Posted in writing on March 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
. . . This just in . . . . dateline MacMurray College, Jacksonville . . . . . the date of the Montage poetry reading where earnest blogger has been invited to recite for awhile, has been changed to Wednesday, April 23. If you would like to attend this event and plan to drive over from Springfield, and have room for your struly to hitch a ride there and back, please let me know by posting a comment below. I will get back to you.
Thanks! 
Posted in Uncategorized, writing on March 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I’m coming down to the finish line preparing my Arcadia Puublishers’ book Springfield Aviation to go to my highly esteemed editor. The only major problem I’m having is finding information about the airports established and run by Bud Fleck. The first one, which is noted in a 1930s Springfield City Directory indicates it was located at 3100 S. Second Street, on the southern extremity of the city. I need to know when it was established, any memories you may have of visiting it as a flyer or spectator and the date it closed. The other airport — which I BELIEVE he started after the war, was located on East Lake Drive near Lake Springfield. I need to iknow when it started and when it ceased operations. You’d think the terrific Sangamon Valley Collection at Lincoln Library would have info, but it does not.
If you can provide information and/or pictures from EITHER Fleck’s operation, would you please leave a note in the comments section? Thanks.
Fly long . . . . . . and proper.
Posted in writing on March 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
So I was returning home from visiting an air park near Springfield to take a few pictures for THE BOOK and as I glanced at one of those really rural “subdivisions” where everyone has their own septic tanks, the name hit me like a blog topic. It hit me so hard there was no need to write it down. More than an hour after arriving home and processing the last two pictures I will commit to THE BOOK, I still remember the sign. It said “Knox Subdivision..”
Since the “k” is silent, what the heck does it matter whether we spell it Knox or Noxk? To be a purist about this, we could probably get by with “Nox.” But as too few people remember about names of hummin’ beans, sometimes a vowel sandwiched between two consonants can be a long “o” so the silent “k” tells you it’s a short “o.” Another example of the long vowel sandwich: when your name is Job. Many intelligent people take their cue from the upper case “j” and historical precedent, and they correctly pronounce the name. When it’s not capitalized, I can live with the short “o” sound which indicates employment. Noxk (the “k” is silent) is a person’s name. The spelling is different from its homonym “knocks” (as in “school of hard”), and in this case you can’t say the “k” is silent unless you believe folks will cue from the hard “c” and grasp the intended consonantal sound. “It’s elemental: the consonantal.” (Apolotgies to the songwriter who wrote the 40s song that, had you known it, would have just elicited the trace element of a chuckle.)
The Noxk “k” is essential to the revised spelling presented. It’s the tree that falls in the forest, and it exists because it is real: it is essential to the name. Where you put it doesn’t matter. Why not? Because the “k” is silent. It IS whether it is silent or not.
All of us exist, whether we are silent or not. I know you’re out there. You are silent, but you exist. I give that to you. You can fall, and still you exist. And when you cease to live, you will exist in memory of those who remember you and then in the memories of those who remember those who remembered you. It all seems to be all right somehow.
That’s why I like taking pictures. The pictures I am about to share in THE BOOK will reveal airplanes and people who live again in the eyes of readers who buy the book and get to know them . Take the picture of Bud Fleck swinging the propeller of a Piper Cub in 1956. Please. (Thank you Henny Youngman) Bud Fleck will live. He will be silent, fallen from consciousness in a tragic car accident, some years ago, but he will live. And that will be all right, somehow.
I hope youk (the “k” is silent) will live long . . . . . and proper.
Posted in arts, writing on March 28, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Before things turned dicey yesterday, I received an invitation to recite some of my poems and some of Vachel Lindsay’s poems at MacMurray in late April. The occasion is the publication of the college’s annual arts anthology Montage. I will open the event and will be followed by Mac students reading (or reciting) works they contributed.. I was a student at Mac, majernin English, from 1968 through about 1971. Didn’t graduate, but I had more fun there than at any time in my life as a college student. I especially remember time in the library which was almost a second home to me. The view of Annie Merner Chapel from the top of the steps across the girls’ lawn hockey field was incredible at dusk. I still remember gazing across the Student Union at Judy Barrringer who drove a Buick Skylark, playing Simom & Garfunkle’s Why Don’t You Write Me on the jukebox and never sharing more than a polite smile and nod with her.
