid-sixties I never even considered not doing something I wanted to do (unless, of course, $$$ prevented it). I remember back in 2005 (I was about to turn 61 and had just had cancer surgery) Joyce and I were out in Nebraska looking at Willa Cather sites, and, on impulse, I said, "Let's go out to Idaho and see Hemingway's final home and grave!"

Joyce was game, so off we drove with nary a second thought: From Red Cloud, Nebraska (where Cather grew up), to Ketchum, Idaho (where Hemingway died), it is about 1050 miles--and then back to Hudson? About 3000 more miles.

Why not?

In the summer of 1979 we were living in Lake Forest, Illinois, but were going to return to Ohio in the fall. Joyce was working at the college, and I said, "I think I'm going to drive Steve out to Oregon to see my parents!" Joyce was game. And so seven-year-old Steve and I headed off--about 2200 miles each way. No problem. (Steve was always great fun to travel with.)

Now, I have to think twice about whether to go get a Diet Coke at McDonald's after supper.

Thank goodness for Memory, though. I still have a pretty good one (unless you ask me what I had for supper last night). So I can still remember standing atop the Chilkoot Pass, atop Mt. Vesuvius, where I looked over the gorgeous Bay of Naples and thought about how Charles Dickens had once stood there--and Mary and Bysshe Shelley, too. In Dickens' case, it was night; sparks were flying, smoke too. Yet he crawled to the edge and looked into the boiling pit of the volcano.

Braver man than I, C. Dickens.

Anyway, as the title above indicates, my bucket list is now a thimble--not because I've done almost everything that I ever wanted to do (I clearly haven't) but because it's foolish to put into that container dreams that cannot come true.

Instead, I'll stay here and share my time with the greatest dream I ever had, a dream that blossomed in the summer of 1969.

Sunday Sundries, 287

I know: This has become a habit--posting "Sunday Sundries" on Mondays. Might have to change the name: "Monday Sundries"? "Sunday Sundries on Monday"? I find I just can't do as much on Sunday as I used to, and in the Energy Department, bread-baking is Number One!

1. HBOTW: All those who are struggling mightily to get by in these COVID times. So many uncertainties for so many people, so many jarring transformations of lives, so many handling it with dignity and determination.

2. I finished just one book this week (hey, I've been reading an 800-pp novel by Joyce Carol Oates--give me a break!).

     - I met author Len Spacek when he joined the Harmon (Middle) School faulty in Aurora in the fall of 1996. I had announced my retirement for mid-January 1997, so the district had hired him to replace me, and he joined the faculty right away, filling in here and there, observing my classes (and others). And then ... it all became his ...

His new book is a collection of YA sports stories called Game On! Nine Sports Shorts. It's a gathering of tales that proceeds season by season (begins with soccer, ends with boxing), and each story features a young man who has talent and desire--knows how to (or learns in the story how to) work hard to achieve his dream.

All the young men also have various personal issues to work through--family, death, memories--and it's in this regard, I think, that Len's stories distinguish themselves. What becomes important to us as we read is not so much whether the young man will triumph on the field (or surfboard or whatever) but how he will deal with the difficulties that his life has laid before him.

Len has some fun with the stories, too. In one (the surfing story) readers will think, "This is like Karate Kid!" And, sure enough, Len mentions Mr. Miyagi, the karate mentor for the young boy in that 1984 film.

 

Len also has some pedagogical goals here, for each story is followed by some questions and suggested activities--oh, we teachers just can't surrender that role!

A very good book for young readers--aimed, of course, at young male athletes but relevant to all sorts of readers.

3. I finished streaming Horrible Bosses. 'Nuff said.

4. Perry Mason (HBO) took a surprise turn last night (we're one episode behind). I had wondered how Mason, who in the early episodes seems more like some foul-mouthed derelict than anything else, would begin his transformation into Raymond Burr. Now I know ... We like seeing how familiar characters from the old TV series are gradually becoming more prominent in the HBO prequel.

5. Good Lord, but Waking the Dead is grim! It's almost as if they sit down after each season and ask themselves, How can we make this even more gross! And then they do it. But ... we're 8 seasons in to a 9-season run, so we can't quit; instead, I do a lot of pausing ...

6. I started streaming The Firm (the Sydney Pollack film, 1993, based on the eponymous John Grisham thriller) with an impossibly young Tom Cruise in the lead. I've seen it several times (though probably not in the last, oh, 20 years). When Joyce joins me in bed, I immediately find something more ... Joycean ... to stream. (Link to some video.)

