Crowd-Chops–Where they gone to?

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Susacadia
Me in the far upper left corner.

Me, back to, in the far upper left corner.

I’ve lost my crowd-chops. Again. Two days at the Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine taught me that. Truth be told, I haven’t had them for years, since well before I took up the life of a near solitary, living with my husband, two cats, and, for the moment, two pigs. Sometimes even that feels like a crowd.

Crowd-chops is not about being around lots of people. It is two parts random interactions and one part being unable to escape. It is about needing to think on your feet in situations where a planned script will do you no good. Sure you can draw on experience, and the more the better. But if you’ve got crowd-chops, you revel in the unexpected, take joy in confronting that random interaction that will make you re-mix your knowledge base in new and interesting ways. You’ve got to love serendipity.

Pigs who have made a break for the bigger field count as a crowd, at least the first couple of times. Then you learn that a bucket rattling suggestively with pig-kibble is enough to lure them into the pen. And after a few escapes (and a husband with power tools) they are well contained and no longer a crowd. Cats, as well, with their random crunchings and munchings as they eat prey head down are, at first, crowd worthy, particularly when you step in still wet intestines that didn’t meet their culinary standard. But gradually this slips into the normal workings of a household and stops being a crowd. By the same token a jam packed bus station can provide solitude with travelers studiously examining their own knees and declining to make eye contact.

I was at the Common Ground Fair to run a couple of demos, one in spinning and one in energized knitting a la Twisted Sisters. Beyond that, whenever someone approached any of the other spinners and asked about spindling they were sent my way. I have taught people to spindle before, but never for two days straight. Never in weather that never quite turns to rain, never gets above 58°, and never stops blowing. All was not smooth sailing.

There is finding the right level of language to use with different people, sometimes teaching vocabulary. Hair and fur become fiber. Round-thingey becomes a whorl. But there are those who want language like “capacity” and “torque” and “stored energy” and “tensile strength” while others are satisfied with “twist” and “winding.” Older learners tend to over-think what they are doing. Even more, however, they have not learned anything totally new for years , even decades, whereas younger people are used to learning new things. Spinning requires you to coordinate what your tool (spindle or wheel) is doing as well as manipulating the fiber that is being spun. “Park and draft” is a handy strategy since it separates the spinning from the drafting components, but you still need to keep the fiber from untwisting, or getting bound up with already spun yarn, while you are managing the spindle’s part of the process.

In the midst of one lesson, I suddenly realized that “clockwise” really mean nothing to people under 25. I watched several of them figuring it out, but for many it was like watching one of those mimic games. (You know, like when someone does the motions for “the bear went over the mountain” and tells you to do it. You’ve watched carefully but missed the part where they crossed their ankles when they said the word “over” or some such nonsense.) They would watch what I was doing and try to discern what “clockwise” meant. I finally twigged on what was amiss and asked one if it would be easier if I said “north to east” and they looked immensely relieved.

What does this have to do with crowd-chops? It is actually a wonderful parallel to what interacting with  strangers, and making sure they have a good time, enjoying their experience, and leaving with a sense of having learned something new, of having grown. This is what I tried to do at the CGF. It is what I’ve always tried to do in the classroom – another venue where crowd-chops are required. It takes energy, perspective, and a commitment that you will not say “just go away, I’m tired” no matter how exhausted you are, even when you can’t, yourself, escape.

Having your crowd-chops in good working order is like being able to spin and talk at the same time. It is like being that guy who used to appear on the Ed Sullivan spinning plates. It is knowing how to sweat only on the side of your face that isn’t facing your audience. The last time I had serious crowd-chops, was when I was working in computing at The Jackson Laboratory. Every day I fielded random questions, from people with wildly diverse needs and levels of expertise, from people who could clearly describe a problem, to those for whom triage was a guessing game:

“It doesn’t work”

“What seems to be going wrong?”

“It’s not doing what I want it to do.”

“What did you see on your screen that first made you suspect things weren’t right?” These were scientific staff, mind you, who would never have accepted a description like that for a genetic manifestation.

For a while teaching school seemed to be a relief from that chaos. That hope disappeared in the space of my first day in front of students. As random as working at TJL seemed, I could at least go to the bathroom whenever I wanted to, or walk slowly between assignments to catch my breath. School has no such respite. By the second week of school, after that first year, I was back in the groove, chops in place.