It’s amazing how a pleasant perceived smile and invitation to share poetry makes me forget (for the moment) my aviation book. I should be engaging it now instead of this blog. I have already selected what I intend to recite (subject to change if needed) and will be spending time practicing the poems AFTER I’ve completed the book manuscript and sent it in. Most of the poems I recite are like conceert works, Chopin sonatas if you like, which I learn, commit to memory for sharing when food or dollars are offered, and then practice again before a recital date.Some of what I’ll recite are metaphorically speaking, in my back pocket. I can pull them out and recite for an hour or more at the drop of a hint. It’s not a big deal; I love this kind of activity. It has changed the way I recite some poems, Vachel’s Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight and others. I’ll explain more if anyone cares to know.
You’ve read this posting this far, and that allows me to ask: Do you live in Springfield and if so, would you like to attend this event on the big Mac event on Tuesday, April 22? Yes and yes, so far? If so, may I hitch a ride with you? My Soggy Bottom Express is in no shape to take me to Mac’n'back. I will gladly chip in on the requisite fuel financing. Really, a bunch of us in Springfield — the Poets & Writers crew and others too — should make a night of this, don’t you think? Attend the event and stop at The Barrel Head on our way beck iinto Springfield? I’ll buy the first round of brewskis. I can buy a round; I just can’t buy a car. If you want to go, let me know as a comment folllowing this post. I will e you back and we can make arrangements.
In the meantime, I’m brushing up on my Santa Fe Trail, Serenading the Wind and more.
It’s a kick (a good kick) to be invited to Mac. Thanks to Susan and Robert for their affirmation and interest.
Live long . . . . . and proper.
Posted in writing on March 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
With the light in the office this morning an eerie, brownish, warm, almost supernatural hue of mournful gray, I was hit in the brain by a phrase which I thought lends itself to a poem I will write after I’m done with the aviation book. I wrote it down. If you like the phrase I am about to share, a phrase which reflects my state of mind in recent rain and chill, be my guest and use it for yourself as you like. My treat.
I’m making decent progress with the book, but there’s a whale of a lot to do that has nothing to do with writing or photography in putting together my part of the process. It’s not like firing off pages of a novel manuscript to an editor, and that’s okay; I have neither the ability nor the interest in novels. My LIFE is a novel. No one would believe I’m living as I’m living. I’d tell you more, but time is tight. Suffice to say I eschewed the diversion of lunch and worked for the next four and a half hours on The BOOK.
About 2p, I started water on the stove for another cup of coffee and picked up the mail from the front porch. In it was an important communication from CWLP, my water and electric utility. I knew it was “muy importante” because it didn’t have a glassine panel on the envelope the way regular bills do. I opened it first.
My last payment check had not cleared the bank. I was told to come in by the 28th and pay it with cash or a cashier’s check, just like the drug lords do. BOOM! Brain fire! I strode out of my house and climbed into my car the ussual way: opened the hatchback, clambered inside, opened the driver’s door from the inside, backed out of the hatch, walked to the door and get in.. The bank was only two blocks away, but I thought I may as well go after some iced tea mix and bread, the only truly “essential” elements for a man of my capability to live in civil circumstance until the rent comes in. The coffee, noodles and peanut butter I already had would be fine until April 2th.It took a transfer of dollars from my real estate taxes fund to get me up to toe more than $250 due CWLP but it sure beat the pants of loosing my freaking electricity Friday. That would cause no end of disappointment for my esteemed editor up Chicago way.
Home and into the office, glanced at the rest of the CWLP letter as I prepared to turn on the computer . . . . and saw for the first time, that I had not read ALL of the letteer, particularly the part that mentioned the $20 overdraft fee. To blazes with the groceries. I’ll live on crunch fripping peanut butter, ramen noodles and instant Folger’s until Tuesday!
DAAAAAAAAANG it!
BOOM! Out the door! I was so fripping steamed that I didn’t want to bother climbing into my fripping car; didn’t want to work that hard. It would do me more good to walk over, and that’s what I did. CHEESEs, I knew I wasn’t going grocery shopping this time, and as long as it wasn’t raining, I could use the fripoping exercise! Told my teller (while observing the other bank people tilting their heads in the direction of the bearded sycophant yammering away so they could hear the sordid details) what an idiot I had been, and that we needed to make a further $20 adjustment. Heck, make it $30; I AM going to go to the fripping County Market for bread and tea, but not today. Must make more progress with the aviation book. Heaved a sigh of relief as I departed the premises and was so charged, I jogged half way fripping home. Factoring in the bank charge for the bounched check, the total coast was $50. That’s two fripping weeks’ worth of groceries for me! CHEESEs, in-fripping-DEED!
