That Was the Week That Was (Health Update)

 Some of you are old enough to remember the TV show That Was the Week That Was, a comedy idea we borrowed/stole from England and that ran here from Nov. 1963 to May 1965 on NBC (link to some audio).  (We’ve stolen some good ones from the Mother Country—think: The Office.)

Well, I just had quite a week. Though it was definitely not comedic, it nonetheless deserves the same title. I’ve been dreading it every time I open my old-fashioned bound calendar—that’s right: I have not gone digital in that respect.

Monday at 3 was a follow-up appointment with a University Hospitals (UH) neurologist, going over some of my recent test results, tests designed to figure out why I’m so unsteady on my feet. She had referred me to a specialist at UH Main Campus on University Circle in Cleveland.

Tuesday at 10:30–up to Seidman Cancer Center in Chagrin Highlands, where I met with my oncologist and went over my recent test results. All my numbers remain steady and good, but we did talk a bit about what’s next after this current med stops working (as it will).

We have just one more medication to try before only chemo remains. And then ... you know ... you know ...

Thursday at 1:30 I had a virtual meeting with the UH neurologist (Main Campus), and he said the recent battery of tests (including a spinal tap—that was fun) indicated that I do not have either Parkinson’s or M.S., but it’s likely I do have something in the Parkinson’s “family.” Final judgment on that when I get another brain M.R.I. in a few months. The only good news about that is they they do have some things to help with my symptoms.

This morning (8 a.m.) I had laser surgery on both eyes (my sight has been blurring) at Northeast Ohio Eye Surgeons in Kent. I had cataract surgery a couple years ago (elsewhere)—and this is sort of a cleaning up of the problems that have remained—or that have arrived since the surgery.

I could not have done much of this without Joyce’s help. She drove me everywhere (I no longer, with my eyes and balance feel safe driving; I miss it a lot). All I can do now, in the passenger’s seat, is man-splain! She sat with me, talked with me, encouraged me, and, today when we came home from the eye surgery, we made maple-pecan scones!

But now ... the week-that-was is over. And Dread steps aside for the nonce to be replaced by What’s Next?

I forget ...?

 

Forgetting is annoying—as I'm discovering more and more each day. Things are fleeing from my brain--abandoning ship. Memories, apparently, would rather drown than live in my head.

Things were not always so. I had quick recall, could play games like Trivial Pursuit very well. (BTW: I just had to look up the name of that game because I could not remember it!)

I remembered stories from boyhood, the names of elementary school teachers and friends, names of authors, of characters—even minor ones—in their books.

Last night, for example, Joyce and I were watching the 3rd episode of the Hemingway film. I taught Hemingway for years, have read about every biography, all of his books, have visited most of the major sites in his life (except in Cuba). So ... Joyce asked me who his fourth and final wife was. BLANK. A couple of minutes later I remembered her first name, Mary. I'm hoping her last name will drift back toward my boat before I have to hook it with Google. So far, it hasn't (it's 9:45 a.m. the next day).

I got it just now! Mary Welsh!

Okay, cheated/Googled it.

As some of you know, I've memorized about 230 poems and literary passages, but recently I've discovered to my chagrin, despite my continual practice, that they are joining those memories that are diving overboard.

I often can't remember the names of films, actors, directors, musicians, songs, etc.

I'm losing the  names of common objects--not permanently, but in quick conversation. "Joyce, would you hand me that ...?" I resort to pointing, and the word returns only after the time to use it has passed.

I sometimes look at my computer keyboard and can't remember the commands I've used routinely for decades.

Part of this, I know, is just normal aging, And part of it could be ... no, I don't want to think about it.

Awhile back, Joyce wrote about her mother's struggles with Alzheimer's—struggles that I often witnessed firsthand. (In a Tangled Wood, 1996.) Her mother went through the entire cycle—from Where are my keys? to Who are you? to What is food? It eventually killed her.

I don't think I'm on that path (I've had a number of brain scans, for other issues, and no one has told me that I've got worrisome markers or symptoms.)

So let’s eliminate that for the nonce.

But I have fashioned such locutions as this: Joyce, could you hand me that ... thingy ... over there. She’s excellent at reading my mind; after all, we’ve been together for over 51 years! So she knows the myriad meanings for thingy.

One culprit for this condition may be this: I’m on a cancer med that has made me dizzy 24/7. (I’m fine only when I’m lying down.) So perhaps this has affected my memory, as well. Who knows? I’m seeing my oncologist later this coming week at Seidman Cancer Center, and I think I’m going to elect to replace this drug with another one he’s suggested.

Yes, we’ll see if that helps. For Dr. (?) is very skilled, very intelligent, very compassionate. He, too, knows what a thingy is.

Squirrel Haven and Heaven

Joyce put up our bird feeders the other day, and it took a squirrel about a day to discover one (see pic). He has been spending much of his days now inside that feeder (where he was entirely when I took this pic through my study window), probably stunned that he has fallen into such great fortune—has won a seedy lottery.

As I said, I was watching through my study window when he discovered a squirrel’s version of Smaug's cave. It took him about 30 seconds to figure out how to get inside.

We're going to wait until he eats it all before we find a more bird-friendly location—a location that even the most Einsteinian of squirrels would fail to access.

It's hard to say whether we have more birds or squirrels in our yard (and an occasional feral cat on a bird hunt). Gray and black. I'm somewhat pleased that the black one (the evil one!) was the first to find the mother lode. Oh, how puzzled that squirrel will be when he discovers that lode is gone.

