At the All Star break

George Steinbrenner passed away this morning. Like most non Yankees fans, I down right loath the Yankees. They've long been the best team money can buy and therefore emblematic of what's wrong with America, and America's game. Be that as it may, it is a hard week for the Yankees, having also recently lost "the Voice of God," long time announcer Bob Sheppard.

Sheppard was an old school baseball man cut from a similar cloth as Red Barbar, Mel Allen, and Vince Scully. Serious about reporting and serious about baseball. I believe that Bob Costas is one of the few sportscasters to truly appreciate the nuance of such master craftsmen.

Steinbrenner may have micromanaged his club and at times become a caricature of himself, a wealthy tyrant who handled his subordinates autocratically rather than trusting their wisdom and experience to care for his franchise. He operated from the "strict-father" model. An American titan.

In his book about Watergate, Jimmy Breslin revealed that the Nixon Administration intimidated, harassed and extorted the Yankee owner and ship builder simply because he made contributions to Democratic campaigns. That much at least makes me a little less resentful toward Steinbrenner.

As Hunter Thompson might say, he "stomped on the Terra." Steinbrenner left a big mark on baseball and in that way on American history. That much is undeniable.

What could be more American, or more perfect on a summer evening, after playing hard all day long at the fair, than to crawl onto your dad's arms and watch the Home Run Derby on TV before having to go to bed? Two of my girls did just that last night. Ellen, who is eight has a deeper tan than most Dominican outfielders. Annamarie, who is five is missing two of her front teeth, therefore lisping everything she says.

We sat there watching Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz match records and the girls were each a constant stream of questions. Why do all those little kids get get to play in the outfield? Could I do that? 'Cause I'm on the tee-ball team, so I should get to do that too, right? What time is it in Anaheim? Do the people in the stands get to keep the balls they catch? Why does everybody wave their arms that same way? Why do they only use WOOD bats? Why don't they have aluminum bats like us? Why is the pitcher standing behind that fence? Why does the fence only have three squares? Why don't they just have a fence with for squares and have the pitcher throw the ball OVER the fence? Why doesn't David Ortiz run around the bases when he hists a home run? Is this baseball or not? So really this is the Home Run Derby and not a baseball game, but it's a different kind of game that's kinda LIKE baseball? Right, Daddy?

I assume that there would still be questions, and most of the questions would be exactly the same if they were boys. But one question they each asked independently (at different times, each when the other wasn't in the room) was one that no American son would ask. "Why can't GIRLS play baseball?"

Other dads would probably answer, "girls play SOFTball." I wasn't sure how to answer. Part of me wanted to say "I don't know why not, Honey, it doesn't seem fair does it?" But as enlightened and liberal as that might seem, I thought it would still be a cop-out. Instead I told them each, "I don't see why they can't. Just because there aren't any professional woman players now doesn't mean there shouldn't be. There used to be (but I didn't go into the whole story of World War II). I wondered if Jackie Robinson ever asked his dad why there weren't any black men in the Majors and what his dad might've said to him.

It will be interesting to see how Ubaldo Jimenez does in the All Star game tomorrow night. I'd like to see the National League actually win for once. In a year that has had an unprecedented four no-hitters (which should've been five, if it weren't for the umpire stealing Detroit Tiger Armando Galarraga's against Cleveland earlier this summer), it would be exciting to see Jimenez pitch a perfect game. 

Along with the buzz about the seemingly super-human rookie Stephen Strasburg joining the Washington Nationals, this seems to be the year of the pitcher. That's refreshing since it was the big hitters like Sosa, McGuire and Bonds a few years ago that sullied baseball's reputation with all their steroids.

I had the wonderful opportunity of seeing Arizona play at Dodger's Stadium a few years ago on different nights with different friends who had each been pitchers in high school. Neither were fans of either the Dodgers or the Diamondbacks. Both told me their were fans of whoever was pitching. 