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

     - from dictionary.com    I am positive about the source of some words I know--I just remember clearly how I learned them. Anfractuous is one of those. Back in the day I used to write down words I didn't know when I read or heard them, go look them up, then practice them. This one I read nearly 50 years ago in a piece by William F. Buckley, Jr., who had a vast vocabulary, some of which he loved to unleash on unwary opponents!

anfractuous [an-FRAK-choo-uhs ]

Adjective: characterized by windings and turnings; sinuous; circuitous: an anfractuous path.

ORIGIN: Anfractuous ultimately comes from the Late Latin adjective ānfrāctuōsus, a term in rhetoric meaning “roundabout, prolix,” and first used by St. Augustine of Hippo in one of his sermons. Ānfrāctuōsus is a derivative of the noun ānfrāctus (also āmfrāctus) “a bend, curve, circular motion, digression, recurrence,” formed by the prefix am-, an-, a rare variant of ambi– “both, around, about,” and a derivative of the verb frangere “to break, shatter, smash.” Anfractuous entered English in the early 15th century.

HOW IS ANFRACTUOUS USED? 

Then, as the road resumed its anfractuous course, clinging to the extreme margin of this tumbled and chaotic coast, the fun began. JONATHAN RABAN, "THE GETAWAY CAR," NEW YORK TIMES, JUNE 10, 2011

 …. He started with a turbulent flight from Syracuse, where the Pawtucket Red Sox were stationed, to Detroit. Then another flight from Detroit to Tampa. CHRISTOPHER L. GASPER, "'THAT WAS AWESOME, DUDE!' — MICHAEL CHAVIS ENJOYS HIS RED SOX DEBUT," BOSTON GLOBE, APRIL 21, 2019

I Sit Here, Thinking ...

... of things that I could write about.

There's the hammering over at the house behind us--a new roof on the garage. Hammering means only one thing: It must be close to nap time.

I find, this morning, that I can't remember the exact wording of one of the poems I've memorized. I can't find it online--though I do find the poet: Laura Riding. So I order a paperback collection of her poems. 

When the book comes, I probably won't remember why I ordered it.

I see some political posts on Facebook that annoy me--that are based on a trembling foundation of factoid and fancy.

But I won't get into it: It's pointless. My BP will go up--and not too many people are changing their minds these days.

I just fed my sourdough starter for tomorrow's baking.

But I write too much about that. It's starting to bore even me.

I read some grand pages today by Joyce Carol Oates in her new novel (Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.--2020). But I did a major post about her a week ago (or so). It's a LONG novel--800 pp. But I'll finish it early next week and will do a larger post about it next weekend.

Maybe.

Yesterday evening Joyce and I drove down into the Cuyahoga Valley National Park to Szalay's Farm and Market--bought some fresh corn, local honey, and some other goodies. But I've written about that place a lot, too.

Don't think I'll do so today.

Today is the Farmers' Market in Hudson--over on the Green, only about a hundred feet away from our house. Should I go over and then write something about it?

Nah.

Twice a week I have to fire up our 2010 Corolla and let it run for 20-30 minutes--keep the battery alive. We haven't actually driven it in weeks--maybe months. We don't drive the other car much, either; we add gas only about once a month. If that.

I just wrote too much about that.

I'm wearing reading glasses right now: 2.0 magnification. My eyes get tired when I read, and my Rx glasses seem to get weary, too.

Zzzzzzzz.

I don't as yet have any evident sour side-effects from the new cancer med I started about a week ago. 

Boring.

Reading physicist Brian Greene's new book (The End of Time, 2020), I'm realizing I should have paid closer attention in science classes.

Let's not get into that.

Hilary Mantel's The Mirror & the Light (2020), the concluding volume in her trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII, et al., is long. I think I began reading it right after we got married in 1969.

Enough of that.

Should schools open fully this fall? Well, if I were still teaching, I would probably take a leave of absence. And cry for a year. It's horrible, what families and children have had to endure since COVID arrived. And teachers. And all other school employees. The grim choices facing all.

Enough grimness.

I wish I weren't so dizzy all the time.

(I'll bet you're tired of reading about that!)

It's wonderful seeing our son, his wife, their two sons (11 and 15) once a week or so out on the front porch. What's not wonderful is being unable to invite them into the house--to hug them for all I'm worth.

Too much?

We very much miss our friends Chris and Michelle. But they're as wary as we are about COVID--maybe more so.

Shall we have a Pity Party? (Remember that one?!!?)

And as for face masks ...!?