We’ve had some real adventures with squirrels in our marriage. Back in 80s a couple got into our attic, where they increased the squirrel population quite a bit before we got a guy to trap the parents and move them to a more remote location.

A few days later, a couple young ones, certainly hungry and befuddled, came crawling out and headed off for parts unknown.

Then in the 1990s (in a different house) we once again had to hire a guy to trap squirrels for us, take them far away, and seal their entry point.

Both trapping experiences left us free of scratching sounds in the attic, sounds loud enough to awaken both of us—infuriate both of us. And both experiences caused me to feel the rage that must animate murderers.

“Our” squirrels at our current house are very ... bold. We find walnuts in our mailbox, barely buried in our planters. We find their tracks in the snow on our front porch. And once a squirrel got into our trash, and I saw him gnawing on a corn cob out in our driveway. I must say I admired the thoroughness he employed with his gnawing: not a kernel remained when he’d finished.

They leave other evidence of their presence, as well.

But let’s not get into that ...

Trash

It’s Earth Day, so ...

I'm having a hard time remembering how we got rid of trash in my boyhood. There must have been trucks that chugged along the streets of Enid, Oklahoma, and Amarillo, Texas—but I have no clear memory of them. I do remember the metal trash cans that we put out at the curb, but I cannot see the vehicles that came to pick them up.

I remember, too, that a lot of people (Dyers included) burned some of it in metal barrels in the back yard. I can see Dad dropping it in; I can remember the warnings not to get too close, warnings that my older brother ignored and, with a bare belly, got too close one Texas day and still bears the scar on his belly.

People back then, of course, also burned fallen leaves out in the street in front of their houses—a practice I still witnessed in the fall of 1978 when we were living in Lake Forest, Illinois (both of us were teaching at Lake Forest College).

And then ... environmentalists showed us how damaging to the environment these practices were, and I remember when recycling became a Thing when I was still teaching at Harmon (Middle) School in the late 80s on into the mid-90s. The hero of this enterprise was my colleague Denny Reiser (math/science), who got the school to buy bins for discarded paper for each classroom, bins which he would transport in his truck to a recycling facility in Kent, about twelve miles away from the school.

Oh, I forgot. Back when we were first married (1969), Joyce and I bought at Sears an electric trash compacter. Ours looked like the one in the pic I just found on the web.

We pulled out the bottom section, which contained a sturdy bag—as well as a can that sprayed on the contents an odor-killer of some sort (which I'm sure was safe to inhale); then we would turn it on; there would follow a fierce crunching sound; it would stop automatically (I think). As the days passed on, the contents smelled more and more rancid. At the end of the week we would carry the bag out to the curb (it was heavy) where the truck would pick it up.

Now, of course, we have trash and recycle trucks that growl through the neighborhood each week, and we have separate barrels that contain items that can be recycled, items that cannot. But from what I’ve read I’ve learned that a lot of the "recyclables" are actually not.

Some of our neighbors do not recycle at all, and of course that allows us to feel morally superior—a wonderful feeling that has no basis in reality. None.

FYI: There’s a fine documentary, Trash Dance (2012), by Andrew Garrison—whom Joyce knows pretty well. On Amazon Prime and elsewhere. (Link to trailer.)

Snow Day?

Hudson, Ohio
21 April 2021
7 a.m.

 When I was growing up in Oklahoma and Texas, I never once enjoyed a school’s-off snow day. I had no idea what such a thing even was.

So when we moved to Hiram, Ohio, in August 1956, my grief at leaving my friends and routines back in Oklahoma was greatly relieved when I experienced my first snow day. I remember one week (1957? 1958?) when we had four days off in a single week ... heaven.

When I began my teaching career in 1966, I soon discovered I had that same heavenly feeling when a snow day was called. A huge sense of relief. I could sleep later, get caught up on work (mostly, paper grading), etc. 

So on a day like today—a day of overnight snow—I would have awakened (as a kid, as a teacher) to see this glorious sight you see in the pic at the top of the page.

But if you look closely at the pic, you'll see that the roads are clear. Yep, the snow coats the trees and lawns and plants but not the most crucial element in a potential snow day.

So grief would have immediately followed that discovery. Maybe even some ... bad words?

The birds and squirrels that inhabit (uh, dominate) our yard seem confused more than distraught this morning. Where did that white come from?

I was due this morning to go into the University Hospitals lab here in Hudson to get a blood draw for one of my regular tests, and so I was thrilled to see the snow, knowing I could postpone the poke a day.

But then I saw the roads, thought Aw, I'll go tomorrow anyway.

And down I went to make some Keurig coffee, to heat and eat one of the apricot-walnut scones that Joyce and I made yesterday, to slump into my "morning chair," catch up on email, FB, and read fifty pages of the book I'm about to finish.

An Old Guy's Snow Day!

Noon: The sun is out; the snow is fleeing fast; the squirrels and birds are now starting to recognize their world (our lawn and trees or—from their point-of-view—their lawn and trees).

Do You Need to Read?

I'm reading this 2020 novel that bears on the cover a very positive blurb by Kate Atkinson, who's now one of my favorite writers. (The book’s a gift from some long-time friends here in town.)