When she painted and redecorated her room for a 4H project this summer, I was tickled to see my oldest daughter Grace, who is eleven, insist on adding the finishing touch of her Randy Johnson bobble-head. It was a great memory to attend an Arizona Diamondbacks game with her and her grandfather back home in Phoenix on Father's Day a couple of years ago. Last summer all three girls took me to a game in Kansas City.  

The D'Backs are of course dead last this year, but hey, as any Cubs fan will tell you, the All Star game is just the half-way mark. A lot can happen between now and October.

It's been a long time, almost as long as I've been alive, since Congress passed Title IX which reads,

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance...

But hey, any Cubs fan will tell you that the All Star break is just the half way mark, a lot can happen in a few years. Someday we might just hear the voice of God announce, "Pitching for the National League, number five... Annamarie Mallory."

Summer evening on the porch

What a gift-
to be sitting on the porch
sipping wine
at edge of twilight

Just as the wick of daylight is ready to extinguish
and the fireflies begin to appear
first a sparse few
then more and more
first slowly
then in more rapid succession

Caressed by  the South breeze
Balmy is exactly right
it is like a soothing balm on burns, bites, and abrasions
not dry or harsh or even steady
but soft and buffered with just enough humidity
to not become stickity
calming and intoxicating

Serenaded by doves, wren,  finches and whippoorwill
I wish you were in the chair next to me
sharing a glass of wine

But you are inside, working on 4H projects for the fair
with our oldest daughter
the younger two are in bed
drowned in deep sleep and dreams
after a long day of swimming and sunshine

I wish you were here on the porch with me
enjoying some wine
but how good it feels to have
the most important people in this world
working together
steadily
inside our home
while I sit here
watching the rest of the world
fade into obscurity and slumber
on a summer night

Until  cars hum by the corner
and kids set off fireworks down the block
and visitors back out of a mourning widow's drive across the street
and the mosquitoes start to land and climb up my ankles and ears
and my glass of wine is near empty

What a gift it is to come inside
to where the most important people in this world
are wondering where I've been all evening
and how I can be of some help

And the air is drier and calm,
but conditioned and cool
and insect-free
the lights are warm and low and comforting
and somehow you smile at me

What a gift to be here
with the most important people in the world.

Verbal Blues

What a sky!
A photo couldn't do it justice.
I wish I could paint it.
Perhaps a poem.
Yes, that's it
A poem would surely
do the trick.

So many hues
all of those blues!

How does one
put gradation into words?

It starts out sort of Cyan near the bottom
or is that Aquamarine?
I know it isn't Turquoise.

It starts out sort of Cyan near the bottom
and moves up through Sapphire.
At least I think it's Sapphire.
What do you call that color?
Isn't it Sapphire?

It starts out sort of Cyan near the bottom
and moves up through some kind of Sapphire.
Then it melds in to Princess, Columbia, and North Carolina,
Kitchen and Country and Robin's Egg too
(though I'm not sure which order),
and on to True Blue.

Oh WAIT
no, back up,
down below
because I just know
in my soul that
that's Sea Foam
that's seen
between the Cyan
and Aquamarine
I mean Sapphire
at least I THINK
that that's Sapphire.

It starts out sort of Cyan near the bottom

and moves up through Sea Foam

and on to Sapphire.

Then it melds in to Princess, Columbia, and North Carolina,

Kitchen and Country and Robin's Egg too

(though I'm not sure which order),

and on to True Blue.

Then deeper,

but a bit duller first

as planes leave the earth

into Dodger and Royals

and Gun Metal too

then Yankee and Navy and Police-uniform too

and finally deepest

at Midnight

up where the the celestial dome has it's apex

But all of this color

is somewhat transparent

like watercolor-

tempera or acrylic

never could do

a watercolor glaze

could let the under-painting

show through,

a vibrant

majestic

base coat of

Cobalt!

And on top

of these

on top

of these washes

and layers-

some opaque white clouds

No, no, no

they can't be so flat

a little variation will take care of that

Titanium White

and some Ivory and Bone

a little bit Platinum and a little bit Chrome

some Arctic and Cream

and the palest Pale Gray that you ever have seen.