I took my first summer off. My kids had elected to go to camp. Andrew was working full time. I sat on my porch drinking seltzer water with lemon, reading mysteries, and taking breaks to cook fine things. It was glorious. When comparing notes with a teacher who had started at EHS the same time I did, she was astounded. Not that I hadn’t worked, but that I had not once sought out companionship. “That would drive me crazy, to be all alone, even for just one day.” What a thing to admit! I thought.

That is the crux of having crowd-chops. For some of us it takes practice and conditioning. Our natural state is solitude. I found the book A Party of One subtitled “A Loner’s Manifesto.” I recognized myself instantly. While I can get my crowd-chops back with a little work and practice, I’ll always lose them again at the drop of a hat. I’ve got strategies, now. I know not to panic when faced with a crowd that believes they have random access to me. I have patterns I can draw on to get back into the game more quickly. I can step outside myself, and watch what I’m doing and saying. Even so, while I will never intentionally be in a situation where I require crowd-chops for more than a few days in a row, I will make sure I have some alone time in the crowd, to discharge and recharge.

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Rafe–Recovering, Tools 02

Posted on September 13, 2014 by Susacadia

Rafe tested the left side of her mouth where it pulled upward. The jaw worked fine, but she could feel the corner of her mouth starting to ooze around the stitches. She pressed her back against the heat soaked wall of her sister’s house, closed her eyes and started knitting. Her shoulders felt the strain of holding the needles and trying to draw breath against the binding that kept her ribs together. She felt a shadow cross her face.

“Good to see you home.”

The voice was deep and came from somewhere a foot and a bit above her head. Rafe opened her eyes and, tilting her head as far back as she could, was just able to see a bit of hair poking out over the shirt lacing. The waist and knees started to collapse and there was a good looking man, about forty, in front of her, one knee in the dust and the other propping his elbow. He had a wide easy smile, a gap between his top front teeth, and no mustache.

“Marlon!” Rafe said. Her croaking voice barely carried the excitement she felt. “I’d know that gap anywhere. You’ve aged.”

“I daresay I’ve kept in better shape than you. Jenna said this was your first day out. I’d thought I come over and check out the damage. Which appears considerable.” He scrutinized her face, turning her jaw, with one finger, to the right. “All in all I’d say you were lucky. You kept your hearing and sight both.”

“It’s not the first time.”

“It looks like they were trying to slit your throat.”

“Not the first time for that either.”

“Singing not to their liking?”

“You might say.”

“I’ve got to wonder, though,” Marlon continued, “if you’ll put the same fear of the gods into those recruits now that you’ve got a permanent smile.”

Rafe’s eyebrow raised and her eyes squinted. “I suspect I will manage.”

“Whoa! It’ll be worse for them, if anything. Who stitched you? They did a nice job.”

“Boyl did it.”

“I didn’t think that was Jenna’s work. She doesn’t like doing fiddly things on short notice. And I don’t suspect you gave her much notice from what I heard.”

“So how are you, Marlon? Married? Family? How are your parents?”

“Okay. We’ll change the subject, then. I married Joan, you might remember her. She was a bit younger than us, but didn’t quite run with Jenna’s mob, or Ducky’s.”

Rafe laughed, then shook her head. “It’s funny to hear you call a group of kids a ‘mob’ as if all it took to make a mob was three of four with a single purpose. Where I’ve been a mob is upwards of a hundred people all packed into a space the size of the commons. And they’re angry.”

“I’ve been away, as well you know,” Marlon smiled. “I know what a mob is, out in the world. But local rules apply. I speak like a common man, a child of the town, Miss High and Mighty, never come for a visit until you were dumped in your sister’s dooryard.”

“No, you’re right. Home is a place I’ve never been before. So, you married Joan. And is she nice, good to you?”

Marlon nodded and smiled.

“And children?”

“Three. The oldest is away for the moment, gone to apprentice in Calmer’s Reach, to learn fine metal work. He’ll be back, before too long, to set up shop. The second one is apprenticed with Barton Stubbs, the one who married your Auntie Finn. He’ll come and go and manage the family’s trade goods.”

“And the last?”

“The last … she is something of a minx.” Marlon paused. Then he slid himself onto the bench next to Rafe. “Ahhh. There’s nothing like a good warm wall in the early spring, is there.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“She’s something of a minx, and …Your daughter. The light of your life.”