BOOM! into the house about 25 after 2p . . . . . . to the cozy fragrance of red hot steel! My coffee water I had left to heat on the stove! Rushed to the kitchen, relieved to see no fire under the bright orange burner. Turned off the heat to the burner, gently lifted the pan off, set it on a cold burner to cool and walked out of the kitchen.,
Called CWLP to be sure I could pay the overdue Friday. Yes.
Back to the kitchen and lifted the lid off the pan I had used to heat coffee water. It was black as shale. When I fauceted a thin stream of water into it, the surface sizzled as though I had just taken it off the stove: formed globules of water that danced like a drunken freelance writer (okay, maybe not quite that bad) and in less than 20 seconds . . . . it cooled down. I thoroughly washed the pan. Still there was/is a flat dark grey patina to the inside that wasn’t there when I started coffee water about 2 pm.
I’ve decided I can live without another cup of coffee for awhile . . . . . . and there’s no tea. Perhaps a refreshing glass of water with ice cubes. Ah luxury!
In the meantime, I’m glad my bank is only two blocks away. If I HAD read the letter from CWLP completely the first time and gone grocery shopping after making the adjustment, I might not have descovered my overheating coffee water in time (CHEESEs, I miss my fripping microwave where I used to heat water for exactly two minutes before the thing turned itself OFF) and I would be posting this blog from a fripping homeless shelter. And that would have caused almost no end of disappointment for my esteemed editor up Chicago way.
I guess even stupidity has a positive outcome now and then. Such is the complaisant harmony of woe.
.
Live long . . . . . and proper.
Posted in writing on March 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Things are going well for the book.
I have a question for everyone reading this blog: Do YOU care to know about airshow pilots passing through Springfield, performing at Air Rendezvous who died elsewhere during what would prove to be their final performances? A yes or no and why would be helpful to me. Post your thoughts in comments. You will determine whether or not I include photographs and/or mentions of Jimmy Franklin. Jim LeRoy, Chuck Carothers. Eric Beard, and Bobby Younkin.
Thanks for your help!
Ll. . . . . . .&p.
Posted in writing on March 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I’m spending too much of my voluble life thinqing about the duo ditty by Frank and Nancy Sinatra. with the line “Then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like ‘I love you.’” In the song, they mean “saying something stupid like” meaning for example; NOT analagously. Yet, analogies are traditionally connected to “like.” I say Flying is like a double ferris wheel when the top wheel is coming down and rotating at the same time.” Ferris wheel riding is NOT an example of flying; not a form of flying; it is analagous to it. I’m wondering about the meaning if they had sung”… by saying something stupid-like: I love you.” With the colon, it’s not analagous. The writier is saying “Here is something stupid-like: I love you.” But with a period, the phrase is something else. “by saying something stupid-like. I love you.” With the hyphened “stupid-like” the phrase means stupid-ish; resembling stupid; giving evividence of stupidity..
So let’s return to the duo. The lyric says I spoil the warm mood we share when I say something stupid-like. It could be “I wonder if a coffee can of ground coffee weighs more than a coffee can of lake water.” (and by the way, on another, unrelated subject)
I love you. or
….then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid.
(new paragraph indent because I can’t indent on this blog) I love you.
So in the example sighted just above this paragraph, we have totally different monologue. Does my explanation reveal the fascinating consequences of subtle vagaries of our language to you? I hope so. Does my explanation of a point many consider trivial reveal a clue to the state of my mind? It’s not a bad state necessarily. It’s a passing state.
I went to bed last night a little after 4 am, re-reading near the end of that fab Mark Twain bio, eating crunchy peanut butter from a knife and sipping a young Burgundy, first wine into the house in weeks. True, I had napped after dinner from about 8:00 to midight, so my hitting the sack four hours after a four hour nap seems to even things. It’s not like I slept instead of being productive. If I hadn’t napped I would have osst productive time watching PBS until 11:30, worked in the office until probably 1:30 and then gone to bed, but I was all work in the aviation collection after the nap until peanut butter time. At 10:30 am in the office after awakening to Car Talk and listening pronely for 40 minutes, and grabbing coffee dose #1, I’m still not on top of the world as I would have hoped as my aviation book passes into the “sprint to the finish line” stage.