Too beautiful for words,

ya know what I mean?

Reflection: On readers responses to writing

Thursday, July 8, 2010
1:04 PM

Most of what follows was cannibalized/recycled from letters to friends, responses to blog comments, and previous blog posts from about 2 years ago.

I always believed in talking about "sex, politics, and religion- not necessarily in that order," and that it is important to speak the truth as you believe it. But this election (2008) has superheated. I never minded complaints about me or the occasional hate mail, but it got intense. People feel so passionately about their sides that they become angrier and uglier faster.

While other people may be hypersensitive and wrapped up in rancor, I'm probably culpable too. I'm very passionate about what I believe too, so no doubt my tone became more acidic and less light hearted. I had planned to go "cold turkey," and never post anything here if I couldn't write a weekly column too- but obviously I didn't have enough self control for that.

My dream was that being held to the discipline of writing a weekly column might someday lead to being able to write professionally full time. In my mind, blogging was extra, superfluous, a past time- column writing was the meat, blogging the side dish. If this is all I have, I'm just another prattling voice in the vast blogosphere, that hardly anyone ever bothers to read. In the PRESS, it was farm league, small time, but there were 4,000 readers- even if most of them disagreed with me and several of them thought I should be tried for treason.

I'm saddened whenever anyone tries to marginalize or impugn me because I share opinions which I have thought out carefully and hold because I care deeply about our country.

I didn't stop writing a column for the press because of a reader's tirade of a letter to the editor. I stopped because the whole climate and culture of the community where I live has been too polarized and too emotionally charged, and for the sake of my family and loved ones I felt that it would be better 1) not to contribute to that polarization and 2) not subject those close to me to the same resentment, indignation and ridicule which I became a target of because of my opinions.

Although, I will admit that I was getting a lot of hate email and negative blog comments from people and it all compounded on 8 rejection letters in a row from syndicates for either columns or cartoons- so I was both sick of putting up with people's crap feeling sorry for myself.

I wish I could stop writing the way that an alcoholic wishes they could stop drinking. I've tried to stop writing altogether and it's bigger than I am.

Writing about writing

A few weeks ago a friend from college commented on a piece I'd written that I had posted on the Web. It was about Pentecost and I had originally posted it on a blog about prayer and spirituality. What they said really threw me. 

They told me that my writing was "thoughtful, researched, and full of message. But the one thing I keep feeling that is missing is your heart. I know that you have a very large, loving, and giving heart. But I don't hear it much, I hear your head." They challenged me, this summer to give your head a vacation. "Move out of your head and move into your heart."

I'm pretty neurotic, so I immediately started obsessing about this. 

My mom told my wife, Bethany recently that she knew I wasn't very empathetic. I suspect she just perceives me that way because it's how I've learned to cope with her volatility and irrationality because of her personality disorder. Beth assures me that I'm very empathetic and compassionate. Still, your challenge, coming on the heels of my mom's characterization of me really made me do some reflecting this week.

Seems like when I've shown my heart, I piss people off and get attacked for it. At least that's what's happened when I write about politics and religion with any heart. When I write from my feelings about work, my principals talk to me about how it's potentially bad PR and ask me to retract it. I tend to avoid writing about family and friends if only to honor their privacy.

I confessed to my friend, a Quaker, that I wasn't entirely sure how to write about my heart for God. I've felt exhilaration and comfort and frustration, the whole gamut. I guess I don't always trust that those are from God and aren't just self-induced. Perhaps this is a result of my K-8 and then collegiate LCMS education. No doubt I fear the admonishment and/or skepticism/ridicule of other Lutherans.

Sometimes I'd like to learn how to write fiction so that I could change the names. But sometimes life is stranger than fiction. If you google my brother in law who committed suicide a year and a half ago you'll find him in the news of the weird as the guy who sued the ethanol plant for firing him because he got drunk off the fuel. You want to laugh but your hear breaks too.