And street demonstrations ...?!

And anonymous law-enforcement officers ...!?

And ...?!

That's enough--don't you think. The hammering on the nearby garage roof continues, but I'll probably head up for a nap anyhow.

Right now.

Scone Response

Yesterday's apricot-walnut scones.

I've learned over my eight or so years on Facebook that there are two ways to get lots of Likes: (1) post a picture of Joyce (or our son and his family); (2) post a picture of something I've baked.

Pictures only of me don't cut it.

Yesterday was Scone Day at our house. I bake a batch (of eight) about once a week and eat one for breakfast Mon-Sat. (Sunday I have a bagel with Joyce--don't ask: It just is, that's all.)

I've been doing this for, oh, about a decade, I guess? And I find that I most often make maple-pecan, less frequently cherry-walnut, even less frequently apricot-walnut, rarely blueberry-walnut. I never swab icing on them (calories!), and I try to be ... wise ... about the ingredients. (I say "wise" because I sometimes am not.)

(And I should add that Joyce likes to have a fresh one for lunch the first day I bake them--baking time is always in mid-morning. I freeze the rest for the remainder of the week. Later, thirty seconds in the microwave renders them warm and crunchy again.)

Anyway, yesterday I posted the pic you see at the top of this post--apricot-walnut scones--and I got some requests (okay, I got one request) for the recipe. I have posted recipes here before, but since I don't really have anything else I feel like writing about today, scone recipe it is!

Okay, here we go.

• preheat oven to 400F
• assemble the following devices:
• a long knife to cut the dough into 8 parts just before you're ready to bake
• a sturdy spoon to mix the dough
• a shorter knife to cut the frozen butter (more about this below)
• a stiff rubber spatula to gather the dough & scrape the bowl
• oh, a large mixing bowl
• a one-cup glass measuring cup
• a set of measuring spoons
• a small cutting board, lightly floured
• a pan for baking--I bought the one you see below from a King Arthur Flour catalog--available online, too; squirt it with some spray oil (PS--careful: I broke one recently)
• a hot-pad or oven mitt

• Ingredients
• 1 egg (or 1/4 cup Egg Beaters--the latter is what I use, though I occasionally use an actual chicken egg)
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 small cup (5.3 oz) of Chobani plain yogurt (any brand will do, of course)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• flour
• 1/2 cup oat flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup white flour
• about 1/2 cup shelled walnuts
• about 1/2 cup dried apricots, sliced
• 1/4 cup (1 stick) butter/margarine--FROZEN
• Preparation/Baking Instructions
• in bowl, put egg, honey, yogurt, and salt; whisk until it's smooth and creamy
• in blender (we use a Cuisinart) put flour, baking powder, baking soda
• in bowl, add walnuts, whisk till evenly mixed
• in bowl, add sliced dried apricots, whisk till evenly mixed
• remove frozen butter/margarine from freezer; cut into eight pieces; drop the pieces evenly on the flour in your processor; blend until thoroughly ... blended
• add flour mixture to the egg/honey/etc. in the bowl; mix thoroughly with the sturdy spoon; it's possible you'll need a little more flour to make the dough fairly sturdy (but not dry); form into a ball; remove ball from bowl and place on lightly floured board
• flatten the ball of dough with the heel of your hand into a circle that (be careful here!) approximates the size of your scone pan (or whatever device you're using)
• use large knife to cut into 8 equal portions
• carefully remove each piece and place it in the pan
• pop pan in the 400-degree oven for about 24 minutes (keep your eye on them--don't over- or under-bake)
• when they're done, put pan on cooling rack for a few minutes until the scones cool off a little, then remove them from the pan (carefully!), placing them on the cooling rack
• CLEAN UP!
• PIG OUT!

This sounds complicated; it's not. I don't even look at the recipe any longer--I just gather it all together and do it every week.

And the elapsed time from Today's scone day! to They're done! is only about a half-hour--clean-up included.

I'm tired now.

No more questions.

Give it a whirl. Mess with it. Add, subtract, alter. Whatever.

Guessing: Will It Rain?

When I was a kid, my mom supplied the rain gear we three boys had: rubber raincoat (with hood), rubber pull-over boots with little metal clasps--boots we pulled over the shoes we were wearing. When I wore that outfit to Adams Elementary School, I felt a little ... childish (what an odd thing for a child to feel!) ... but I still remember the little cloakroom in each classroom, a cloakroom with hooks (we each had one), and there we would hang our raincoats (or, at other times, other outer wear) and line up our boots. The teacher would check to make sure everything looked neat and orderly.

