A Modest Proposal re #43

All the discussion about cutting off congressional funding for the brave, dedicated servicemen and women who are laying down their lives for “Operation Monkey’s Vendetta” (not the official name) have mis-directed their efforts. It is in the interest of freedom, of freedom loving legal citizens of the United States — and the united state, a way of regarding, with respect, fellow citizens who believe “building free nations” should begin in our homeland –  to send home the most chronic, crucial element now threatening the destruction of our nation as we used to know it. As you may have already guessed, by gazing at the picture which accompanies this essay, that element is #43, whom you may know as our president.

The presence of US service men and women in Iraq are only part of the malaise of discredited moral presence in the world body politic. Another is the sniggering impunity with which our nation’s Attorney General who treated proven, professional assistant attoneys general who didn’t sing the siren song of the crony creationists to whom #43 owes his place in infamy. The list goes on. Any healing physician knows that heart disease is not cured by fixing capillaries infusing life force into body extremeties. Heart disease is cured at the heart. This simple logic is the basis for my modest proposal.

Congress should desist from maintaining funding that pays the salary of #43.

If he can’t live in Washington, where the White House is, he will probably go back to Texas, and it’s likely he’ll take his grab ass buddies with him when he goes. This prospect offers the greatest hope for the cause of freedom. Maybe he will be forced into productive employment: something he had little use for in the Air Force Air National Guard and vertainly not in Washihngton.

Cutting off his funding is key. We know you don’t have to live in the Executive Mansion to govern. Illinois Governor Rod B’vich may not even know where the Governor’s Mansion is; he doesn’t even come to Springfield (the capital of Illinois) much. But still we pay him. Go figure.  Now that #43′s daughters are becoming maturing young citizens easing into careers of their own, their father and mother may not need the kind of money paid to Freedom’s elected top executive. Moving back to Texas won’t be so bad, and he can probably be more productive on the ranch. We know he can do less harm there.

That is why I urge everyone reading this proposal to contact your congresspersons and ask for the elimination of funding for the office of President until January 20, 2008. The time to hesitate is through. This is no time to wallow in the mire.

Thanks for reading.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

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Ommmm Inprovement

Don’t kid yourself, bubba ; karma kounts! One of a parade of minor ephiphanies wafting across my transom lately is this:

To live in summer, one must engage the spring.

Feeling the hot breath of my waning zeal over the past few weeks, I decided to stop letting my resentments rule my life and to concentrate on the natural “me.” This is the Me friends find on my book shelves, the Me you find at most of my web pages, in the art and music I cherish and starting last week . . . . my back yard.

One of the last things I did last fall, before the cold set in, I raked my front lawn and dumped the leaves onto a stretch of my concrete driveway that passes through my fenced in back yard. The pile of leaves over the winter has resembled an Indian “long house” rising from the serene and level lie of the turf bhind Casa Kreplach (the name of mon estate). I went to the trouble last fall because I wanted to keep up “a good front,” so to speak. An ill-attended front yard gives the false impression I don’t care about the world. An ill-attended back yard gave the impression I don’t care about my neighbors, an accurate impression. One or two of them (under the pointed sheet of anonymity, they both look alike) has reported my back yard’s state of chronic disrepair to the health authorities. A few times, it was because the grass was longer than ten inches. I missed having to pay a $400 fine by the hair that used to be on my chinny-chin chin). In recent years, the eggregious dismay in the tender hearts of my nebbaz was incited more than twice by the excess, prodigious proliferation of poop (belonging to my Labradors Thelonius Dog and Slick Richard; not earnest blogmeister).

A few weeks ago I decided in that epiphany-ita it was time to stop punishing my nebs for their wrathful actions and start rewarding my own dang self. I began a daily routine that has worked a minor wonderment. If I get out of the sackeroo by 9 a, I always take an hour for lunch, and usually watch the noon replay of the Charlie Rose Show on WSEC. Sometimes I eat nothing more than a few pieces of bread and butter and sip iced tea. In mid-Marzo, I added a half an hour of backyard time at 1, or before 1:00 if Charlie is off his feed so to speak (meaning the show doesn’t nourish my mind as it usually does). The first day out, I raked the driveway leaves I had placed there last October down toward th back fence; as much as I could do without trashing about like a creationist and getting too tuckered out to resume office activity. The usual, web page updates, photo processing and my daily love note to Jodie Foster <— JUST KIDDING! I’ve done it every day I’ve not sub taught. And by Yaweigh, (I know the correct spelling, but I don’t want to write it in vain.) it’s making a dif’ence!.

The driveway leaves were redistributed in the back part of the yard, the area belonging to my Vine Street Nature Conservancy (VSNC) . By far, the most daunting challenge has been raking my back lawn with its fall and winter of leaves untouched by landscape implements. The accumlation of six months of accumulated dog waste in various stages of “return to earth” has come up along with all the leaves, and as I’m sure the “eyes guys” in the houses east and west will tell you, not a “carn sarn minute” (from the 50s ABC TV comedy series The Real McCoys) too soonly! Today, I raked the detritus from between the dog houses the rest of the way to the back fence. There’s still a long way to go, but I’m enjoying the exercise. I’m also enjoying the looks of the back yard (with its many minor faults still awaiting my attention) more than I have in five years.