I don't know. I think that I have a recognizable "voice." But I'm still not sure I've found that "heart" that you challenged me to find. Perhaps it's that I know how to provoke, but haven't mastered being able to invoke or evoke.

I'm not trying to meet this challenge to please my friend, but to try to grow. Ideally so that I can help students grow and so that I can be more useful to God. Like St. Francis' "Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace."

I told my friend what a tizzy their comment had put me in and begged for explanation. Was I cold, un-empathetic, was I not open enough? Not personal enough? Did my work lack emotion?

My friend explained to me that "I think what I hear is that your head is intellectualizing your emotions. You are using your head to make sense of what you feel."

Isn't that what writing is for? I thought. Shouldn't I work through my feelings with words. Don't we encourage our children to be reflective?

"What I was trying to say, was stay in your heart, with God," they told me, "and let God and your true self inform you what your emotions are about."

They explained that what they meant by "heart," wasn't how most people conventionally used the term. 

"To me," they continued, "my heart is where God resides inside of me. That is where I go to be with God and my true self, the self that God made. The false self resides in my head, this is the self that I created."

I'd like to think I've had some opportunities to do that this summer reading, walking, sitting quietly, driving, praying, and especially taking pictures. But I've got to admit that it's REALLY hard for me to let go and get out of my head. I'm constantly trying to intellectualize my emotions. Maybe I'm scared to lose that control.

It may be a while before more of that heart shows up in my writing. Writing is such an intellectual process for me.

Something else that's scary is the role that caffeine and ginkgo biloba may be playing in this. My mind races sometimes and I don't know that I could slow it down if I wanted to. I'd hate to think that these relatively benign substances could be preventing me from hearing the still small voice of the Divine.

It's difficult to get enough sleep in the summer. Several days last week our children were up till midnight watching fireworks. When I get home from class, the house is a stress-pool of 4-H preparation for fairs and preparations for Vacation Bible School. So if only to make the hour and a half drive to class I guzzle pop and coffee. 

I've toyed with picking up a book on yoga or ti chi, but to be honest, I'm afraid of looking ridiculous.

I'll just keep trying to be open and genuine in my writing, but I'm obviously going to have to seek the Spirits' help on finding the heart where He lives in me.

Learn to be Still, by the Eagles

It’s just another day in paradise

As you stumble to your bed

You’d give anything to silence

Those voices ringing in your head

You thought you could find happiness

Just over that green hill

You thought you would be satisfied

But you never will-

Learn to be still

We are like sheep without a shepherd

We don’t know how to be alone

So we wander ’round this desert

And wind up following the wrong gods home

But the flock cries out for another

And they keep answering that bell

And one more starry-eyed messiah

Meets a violent farewell-

Learn to be still

Learn to be still

Now the flowers in your garden

They don’t smell so sweet

Maybe you’ve forgotten

The heaven lying at your feet

There are so many contridictions

In all these messages we send

(we keep asking)

How do I get out of here

Where do I fit in? 

Though the world is torn and shaken

Even if your heart is breakin’

It’s waiting for you to awaken

And someday you will-

Learn to be still

Learn to be still

My gas guzzler puts around on the info super HWY

Taking a class to renew my teacher's license this summer, I decided to become one of those people who sit and use their laptops in Starbucks. Little did I know that this would be like taking my "trusty-rusty"  small 2 wheel drive pickup out cruising on a Friday night- embarrassingly out of place.

I opened up my 2003 model Dell Latitude, with it's plug in D-Link card to take advantage of the Barnes&Noble free WiFi. I'd read a journal article and now needed to spend some time writing.

On the other side of a divider, at another table sat a couple of young turks playing with their smart phones and a brand new ipad.

I waited for my edition of Windows XP to load while they laughed and talked about celebrity gossip and the variety of new free apps they were exploring, all the while their conversation peppered with profanity.