Got a certified letter from my roofing contractor’s lawyer. I’m in deep stuff. Haven’t even read the letter, and I likely won’t until Sunday. I am in deep distress over this. I’d like to avoid it until I send in the manuscript. This is no way to finish a book.
I want to chuck the whole visual arts business. As the tension mounts with the approaching “sprint,” and likely court action, I want to chuck the whole Central Illinois Visual Artists Galleries “schtick.” AND the separate arts domain I cannot pay for. I’m sad and angry that it hasn’t worked out, that the dollars haven’t come in as I had hoped, and I’m fully aware that some of this was my doing. As the support diminished, so did my zeal for maintaining it. Ultimately the loss of visual artists’ presence, if it happens is all my doing, but it is my doing following input and reactions from good people I like and respect. The web presence is no different from any brick and mortar gallery except that it has been cheaper to establish and maintain. Galleries fail all the time, lemonade stands go belly up all the time. Look at what happened to Weiner Dog across from the ALPL downtown: great idea; never dined there. And cheap though it is, my incapacity to make CIVAG pay for itself is almost beside the point. My time, my heart, is so wrapped up in the airplane action that I sadly envisage a time when the CIVAG leaf will fall from my tree, and sadly, that I will be “the one” who lets it fall.
I’ve not talked with my web client and visual arts people in two weeks, and it will be AFTER the book goes to the publisher when I spend more than 10 minutes of my day engaging responsibilities and commitments connected to them. I feel terrible about this: leaving their realm without saying “I’ll be right back” because I anticipated I’d be back sooner than I will have proven to be.
It seems my business for the rest of my life is aviation, mostly. I hope it will be education if things develop with a potential EMPLOYER as I hope they will, and as a journalist/singer/poet. But until I put the CDs into a Federal Express mailer and post them off to Arcadia, marking the end of my deadline work on the book, my hours are a litany of future aspirations, mostly about what I want to do with aviation web, while finding a way to include my writing/musical interests and those of friends, associates and strangers who MIGHT support them. There will be more work to do with Arcadia and the book, but none of it will be deadline work with the weight of the key enchilada I will deliver in little more than a week from not.
My challenge now is to ride this tiger, hope friends I’ve said nothing to for most of the time I’ve been involved with this book will forgive my silence, and consider my being as more than “the vanity snow ball rolling down the hill and getting bigger every day” — which I fear it has appeared to be since January.
That “..” by the way is not an analogy. That is a metaphor.
Live long . . . . . . and proper.
Posted in writing on March 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The principal of a central-east middle school where I substitute taught Monday explained to the class that good folks like me who would rather share time teaching three days a month instead of selling French fries 26 days a month for the same hourly wage equivalent are NOT substitute teachers. We are “guest teachers.” Her presence in my class Monday sustained my faith in “the system.”
Earlier in the morning as the halls resumed normal quiet mode after a tornado drill (I’m not kidding) I saw a mouse cross from one room, sashay across the hall into another room. I pointed it out to another teacher I was talking with. “Is that a Mouse?” I said. “Yes,” she said. They they eat the rattlesnake eggs. Easier to work without the pesky snakes. Forget the mouse.
In the run of guest teaching I have savored after a loooooong stretch of doing hardly any over December, January and February, the good times have been frequent. A few weeks ago I read aloud to high school students who were too shy or contrary to read with me calling the shots. When I did, a student proclaimed “I want you to narrate my life!” And he volunteered to read next.
Monday, in the presence of the visiting principal, I understood that my expectations of middle school students are a lot lower than school administrators who possess the power to “lower the boom.” Two students were suspended for the rest of the week because of student misconduct, a/k/a demonstrating disrespect for the guest teacher. Students respect a higher standard when a teacher or administrator has the capacity to enforce it.
When the fine teacher — Mrs. M. (not her real name) — returned sooner than expected to her class, the subject changed from history to language arts, a seventh grade class who were a delightful upgrade from the earlier three hours of hot and cold running disarray. I had told her about Vachel Lindsay when I arrived, gave her my Vachel Pages card for my Vachel web site, and was invited (following my offer) to talk to the students about poetry. And I did. No one complained about delaying their planned reading for an impromptu poetry presentation. As she sat at her desk on the side and I talked from the front of the room, I could see they were “mine” as soon as I asked if anyone in class likes to read poetry.