This effort is also an affirmation of my belief that I will hold on to this fragile thing called life until summer at least. I don’t know HOW, but I believe I will. The voluneer maples in the VSNC area are budding. They will grow, and I will watch them. If I can find grass seed I can afford, I will also witness progress there, the joy of “leaves of grass” as Whitman might have said. I’m building new karma with this. Here’s hoping it generates good-karma results for the world. It already has for me.

Thanks for reading this.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

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8th Graders Dig Lindsay’s “Broncho!”

Must tell you how impressed I am with Lincoln Magnet School on 11th. I’ve sub taught there four times, and every time I depart that building, I know I could not have better spent my time, even if I had been a passenger in the back seat of an F-16 during a practice flight with the US Air Force Thunderbirds. Some schools in this city exude person-to-person warmth of the kind encountered at family reunions where they’ve all missed each other for the last 10 years. Others, especially in the classroom, lead the sub to believe he has been dropped into Abu Graibe Prison, and the primary focus for the subber is to keep the subees quiet and not grabbing each other.

The most daunting part of subbing to many newcomers is engaging students in conversation connected to the lesson at hand. Today, a science book I’ve used three or four times this year was figuratively thrust into my hands, and I was instructed by the very competent and convivial Mrs. vdS, to lead them in reading and discussing the text on pages I had never seen before. No big deal you say? The students were doing the reading aloud anyway so all I had to do was keep selecting new readers every three paragraphs or so? Not quite. We also had a study sheet. Students woud read to a place where we could answer three or four study sheet questions based on what WE had just read.. . . and resume reading. The challenge is to keep young minds focused on questions at hand and discourage outbursts of questions and unrelated banter, however well-intended it may be. Impetuous talk waters down the lesson the way water dilutes wine. With these students in first period,  it went well, though I did feel I was too busy following the students (fanning away mosquitoes) to concentrate on the alligators (teaching and leading the learning process). Things became smmother with each new class. During teacher prep, I was asked to take over another teacher in her English class, and THIS is where the subject of Vachel Lindsay came up . . . . as it always does when I teach English and/or Language Arts.

Before we got rolling with the proscribed lesson, I asked them if anyone had ever heard of Vachel and if anyone had written a poem. Several had heard the name — “Yes, there’s a school named after him.” and “He was a poet.” BLESS YOU YOUNG MAN! You are now my favorite student! If y’all are good, we’ll come back to Vachel before the end of class.

This was the hippest bunch of eighth graders I’ve encountered. They read the assigned reading aloud  flawlessly, and I didn’t have to coordinate study guide questions. The reading assignment was completed faster than expected, leaving 25 minutes for them to “study QUIETLY.” And they DID!

I was determined not to waste the entire remainder of the period so unproductively, so in launching into Vachel, I told these ultra-hip students I understood of they don’t dig poetry. That’s okay, not a big deal. All I ask is for you to study quietly while I talk with those who do.

I had decided not to squander the opportunity by simply sharing Vachel’s “The Pet Turtle.” They were focused and perceptibly more mature than 6th & 7th graders. I wanted them to hear how serious poem sounds. It was also essential that they know there is a difference between reading a poem aloud to a piece of paper and reciting a poem as it should be recited. After explaining how, back when Vachel lived,  people in cities loaned their colts to friends on farms to teach them how to pull a wagon and get used to a harness, I recited “The Broncho That Would Not Be Broken.” Yes, I know the spelling of “broncho” is yesterday. That’s how people spelled it in 1913. When I was done reciting the poem, 15 or so students APPLAUDED. Beyond the flattery element, it was an important reaction because it showed me they KNEW they had just heard something out of the ordinary, something good, something to remember. I asked if anyone else had written a poem and five hands went up. One young man showed me one he had written: very interesting triplet stanzas about what young people worry about at his age. HE passed it around, and that was fine. THEN I recited “The Pet Turtle.” They applauded my introductory reading, which always grabs attention and smiles, and then I taught it to them. We repeated it in unison twice by the time the bell rang, and we had an excellent time doing it. The whole class got involved with this. Two periods later in the lunch room, one of the students walked up to me and said he enjoyed “The Turtle.”

As long as there are students as sharp as those at Lincoln Magnet and other fine schools in Springfield District 186, I will never stop being a poet. The day reinforced my belief in poetry as RELEVANT today. That combined with the fab experience at the Museum of Funeral Customs reading last Saturday really “re-girded my loins” for a renewed run at writing new poems and inflicting them on my friends and total strangers.

BTW, to read “The Broncho That Would Not Be Broken,” Google that title. First on the list takes you to the poem text at The Academy of American Poets. I will post it, with my take on the poem and some background at my page  — http://www.civag.com/lindsaypoems.htm   — Will update you when it’s there.

Thanks for reading.

Live long . . . . . and proper.

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Things That Go Bump

They keep you awake at night when you’d rather sail off to dreamland, I know nothing about them because sleep comes to me only when I’m too tired to keep my eyes open. This is not an essay about your furnace turning on at 1:48 am, the branch blowing against your window just before the first sliver of light appears on the eastern horizon or the mouse wending its way home just above your bedroom ceiling as you lie unwelcomely awakened, staring at nothing in particular. This is about things that go bump in my day, which keep me out of the mainstream of life and distracted to my profound dismay.