Here I was a forty-something abandoning my family so that I could work on professional development, so I can keep my job to put a roof over their heads and clothes on my back- and these college-agers were planning a solo vacation to Washington DC, playing Eminem music as they did it. At least when people wore a Sony WalkMan or even an Apple ipod, their music was private.

I struggled to listen to the jazz that Starbucks plays, but felt like I was stuck at a stoplight next to teenagers in a "pimped-out" sports car blasting hip hop or heavy metal out to the whole neighborhood. Whereas I have to struggle just to hear the AM radio in my little truck over the knocking and pinging of the motor.

My truck has well over 200,000 miles on it. We bought it used at an auto auction.
My laptop doesn't have enough RAM to run Photoshop and a web browser at the same time. I got it for about $240 on eBay.

I take solace in the fact that my truck is utilitarian. It gets me to school and home. It can haul furniture, trash, lawn clippings, groceries and supplies for cheerleaders to the football field or the concessions stand at track meets. I can blog and compose tests and share pictures with my modest, hopelessly obsolete laptop. So who cares that I can't read ebooks on it or use it as a GPS device?

I remind myself that people are more important than things when I'm stuck next to teens and twenty-somethings in shiny new vehicles. I need to do the same with the adolescent techies and their expensive cyber-toys.

Okay, my Judeo-Christian ethos and Buddhist-ish political leanings can help me to maintain my non-materialistic values and not covet their toys. But my middle-aged, overweight, disaffected white guy personality REALLY finds their taste in music annoying.

Ah... finally they've left for the food court to fraternize with the all the female teen mall-maggots. Just me, my TAZO green tea and the Ella Fitzgerald muzak.

Aw shoot- a text from my wife asking me to call as soon as I get a break. Probably needs me to pick up something at the store or to hurry home so that our kids aren't left unsupervised so she can go to some meeting or something.

So much for the romanticized ideal or writing in the cafe like some kind of mid-twentieth century French Existentialist or a New York Beat poet.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are" ~Teddy Roosevelt ( I might add- and do it in what little time you have to do it.)

Modest, practical and utilitarian. That's the Iowan way. I should know how to be happy this way, after all I'm Lutheran. Guess it's just the curse of being an Irishman living among the Germans.

Time to pack up my archaic computer and head back home in the family minivan. At least it has air conditioning, unlike my pickup- which I left parked at home. Because minivans are so cool and manly for driving around a college campus in summer.

Reflecting on the first chapter of journal articles

Our class wants to know more about...
1. how to prepare students for testing AND critical thinking
2. how to assign authentic writing pieces that are related to my curriculum
3. how to handle the paper load
4. writing for thinking/learning vs. writinng for communication/assessment
5. how to modify/differentiate instruction for diverse learners
6. how to encourage & make time for good revising
7. how to make peer-editing work
8. how to utilize technology for feedback/collaboration
9. the benefits of reading out loud
10. the role of grammar in writing

Pardon me if 

I wear my brain

on the

OUTSIDE

of my head

"Teachers should learn the way children should learn, in the mutual effort of writing with a purpose- the primary initial purpose being one's own joy and satisfaction with what is written- and in the delight of reading widely from a writer's perspective. The easiest way for teachers to learn these things in order to teach children in this way is to learn them with children, to share the writing activities with the children themselves." ~Frank Smith

Even as an undergrad, I began believing that process is more meaningful that product. Product may or may not affect an audience, but process always transforms the author.

I once had a collegue describe me as "transparent." They didn't mean invisible, they meant open. The poem, 'Pardon Me' which I wrote yeasterday is certainly about personal expression. Some cultures, and some individuals are more expressive than others and this poem addresses the issues that arise when one's personal expression encroaches either on other people's comfort zones or runs counter to their opinions.

But that poem also has to do with my teaching philosophy- the value of metacognition, that is thinking about thinking and thinking outloud.