“Well, the light of somebody’s life at any rate. She’s not talented the way you were.” Marlon rubbed his neck suggestively. “But there is a certain kindred spirit there. A certain expediency. Not that Jenna and Joan both aren’t expedient. Get the job done and damn the fallout. But they still keep an eye on what might need to be patched up later. They know they’ll be the ones to do the patching, so they take a little care.” He looked at her new scar, and the others.

“You saying I’m reckless?” Rafe might have smiled at that thought, if her mouth had worked.

“No. But I’m thinking you expect others to handle the patching up. You always fixed the big things, but not the details. I remember when you brought down that tree between me and the bear. I was grateful, but I was picking out splinters for days.”

“From what I hear, you’re a fixer, too, Marlon.”

“I am. And I fashion new things. Thing people never thought of before.”

“You may be interested in these, then. Jenna just made them for me after a design I saw, campaigning in the west.” She passed him her knitting needles. The business end looked like normal needles, pointed and smooth, burnished to a shine, but through the stout end, there was a tiny hole fashioned.. A silk thread had been strung through this, looped and knotted. The knot fit into a little dent at the stout end.

“This would certainly keep you from losing one of your needles. Handy.” Marlon looked up and saw Rafe smiling at him. At least her eyes were smiling. “That’s not all, is it?”

“Nope.”

Marlon tugged at the silk thread. It stayed put. He slid the stitches back and forth along the thread, to the ends of the needles and back. There was no snagging. He could see that it would make a tidy package in a knitter’s lap. He saw you could make things round, more easily, knitting one continuous row all the way to the top. He stretched the needles as far apart as they could go. The silk held, but that was the nature of silk. He looked at Rafe again. “I give. What is it?”

“A garrote.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I want you to fix it.”

“What do you mean? It looks fine. And deadly.”

“I need to be able to detach the thread quickly. And I don’t want to cut it. I want to be able to leave it intact. I don’t want to have to build it again each time I use it for its … alternate purpose. But I can’t be found with something so clearly garrote-like when someone’s ended up strangled.”

Marlon was clearly intrigued. “Hmmm. A channel cut into the metal here. Loop around.” He started drawing in the dirt. “I can fit a bezel on the end so it would look like a normal needle, but locked in place with a little switch. Does it have to be metal, or can I use wood? A hard wood, like ironbore.”

“Metal. It cleans easier.”

“Can I take these? Did Jenna make you another set? I’d like to go talk with Boyl. This is more like his line of work than Jenna’s If my son were here, I’d work with him, because this is really the sort of thing he does.”

“Be my guest. She made more for trade at the market. I’ll use one of those. Just leave the knitting.” She pulled the needles from of the stitches and laid the half finished scarf carefully in the basket with the wool.

Marlon looked at what she had done. “If the thread were removable, you could just use the same points to mend, or even start something new, without having to drag a half finished sweater along with you. These would be great!”

“Well, there is that, too.” Rafe brought the other corner of her mouth up. “Let’s just say that’s why you’re doing this. Being frugal is always good. Strangling people, not so much.”

Marlon pocketed the needles and silk. “It’s just like you were never gone, suggesting mayhem and me buying into it. I’m glad you’re back, Rafe.”

“You’re one of the few that called me that back then.”

“All our mob called you Rafe. There just weren’t that many of us.”

Marlon saluted her and headed off for the forge where Boyl would be working along side Jenna. Rafe pulled another set of needles out of her pocket and stared to thread on the dropped stitches from the scarf. Marlon would never tell their real purpose, but he could describe to Boyl what was wanted and Boyl would guess. She had always liked that about Marlon, that he could solve a problem without being to tender about what someone intended to do with what he fashioned. His daughter hadn’t really fallen far from the tree.

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Stuck In the Cave

Posted on September 6, 2014 by Susacadia

Me and MomPlato wrote about it, Ecclesiastes vamped on the subject, Robbie Burns wistfully wondered.

I can be as self-serving as the next person; I cherish the occasional glimpses I get of myself from the outside, whether they are complimentary or not. The tendency of teens to be honest, casually, offhandedly, is one of the things I have enjoyed about working with young people.

My focus for Sophomore English was international literature. I saw that as a way of helping students see “The Other” as less alien, certainly on a personal level, but also socially and politically. It is important for youngsters to see different as neither good nor bad – just not the same. As they prepared to write stories in foreign settings, I shared my story, Taxi Baby. It is a marginally fictionalize piece about something that happened during my Peace Corps years. I wanted to lay bare my writing process, and hoped that by taking that risk of revelation I would encourage the less sure among them to take risks as well.