They sort of looked like this--
but not nearly so ... fancy.

I never saw a kid with an umbrella (my dad called it a "bumbershoot"). In fact, I didn't see many men with them (though my grandfather used one--but he was, you know, old). It was kind of women's protection--or so I thought in my dunderheaded years.

As I got older and became a sophisticated adolescent, I never wore rain gear. If it started raining when I was outside, I simply ran for cover. (These dizzy days, I could run about two steps before I hit the pavement, face first!) And this continued for years--decades, really. Sometimes I got awfully wet, always blaming the heavens, not myself, of course.

But eventually I bought raincoats--wore a baseball hat or something.

No umbrella.

And then I did, started buying umbrellas. I crossed the rain-gear Rubicon.

And the older I got, the more often I carried one (in fact, I carry a collapsible one in my backpack at all times). In most recent years, I check my weather app, see what the percentage of possibility is: If it's 20% or higher, I carry one with me.

We also keep one in each car. And our umbrella stand inside the back door is jammed with them. (See pic at the bottom of this post.)

Adolescents in town, I've noticed, still eschew rain gear (as they do winter coats). Near the coffee shop where I go every day, I used to sit (in pre-COVID days) and watch high school kids from Western Reserve Academy walking down the street, many of the boys not wearing coats in winter, never carrying an umbrella in the rain.

The girls are different--though not always. A few years ago several girls from WRA were in the coffee shop when a cloud broke open, and we could hear Noah hammering in the back parking lot. The girls had no umbrella--they were worried about being late to class. I--gallant soul--offered them the one I'd carried in (I would use the one in my backpack to get home). They graciously accepted it.

And I never saw it again.

No worry. I had its twin at home.

This morning, before I walked over to the shop, I checked my weather app: 20%. So I pulled an umbrella from the stand--well, pulled my umbrella from the stand (Joyce and I have different, uh, standards concerning what decoration is on the device).

As I walked over, I passed some younger men, some of whom looked at me, looked at my umbrella, allowed their eyes to form a look that very clearly said, Why does that Old Guy have an umbrella? Then they paused a moment. Never mind--it's an Old Guy--that's why.

It didn't rain this morning during my walk. But I figured this (which, actually, is what I always figure in such situations): If I hadn't carried the umbrella, it definitely would have rained.

What To Do with the Fountain Pen?

  

My Mont Blanc pen, purchased in the summer of 1997.

If you follow this blog--even in a desultory fashion--you know that I have, now and then, posted about the Mont Blanc fountain pen I impulsively bought at the Portland (Ore.) airport in--was it 1997? I think so--when I was out there for a Dyer family reunion. (Link to post about the acquiring of that pen.)

It cost more than I could afford, but I was young(er) and dumb(er) and figured I'd pay it off. Eventually, I did.

I've had to get it repaired a couple of times (not cheap, either), but I have to have it functioning. Otherwise, you know, the universe will implode.

I have used the pen for only a couple of things: writing notes to people (I do very little of that any longer in this era of messaging and texting) and taking notes for the books I will review for Kirkus Reviews, a 21-year gig I surrendered recently because of my unpredictable health.

So ... now what?

The pen lay immobile for a few weeks, clipped, as always, onto my portable weekly calendar (another anachronism, I know) alongside the mechanical pencil I use for taking notes on the books I'm reading for edification. (For some books I read, "edification" has no relevance whatsoever--so I take no notes.)

I read mostly fiction these days--though I always have some nonfiction going, too. Up in our bedroom, on my pile, is physicist Brian Greene’s latest, Until the End of Time (2020), but for my night reading I make only sketchy penciled notes inside the front cover--nothing detailed.

Meanwhile, downstairs, some recent nonfiction books have been piling up. Last week I finished one that I'd started and abandoned long ago (about the influence of classical writers on the Bard), and this week I thought I'd start a recent book about Emily Dickinson, These Fevered Days (Martha Ackmann, 2020).

And then an idea hacked its way up through the permafrost of my mind (a permafrost that, unlike that in the earth's far North and far South, is expanding rather than melting): I could use my pen for the nonfiction I'm reading downstairs!

Eureka!

The idea works in so many ways. For one thing, I reviewed only nonfiction for Kirkus. So, the pen won't have to make any "reality adjustments." For another, I always did my Kirkus reading early in the morning (several days a week), and that's what I am now doing with the accumulating nonfiction piling up in our family room.

So ... resolution!