Anyway, it's about a retirement home in England where a group of the residents have formed what they call "The Thursday Murder Club"--because that's what they do on Thursdays: meet and talk about murder cases--open cases.

But then a killing happens involving someone whom they know (a crass developer), and so they dive in. Very clever so far (I'm about 1/3 of the way through).

This morning I chortled at this exchange between a young woman cop (whom the TMC has coaxed into helping with the case) and an odd man she's about to sleep with--yes, "sleep with" in that way.

Part of their pre-coital conversation at a restaurant:

"At one point Donna had asked him who his favorite author was. For her an acceptable answer would be Harlan Coben, Kurt Vonnegut, or any woman. Gregor had sagely replied that he 'didn't believe in books' and that 'you only learn in this life through having experiences, and keeping your mind open'" (124).

Of course, our author, Richard Osman, is just having some fun here--and showing that this couple is, well, doomed. One's a reader; the other one, not.

But the exchange provoked in me a little bit of thinking (about all I'm capable of these days).

The dichotomy--to read or not to read?--is silly (as the author well knows). In my life, the mentors and colleagues and students and friends and other folks whom I admire are those who do both; one activity supplements and complements the other.

As I'm now (sadly) learning, you do what you can physically--until you can't. You go places, you do things--you try to do as much as you can until Time says, "You’re done."

But you can't do everything, experience everything, go everywhere, and so you read about the things you don't know, visit on the page the places you didn't visit, read about the lives of people whose lives have been very different from your own: culture, race, religion, and so many other categories.

And you try like hell not to be offended and "cancel" those people, etc. who aren't like you or yours.

That's what bothers me about teachers now often having to give "trigger warnings"--warnings to students that they could encounter in a novel you've assigned something that they might find "offensive." Lord, I'm glad I did not have to endure that as a student. For one of the wonderful things about reading is that it's virtually certain that you will read things that will make you uncomfortable.

Good. That's the way it's supposed to be. That’s the way I want it to be. That’s how you learn.

Otherwise, you'll find your reading confined to Dr. Seuss.

Ooops, bad example!

The Trees on Our Streets--and in Our Minds

Joyce just finished reading Richard Powers' novel The Overstory, a powerfully wonderful novel about people and trees and "civilization." You can't really read that book without thinking of the trees on your street, in your neighborhood, etc.

We have all sorts of trees around us--from weeping cherries to evergreens, to magnolias, to oaks and maples. And many more.

Our bedroom is upstairs in the front of the house, facing the street, so I can lie in bed and, employing the streetlights, watch the seasons slowly advance as I lie there.

I like all the seasons (from the comfort of our home--if not outside). I watch the leaves slowly appear, flourish, change color, fall to the ground. And for much of the year, of course, the branches are bare.

Doesn't matter. My mind plays games with the configuration of nothingness. I see shapes where there are none, really—nothing but branches and, sometimes, leaves. For several years I've been able to see a capital A, reminding me of The Scarlet Letter and poor Hester Prynne. I think the A I see looks exactly like the one on the cover of the paperback copy I taught in English III for ten years at Western Reserve Academy.

A few years ago, I was positive I saw--when the trees were leaved--my own face, beard and all. (And, thankfully, not white.)

Last year, among the bare branches, I saw the face of Davy Crockett, coonskin cap and all.

We humans are programmed to see faces and pictures in the trees, especially faces--a survival adaptation, I believe.* Any splash on any wall or window can evoke anyone from Shakespeare to Han Solo to Bilbo Baggins. Any cloud can show us a cat, a dog, a shark, Wonder Woman.

It amuses me to think that some playful dryad arranges things just for me, to entertain me a little before she hands me over to Morpheus.

But, of course, it’s my own playful mind creating images where there are none.

A few years ago I was reading the complete poems of A. E. Housman, a poet I’d really come to admire. Back in Hiram High School, senior year, our teacher had asked us to memorize Housman’s “When I Was One and Twenty” (link to poem). I didn’t do too well, but, subsequently, I’ve memorized it—got it down cold.

Anyway, when I came across “Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now” in the Housman volume, I knew I had to memorize it, as well.

And so I did.

And it, like Powers’ novel, continues ruffling in my mind, ruffling like, well, like leaves in a breeze.

*Some people have the inability to recognize faces, a condition called prosopagnosia. Link to info about it.

** A Shropshire Lad  2: Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

BY A. E. HOUSMAN (1859-1936)

 Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

 

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

 

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

Remembering Frank Norris (1870-1902)

Last night, Joyce and I were streaming some of the new documentary film by Ken Burns about Hemingway (first episode). The film had just dealt with The Sun Also Rises (and, in part, about EH's treatment of a Jewish character) when the "lights out" message arrived imperiously in my brain, but just before I drifted off (I always go to sleep first), Joyce asked me how my literature professors had dealt with anti-Semitism in my courses.

I didn’t remember much, but I did remember one episode clearly. It was at Hiram College in the mid-1960s in one of Dr. Ravitz's wonderful American Thought courses. We were reading Frank Norris' 1901 novel, The Octopus: A Story of California, the first volume in his projected trilogy, "The Epic of the Wheat." In it is an offensive Jewish character, S. Behrman, and to be honest, I hadn't noticed the ethnic/religious angle (that's how dumb I was!). 

I told Joyce that Dr. Ravitz (who is Jewish) had not gone off on a rant but merely asked us if we had noticed anything about his character. And, once again, a question from Dr. Ravitz had rattled me awake--neither for the first nor the last time. Of course that character is offensive, and I (as I said), a naïve Christian boy from Oklahoma, simply had never considered it.