Ten hands ent up. “Does anyone like to WRITE poetry?” Ten and a few more hands went up. I explained how, before I got into Vachel, I wanted to tell them how much fun it is not only to write poetry, but to memorize poetry as well. You can be tone deaf and be a great poetry reciter. You can amaze your parents and engage your friends as long as you remember NOT to share poetry the way you’ve seen poetry read from a piece of paper by typical grownups: with all the intonation and expression of a dead bluegill washed up on the sand at Lake Springfield. Pronouncing the words cleanly and pro-per-ly is not enough. Reciters/readers must do more than that. I demonstrated what I meant to smiles and nodding heads. Then I told them about Vachel, where his house is, why they should visit with their parents and get involved with poetry. Then I recited three Vachel poems: The Turtle, The Broncho That Would Not be Broken of Dancing, and Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight in Springfield, Illinois. Between poems recited I explained how those poems were inspired, told them they can be inspired any time any day by anything that touches them: a friend who slips in a mud puddle on the way home from school and wals the rest of the way wtih soggy pants, a terrirfic Thanksgiving dinner . . . anything. Finally I said I would be happy to come back and talk to them ore about poetry if they would buy me lunch in their cafeteria. Everyone smiled and applauded politely. I could not have been carried out of the room on a sedan chair by four brawny chair bearers and departed with any more profound sense of triumph and satisfaction than I did Monday about 11:40 am.
I have not had lunch in a school cafeteria since last October. I can’t afford it. No dollars for that. Home by noon, I had four pieces of bread and butter, a glass of iced tea and a cup of Swiss Miss mocha instant coffee for desert. Dinner was a little more tempting but not much. I’ll spare you.
Today I had a terrific day at a magnet middle school and for the first time, “team taught” (the term works for me) with another guest teacher, a terrific woman of the feminine persuasion I hope to tell you more about in the future. Here I will call her Miss L. (not her real name). I had arrived, been assigned to help out in the library, helping students prepare special projects about life in Rome, for three hours and then was directed to help a language arts teacher I will call Mrs. Q. (not her real name).
Students were reading aloud their just-typed book reports into computers. I escorted three- and four-student teams to a quiet, vacant “studio” where they recorded their typed up and printed reports. Before they recorded, I made sure they didn’t read their reports the way some adults read poetry, and actually encouraged a few students to re-record their reading. They didn’t mind. They were attentive, happy to learn, and most of them knew how to do it anyway. This was great fun, and I believe a few learned something.
Then the school principal came into the “studio” and said she wanted me to head to Room 125 at 12:30 “to co-teach.”
“Excellent,” I said, “I LOVE to teach coes.”
And so I did. Miss L. had had a hard time during the early part of the day. Administrators decided two guest teachers would be better than one, and I totally agreed. While Miss L. was attracting their attention, I could pick their pockets and steal their lunch money. Everybody’s happy. <— just kidding.
Students asked me why there were two teachers. I explained they were such an incredible class, they deserved one more than the usual ONE guest teacher, and during the hour, we would accomplish more than we would in a one-teacher class. For some NUTTY reason there was not a scrap of chalk on the blackboard tray and not a marker for no blank white slate for writing down our guest teacher names. This was odd, ill-conceived and a significant impediment to the process.
The experience, for an hour, was enjoyable for me because it allowed me to help focus the students on material assigned. Miss L. had wisely separated problem students early into the hour. I explained to the students Miss L. was the brains, and I was the muscle. Things proceeded fortissimo but moderato for the entire hour.. There was more general disarray to the students than I would have liked to see, but there was no more than I had witnessed in Mrs. Q’s language arts class.. An assistant principal told me all the teachers are are dealing with students more excited by having “spring break” n e x t . . . . . . . w e e k . . . . . than they are about learning. They think they can coast this week. My presence augmenting Miss L’s probably didn’t make things much queter, but I truly believe that because I was there, no classroom furniture was broken beyond repair.