The year before I had worked on revisions, more or less in public. One of the ed-techs in the school (thank you Marti) had been my chief editor, but I had also worked on the process with student editors. “This sounds stupid” and “I can’t understand a thing you’ve written” and “This is boring. No one would want to read it” were all comments I took to heart. They improved my product, and I required students to justify their opinions with evidence. We all grew.

That year, the year it was published, I shared some of the revisions I had made, let them examine the marked up manuscript, and read the story as it had been published. We ended up with a slew of side bar conversations that had little to do with the writing process – that had become invisible, which I guess is a good thing in terms of how effective my writing was. One of the discussions started with the comment “That girl really has no idea how to be a good friend.”

What! Had I really written that in the story? Apparently I had. “Well, I was twenty-three or four at the time. I think I was still learning how to be a real friend.” And we were off on when friendship, responsibility for others, and maturity converge. In the moment of the student’s comment, however, I was conscious of a shift from being one of the people chained in the cave, to one of the shadow-casters. I was still bound to the fire, but I knew what was casting the images on the wall.

Later I did a Q and A for those kids who were interested in Peace Corps, living abroad, and just being nosy about me. I focused on perspective and cultural stance, things that would amaze and perhaps shock them. I talked about North African city streets where the norm was men holding hands with each other, as were women, but where a man holding a woman’s hand was repulsive and shameful, something an elder would put a stop to. We discussed shame vs. guilt societies.  In the States a person is more likely to feel guilt over something they believe is wrong, like viewing porn on the web, even if no one could possibly see them. In Morocco you would only feel bad if there were public evidence; being seen bringing wine or beer into your house is the shameful thing, not that you might drink it in private. I worded to broaden their scope, to reveal the flames.

We talked about circles of permissiveness. In a restrictive society, once you have proven you can follow the most strict rules, no one will mind if you break some of the others. I was able to shade some of the gender restrictions because of the way I behaved in public. I spoke Arabic instead of French. I did not bring alcohol into my house. I kissed the hands of old ladies, and kissed the knuckle of my own index finger after shaking hands with old men. I stayed off the street at night, or allowed myself to be walked home if I was out late. The escorts were for witness, not safety. As a result I was able to ride and own a moped and take a glass of tea at the local café without anyone giving me grief.

When I was invited, by the women in the public bath, to be featured in a prank on the men of my village, the conversation started with “We thought you were a whore, but it turns out you’re just people.” I had lived in El Menzel for about six months at that point, and had made something of a spectacle of myself wearing a man’s djelleba (woolen robe) against the cold. This invitation was another step out of the cave for me. While I had suspected that my morality might have been on the villagers’ minds, I had been treated cordially enough, if somewhat distantly.

The other Peace Corps volunteer, Mike, had offered to move in with me since, as he put it, he had just realized that I was probably quite lonely so far from home. Coincidentally, Mike had just lost his housemate who had transferred to a larger, more happening Peace Corps post. I knew Mike was lonely, and that he was really regretful about how callous he might have been about my solitude. I also knew that it was the cold part of winter, and with only charcoal braziers for heat, my house on top of the public oven had a serious advantage. The women’s offer tipped a balance. “Sorry,” I said to Mike, “but I’ve come to see how right you were. We are not here just to create a little America abroad.” Yes, I was smug. I was aware that this was my divergent road, and as Frost said, that made a difference.

As the sophomore Q and A came to an end, one girl said “Hah! That explains it.”

“Explains what?” I asked.

“We’ve been talking, wondering why you are so conservative. And this explains it. It’s a culture thing. You never wear dresses, only pants. You wear turtle necks; you never show any chest. You never wear your hair down, or you cut it short. You know – conservative.”

Apparently there were subtle shadows on the cave wall, but I strived to see them, and to understand how they were cast. To begin with, I’d had no idea I was the topic of any discussion beyond “Why’d she give me that grade I don’t deserve.” But to be labeled “conservative” was astounding. Never mind politics; I could tell she was not talking about the opposite of Left-wing. I wore loud shirts and vests over my turtle necks. I come from a time when trousers were the most radical form of dress in the classroom. My classroom practice tended to lack the rigid structure determined as “safe” by administration. I had taught kids to knit as a literacy activity, for goodness sake. But with all this evidence, this girl, who I knew attended one of the more evangelical churches in the community, and her friends had labeled me as “conservative.”