One of my first major term papers for Dr. Ravitz was about Norris; I got so interested in him that I read as many other books of his as I could--even driving down to the Cleveland Public Library to acquire Norris' Vandover and the Brute (1914, published posthumously), a sort of werewolf novel about Vandover, a wannabe artist who sinks into a deep dissipation (drinking, gambling), while his lupine traits become more and more dominant.

I still have that paper (no, you may not see it), and I subsequently went on to read all of his novels. Joyce read a lot of his work in grad school. 

And so, how strange last night, lights and phones off, that neither one of us could remember the name of The Octopus; neither one of us could remember S. Behrman’s name.

Early this morning, Joyce consulted her phone—and thus “remembered.”

I don’t know if Norris is taught much anymore—except, perhaps, in American lit. classes in college and grad school?

But it’s a novel that continued the process of opening my mind—though Memory, once again, betrayed me last night.

But I realize it betrayed me with the less important features of the book, has retained for me with the essence of it all.

Wonder, Gratitude, and Fear

Yesterday morning

 Yesterday, I returned to Open Door Coffee Co. for the first time in over a year. The reasons—some of them—are obvious. Covid fears. I'm in a particularly vulnerable demographic. (I'm 76; I have cancer.) And, early on in the Covid crisis, there were people fighting the necessity to wear a face mask. (OD and other stores had signs requiring them—but out in the street: very different. Maskless were everywhere on the sidewalks.) One day as I was walking over to the shop in Covid's early days, I was wearing my mask on the sidewalk, and a guy in a truck slowed, looked at me, bellowed at me: "F-----g idiot!"

Another reason: I was starting to have real issues with my balance; soon, I knew, I couldn't walk that far (about 1/4 mile each way), and I had stopped driving anywhere: I had passed out a few times at home, so being behind the wheel seemed an awfully bad—and selfish—idea.

And third: My days were filling up with medical appointments--the cancer center--and trips to various specialists trying to discover the source of my dizziness. I'm currently seeing two neurologists at University Hospitals and have undergone a plethora of tests. No answer yet.

And I’ve just learned I need another eye procedure. (I’ve already had cataract surgery on both eyes.)

But ... spring arrived. I seemed to be moving around better. So, yesterday, I decided to give it a try. I let the coffee shop know, and Joyce drove me over, and using my new walker and with Joyce as a guide, I made it to “my” chair, where friends greeted me—as did the baristas. I got my order, crawled carefully to my chair, and proceeded to pretend that everything was now as it always had been.

I took a pic from my seat and posted in on FB along with the caption: “I’m back!” (Such arrogance and ignorance—two sons of Folly.)

Joyce headed off to her hair appointment—after taking a pic (the one you see above).

And, for a while, it was exhilitirating. I read the New York Times on my iPad, I texted to my family the latest little daily vocabulary doggerel I’d written (as is my wont), I finished Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House (a novel I’d been reading) and did a little FB post about it.

I talked a little with people, nodded at others—most of whom I hadn’t seen in over a year.

I was nearly ecstatic.

And then I had to go to the men’s room.

As I carefully got off my chair and reached for the walker, I stumbled—and nearly fell. A couple of customers saw me and hurried over, preventing a disaster. And Nigel, the owner’s son and as fine a young man as I’ve ever known, quickly acquired an office chair with wheels, got me into it, and helped me into the bathroom, then helped me back to the table, helped me back into the chair.

And now I was afraid. I’d thought I could avoid such scenes. I sat there—embarrassed, ashamed.

The pic I’d posted on FB by now had about 200 Likes—and many comments of congratulation, etc. I felt like a fraud.

Joyce texted to tell me her hair appointment was over—should she come over?

“Yes.”

When she arrived, she helped me down to my walker—carefully, carefully—then out to the car, parked in the handicap spot (I now have a legal blue parking sign that we place on the rear-view mirror when we need it), helped me into the car.

We drove around a little: She wanted to show me how the trees are greening and blooming—unlike me.

By the time I went to bed, I knew I shouldn’t risk a visit again—not yet. And so this morning I made a most difficult call to the shop, letting Nigel know I wouldn’t be there today.

A little later, I messaged Deborah to let her know that I really couldn’t be sure when I’d be back again—and to thank her for all the kindness I felt alive and humming in the shop. She answered graciously—no surprise.

So ... now what? I’l continue seeing my doctors, hoping they will discover what’s going on, hopeful they will find an effective treatment, if not a cure.

And every morning, reading in my chair at home, I will grieve for what remains painfully elusive.

Baking with Joyce

 I've been baking our bread since the early years of our marriage (1969). Back then, yeast; now (since 1986), sourdough. Those who visit this site may recall that I've written the history of that sourdough starter here more than once.

Just a quick recap. In the summer of 1986, our son Steve and I went to Skagway, Alaska, and Dawson City, Yukon, to pursue my dawning interest in Jack London and The Call of the Wild--a book I'd taught to him the previous year in 8th grade. Also--we were following the diary of my great-grandfather, Addison Clark Dyer, who'd gone on the Klondike Gold Rush about the time London did.

Anyway, in Skagway I bought some sourdough starter--and ever since then I've been baking with it, pretty much once a week (sometimes more)--mostly loaves of bread, waffles, muffins, biscuits, pizza dough. Nothing fancy.