"Thinking is a spectator sport" ~Rod Cameron

I've believed for years in teaching students to draw, not so that they can become famous artists, but because the act of drawing and the perceptual skills involved are useful for thinking and processing, for problem solving and as catalyst for shifting perspectives, broadening perspectives, creativity and even catharsis and therapy. Even just plain mental hygiene.

Why it hadn't occurred to me that writing is useful in precisely the same ways confounds me. I see it now.

It also occurs to me that it's easy to say that reading makes you a better writer, but it is just as likely that writing makes one a better reader.

What I've started reading of Karen Ernst's book 'A Teacher's Sketch Journal' (Heinemann, 1997) leads me to believe that writing and drawing can compliment each other as learning and though-processing tools. I'd like to work at utilizing them together both for myself and in my classes.

I imagine that trying to do this will end up effecting and involving issues like critical thinking skills, differentiation, and revision. Once student become comfortable with this it would only be natural to share sketches and writing pieces and then these words and pictures will also be useful for collaboration, peer-editing and feedback.

Thomas Jefferson and Lewis and Clark, Van Gogh, and Da Vinci are all historical examples of writers, explorers, scientists, inventors and engineers who used drawing and sketching to supplement their writing or artists, designers, and painters who used writing to supplement their work. In their times it was hard to say when something was a sketchbook and when it was a journal.

English speakers only know Michelangelo as a painter and sculptor, but to those who speak Romance languages, he is as important a poet as Shakespeare.

All through high school and college I identified myself as a cartoonist. I felt inadequate as either a draftsman/painter or as a writer. Perhaps that's okay. The marriage of words and pictures is as natural as words and music.

What separates us from other animals is not just our ability to create, it's the ways we process experiences and information and writing and drawing are two of the most sophisticated ways of processing.

We as teachers owe it to our children to operate more in the dirty, messy, spontaneous, improvisational model of community, family and democracy instead of the rigid, sterile, homogenized, anxious, cut-through model of finance and industry. We need to worry more about depth than breadth. More about quality than quantity. More about immeasurable values than the measurable data. More about process than product. More about how to ask questions than which answers to supply. More about how to think than how to perform.

This marriage of words and pictures is perfect for this blog in particular. It's not a journal or a photo log, it's both.

POEM: Pardon Me

Pardon me
if I wear my brain
on the
OUTSIDE
of my head

It's just so sunny out,
but not too sunny,
not so sunny that it should get burnt,
just sunny enough to
take in some Vitamin D,
and to warm up
and not feel quite so clammy
or boxed-up

There's a little breeze,
but not too breezy,
not so much that it would
dry out
or fall out
and blow away,
down the street
like someone's hat,
or a kerchief of a boa,
snaking along the surface of the asphalt
like drifts of snow tend to do
in winter

I hope you don't mind

if I wear my brain

on the

outside

of my head

It makes some people feel

uncomfortable

I don't mean to use poor manners

Don't look at it

if it makes you queasy

sometimes it gets so needy

I just have to let it out so it can stretch

and breath

and unwind

a bit

Oh, no

I promise it won't unwind entirely

like an intestine

I like to keep it all together anyway

If it were to fall apart it would be

in gossamer synaptic strands

that will take to the sky like a tiny spider on a single strand of web

not all wormy or gummy or

sausage-casing-ish

like my entrails would

if I were to

spill my guts out

Would it be alright

if I wore my brain

on the

outside

for just a while?

Don't worry,

it doesn't bite

and it doesn't have any thing too catchy

If anything,

I'd appreciate

your being gentle

and careful

and kind

around me

if I don my mind

like a wig

or a fedora

outside

of my head-

You see,

it's quite fragile

and delicate

I know it may seem

offensive to you

but it's far more vulnerable to you

than I bet

you are

to it.

Pardon me

if I wear my brain

on the

outside

of my head

It will probably climb up

out there

whether I take it out or not

It's very needy, 

I guess

Without it sitting above

my hair

I sometimes don't feel

completely dressed

You don't think

I'll be arrested

if I wear my brain

on the

OUTSIDE

of my head?