I MUST FIND AN EMPLOYER. The interest alone on my Circuit City and J.C. Penney accounts is eating me alive. I’ve had to pay my 2005/2006 Ameren/CILCO bill plus the current bill — about $400 a month — and that means that I’ve not made a payment to the roofing contractor and air conditioning repair people since Decenber, and I’ve not made a full payment to either since last August. I went from last April to October with no heat and hot water because Ameren disconnected it. They reinstated it only when I agreed to their payment plan. Even today I go down to the water heater to turn it from low to high heat only when it’s time for a shower, and back to low afte rthat. I’m resigned to ASKING for them to disconnect me this April because I’ll be damned if I want to pay to keep my water heater’s pilot light on during warm weather. I spent half of last year blending a gallon pot of boiling water from my electric stove with three or so inches of cold water from the tub faucet to take the shallowest baths you ever saw. My friends didn’t seem to know the difference so it must have worked okay. This circumstance goes bump in the day as I administrate the web pages, including a half a bleeping day spent correcting an arts web page I thought I had finished and didn’t get to a journalistic commitment because of the diversion. Facing this grim prospect is a thing that goes bump in my day.

My teeth look like a white picket fence. I must find a dentist who can help cheap. I cannot substitute teach if things get worse. Reciting poetry, singing my songs: out of the question if one more tooth checks out of my upper palate.. Hell, I may stop going out at all.

BUMP . . . . .BUMP. . . . .BUMP . . . .

I MUST FIND AN EMPLOYER. Real estate taxes are due soon. I came within less that 24 hours of having my tax bill put up for auction last September because I was so late paying the bill. I will not have the resources for the first payment this year that I had for the final payment last year. Solution? I think I can save myself the bother of asking the Republican National Committee for a loan. The answer must come from an employer.

BUMP . . . . BUMP . . . . .

Compared with the above, not being able to use my kitchen sink since July 2005 seems laughable . . . . . . . . BUMP . . . . . and I’ve done okay withoutout a microwave oven which broke last month . . . . BUMP. . . . . I had hoped to really get rolling with the journalistic piece slated for weeks away, but a local politico asked me to give him some feedback regarding his new web site before it’s uploaded from development mode to the web. He will pay well, but I’m feeling rotten about poor progress with the journalistic pursuit and I won’t get to that until Thursday at the earliest because I’ve been blessed with a sub teaching assignment Wednesday. . . . .BUMP . . . . . Time management is a challenge some weeks. I’ve been lucky in March. Shaved my Lincoln beard off Monday morning. I want to eliminate the possibility that a potential employer would not hire me because of the beard. I’m NOT a frikking hippie; never wanted to be. . . . . . BUMP . . . . BUMP

What I’m saying is that if an employer turns me down, I don’t want it to be because of the beard. I want it to be because I have Jack-O-Lantern teeth, I may be setting up housekeeping in a refrigerator crate and because I can’t write worth a damn! That’s a fair enough expectation, don’t you . . . . . . . . .BUMP . . . . think?

Live long . . . . . and proper.

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Sunday Gumbo

None of what follows is worth a separate blog posting, so I’m putting them into this pot and stirring at low heat . . . .

Pictured above is classical guitarist Javier Calderon who played in concert at First Presbyterian Church Saturday night, the 24th. It was the best-attended Springfield Classical Guitar Concert of the 2006/07 season so far and was a shot in the arm for the organization. It was my first encounter with Javier, though it was a return visit for him. He played one of the first SCGS concerts some years ago, and we were privileged to have him return. It was an excellent concert all around. I will post additional pictures at my Classical 6 Images website later this week. Stay tuned.

Davinci’s Inquest – Never heard of this TV show? It’s probably because unlike me, you have other things to do on Saturday nights between 11:30 p and 12:30 a. Produced in Canada, discontinued after about five years but now in syndication, it airs on WICS Channel 20. It’s the story of Dante Davinci, a coroner in a large Canadian city. The dialogue and situations are adult but not explicit. The rainbow cast of actors, all Canadian, are superb. There’s not a weaker element in the lot of them. It has a “film noir” feel to it, No chirpy music track, but an unforgettable end of show theme song. Even if I tune in late, I watch what I can of it just to hear the theme and see the credits, trying to learn the actors’ names. I’ve become a big fan; never miss it unless I must. You should tune in next Saturday and tell me what you thiink.

Buying local — At the Saturday concert, a friend told me of several web hosts and internet service providers who are less expensive than Interactive Data Technologies and Springnet 1 which I use. I told him I appreciated the advise, but I’m going to stay with these local people, “local” being the key element. I’ve had not one problem with either of them since I started. And if and when I do, I can drive to their offices and stand outside with a protest sign if that’s what I need to do, but it won’t happen. I think it’s important for Springfieldians to use Springfield talent. My money pays for their lunches a few times a week, and I’m glad to be helping esteemed associates. I’m also a big fan of Brahler Tire and Lube Centers and Hammer’s Hobby Shop. I even give the latter’s address at AeroKnow’s web site. Do I ask for a penny from them? I wouldn’t consider it. They’re good folks every one. My bet is that if you try them, you will agree.