My routine was to feed the dough on Saturday night, then mix and bake with it on Sunday morning.

But then ... Age arrived. And some Disability—some persistent Dizziness.

And after a while, I just couldn't do it any longer.

So, about a year ago, I froze the starter in the weak hope that I might one day get back to it.

And I missed baking horribly.

But then Joyce volunteered to help--no surprise: I know no kinder heart.

So we decided to give it a try. I revived the dough and off we went. I used to do the whole process alone: feed, separate, mix, shape, bake, clean up.

But now we're a team. I feed the dough on Saturday morning. Let it rise all day. Then separate: the starter for next time in its container, the remainder in a bowl for Sunday; both go into the fridge.

Early Sunday a.m., Joyce takes out the baking portion, and we let it warm up for a couple of hours. I get out the initial implements and other things I will need (bowl, etc.).

As it nears mixing time, Joyce sets up a tall chair for me, then puts out the kneading board, the sea salt, the honey, the butter (to melt), the milk (to mix).

I get the dough into the electric mixer; we move the chair (and me!) over to the mixer, where Joyce hands the ingredients to me as I mix them. The last thing she brings: the flours I use, a bit of oat, a lot of whole wheat, a little white. I then use the kneading blade in the mixer; she helps me carry that dough out to the kneading board, where I knead it 100 times, adding a little flour as needed, then put it in a large bowl (that Joyce has greased); Joyce covers it with Saran Wrap, puts it on a rack, and we let it rise for however long it takes—2-3 hours.

During which time I NAP.

Not long after lunch, the dough having risen, I cut it and shape it as needed, then set it aside for Rise #2 in whatever device(s) we’re using. We clean up the kneading/shaping area.

And NAP 2.

Up I rise to pre-heat the oven, then pop in the bread and cross my fingers ... even after all these years, I’m never sure.

What I AM sure of is Joyce’s devotion to this project, to me. I tell her over and over again: “I could not do this without you.” (I couldn’t.) 

And she responds with some form of: “I know how much it means to you.”

The Return of Ferdinand

 

Some of you may know that for the past several years I have begun each day in this fashion—after I’ve showered and dressed and whatnot.

Down in my study I turn the page in my Merriam-Webster word-a-day calendar, look at the new word, and quickly compose  a little doggerel for my son’s family, then text it to each of them—at Christmas I give them a notebook full of all those pages, all those “poems.”

Anyway, today the word was affable, and for some reason I thought of the children’s book from 1936, The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf, a story I have known my entire life.

Later, in 1938, it won an Oscar for a cartoon short subject (Link to movie.)

So, today, here’s the bit of doggerel I came up with:

AFFABLE = 1: BEING PLEASANT AND

AT EASE IN TALKING TO OTHERS

2: CHARACTERIZED BY EASE AND

FRIENDLINESS

 

He surely seemed so AFFABLE,

That Ferdinand, the famous bull.

 

He’d rather sniff a flower than

Fight fearsome beast or fearsome man.

 

But then he fell in love (a cow),

And he just changed—was fearsome now.

 

So beast and man avoided him—

And his new calf? They called him Tim.

I don’t know why I thought of that book, that story, but I did. I remember loving it, though I recall, as well, how the story puzzled me: I was a boy, and non-violence seemed ... weird to me. I was caught up in late 1940s and 1950s television and was especially enamored of cowboy shows and movies. I don’t remember too many of them that concluded non-violently.

Later on I understood more clearly the courage of Ferdinand’s sticking to what his heart told him. Had to respect that.

Our young son loved the book, too, though I recall his being puzzled by Ferdinand’s choices (so it goes when you happen to be male).

Anyway, I loved my journey back into the story today. I hope Munro Leaf, wherever he may be, will forgive the alterations—and, okay, desecrations.

Cancel Shakespeare? FIE!

 

I've read about this now and then—about the "canceling" of Shakespeare. Not entirely, of course, but certain plays for certain reasons (say, The Merchant of Venice or Othello), and the other day this article popped up in my email: "The Case Against Shakespeare," a piece by a teacher and a huge fan of the Bard.  (Link to article.)

The writer is suggesting that we should put off teaching any Shakespeare until, oh, senior year in high school—teach some sonnets earlier but not a full-length play.

I disagree with that strongly (as many of my former students will recall). I taught plays to 8th-12th graders and had a lot of fun doing so—having more fun the more I learned myself about the Bard and his times.

I taught The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Othello (this last, to college freshmen). And as the years went on, I began to expand how I approached each play.

I should back up and say that my own high school (and early college) experiences were not especially good. Caesar and Macbeth in high school, Macbeth again my freshman year in college. In none of those classes did the teachers make much of an effort to introduce us to the Bard or his times. Basically, we were on our own with the footnotes (and, okay, Cliffsnotes). As a result I got no true "feel" for the plays—or the writer—at all.

So when I began teaching Shrew to my 8th graders (1985-86) I was pretty ignorant myself about all of it. But teaching, as I wrote here the other day, I'd always seen as a chance to educate myself as well as the kids.

And so I did.

Before starting I would tell them that if Shakespeare were to somehow appear at their lunch table, he wouldn't understand a thing of what they were talking about or doing. In order to communicate with us, he would have to learn about us and our world.

So we have to do the same with his language and his world.