They like me at Jefferson Davis Magnet School (not its real name). The office director said so. She appreciates my willingness to be flexible and do darn near anything but clean the shower rooms next to the gymn. There is a certain joy of life with middle school students. They can be pushy sometimes, but their smiles come easily. There are MAJOR CULTURAL ISSUES which should be addressed at middle school, which are not being addressed, and which will not be shared here at Honey & Quinine. Most of the students, from every neighborhood in this city, want to learn. Wanting to learn is the best gift any student can give a teacher, and that is a true fact.
Live long . . . . . . . and proper.
Posted in arts, Uncategorized on March 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Museum of Funeral Customs, 1440 Monument Avenue invites all poets to an annyal poetry reading in the spring. Poems shared may be their own or a favorite poem by someone else. All poems by the presenters are published (with their permission) in an annual anthology. This yearI was asked for the second time to moderate the event: introduce participants using “scripts” each provides. And for the second time, I accepted.
I was inspired by the coming occasion to write a new poem (as I’ve done almost every year) and for this occasion, as I have done for three others, For the first time, I visited Oak Ridge Cemetery. This year I visited the cemetery administrative office and asked what person buried there had the largest monument, second only to Lincoln Tomb. I was told Mattie S. Rayburn, and was given excellent directions to find it. Mattie was worth the visit as you will see in the pictures and poem below. The office people showed me a fine book about Mattie, available for $15 cash; no checks, but considering my circumstances, I could not justify such extravigance. Instead, I explained, I intended to search the Internet for info. Silly me.
After returning home from the visit with Mattie, it soon became obvious the Internet is a joke if you seek info about her. I found almost nothing: mostly a link to Carl and Roberta Volkman’s fine new book from Arcadia Publshing, Springfield’s Sculptures, Monuments and Plaques, which includes a picture and brief description.. Also consulted was the late great Dr. Floyd S. Barringer’s book about the graves of notable folks permanently residing, so to speak, at Oak Ridge. I left my copy of his book at the reading; will share the title here when I get it back. For half a day I was moderately steamed that so little info was available. Then I sat down with a clear head, nothing else to do for the evening, and wrote tthe poem. And revised it slightly about 15 times in less than two days to produce what you see here.
Pictures are thumbnailed for faster loading. Click on any for a larger view and “Back” to return to this page..
I thought I read the final draft at the museum, but during a commercial break as I watched Da Vinci’s Inquest this morning, I made another. Here it is.
Considerable Mystery Still Surrounds
by Job Conger
written 9:10 pm, March 13, 2008
Scotch granite, topped with ghostly marble white.
Her echo in our town is tall, but slim;
this visage of a brilliant love that bloomed,
the soul mate, spurned by the old-world starched and prim.
She, in common law, wed a great preacher of the age,
and he, for that, deposed but not expelled by his angry flock,
built a graveyard torch-song to blaze to all below:
imperious statuary boasting “free love,” modern stock.
Mattie S. Rayburn, the bishop’s second wife
whom holy folk of Rushville would disdain
would rise above the wingless cackling crows,
and there, in silent triumph, would remain
since 1891, forty feet in lofty rank,
second in height only to Lincoln’s noble clan,
this stony testament of husband’s love
joined by their God sans sacrament of man.
The grand, polished, pedestal proclaims his passion fire,
yet, how the quaint marker almost in its shade
just to the east, whispers her burial place,
smaller than the nearby names and dates arrayed.
The bishop sailed from turbid Springfield tides
to destinations not remembered well
He’s buried in Ireland or pauper’s grave
in Paris; none alive today can tell.
<>Can we imagine what lustful laughter and
joy our Mattie gave to her man true?
that covenant between harmonious souls
the love most prairie sod busters never knew?
Do we dare dream our own life mates can match
the story of the bishop and his wife
who only to each other pledged their hopes
and arm in arm, gladly, embraced this life?
It’s fitting if we can, and without shame,
embrace that legacy to Oak Ridge eyes
sparkling still today for visitors to see –
that shows the ages love that never dies;
reminds the world how God can join as one
what biddies cannot denigrate with spite,
and sings to us from firmament of stone:
Scotch granite topped with ghostly marble white.
Soon after writing the first draft, I noticed that as Mattie’s monument is 40 feet high, my poem is 40 lines high. Divine coincidence? I think so. I hope you like the poem.
Live long . . . . . . and proper.
Posted in writing on March 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I taught Latin today.