However weird I found this, the challenge of the cave and the fire and the dancers is not to see reality, but to understand how another person’s perception might be right. I still don’t think of myself as conservative, but I can see that in a society where flagrant display of flesh is the norm, covering up might seem conservative. My classroom style really harkens back to the best teachers I had in the sixties and seventies. Question driven teaching, which might more properly called “retro,” is certainly old fashioned enough to harken back to Plato’s own teacher.

I see myself as sufficiently mellow to take up the struggle to see myself as others do, not in a contentious way, but so I can continue to improve the current model. I have it from others, my husband included, that this is hubris. While I may have mellowed relative to my own self, no one would mistake me as a mellow person. When I first moved into computing at TJL, one of my clients remarked how nice it was to work with someone really laid back. I was proud of having achieved “laid back” and shared the comment with a friend. She had snickered. “You are definitely not laid back. Consider who she was comparing you with.” Isn’t that the way of the cave? However far into enlightenment you wander, there is still a larger cave and more shadows to contend with. Or, as Augustus De Morgan wrote, working in the other direction:

“Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.”

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Romancing the Fair

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Susacadia

I did not meet my husband at the Blue Hill Fair, the fair where Wilbur was extolled with the spidery writing of “Some Pig,” one of the last country fairs in Maine. But I might have. It would have happened at the Dairy Goat Event, if we had only known.

We had actually met a few weeks later. IRCUG, as crunchy a computing society as you are likely to find, sponsored the event. I was a presenter (how data is encoded on 5 1/4” floppy disks) and he was a vendor (hardware and software). Noel “Paul” Stookey had launched his educational bulletin board. The Lab was trying to figure out whether a T1 line was worth the expense. It was 1988, the internet barely existed as a remnant of USENET; the World Wide Web would be born a year later.

We were granola and we were tech. We loved the same fairs. We were like toddlers at parallel play. The Blue Hill Fair was the first one we attended, just not together. Each of us took breaks from the mayhem of the midway, at opposite ends of the bleachers, to have lunch, and to try and fathom what a “correct front end” might be. A “proper full udder” was clear, as were comments on straightness of spine, size and stance of ears, and squareness of leg. Each of us was aware that this was the fair made famous by E. B. White. He was there because of that connection. I was there because I had promised my dad I’d bring him something from the Fair.

My dad was in the hospital, recuperating from his first cancer operation. I bought him a cow stuffed with straw (he clung to the tail through his morphine nights), at the far end of the undercroft of the Grand Stand. The vendor sat in a tiny space on the outside wall, at the end of the Grange displays. There must have been a dozen or fifteen granges represented that year. Each was set up with patriotic flags, themed around kitchens, or country stores, or farm life. There were canned vegetables, crocheted doilies, quilts, glossy loaves of bread, little model school houses and barns. There were caned chairs with needlepoint cushions. The hunting trapping association was wedged into a small section of the inside wall opposite the cow vendor. The center display was crammed with vegetable mounds and giant pumpkins. At the opposite entrance the Ladies’ Auxiliary was doing a brisk business in strawberry shortcake.

We went to the fair, together, yesterday, as we have for the last twenty-four years. We again ate lunch, this time watching the year-old heifer class being judged. Instead of eight animals in the ring, however, the most any one class showed was two. The kids presenting the animals were still neatly dressed in white shirts and khakis. The animals are still puzzlingly “correct” in various aspects of form, but there just isn’t the competition to pass out more than blue, and the occasional red, ribbons.

“Zuckerman’s Farm” is there, the petting area where our kids got to touch their first pigs, ducks, sheep, and goats. We now have our own pigs, and our daughter tended them for a week on her own this summer. They seemed much less fun than Zuckerman’s, so she bought them a big blue ball and lured them to frolic. They were much easier to feed when fun was away from her shiny new boots.

The livestock barns are still occupied, but every year, since the swine or bird flu scares of the nineties, farms seem to drop out of display. Still, there are those piping voices asking the age old question, “Why is that cow an ox, Daddy?” along side the bright new one, “Why I gotta use hand sanitizer, Mom?” Oxen, horses, and tractors still pull heavy objects, only now they are cement blocks lifted onto the sledge with a front-end loader, instead of logs and metal weights hoiked into place by burley men. There, too, the competition has thinned out. Whether this is because people are forgoing the expense of transporting their animals to the fair, or whether there are fewer farmers and breeders, I can only imagine.