Another Prompt; Memorable smells

It's interesting that Professor Knepper should suggest smells or olfactory memory as a writing prompt, because just this morning, this forty-some year old building full of college classrooms and offices is full of them. No doubt because it is about as old as some of the classrooms I was in at undergraduate school. The cinderblock walls, the now antequaited chalk boards, the industrial air conditioning and floor cleaners.

This past week I've been to so many places that have very powerful aromas that evoke memories, invoke attitudes, and provoke reactions.

This hanging smoke from fireworks on the Fourth of July brought back campfires and bonfires. The second-hand smoke of someone else who'd come to view the show returned me to childhood in the 70's when it seemed like every adult smoked. Especially in airports and restaraunts.

The walking trail at the Living History Farms in Des Moines reminded me of the marshy path behind my grandparent's farm in Michigan where we cousins used to ride Grandpa's motor bike.

My wife and I stopped by her school to pick up something from her classroom and of course it reeked of floor polish and, well, whatever 80 year old school buildings reek of. Brick, mildew, janitorial supplies?

I backed our van out of my father-in-law's garage, which we had loaned him for entertaining out of town guests last week and I was stopped in my tracks, because it smelled exactly like my grandfather's garage in Bellville Michigan, where he kept his restored Model A and Model T Fords. Maybe it was the time of year or the humidity, but I could smell that exact same combination of dust and axel grease or motor oil so clearly that I paused, waiting to be discovered by my Grandpa or my Dad- just an eight year old kid exploring the old barns as if they were midevil castles or ruinned cathedrals full of wonder and treasure, but one faced certain doom if discovered by the ancient sorcerer who's lair you were trespassing in.

As I decended into our basement for something from the freezer to make for supper, I could smell my grandmother's basement, or maybe it was her porch. Old wood, moldy, musky rafters. I looked around for her jars of pickles, beets, beans, or baloney.

Many's a time a girl walks by and whatever scent she's wearing wafts behind her and it brings to mind an old crush from high school, and old flame from college, or some date I'd had with my wife and I swoon. Not like an old lecher, leering with preditory aims after whichever young woman was wearing the perfume- but just cought up in the swirling jetty of memories. Dizzy from infatuations and flirtations from long ago.

Rapid Writing Exercises

This exercise reminded me of when I have drawing students do gesture sketching- very quick, with the clock running. These are based on prompts given us by Prof. Marty Knepper at Iowa Writing Project, day one:


Prompt- Interesting People

Artists and writers are interesting people.

In college, I had a roomate who had written everything that Steven King had eveer written. Me, I wasn't so into either the horror or suspense stories, but I loved to read the forwards and afterwards in which King talked about the writing process, where he drew his inspirations and shared memories from growing up.

Other Art teachers spend all their time teaching about the elements and principles of design or various techniques and styles. I find the biographies and interactions of artists most facinating. The rivalry between Matisse and Picasso, Picasso's bitterness toward his father and the suicide of his best friend after being turned down by a woman because she was in love with Picasso instead. Of course the tortured mental illness of Vincent VanGogh and his strained relationship with his father- and with fellow artist Paul Gauguin.


Prompt- Objects that mean something to you

As I've gotten older, objects have lost their hold on me. It is much easier to discard material things and realize how unnecissary they are- but when I was younger, I had many mojos- touchstones if you will. I comandeered my father's pipe in college, as I did his Marine fatigues when I was in high school. They somehow connected me to him and helped me identify with him more. I had a model car which my grandfather had built, which was a replica of the real 1930 Ford Coup which he had restored.


Prompt- Memorable events/times in your life

The summer before Senior year of HS when I attended the Journalism Workshop at Ball State University in Muncie Indiana.

Being woke up by the Northridge Earthquake at 4:31 AM, January 17, 1994. We lost our apartment and were homeless for several days. That morning seemed post-apocalyptic, sirens blared as emergency vehicles kept driving past- which meant that obviously there were more injuries and dammage everywhere else in the city, even though some of our building units had collapsed on their garages. We couls smell the natural gas from lines being sheared off- yet all kinds of people were smoking because they were so nervous, we were afraid that there would be explosions or fires in our complex as there were all over the surrounding hills.