Thank you State Journal-Register for your coverage of the Saturday afternoon poetry reading at the Museum of Funeral Customs a n d for your interview with me during the intermission. The event went very well, many fine poems read, and the SJ-R reporter and video man (who also planned to use a brief video of me at their web site) were top-drawer people. Kudos to all participants. BTW I will have more to say about my poem later this week. A MAJOR addition and rewrite took place less than 24 hours before the big event. If you dig poetry, you will probably enjoy my tale.

Major changes at AeroKnow and CIVAG – I will be revising both sites in the weeks ahead. mostly reducing photo coverage at AeroKnow so I can increase it at CIVAG. I’m also moving everything over to one computer. There will be some glitches along the way, none of which will affect Honey and Quinine, but if you visit those sites, please bear with.

Presidental candidates and shifting sands of fortune – There are some wonderful candidates out on the campaign trail and while every one of them is without question terrific in his or her own ways, that divine confluence of blessings of their character and noble intentions is not enough to make all of them viable candidates or even appropriate candidates for the office of President. That realization became manifest as the broad side of a barn as I watched the Sunday morning news interview shows (Meet the Press and This Week With George Stephanopoulos) today.. John McCain is an American hero who suffered beyond the call of duty as a PoW during the war with Vietnam. I would tune in, any day of the week, to watch an in-depth interview with him regarding his combat missions during that war, his time as a captured serviceman, his views of world and national politics.. He is not a future presidential election candidate, and he never will be. I hope he will withdraw from the race. Why? Because the same vicious theocrat hyenas who ruthlessly lied about him during the 2004 presidential primaries and skewerd him like a rat on a stick — the same kind of lies the Swift Boat jackals inflicted on the Kerry campaign — are now being asked to help him run for the Republicreationist candidate this go round. It shows how willing to surrender his former political integrity he is today, and that’s a shame and a pity. Better to teach law at a Podunk university than to sully his soul this way. I hope and pray this truth becomes self-evident to John McCain.

Thanks for reading.

Live long . . . . . and proper.

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How I Wrote My New Poem

The picture of the Lindsay family grave markers was taken from the driver’s seat of my car March 20 at Oak Ridge Cemetery. I visited the site because I wanted to have a new poem to share at the poetry reading at the Museum of Funeral Customs on Monument Avenue this coming  Saturday at 1 pm. I’ve read a new poem there every year but one, and usually played one of my hit songs about death there as well. (“Death ain’t nothin’ but a good time feeling bad….” HIRE ME, Job Conger songwrither, and I’ll sing the entire thing to you.) Writing a new poem for this Saturday was not an obligation; it was a calling. And I was happy to focus on poetry for the first time in 2007.

I knew three weeks ago I wanted to write a poem about Vachel Lindsay, his death or his grave . . . . something I could share at the Funeral Customs Museum event. Also from the start, I knew I wanted to share information about the poet. One early idea was to focus on the fact Vachel’s headstone is larger than his parents’ head stones. There’s a reason for that: he was world-famous; they were not. But still it grated on me. IF my mom and dad were buried together and I was planning to be interred on a family plot, I would want their markers to be larger than mine. I think they were nobler people. But I’ve learned “noble” doesn’t make the world go ’round.. I knew that I was going to let my visit to the grave sites provide the poem. And it did.

Of course I took my camera along. I wanted to photograph the Lindsay plot from every angle. Money and time didn’t matter. Photography is cheap, and where the heck else did I need to go Wednesday? Nowhere. Vachel wrote “Come eat the bread of idleness….” which is required if you’re going to write a poem. It’s “idleness” only if you forget that determining to write a poem and sitting down to write it are profound engagements of time. It may not be as active as watching a baseball game on the sports channel, but it’s an activity even so. So I had fun with the camera: nobody calling me in for lunch, nobody telling me to get off their lawn, no employment interviews slated (DANG IT) and I wasn’t even hungry. Because I wasn’t rushed, I could open my eyes to see things I had missed during earlier visits. For one thing, the grass was recently trimmed. Vachel Lindsay’s family stones looked great. Even Olive Lindsay’s marker (She died in 1957 and it looks new. Maybe it is.) and the stone marking the deaths of three toddler sisters of Vachel’s were easy to see and read. I noted the metal “Perpetual Care” spike which was placed at Vachel’s headstone. Eight feet away were two headstones that weren’t in such trim shape. These Lindsays were not connected to Vachel’s family as far as I know. There was a shrub between the identical stones, and more fall and winter detritus lingered. They weren’t marked for “Perpetual Care,” but they should be. I wanted to clear away the winter’s flotsam and jetsam, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to break the law. I DO intend to talk with Oak Ridge management to ask permission to trim the shrubs and remove the old leaves at the other Lindsay stones.