This morning was the first day I began practicing this new routine (I'd already begun the Bard book with pencil notes--can't change writing instruments in midstream, you know?).

I just finished doing my pen-note-taking about a half-hour ago, and it was wonderful. The ink flowed freely and well, and I thought I could hear that pen sigh, At last! At last! At last!

But perhaps I was just listening to my own mutterings? My own grateful mutterings.

This Day--Five Years Ago

When I retired from the Aurora City Schools (January 1997), I began keeping a journal. I'd done so off and on before then (more off than on, unfortunately), but I became kind of obsessive about it back in 1997. I've hardly missed a day since.

Yesterday, when our son and his family came up for a socially distanced supper on the front porch to celebrate Joyce's birthday, I found I was not able to do a lot. I sliced some bread I'd baked on Sunday; I carried a few things to and fro; I put some things in the dishwasher; I laughed and talked with everyone. But most of the physical tasks went to the young-uns.

Son Steve and older grandson, Logan, cleaned out the birdhouse recently occupied by the chickadees that instinct (theirs) had evicted; they also set up one of their gifts for Joyce--a little portable herb garden that now stands right outside a back door. Melissa and the kids and Steve and Joyce did most of the "heavy lifting"--setting up, cleaning up.

And why not I? My persistent dizziness becomes worse later in the day, and the last thing I need is another fall. (The last one spilled a large Diet Coke all over our light-toned carpet up in the bedroom.)

As I watched everyone hurrying around last night--carrying, lifting, cleaning, etc.--I recalled quite wistfully those things I was once able to do--and not all that long ago. (Not counting, of course, those tasks that required skill).

So, this morning I decided to look at my journal entry for July 21, 2015--a mere five years ago (for those of you who are arithmetically challenged)--and see what I did. Below is a list:

• I got up at 6:30 a.m.
• I walked over to Open Door Coffee Company here in Hudson, where I sat at "my" table and worked for a couple of hours.
• I read 100 pp of the book I would be reviewing that week for Kirkus Reviews.
• I edited a book review I was working on for the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Palimpsest: A History of the Written Word, by Matthew Battles, appeared in the paper on August 2.)
• Back home, I wrote and uploaded a blog post about frustrations in my life and how I've dealt with them  (link to it).
• After lunch with Joyce, I biked down to Starbucks (about a mile away), where I wrote a doggerel, read some Elmore Leonard stories, continued editing the PD review.
• I biked home, then drove out to a local health club (Life Center Plus), where all "my" machines were occupied by Evil Ones, so I walked very brisk laps (for me) for half an hour, for some of that time carrying hand weights, doing curls as I walked.
• I stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up a roasted chicken for supper.
• After supper, Joyce drove to Oberlin for a memorial service for a friend.
• I started a blog for the following day and read from several books (I didn't list what they were--and I ain't gonna go paging through all our books to check the dates to see when I read what!).
• I watched some of a trashy movie (ain't sayin').
• I worked on a (clumsy) poem about my dad and the moonwalk in 1969. (See below.) (Until I found it and read it again just now, I had no memory that it dealt, in ways, with the same topic as this blog post!)
• Joyce got home a little after 10; we talked a while, then sank into sleep.

I am stunned by how much I could do just five years ago--all the work, the exercise. Now I do still work on my writing a couple of hours a day; I still read several hours. But my exercise is limited to walking over to the coffee shop twice a day and riding the exercise bike we have here in the house. I can't stay up on a "real" bike anymore, so I gave it to a former student. I'm in bed by 6 p.m.--where I read and stream and talk with Joyce.

I lie down for an hour in the late morning, an hour in the late afternoon. I don't always sleep, but lying down helps me recover my balance for a while.

I bake sourdough bread once a week; I do most of the cooking (though nothing too complicated). I unload the dishwasher every morning. Some other things.

But I have to be very careful now--no quick movements, no accelerating on my coffee-shop walks. (I've learned these things the hard way--and I do mean "hard way"--falls on the sidewalk are no fun.)

Decline, I know, is just a part of living a long-ish life, and I have to be grateful, I know, that even into my early 70s I was able to do a lot of physical activity--still had a lot of energy. And I remain profoundly grateful for all that I can do. It's just that every now and then (like at a family gathering) I am frustrated and more than a little depressed about my inability, especially at the end of the day, to do much but sit and watch the young-uns.

No--only a "small step" for me these days--no more chances for a "giant leap."

**

Dad and the Moonwalk

July, in 1969,

Two men walked on the moon. We saw

The fuzzy images, a sign

Of distance, filling all with awe.