Soon, my 8th graders and I were devoting an entire 9-week marking period to the enterprise—learning about Elizabethan music, games (we played some), religion, history, schooling, dress, family life, etc. By the time we started the play, we were pretty much imbedded in the era—a couple of years I even required them to use forms of thee and thou when they spoke in class.

Then we read the play aloud, together, pausing for discussion and explanation, before we saw the film. And every year—every single year—I caught things I’d missed on previous readings—and kids would say things I’d never thought of. I found it exciting.

With Hamlet, in my final years, I stopped when we finished Act IV, saw the movie (Mel Gibson!), before going through Act V. I didn't want to spoil the end for them before they saw it.

Oh, and I loved beginning to read the play with them. The first line is “Who’s there?” And I would stop the reading and say, “Man, this is a hard play!”

The other thing we did regularly was memorize lines. I  asked my 8th graders to memorize one of two sonnets—“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” and “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun.” And, also, a passage from the play we were reading.

My eighth graders also had to recite that sonnet in front of the class. One year I had a young man who refused to do it—willing to take an F. I decided to bribe him. I offered him a dollar. No. Five dollars. No—and by now his classmates were calling out, “Come ON, man.” I took a look in my wallet. “Ten dollars.” By now there was near-chaos in the class. So he stood and walked to the front of the room while the other kids cheered.

He stumbled through it—but completed it all right. I had the ten waiting for him.

He refused it. “Nah,” he said. “It’s Shakespeare.”

Indeed it is.

Close to Voting Time

In yesterday's mail my absentee ballot arrived for the May election here in Ohio. There's a local issue I'm really going to support and vote for: funding for the public library. How could I ever vote against that?

I couldn't.

My parents (both teachers) taught me never to vote against a school issue. I never did. And, later, when I was a teacher myself, I saw the consequences of NO votes. I didn't just see them; I felt them--as did the students. Larger classes, decline in funding for supplies and textbooks and school activities, etc. Some years it was awfully grim.

There's a lot of talk these days (talk is a generous word for some of the vitriol I read in newspapers, see online and on TV) about making voting more difficult in order to, you know, eliminate voter fraud--a condition that all reasonable research reveals just doesn't really exist--certainly not in the massive numbers that losers of elections claim. And much (most?) of what occurs is accidental.

If I lived in some of these states that are clamping down on voting, I couldn't vote. There is no way I could stand in line for hours; I couldn't really stand in line for minutes. I grow so dizzy so fast that I would hit the floor very quickly. And, of course, I think about my mother, who died at 98, who was basically immobile the latter years of her life but still voted absentee all those years. As did my father, who died at 87 and had the same voting experiences.

I think of people who don't have easy access to transportation, who can't get away from work to stand for hours somewhere, of people who are out of town--or the country--on business, of people who ... those pictures I’ve seen on the news of people in wheelchairs in endless lines were just wrenching ...

Meanwhile, I think with gratitude how easy Ohio makes it for voters--and I think of my mother and father, totally immobile, still sharp mentally, lying on their backs in their Massachusetts care facility and filling in their ballots over the years. And how grateful I am that Massachusetts made it easy for them to so because that state still believes in democracy--and democracy means "majority rule," not “minority manipulation.”

And, of course, many of the politicians who bellow about “in-person voting” do not vote in person.

Of course we need to make elections secure (we do)—of course we must make certain that our results are as accurate as possible.

But we also must make certain that it is not an ordeal to vote. Yes, it’s a privilege, but it’s also a right. And not everyone has the leisure, the transportation, the health, etc. to comply with our ever-more draconian voting regulations. It’s hard enough trying to overcome the gerrymandering of which both parties have been guilty.

 

Learning to Write from My Students

In the 1972-73 school year, I was very busy: I was teaching English/Language Arts full-time to 7th graders at the Aurora (Ohio) Middle School, Joyce and I were dealing with our little boy (born in July 1972), and both of us were part-time students in grad school.

So it's no real surprise that one day that year--one Friday--I arrived at school without a lesson plan in mind or on paper.

But as I was walking to my first class, quaking, I got an idea. And after I entered the room, took attendance, quieted the kids down, etc., I unloaded my idea on the kids in words like this: "Today I'm going to ask you to write about anything you want to."

Strange looks.

"Anything?" asked one boy who already had some naughty ideas.

"Anything that's rated G or PG," I said. "Nothing more." The boy's face faded.

Lots of questions about grades and length.

Then I surprised them (and me): "And I'm going to do it, too."

Looks and sounds of surprise.

"We’ll write for about 30 minutes," I said, "then volunteers will read aloud."

And thus was born what soon we were all calling "Friday Writing." And it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable days of the week--for most if not all of us.

Let's back up now. As I said, I was working on my master's degree at Kent State--and soon my Ph.D. I was writing scholarly papers for class--the kind of pieces that were predictably arranged: thesis statements, topic sentences, introductions and conclusions. And I have to say that I didn't like that kind of writing. I didn't know what I did like, but I knew it wasn't that.

So that first day we all sat at our desks, notebooks open, and slowly began. I started writing about my boyhood and found the words flowing out as if I'd turned on a spigot. Most of the kids were seemingly having the same experience. A few were having trouble, and one of them asked me, "I can't think of what to write about."

And I replied, "Write what it feels like when you don't know what to write about."

And so he did. (And so I did a number of times.)