I also carried a stenographer’s spiral-bound note pad and pen. Besides recording information on all the Lindsay stones, I noted everything else about them I could see, including a heaviliy weather worn small granite stone to the left of Dr. Vachel Thomas Lindsay’s marker that read “NVL” above a large “P” — no doubt an early Perpetual Care marker for Vachel’s parents. Also, on the top of Vachel’s marker were a modern, shiny quarter and a dijme, just sitting there. I picked up the quarter to be sure it wasn’t permanently attached (it wasn’t) and respectfully put it back. And I made notes about the site’s location: just across from Bissell Hill 12 (Governor Bissell served from 1857 to 1860) and just a few hundred feet from the grave of William Herndon, Abe’s law partner. Suffice to say, the Lindsays are in a pretty good “neighborhood.”

Then I came home and wrote the poem over the next five hours, mostly non-stop longhand, then to the computer to copy that . . . . then revising what I had written into the computer. . . . I stopped when it was time to get ready for the poetry reading at Gallina’s downtown. Even though I had read the poem alound by the computer several times, one really has to read it while people listen to fully consider how it works.

I had promised to meet a young poet who had called me (found my name and number in a bus station rest room, I think <– not really), and that was why I attended. During the months between my last visit to the readings, I had written NO poetry. As poet who gets easily bored repeating my OWN poems to the same people, I have harbored no interest in regurgitating my own to these fine pipple OR in subjetcting my own dang seff to more of the same poems from others. But I wanted to introduce the new poet to the Gallinas gang, and I’m glad I did.

My new poem, The Whispering Winds, is posted at

http://www.civag.com/poemsofjob.htm

I hope you will visit and read it. In the meantime, I continue to revise. The veresion I share at the Funeral Customs Museum Saturday will have been “tweaked” maybe 10 times including three times Wednesday and twice today before I posted it to my poetry page. People ask me why I revise.

I’m almost done; just a few more sentences . . . . I consider a new poem analagous to a pair of shoes in my size, which I discover by the Washington Park lagoon. They’re alone with a note pinned to one of the shoe laces. It reads: “If the shoe fits, wear it. With my blessing and permission, these shoes are yours to keep.” I try them on., and they fit fine. I start hiking up the hill and I feel a pebble between toes and ankle. I take off the shoe, remove the pebble and continue. Three hundred feet later, the thumb tack in the sole of the other shoe begins to be very evident. The tack is removed, and I’m back on the trail. And so on. By the time I return to my car to drive the block and a half back home, I’ve taken out every pebble, tack, discarded Doublemint Gum wrapper, and dime (where the heck did THAT come from?) in the shoes, and I’m finally happy with them. The same goes for poems I write. Even though some poets think their new creations are perfect as they come, Heaven-sent from their pen, to the paper. I write differently. I don’t consider my poems Divine, Immutable Coincidences the way some DIC heads do. When I “walk” with a new poem, reading it silently, reading it alound, reading it aloud to others, inviting others to read it and sharing reactions, I find pebbles and gum wrappers enough to confirm I do not poetize with the angels; I write poetry with the rest of my fallen humanity, and I’m absolutely happyj with that. Eventually, after waves of revising this and that subside, and I feel the poem is okay (never perfect, but sometimes okay) I stop feeling for lumps. And that’s how I wrote my new poem.

Thanks for reading.

Live long . . . . . and proper. .

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Daniel Schorr, How COULD You?

It’s true: the fastest way to set me off like a frikking Roman candle (next to telling me you voted for 43) is to intentionally transgress against civil grammar. By civil grammar, I mean speech which suggests you attended high school before having three kids, getting married and settling down.

Over the last few days I’ve hurled a lot of bitter invective at my radio during reports of the fourth anniversary of the launch of “Operation Monkey’s Vendetta,” what many know as the war in Iraq. I was stunned to hear a national announcer on National Public Radio March 18 refer to the “four year anniversary,” followed later in the day by a WUIS announcer referring to the day properly to my surprise and delight. An assortment of national TV news announcers also called it the “fourth anniversary, and on the 19th, a few national radio news people on UIS radio did the same. Until I heard respected news icon Daniel Schorr say “four-year anniversary” about 5:15 on the 19th, I was prepared to let the “wits of dim” pee their verbal ineptitude into the air waves the way I will welcome a call from a friend who calls me in the middle of a hot bowl of Campbell’s Fajita Steak Chunky Soup. . . . but DAN SCHORR? How COULD he? This bastion of linguistic professionalism and propriety speaking words his former boss Edward R. Murrow would surely have red-lined out of a prepared script bearing the same barn-yardishness . . . . well, I was glad I was sitting down when I heard him say it!

Why am I so bent? Because the word “anniversary” has sifted into our (our, meaning belonging to legal American citizens) language from annus, meaning year and vertere, meaning to turn. Saying fourth year anniversary is to say “fourth year year’s turning” and equipvalent to saying I’m going for a ride in my automobile car. Who needs the added word repetition? I shiraz heck don’t. (<– Aussie wine fans will chuckle over that).

My guess is that the illegal alien community, whose rights multiply like rabbits while US citizens’ rights leap like Aztec virgins into the volcanic fires of inconsequence, are responsible for the growth of superfluously repetitive, redundantly redundant, and excessive words that pollute the American language today. The crisp phrasing of yesterdecades has been trampled into the dust by so many damp-shouldered scorpions swimming across the Rio Grande and into our language. And you know something? That’s okay. Those who don’t know how to speak should be given a chance to learn. But those who do know the difference owe it to the language to show they know, that they care for the difference, and demonstrate to those who don’t know, what the difference is. This is our language, hombre and hombrecita. Love it or leaf it!