And out in Iowa, my dad—

Born just half a century

Before—sat in the chair he had,

His TV chair, where he could see

The history unfolding on

The moon. The rural world he'd known

In boyhood Oregon was gone.

The intervening years had flown,

And now he sat—his special chair—

And watched the launch, the orbit of

The moon. The lander in the air,

Just lightly hovering above,

Insectile in its form and act,

Descending to a golden leaf—

Impossible, but still a fact.

It settles (to our great relief).

Two moon men are at last at rest

Upon this extra-terrestrial crust.

They've passed so far each lethal test,

Are poised upon the lunar dust.

A wait. And then an astronaut

Descends the ladder to the moon.

He utters words, and we are caught

By what will be a famous tune—

The words of Armstrong—“giant leap”

And all of that will long endure.

The soundtrack will forever keep

Alive the moonwalk’s pure allure.

My father was a veteran—

And so saluted those brave two,

Who, asked to go, asked only, “When?”

Then roared away into the blue.

But Dad, I know, had other thoughts—

The changes in his life, of course—

The wonders that this life allots:

To get to school he rode a horse.

His family owned a Model-T.

Depression years. A World War.

A teacher’s life—near penury.

A wife, one son—and then two more.

The future brought some darkness to

The life that he had long enjoyed.

His body could no longer do

His bidding. Soon, he knew, the Void.

He died in 1999,

The moonwalk thirty years before,

The days he saw the glowing line

Between the past and evermore.

I see him stand erect and tall.

Our anthem he begins to sing,

And when the final phrases fall,

He sits to ponder everything.

Sunday Sundries, 286

1. HBOTW: Not long ago I posted a query on Facebook: Who had left by one of our trees out front a pair of nicely painted rocks? Some speculations came--no definite answers. But the other day, reading in the front room, door open, I heard a woman telling her kids to pick up a couple of rocks from the mass of them lining a nearby driveway. I went out on the porch, asked her if she'd been the one to place them by our tree earlier. She said, "Yes." I said, "You deserve the Nobel Prize"--and I wasn't kidding. Such a kind thing to do--to bring a little joy into this world. And so ... she and her two little ones: Human Beings of the Week.

2. I finished three books this week ...

     - The first (via Kindle) was the final volume of Ken Bruen's series The White Trilogy--this one called The McDead (2000). These cop thrillers feature a hard-ass named Detective Sergeant Brant, who is not exactly the most politically correct officer of the law you'll ever encounter. He's crude, violent, judgmental, and funny. Oh, and sexist, too.

About the only difference between him and those he pursues? A badge.

Bruen's style is what's fun--lots of dialogue (funny dialogue), brief chapters, allusions to things you wouldn't expect (like books and famous writers!), and the bad guy(s) (this time, the killer of a cop's brother) generally get what they deserve, though not in the most, uh, democratic way.

It's eerie, reading a book like this in a time like this. Published twenty years ago, it could have been published yesterday.

     - The second was a book I started over a year ago--then set it aside: Jonathan Bate's How the Classics Made Shakespeare (2019). I don't usually do that--put a book aside. And when I do, I hardly ever pick it back up again.

But I didn't put this one aside because I didn't like it (my usual reason) but because I got too engrossed in some other writers. But it was still in my backpack (like something in a cluttered mind that's trying to forget), so when I saw it there the other day, I resolved to finish it. And did.

Bate is one of the most renowned and respected Shakespeare scholars in the world, and in this volume he talks about the influence of Latin classics in the Bard's plays and poems--classics he would have been aware of because of his years in the Stratford school and because of their pervasiveness in the culture of the time. As he writes near the beginning, "Storytelling was Shakespeare's method of making sense of the world, and no stories gripped him more fully than those of classical antiquity" (8).

And off we go on a journey through some of those classical stories--through the Bard's plays, sonnets, and poems--to see exactly how he employed those ancient stories.

I confess: I couldn't follow some of it (dotage?), but I did gain a new respect for how Shakespeare, pretty much an autodidact, devoted himself to his profession, to his storytelling.

Bate ends with this observation about Shakespeare: "He is our singular classic" (276). I concur.

     - The third was Colum McCann's 2020 novel, Apeirogon (a word that means an infinitely sided polygon--and don't ask me a thing more about that!--I was an English teacher, remember?).

This is a novel about the Middle East, specifically about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict--and the horrors it has produced--on both sides.

McCann focuses on two men--one a Palestinian, one an Israeli--both of whom have lost a daughter in the violence. One, a nine-year-old was shot in the head with a rubber bullet by an Israeli officer; the other, a teenager killed in a suicide bomb explosion.