I have to say I was often dazzled by what the kids did. Some wrote diaries; some wrote continuing stories; some wrote letters; some wrote poems.

And then I did, too.

I started a YA novel called Bob the Slob, finished it about a year later, and, later on, I revised it and published in on Kindle Direct, where it still abides. Lonely.

In 1978, Ph.D. complete, I took a job at Lake Forest College, decided I missed middle school kids a lot, resigned, tried to get back to Aurora: no openings. So both Joyce and I took jobs at Western Reserve Academy until a job back in Aurora did open up; I snatched it.

Right away I started Friday Writing again, but didn't always do it on Fridays, so I began calling it Free Writing, a practice I continued until the mid-90s, when Ohio introduced a "proficiency test" in writing, a test that was very formulaic, and so I could no longer devote 20% of our week to the "free" kind.

I was near retirement by then and decided I would take it ASAP: I just didn't like what these tests were forcing me to do--and be.

Anyway, all those years had really relaxed my writing, had shown me that I could entertain and instruct my students--and vice-versa.

From their examples, I learned to "loosen up," to find what sort of writing I was good at and to try to get better. (This blog, really, is a result of their alteration of the Writing Me.)

Oh, and I almost forgot: In May 1976 I published the cover story "When Kids Are Free to Write" in English Journal, the official publication of the National Council of Teachers of English--and (brag, brag) won their writing award for the year. My mom was thrilled: She had published in that journal, too!

Oh, and I almost forgot: In May 1976, when that journal arrived at our house in Kent, my wife drove it and our three-year-old son over to Aurora Middle School and brought it to my classroom. I stopped class. Told the kids what it was. Not one of them had ever heard of English Journal.

And so it goes as one begins to understand modesty, humility. My students had to teach me.

Educating Myself While Teaching

Here's a confession: When I began teaching in 1966 at age 21, I didn't know a lot.

Here's another confession: When I finished teaching in the spring of 2011, I still didn't know a lot.

Oh, sure, I knew more than I'd known in 1966, but considering all there is to know in the world, I still didn't know a lot. And still don’t.

But this is what I did, right from the beginning. I looked on teaching as an opportunity to educate my students, sure, but also to educate myself.

In bed at night that first year in my tiny, practically bare apartment in Twinsburg, Ohio, I made myself read an hour each night of U. S. history (I was teaching it to my seventh graders), an hour of important fiction (for I was teaching English, as well). I can remember only one book I read that year, a book about the framing of our Constitution: Miracle at Philadelphia, 1966, by Catherine Drinker Bowen. I think it was in that book that I learned that B. Franklin was opposed to the bald eagle as our national bird; he preferred the wild turkey.

I kept up the reading habit for many years--and it's only accelerated in recent (retired, fairly immobile) times.

But it wasn't just reading. In the summers Joyce and I drove all over the country to see (and photograph) literary sites: authors' homes (and graves), places that were settings for novels. Sometimes one of us would get completely obsessed. Joyce and I drove to see about every place that has anything to do with John Brown, from Missouri to upstate New York; I got so impassioned about Jack London and The Call of the Wild that I went to the Yukon twice, hiked the Chilkoot Trail (prominent in the novella), read all his other books--wrote a couple of my own.

Other obsessions: Anne Frank (went to the Netherlands, saw the place where she hid; went to Germany to see the camp where she died, Bergen-Belsen), Edgar Poe (saw the remaining places where he lived, saw his grave), Mary Shelley (traveled all over England, Wales, Switzerland, Italy in search of the places where she'd been--and places relevant to Frankenstein's creature), etc.

I also tried to read the complete works of the writers I was teaching, including Shakespeare, and Joyce and I saw live productions of every play he wrote. Both of us have been to Stratford-upon-Avon to see the Bard sites there.

I maintain that habit today: If I read something I really like by a writer (Elizabeth Strout, Kate Atkinson, Rachel Cusk, Richard Ford. Maggie O’Farrell, et al.), well, I then proceed to read every other damn thing that writer published.

This continues with mysteries (which I love): Robert B. Parker, Michael B. Connelly, Elmore Leonard, and (recently) Val McDermid—and many others.

And on and on.

I had tremendous fun doing all of this, and I like to think that my students benefitted, as well.

I know that when I was a student, I profited more from teachers who actually practiced what they preached--and who loved doing so—not those who stuck to the same old sagging lesson plan year after year.

Now, unable to do much more (cursed bodies!), I still read several hours a day--reading books I should have read years ago (the complete Leatherstocking Tales, the works of Anthony Trollope, for example), reading book by writers I've always meant to read (In Search of Lost Time, Don Quixote, The Three Musketeers and its sequel, Twenty Years After), reading new writers--at least new to me.

Doing this helps me continue to feel alive--at least above the shoulders.

And it's incredibly touching, too, when friends (Facebook and otherwise) and former students follow a recommendation and dive into the book(s), too—nothing like flailing together through the surging streams.

I feel I remain a teacher--unpaid in money, paid in gratitude--precious to me, life-sustaining for me.

Dream, Dream, Dream

 

Don and Phil Everly—
The Everly Brothers

It was almost exactly 63 years ago (I was in 8th grade) when the Everly Brothers released "All I Have to Do Is Dream"--a song that featured some lines that could tell you more than any other thing that the song was not of recent generations: 

I can make you mine, taste your lips of wine
Anytime night or day
Only trouble is, gee whiz,
I'm dreamin' my life away.