I bet the same Tallula-born-and-bred former Sangamon County Fair Queen contestant trying to play “grown up” who (I’m guessing) wrote the current silly drenched-diaper-ish (diaper rash, if you like) fund raising skit wafting odiferously into WUIS local programming this week knows how to say “fourth anniversary.” Don’t you?

Final thought for “Daniel the maniel:” Mr Schorr, you’re still a countenance for the side of a mountain in my book. I hope you keep in mind the beauty of the language that helped make you who you are because you cared for it once. I hope you remember how to care for it again.

Thanks for reading.

Live long . . . . . . . and proper.

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I Have Been to the Hill Top

The picture above was taken Sunday afternoon, March 19 when I visited Elkhart, Illinois on assignment for the best news weekly published in the greater tri-state area. Barely visible just to center right are grave markers of Elkhart’s founder. The markers are at the top of the big hill you see every time you drive by Elkhart on your way north on I-55. For decades, I’ve wondered about that hill and I was privileged to tour it as few do thanks to some help from some new friends. Details soon, you know where.

The sinus cold has pretty much “left the building,” but it left behind congestion in my ear canal to my mouth, causing me to be about twice as deaf as usual and about as off balance as when I’ve had a good interface with a bottle of Wild Turkey 101. The result is a condition which I call Half Death (HD), not to be confused with HDTV. The peril of the condition was mercilessly clear to me when I substitute taught French all day at Springfield HS Friday. Yes, I speak a little French, and that seemed to surprise the students who seemed to appreciate my effort. Speaking French is not a requirement for subbing in a French class. Anyone who can read lesson plans — and Mrs. B’s were probably the best I’ve encountered since I started subbing — can sub French. I was lucky. The classes were fine. As the second year class watched a Rick Steves travel video about France and answered questions on a work sheet I had distributed, I finished Lee Gurga’s excellent Haiku for Poets; a MUST READ if you have any appreciation and curiosity about haiku. As the words from Steves reached me just over the semi-white noise of students behaving like students with a substitute teacher, as though I were wearing a large jug over my head, I felt as though I was looking down at me sitting at the desk with the a room full of students in a room darkened for the video. I remembered speaking to them briefly at the start of class and taking attendance with my mouth moving the right way but feeling my voice more than hearing my voice. Almost none of the students were adversarial, and most of what I said during the entire day was de regeur; just the formality of sharing required information. With this goofy stopped up ear, I truly felt removed a step or two from happy consciousness. And the only time it really bothered me was when I was situated to embrace depression, reading a fine book silently and not being able to really tune into the world immediately around me.

I’ve been wrestling with additional work from a web client who wanted me to revise her CIVAG (Central Illinois Visual Artist Galleries — http://www.civag.com  — content. The results to her from the five hours spent Saturday and probably three more hours likely Monday to finish the revision grate on my heart like a power sander against my nose. I chafed at almost every minute spent Saturday on this effort because I KNEW the results would not be worth the time spent, I KNEW I was not going to bill her for my effort because she has been the most vocal and financial supporter of CIVAG since it started last year, and because I KNEW I would have to delete more arts content elsewhere at the CIVAG pages to accommodate her revisions. Could I dare explain this to her? Heck no. The only cure is more support for the effort from others. THAT wish seems right up there with my chances to play in concert at Carnegie Hall. As an author wrote in a terrific story about learning how to fly from aircraft carriers, when a pilot augers into the ocean behind the fantail (back) of the carrier or loses power taking off and rides his airplane to Davey Jones’ Locker, it’s not a matter of pilot skill or no skill. “It’s just the breaks of Naval Aviation. And that’s how I’m dealing with this silliness from the artist. “It’s just the breaks of Naval Aviation.”

I was well and truly nearly discombobulated over my pending road trip Sunday. My 86 Escort had transmission problems earlier this year, I had a hunch it needed oil (though I added a quart Saturday afternoon) and it hadn’t seen highway since I last visited a former college hearthrob in Tallula the year Kerry moped his way to defeat. I even wrote a short note in L E G I B L E longhand and placed it beside a copy of my will on a front room table, so any authority coming into the house after tracing the license plate of the charred wreck on Interstate 55 would understand I saw the inevitable before I determined to go meet it face to face.

One thing I have come to appreciate as a historian of aviation and the deeds of brave men and women. DUTY trancends the rest. I believe part of the mission of the US Marine Corps (someone correct me if I get this incorrectly) is “Duty, Honor, Country” I believe in that. And it was a white kuckle drive north, listening through half-deaf ears to the wonderful newly-muffled sound of my car, straining to hear clues of transmission, bearing, engine block and tire failure every foot of the way and hearing nothing but the rush of the wind. I even kept my radio turned off so I could hear better. The drive home was much easier; no white knuckles, and I was driving past the airport almost before I knew it. In fact, by the time I realized I was almost home, I could hardly remember the earlier part of the drive home.