And I shared some Vachel Lindsay with Fifth Hour because they merited it. Every class requested it. As I explained to Sixth Hour, my first goal is to engage the subject at hand: in this case Latin. If the students allow me success, if they will allow themselves success by tolerable, if not exemplary, decorum for an hour, I will allow them a few minutes at the end of class engaging poetry.
I LOVE LATIN CLASS! So much of the language of most legal citizens of the United States of America is rooted deeply in Latin, one who knows no Latin can translate a lot of it just by recognizing common spellings associated with modern language. If I were in high school today, I’d take Latin myself. I took Spanish instead and that’s okay too. Knowing what I know of Spanish, I can also “ballpark-close” translate a lot of Latin.
The students who come to Latin class are the brightest I encounter system-wide, and I am not kidding. But I discovered today there are two extremes of student society which are the greatest impediments to learning: the least able students . . . . . and the most able students. The least able — more accurately stated, those least-successfully inculcated with the belief that learning nets tangible near-term and long-term behefits — envisage no positive outcome to their efforts to learn. Soooooo, they don’t try to espedite connecting to what they are resigned to accepting as their grim future by paying what they understand is only “lip service to the man” (that would be me) since they ain’t gonna go nowhaya anyhah and ‘sides, I don’t offa dem nuffin but aggrivation.
The other extreme are students who radiate what I once called “the polished silver dollar cat-that-just-ate-the-canary smile of confidence.” They know they can do the classwork, and whatever they don’t accomplish during a hour with a substitute grownup, they can make up the next day after citing “pointless chaos” generated by “the other students” who kept the class from getting anything done. There was a time, early into my sub days, when I would have said simply, “To blazes with it. If you don’t care to focus, we’ll do study hall the rest of the hour.” Not any more. The students are worth more than that. Even though I don’t have the Illinois certificate, I am a teacher. I am worth more than that.
I didn’t pick up the telephone the first time the sub teacher service called. WHY? Because I am obsessed with completing my aviation history book for Arcadia Publishers. By the second time the phone rang, I had read the State Journal register, completed my email correspondence and was about to leave the house for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library to work on MY BOOK. I answered the phone at 9:30, agreed to go in, and from the moment I arrived, was glad I had.
I’ve been in the system awhile, so students recognize me. Virtually every class I encounter asks me about poetry: my own, sometimes, and Vachel Lindsay’s every time. In Sixth Hour some students I showed a movie to last fall remembered a chant I had spontaneously created at the end of that film and engaged a class in speaking in unison I had forgotten the chant, but they reminded me: “DON’T give IN to the CON!” It’s important for sensitive old geezers like me not to sell my favors too cheaply. I promised them we’d do “the song” toward the end of class. It was a large bargain for them. Almost too much.
The teacher had left no lesson plans. THAT’s a first for me for seven years. When I arrived in class a little after 10:00, the regular “in house” sub showed me the lesson plan book and advised me to go from there.
I went a step further following the bell at the end of second period and the arrival of the next class. I asked a student who struck me as a natural leader to lead the class on the basis of what the teacher had noted in her lesson planner book. The young lady did a sterling job because she knew the routine, the other students knew and respected her, and I stayed mostly out of the way.
So it went for the rest of the day. Some leaders led less effectively and I helped ride herd on them. In every class we engaged Latin at least 50 of the 57 minutes and shared poetry until the bell rang. Sixth hour was the greatest challenge, but once the “leadership triumverate” directed them to quiety copying a translation they transcribed to the blackboard, they were fine; hence the late reward of “DON’T give IN to the CON,” and that’s how some of them “marched” out of class when the bell rang at 3:10.
It had been a decent day, and I was content driving home.
This would have been the perfect time to take a few long hits on the Carlo Rossi, but I didn’t. I recognized I was a mite fatigued, so I napped a little. Arose, ate dinner, checked my email and wrote the first poem I’ve written in close to a year.
It’s for a poetry reading I’ve been asked to emcee later this week. I promised the organizers I would write a new poem, and I am a man of my word. Sat down at the desk at 7:00 and completed five-line stanzas by 9:10. I will post it here next week. It’s a draft. I will twak this thing until the big event. And afterwards, I will tweak it some more. I’m okay with it as it is, but the audience is worth more than a first draft. So am I.
I am strong. I carry a beard.
Live long . . . . . . and proper.