The food court has changed as well. Among the “Bloomin’ Onion” booths, fried dough vendors, and cotton candy machines, there are healthy choices. Thai food is sold, something no one in Downeast Maine had even heard of in 1988, except maybe at the Common Ground Fair. There are “Walking Sandwiches” made with lots of veggies in a pita pocket. The old stand-bys of sausage and onion sandwiches, burgers, and red hot dogs are still plentiful. I got my apple crisp with ice cream from the Civil Air Patrol booth.

When we first went to the Fair, all those years ago, it was filled with strangers. In the years since, I recognize students I have taught, some of them pushing their own children around the Fair. I have pictures of my now adult children, hands flung wide, on the merry-go-round, taken by friends and colleagues. I know the politicians that campaign, some of them my neighbors. This year we caught up with the guy who had built our house where he was demonstrating post-and-beam construction with Japanese cutting techniques.

We walked through the Fair, holding each others hands. We’ve been able to do that ever since our kids got old enough to wander the fair with their own friends. We have our traditions. We still go look at the kids’ art in the far pavilion, even though we know none of the entrants any more. We check the honey entries. None this year. We chat up the tractor dealers and buy our 4-H Beef tickets. There are the activities we are happy to have let pass. I no longer have go through the climbing maze following a three-year old. It’s been years since we had to line up for the pony rides. Those are gone now, as are the coin-pusher machines, and the craft vendors. Aunt Rhodie’s wagon, the last of the yarn sellers has not been seen for years.

I am sure some of these have gone to a more commercial rendition of the Common Ground Fair, since it moved to Unity. There are certainly more people participating in the Open Farm circuit, bringing potential customers to farmers’ doors. I know the Blueberry Festival in Machias has gone from being a one-street event to spread out among three large parking lots and line two streets, flowing down the causeway. Southwest Harbor, Bar Harbor, and Ellsworth all have craft and agricultural events, to say nothing of increasingly robust farmers markets. The same kind of deals are no longer done at the State Fairs.

Andrew and I stick closer to home as well. We’ve found a place we like. When we go on day trips now, it is with an eye to remembering, than searching.

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I think I may have met an angel.

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Susacadia

This past week I slipped into that bubble of Zen travel time, where my thoughts are my own and sights and sounds out of my normal experience. A job took me to White Plains, and, not appreciating high speeds, passing tractor-trailer trucks, or city interchanges, I made the decision to take a bus.

To start off, I caught the bus from Dysarts in Herman to Boston. This involved a 3am departure from home. Then a second 3:20am departure from home after I retrieved my handbag. Here I learned that easily half the seats are labeled “Handicapped,” and if you can score one of these you have all kinds of leg room. In Boston I managed to get on the 11:20 bus instead of having to hang around South Station for several hours. I walked up to the driver, who looked like Busta Rhymes from “Finding Forrester,” and asked if I could use my ticket on the earlier bus. “Sure, why not!” Later I found out that this was the “Supah Local” bus. We stopped not only in the cities – Providence, Hartford, New Haven and the like – but also at various casinos along the way. A woman behind the driver gave him directions to Foxwoods when he took a wrong turn. She also gave driving instructions to several other people who called her. She may have been the Angel of Lost Ways, but she was also loud. We picked up a young man and his violently green-cased cello, going on to NYC. There was a man who brought on a spear decorated with owl feathers. There was an Eastern Bloc couple who rushed off the bus at every stop and came back with small bags of potato chips. Six and a half hours later I pulled into White Plains. It was still light out. An express bus would have taken a bit more than half that time.

I knew that I was heading south to be part of a writing team, and wondered if anyone on the bus was on the same journey. I found out the next day that I had not been alone and that we had tentatively identified each other as fellow writers. If others in the team were astounded when they heard about my trip south, they were horrified when they learned what I had planned for a return trip. “Danger, Will Robinson!” they cried.

The first part started out with a five and a half hour wait at the bus station in White Plains. I received an offer of a couch and train ride, from the shadow traveller on the bus. Weighing company, comfort, and access to a non-moving bathroom against a bus ticket in hand, an arrival time no sooner, and my Zen bubble, I decided to stick with my original plan.