So I can exhale now, though I still dread finishing the artist site revising. Also have four aviation articles to proof and semi-edit for the American Aviation Historical Society Journal, a task I relish. Will describe that crazee volunteer action later this week.

Thanks for reading.

Live long . . . . . . . . and proper.

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Idyl Mind

I hope you like the new look. It’s a positive statement. WordPress provided the picture at the very top and the template for this new approach, easier to read for all concerned.

The picture directly above was taken Saturday at jimiArt Gallery, 518 E. Monroe in cubist downtown Springfield. It’s the newest gallery in the city, and I HIGHLY recommend it. I’ve posted a picture of the owner at http://www.civag.com/artscalendar.htm — a friendly and arrestingly professional gentleman; a rare combination. If you visit, please tell him CIVAG sent you.

Saturday was a marathon. Worked on arts matters or engaged them from 9 a to 9 p. That’s a lot for me, especially on a Saturday. I’m catching up with matters aviational today. Had a fine time at Writers Bloc, visited RMD Gallery, jimiArt Gallery and Prairie Art Alliance, took pictures, attended the Vachel Lindsay Home State Historic Site Poetry in the Parlor event and was knocked out by a great presentation by Marge Deffenbaugh and spent the rest of the day working on arts web sites.

Subbed all day Friday at Southeast HS. Good classes in the main. I try to acknowledge and compliment obviously astute and focused students early into the period because it lets the others know I appreciate what really matters in class. Friday, the approach worked. Despite minimal lesson plans (translation NONE in print but a general direction shared during a brief phone call with the absent teacher), we got off to a good start and what I learned early applied nicely to subsequent classes. The point of sharing this preamble is to establish the context of the key moment of the day for me:

I asked each class, early on, if anyone wrote poems. A particularly bright young lady showed me her poetry notebook which she carries with her all the time, she said. It had page after page of excellent penmanship, cleanly written blank verse, most of it with amost no editing, words written over or crossed out. The nature of the assignment for that period precluded further poetry discussion. Also asked if anyone knew who Vachel Lindsay was. One student said he had attended Vachel Lindsay School in Springfield, but didn’t know who he was. READERS — WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT PICTURE? I told every class in a few sentences who he was and that his house is on Fifth Street, next to the Executive Mansion, and there was a special event there Saturday, starting at 2:30. I invited them to attend. (None did) Because several sturdents in one period showed interest in poetry, I recited Vachel’s Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, introducing it by explaining the similarity between Vachel’s time with World War I and our time with the wars in Iraq and elsewhere. I also asked if anyone knew what “portentous” means, and since no one did, I explained that in a few sentences since that word is key to the poem. THREE LINES into my recitation, I encountered a first for my days as a sub teacher/reciter of poems: About five students — easily distracted boys — actually engaged each other across the room as though no adult was present. Almost 10, either appeared to read a book or draw or lay their head on their desks. And the rest (about six, mostly girls) paid attention to what I was reciting. Some teachers would have stopped reciting as soon as it the gross disregard for the poem became clear. I did not. Once into the poem, I considered it ESSENTIAL not to break character and flow of that poem. I felt that there was more than a poem to share. There was the importance of staying true to stated intention going into the recital and to show that toddler antics would not prevent me from sharing what I had decided to recite. And for a brief few minutes, I felt what Vachel must have felt about his relationship to Springfield, Illinois despite his best effort to make a life, a statement, the citizens considered worthy of their warm regard. It’s a feeling I harbor in my own soul. I understand the ethos of Vachel the poet. If you don’t know this city, you won’t understand what I’m about to say, but if you do know this town you will when I say I find this utterly lamentable disregard for the poet and those who recite his work to be as stark and ravingly maddening often at 506 S. Fifth Street as during that class at Southeast High.

Mercifully for everyone, the dismissal bell rang less than two seconds after the concluding words, “… and who will bring white peace/ that he may sleep upon his hill again?” The class slurried, like a fast-running stream of ice, old snow and dog urine, from my sight inside of 45 seconds.

Live long . . . . . . . and proper.

 

I

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Breathing Easier

Pictured above is classical guitarist Sharon Wayne. I photographed her during her Februyary 24 concert sponsored by Springfield Classical Guitar concert at First Presbyterian. I have posted many pictures from the concert which you may view by visiting http://www.civag.com/artslinks.htm and scrolling down to the link to the SCGS site. MARK YOUR CALENDARS for March 24 when Javier Calderon will play in concert. Details at the SCGS site.

Took a store-brand Suda-Fed this morning, and didn’t sniffle once during the Poetry Out Loud state championships today where I was privileged to help as “prompter.” KUDOS to Springfield Area Arts Council and event sponsors for a terrific celebration of good poetry, well memorized and exceptionally well recited. Congratulations to runner up Mark Schmidt of Wheaton Warrenville South High School whose early round recitals Jonathan Swift’s “A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General,”  of Sanburg’s “Chicago” were surpassed by his recital of Martin Espada’s “Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100.” Robi Mahan, Harrisburg High School took top honors with her presentations of Lisel Mueller’s s”When I Am Asked,” e.e. cummings’ “anyone lived in a pretty how town” and “Beauty” by bony Hoagland. Must note, for MY record, that Mt. Zion High School’s Kelsey Cunningham knocked me out of my chair (almost) with her recited poems. I expect the world will hear a lot more of all three of these talented artists and my notes, which include the names of all the students’ names, will be a treasured mimento of this day. BRAVO!