Gee whiz? I haven't heard that lately! (Link to song.)

I'm thinking about this song today because I had a weird one last night--a dream, that is. It was one of my I-am-a-teacher dreams--but not much like any of the other hundreds (thousands?) I've had before.

In this one, I woke up late, hopped in the car, and hurried to school. It was not a building I recognized, but I saw some old Harmon School colleagues. I ran inside, and it was not till then that I realized I had not dressed in my "teacher clothes"; instead, I was still in my shorty summer pj's. Light blue and very attractive on me, I must say.

As I hurried down the hall, no one noticed me (whew), but then I saw it was an hour earlier than I'd thought. (But what were all those kids and teachers doing there?)

So I sprinted back out to the car, headed home, dressed, and ... woke up. Relieved ... very relieved.

Now, I will not psychoanalyze myself--nor permit anyone else to do so. It was just a dream, right? Didn't mean anything.

I'm just glad that it wasn't real--that no one noticed me (however that happened). But, lying in bed late last night, I felt that song from Hiram School days surge back into my head--especially that line from the Chorus: "I'm dreamin' my life away."

So it seems.

*Don (1937-)  and Phil (1939-2014) Everly.

Down in the Valley

 

“Down in the Valley”—a song my father used to sing on our family car trips whenever we descended into a valley. Later, I did the same with my family, though my voice hardly matched my father’s magical, clear, unwavering tenor.

Joyce and I drive “down in the valley” a lot, especially during the snow-less months—the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (see pic above) to see the various wonders—and, often, to visit Szalay’s Farm Market for fresh produce in the spring and summer and fall.

One day, in late March 2014, I was so dazzled by the sights and sites and thoughts, that, when we got home, I started writing lines, which on April 3 I finished and shared with my friends on Facebook. I thought I’d share those lines again today on this blog post, so here they are ...

In the Valley

March 21, 2014

(Cuyahoga Valley National Park)

 

We drive down through the valley on

this day in spring. The snow is gone,

except in places hidden from

the frigid sun—we notice some

between the fallen trees (this snow

a visitor who just won’t go).

But balmy temperatures have not—

so far—here in Ohio—got

a grasp, or efficacious way

to force the breezes to obey

the hopes of men. Not that the air

has any interest, any care,

for what we wish. And Nature takes

her own direction—never makes

an error that she cares about—

does not display a single doubt.

This evening, though, she seems to be

in such a mood as to agree

that maybe it is time—or near

the time—to soften. So the deer

we see there in the meadow seem

more calm tonight, there by the stream.

No jagged sense of panic jars

their movements. Not the passing cars.

No, not the fear of hunger. There 

is hope among the deer. The air

no longer terrifies. And then—

we turn—another road. Oh, when

will spring again commence its reign?

(This end-of-winter sad refrain

so often sung—and often heard—

a vernal plaint from bitter bird.)

And now we’re with the river as,

along the crooked route it has,

we flow, so riverine ourselves,

like minor gods—or river elves.

The absent foliage has made

it visible. The thinner shade

allows the sun in feeble stage

to melt the ice—one way to gauge

the potency of moving streams

that course through life like fluid dreams.

We see, these transmutating days,

effects the sun’s artistic rays

have on the grass, on plants whose leaves

have lingered on the stalk, the sheaves

that never made it from the field—

perhaps their fates were finally sealed

when frost and snow arrived at night

and draped them all in shrouds of white.

This evening light instructs us, views

revealing varied shaded hues

of brown. From chocolate to tan—

a pleasing, subtle, spectral span

across a color often named

with words like “drab.” Who can be blamed?

The color brown elicits no

excitement in the fashion show

that Nature mounts. But here—tonight—

this gentle fading evening light

reminds us of those other names

we use. A word like “bronze” proclaims

that brown has other suits to wear

and does so in this valley where

we see them all—the beige and bay,

the copper, cinnamon. Today

they’re all distinct here in the wood.

Belittled brown’s misunderstood

by those who haven’t seen its hues

so varied in this sunset’s views.

And then we turn toward the west

to see the place where herons nest.

They have a valley rookery

so near the road that we can see

them easily. And traffic stops

to see the birds arrayed in tops

of leafless trees. We marvel how

such slender branches bear the weight

of heavy birds as they create

their nests that soon will hold their young.

And here we are, almost among

these wonders who ignore us all

and thereby hold us all in thrall.

Such birds just seem impossible—

our reason dictates that the pull

of gravity should draw them down—

the way a heavy heart can drown

in sorrow. Yet we see them there

just hanging in the valley air,

surveying limbs where they can land

beside a mate—seems so offhand,

descent onto a perfect space,

insouciant, done with subtle grace.

The birds of course are now in pairs—

the spots they’ve picked are clearly theirs,

and it will not be long until

the eggs arrive, and soon the thrill

of seeing there—high in the trees—

new life. (Oh, there will be unease

among the chicks as they survey

the world below and learn the way

to sway in wind high in a tree,

then spread their wings and find they’re free

to ride the rivers in the air

that flow from here to everywhere.)

With darkness near we leave the nests

and drive away, now grateful guests,

and gradually ascend the rise

while sunset decorates the skies.

We’re silent, knowing river, trees,

and brown and birds are memories.

The snow will fall again this week,

but, later, one of us will speak:

“Let’s drive to see the birds tonight”—

and thus we’ll spend remaining light.