Prompt- memorable movies/shows

My Brother and I went to see 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' every night for a week at Midnight movies one summer. It was a double feature with 'Time Bandits.' When 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Chrystal Skull' came out, he and I took my nephew to see it together.

Both of us History teachers (my wife & I), asked the chairman of our department if he'd seen 'Shindler's List,' he smirked "I go to the movies to be entertained!"

Somehow, she let me take her to see 'saving Private Ryan' as a date movie on our anniversary!

We could watch 'While You Were Sleeping' and 'You've Got Mail' almost every weekend and never get tired of them. Guess she got me to like some chick-flicks.

She cried at the opening sequence of 'Up.'
I cry every time I see 'Field of Dreams,' and 'It's a Wonderful Life.'

IWP, Prompt- Write about your name

Growing up in Phoenix, we had a neighbor accross the street who was from Alabama. She always reminded me of  Polly Holliday's character, Flo Castleberry on the TV show 'Alice.' Whenever she'd see me, she'd call me "Theodore," but her thick accent made it sound to me like she was calling me "Theatre."


My parents insisted that my name was "Ted" on my birth certificate and that they made it that short because they never wanted anyone to shorten my name or give me nicknames. Which is ironic because classmates were always calling me Fred, or Ned, or wet-Head or "Farmer Ted."

When I was growing up, the only other Ted I knew of was Ted Night on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, who was a pompous ass.

In Spanish class, we were assigned translations of our given names, and while I personally liked "Teodoro," my class mates preferred "Tero-DORK-o." Leading me to adopt "Theo," the more urbane monicer of a character on the Cosby Show.

It means gift of God. In a way I passed it on to our first daughter by naming her "Grace."

POEM: Feed Me

Gotta eat to live
Gotta read to write
How do people THINK without reading?

I feel like a baby bird
beak stretched open wide
waiting for a worm

Like a suckling newborn
seeking milk
wondering why it is now outside its mother
now taking as much of its mother into itself as it can

Like a ravenous dog
a lumbering, slobbering Mastiff or St. Bernard,
slopping up raw hamburger and eggs from its dish
on the floor in the corner of the family kitchen
licking and slurping and lapping
wanting more, always more

Some greasy Hemingway
Some grainy Steinbeck

Savory salad with lots of garlic,
that's Vonnegut

A pitcher of ice cold ppilsner,
that's Robert B. Parker

Some James Patterson French Fries
Fried Grisham and Crieghton

Cut into thick, medium rare Viktor Frankl

St. Paul and St. John are merlot and cabernet

George Orwell is a little like oysters on the half shell,
should I sprinkle them with Robert Bly's lemon pepper?
Or have it on a bed of Nikki Giovani's mustard greens?
Perhaps a dash of red hot Henry Miller?

Warm pots of William Carlos Williams and Carl Sandburg Garrison Keillor are brewing for later.

A slice of Jean Shepherd pie to go with that?
Or Bill Bryson, David Sedaris, and Mark Twain?

I can't decide between the Mike Royko or the Molly Ivins.
Maybe some H.L. Melkin on rye.
No! J.D. Salinger on rye and a side of Richard Kinsella.

Some Hunter S. Thompson, but put it on ice,
just a splash of Jimmy Buffet, now that would be nice.

Where did I put that Flannery O'Connor?
It must be on the shelf with the Fannie Flagg.

I think I spilled some Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee on the Harper Lee.

No thank you, I'll pass on the Jane Austin,
I'm still finishing my Richard Hooker

I don't think I could handle another bite of Bradbury, Asimov or Roddenberry

Oh but for some more Doctor King!
if only the whole world would consume more Doctor King
perhaps there'd  be less indigestion.

Gotta read to think
Gotta eat to live
Call me a glutton,
I just can't get enough