I sat with Marcellus Leonard at the awards luncheon and handed out ArtsLinks cards and Vachel Lindsay: The Poet Speaks cards to several good people, including most of the judges and esteemed guests. MY DESTINY is a place in the local arts. Perhaps I’ve already found it, but what I really have in mind is spending the rest of my life with a full-time employer in the arts business. We shall see . . . . .

After Poetry Out Loud festivities concluded, I visited Springfield’s newest art gallery: jimiArt Gallery at 518 E. Monroe. It’s a terrific gallery, and will be telling you more about it at ArtsLinks. In the meantime, visit ArtsCalendar to see who’s going to be hung there, so to speak, in April. And say “hello” to my new good friend Olu-jimi Adeniyi. Tell him Job sent you. He’ll know who you mean.

On a terrific sunny afternoon, I enjoyed a leisurely stroll to Sixth at South Grand to pick up my car from Meineke Car Care Center. For the first time in about four years, my car has a working muffler, thanks in part to a friend across the street who gave me a coupon good for significant dollars off the cost of service there. He gave the coupon to me last September, soon after the maintenance fellow at a popular locan tire and lube center had offered to fix things for $500. I didn’t use the coupon all winter, feeling confident I would not be pulled over by the police until warm weather returned. After all, I had done okay since at least 2004 and maybe 2003. Several times over this winter, he asked if I had used the coupon (due to expire sometime in March) and I always said “no.” FINALLY at last Saturday’s Writers’ Bloc, I gave him my world, I’d drive over and at least get an estimate. Monday, I did and was pleasantly surprised. I knew there was no point in continuing to pollute the town with my unmuffled puttering — make that the car’s unmuffled puttering — so I set up Thursday for the work. They kindly gave me a ride to the Poetry Out Loud venue, and I truly enjoyed the stroll back to pick it up. Now there’s only one problem: True, the clatter of the engine had driven me almost CRAZY (no lie) at times, tooling down the street and barely able to hear the radio. But when I hit the ignition leaving Meineke today, I had a new concern. How the hell can I tell when my fricking ENGINE starts? Answer, I can feel it start through the vibes transmitted through the key in the ignition to my hand. I really, truly, no exaggeration, can barely tell I have a working motor now, thanks to the new muffler . . . . and thanks to my friend across the street.

Last week when I went grocery shopping (after subbing at Jefferson Mid) for the first and “parbably” last time to Cub Foods on Sixth Street, I was verbally, politely hailed by a 20-seomething fellow offering me a free State Journal-Register. I agreed to subscribe, thinking I can afford a trial subscription for (what I imagined might be ) $10 or $15. How 20th century of me! When it came time to write the check he explained my options were three months, six or nine, so my lowest entry would be $30! I was NOT going to back out of the deal, and thought hell, I MAY even be able to afford it before the subscription expires. So I pre-paid to get the obligation out of my hair and shopped there less than anticipated. WHY? For starters, it was a sad place compared with the Cub out west. People there seemed to have been sent there as punishment, like they were doing George Orwell 1984 time. BUT, they had LARGE cannisters of Lipton ice tea mix (unlike Shop & Save), so I picked that up, a few more items and high-tailed it home.  I’ve enjoyed reading the daily again, and God only knows: I can use the rubber bands.

One more thing, real fast. I decided that when I feel “slighted” by people (whether I respect them or respect them not), the best thing I can do is suck it up and not open my big pie hole. I watched a terrific espisode of Law and Order a few nights ago in which the heroine had been bound, prior to being tortured. She got away, and explained to her fellow officers that the freak who had kidnapped her and tied her up, removed the gag so she could respond as the badperson tortured and murdered another captive. (No details were photographed; it was all pretty PG-13 Viewer Discretion Advised) Heroine-person explained that it was obvious to her when the gag was removed, that the murderer WANTED her to scream as the other victim met her grisly end. She told her associates that she KNEW that if she opend her mouth during that time, she would have been killed also. So she kept quiet. No need to explain the happy outcome beyond saying the bad person was caught. But watching this TV show, combined with today at Hoogland led me to understand this: It is the height of folly to tell strangers of your specific discomforts, inflicted knowingly or unintentionally by fate. Show pain and FATE respects you less, Describe every track of the knife across your face, and strangers will grow weary of your lament and walk away. That is why I have resolved to report what makes me better — to you via this blog, and to innocent friends and strangers . . . .  and not shed crocodile tears over inconsequence.  Maybe fate . . . . maybe YOU . . . . . just want to hear me scream. Well, I want you to know I have removed that part of my life from my repertoire. Who knows? I may net a measure of respect, and left to my own devices, I may untangle the ties that bind, and make it out of future “episodes” alive.

So at 7:37 p on a Thursday night, I’m still not sniffling, there’s plenty of iced tea mix and Folger’s instant, and who knows, the sub teacher service may call before Charlie Rose comes on.

WHY IS EVERYTHING CENTERED NOW? DANGED IF I KNOUGH!

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

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