Based on true events, the novel shows us how the two fathers met, became allies in the peace process, devoted themselves to ending the violence that killed their daughters.

The style is unique. Very short sections, sometimes telling about the victims (slowly the entire episodes unfold), sometimes talking about the birds in the region, the history, the geography.

It is indeed a grim story (an overlooked eyeball is found at the bombing scene after it had been "cleared"), but it is also, ultimately, a hopeful one. Common ground can be found--common ground based on family and hope and heart and the profound wish for all the violence to stop.

3. We're still hanging in there with Perry Mason on HBO--but it's become more of a habit now than a passion. I like seeing how characters from the old TV show (characters like Della Street, Mason's secretary, and Paul Drake, a private eye in the old series) are making their way into the HBO story in significant ways.

But I have to admit that I'm not caught up in it--watching more out of curiosity than obsession.

4. We're still doing virtually all of our grocery shopping online with the local Acme store. We wait in the parking lot; they bring our order to the car, put it in the trunk. Oh, occasionally one of us will dash into the store to get something we neglected to order, but we rival The Flash in speed, I'll tell you! Yesterday, I made such a dash--and was pleased (surprised?) to see that everyone was masked!

5. Monday is Joyce's birthday. And every day since I met her has been a gift to me.

6. I recently vowed I would quit clipping and filing articles from newspapers and magazines, articles related to things I used to teach. I break that vow almost every day.

7. Confession: I'm streaming (before Joyce joins me in bed) Horrible Bosses--again.The dumb thing just makes me laugh. When Joyce comes in, I immediately pause it--then stop it. (Not that I fooled her: She has ears as well as eyes. I'm blessed that she tolerates these ... diversions ... from My Normal, though she probably knows that before I met her, it was more like MY NORMAL.) Being with her for more than fifty years has reduced this trait into lower-case!

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

     - from wordsmith.org (from same Latin root as the adj. strident)

stridor (STRY-duhr)

noun: A harsh, grating or creaking sound.

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin stridere (to make a harsh sound). Earliest documented use: 1632.

NOTES: The word is often used for the harsh vibrating sound produced when breathing with an airway obstruction.

USAGE: “Abruptly the stridor yielded to a cadence of almost tender mellowness.”

Curt Maury; The Glitter and Other Stories; iUniverse; 2010.

Medical Ruminations

Over the years I've written a lot here about my medical issues. And I'll talk about that in a minute. But what I've long known (especially since my regular visits to Seidman Cancer Center commenced) is that many people are far worse off than I.

As I've mentioned in a number of "Seidman posts," I have seen in the Seidman waiting room--in the Seidman hallways--people varying widely in gender, age, race, ethnicity, people who are suffering far more than I have. My turn is coming, I know, but since this dark journey began in June 2005 (when I had my cancerous prostate gland surgically removed), I have not really suffered in ways I routinely see when I'm at Seidman. To see people struggling to get inside the building--canes, walkers, wheelchairs--or held by loving friends or relatives is not a sight easily dismissed or forgotten.

It's humbling, believe me. And profoundly moving.

I am still able to do many of the things I love to do, and though I miss doing--so much--some of the things I can no longer do (jog, ride my bike, hop in the car and drive to Oregon, etc.), I remain grateful that I can still walk (carefully!) over to the coffee shop to pick up my Daily Dose, can still read and write, bake sourdough bread, take a jaunt with Joyce (as we did last night) down to Szalay's Farm & Market for some fresh corn and other produce, stream some films and TV, enjoy encounters on Facebook with people from all over my life (from junior high to now), keep in touch with a dear friend and his wife here in Hudson, host porch-visits (masked/socially-distanced) with our son and his family, laugh and talk and think with Joyce. How can I complain about any of that?

As I wrote here yesterday, I have been on a med (Lupron) that has altered my life significantly, and yesterday I started a new one--Xtandi. It's been in my system less than a full day, but, so far (cross fingers) I don't really notice much of a change. A few more "sweats"--perhaps a bit more dizziness (hard to tell). But this morning I did not wake up feeling profoundly altered.

Fear, of course, has been a fell companion through all of this. But after some time (and procedures) passed, I realized that I just have to do it. Sure, I still dread going down to Seidman for a nuclear bone scan, a CT scan; I do not look forward to monthly blood draws--nor to the waiting for the results.

But I realized I can't let fear debilitate me even more than the disease does.

I understand perfectly well that I am running out of options. When this Xtandi fails to accomplish its mission (reduce my PSA--the chemical that the cancer now produces), the next step is chemo. There are no steps after that. And because I have known quite a few of you who have endured chemo--and because I have seen people at Seidman having treatments--I realize what the procedure will likely do to me, as well.

And as for writing about it? And publicly so?

I write--as I've said here before--because it helps me to externalize the damn thing. To take it out of me, place it over there, examine it. I find it truly does relieve some pressure.

And, as I think I've mentioned among these posts--probably more than once!--I've been greatly inspired by a number of writers who have battled the Reaper with a quill.

Poet Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935), three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, lay dying of cancer in a New York hospital--and while he was alert, he edited the proofs of his final book, King Jasper (1935).

Years later, in 2009, the great novelist/essayist/playwright/poet John Updike also lay dying of cancer in a Massachusetts hospice facility, but was writing and editing the poems that would compose his final volume, Endpoint and Other Poems, 2009.

I ain't no Robinson, no Updike--but I do see them as models, as inspirations. Keep doing what you love to do until you no longer can--that's the message to me from their final days.

And though I think (hope?) my "final days" still lie a ways down the road, I continue to try to emulate those two--not in the quality of work (can't do that!) but in the determination to clutch life until it flings my hands away.

**

And profound thanks to all of you who have responded so kindly to my recent medical posts. Each of your words is a salve.

On the Edge of Change

 Near Room 115, Satterfield Hall, KSU
Where Joyce and I met in the summer of 1969--
note our reflection in the window of the door that
we exited that day she first spoke to me!

Almost exactly seven years ago--on July 15, 2013--Joyce and I, after supper, drove from our home in Hudson over to Kent, to the campus of Kent State University, to Satterfield Hall, where, in the summer of 1969, we'd first met in a summer graduate school course in American Transcendentalism.

We parked and walked to Room 115, THE ROOM (it was locked), but the classroom door had a long vertical window, so we could see inside. And remember.

Then we drove over to nearby 323 College Court, site of our first apartment (we lived there from 1969 to 1972, when our son was born: The landlord allowed no children, but he was very kind, helping us find a new place, 214 S. Willow, only about a block away, a home that's now gone, razed for the Esplanade project in Kent).

323 College Court

And why were we doing this? Driving around Kent? Visiting sites that had meant so much to us?

Because we were on the eve of what we knew would be a major change in our lives. The next day--our son's birthday!--I would take my first dose of Lupron, a drug that diminishes/kills testosterone, the "food" of the prostate cancer that had returned after my surgery in 2005, after a round of radiation in 2009. A persistent foe.

I've been on that drug ever since--and will remain so, getting quarterly injections in my derriere.

The side effects were indeed life-changing. Sweats. Weariness. Fragile bones (I'm on a med for that, too.) Fits of depression. Loss of all (and I mean all) libido. Weight gain.

And I've experienced all of them. I now eat very little because weight arrives the next day--like a big, heavy box from Amazon Prime--if I eat the way I did pre-Lupron. If I eat the way I want to!

Some years passed. I went through immunotherapy and another round of radiation treatments. (By then, the cancer had metastasized into my bones--and the radiation zapped several spots on my spine.) My numbers calmed down.

But my Evil Numbers have started edging up again, so my oncologist at University Hospitals wants to stop that before it gets out of hand. So ... a new med ... an expensive one (as I posted on Facebook the other day, I got some financial help from a UH office, and I will have no co-pays, which would have cost thousands a year).

The drug is Xtandi, and many of its side effects mimic/intensify those of Lupron. With some others thrown into the mix--like dizziness (which is among the less common ones, but it worries me because I'm already dealing with it).

I'll take four pills a day (large capsules), and I will start today at noon. They actually arrived yesterday, but that was our son's birthday, and because he came up with his family to celebrate (masked/socially-distanced on our front porch), I didn't want to be dealing with anything odd, different, frightening while they were here.

I've already made some ... adjustments. As I wrote here last week (I think), I have resigned from my book-reviewing gig at Kirkus Reviews--a gig I've enjoyed for twenty-one years. I just didn't want to have before me an assignment that I couldn't finish. I never missed a deadline with them--didn't want to end my career by doing so.

And until I see what the effects are, Joyce will do all our driving--I don't want to have an "episode" of some sort while I'm behind the wheel.

So ... we shall see.

I hope there's nothing much but some "adjustments" to make in my life--nothing transformational. And I hope I can keep writing and reading and spending every possible second with Joyce.