I got a lift to the station from a wonderful woman who insisted I pick up a sandwich on the way there. I wheeled my stuff into the Greyhound ticket office, to discover that they were closing in five minutes. “Your best bet,” said a wrinkly old woman sitting in one of the blue plastic padded chairs, “is to wait out there on the street, on that bench.” I looked at the cement bench, recognizing it as where I had pulled up Sunday night, and wondered if the train station might not be a better bet for a waiting area. “They’s plenty of police around, and plenty of taxis. Ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of ole drunks at the train station.” I checked out the train station and she was right, a couple of drunks shambling around, a kiosk getting ready to shut down, and a lot of damp cement. So I parked myself on the cement bench next to the street, across from the city-bus depot. I had my sandwich and my kindle and thought I would be set.

The old lady came out and sat next to me when the Greyhound office closed. That’s when I began to suspect she might be an angel. For the next five and a half hours she kept me company. I learned her name was Miss Margaret. Friends, well dressed heading home from work as well as pushing carts of belongings, addressed her by name. She was a retired RN, originally from South Carolina, but living in White Plains for the past, nearly, forty years. I learned about her daughter, one month younger than me, and her preferences in food. I learned that no city could possibly be broke with the number of banks there were. I learned some whacky stuff: Bill Clinton was really gay and Monica Lewinsky was paid off to take the fall, avoiding an embarrassing situation. Hillary Clinton is the smartest woman you’ll ever meet. The Obamas are planning to get a divorce once he’s out of the White House. OJ himself told Ron Goldman to stay down at the bar near the end of the street, but Ron wouldn’t listen. Squirrel is good eating. Just because you can read and write doesn’t mean you are obliged to write a letter, just because your husband tells you to, if you’ll get screwed in the end. If you want to go to Atlantic city, go for the food and the crowds and the shows, but don’t play the slots.

We chatted and sat silently together for the whole time I waited. I learned about the bus routes, drivers, accidents, and celebrity gossip. I shared my sandwich and chips, and passed over one of my bottles of water that had been provided by the hotel. We listened to a young man lie to his mother about being at work. We watched lightning fork across the sky and smelled the dust getting wet. She shook my hand just before I got on the bus.

On the midnight ride to Port Authority I learned about cigarette prices and the trials of stopping both “the smoke and the drink” at the same time. Maine was too cold for any human being. Car drivers are not as respectful of bus drivers as they should be. “He’s got miles of real estate in his own lane. No need for him to be comin’ into mine.” The bus driver kept up a steady stream of banter with the other two passengers in the front row. I learned there was a shortage of drivers for the longer routes, and he expected to be called back in to work as soon as his nine hours was up.

I had not been to Port Authority for more than forty years, and then only in the daytime. The first thing that struck me was the background of string and piano concerti that provided the mood music for transportation. The constant reminders of abandoned packages and luggage, subject to seizure and search, were ignored. An alarm was sounding, but a voice over the PA told us it was being investigated, and not to worry. Bodies nestled up against walls and partitions, some swathed in sleeping bags, some on cardboard, some barricaded with luggage. I found a toilet, stainless steel with an autoflush on a timer, somewhat alarming. I found a seat. The man on one side gave up his seat for a woman who immediately covered her head in a large red printed cloth and nodded off. On the other side the man gave up his seat for a low voiced woman with an elegant hat and a slight shadow of whiskers on her lower jaw. She had unexpectedly found herself in New York after taking a bus from Buffalo. She had lost more money than she could afford when another woman persuaded her to spend it unwisely.

At 3:00 I decided to stand in line for my 4:00 bus. I chatted with a young man from Florida who was on his way to Boston for an interview. Obama-care was somehow responsible for this move, and he suspected he would end up in Philadelphia because of it. There was some confusion about which queue was actually headed for Boston, and which had a stop at Hartford. I had gotten in front of the job seeker as he had chatted with someone behind him. As we neared the head of the line I told him to take his spot back. We could see the sign for “Seated: 55; Standees 0” on the door to the bus’s luggage compartment. The guy said “no” at first, but then “I guess I’d be really pissed if I was number 56 in line. Thanks.” When I turned out to be number 55 he said, “I guess we both got lucky.”

Three hours and forty-five minutes later I was in Boston. I arrived back at Dysarts at 3:30 that afternoon, having slept most of the way through Maine. My car was there and in one piece. I loaded up with curley fries, iced coffee, and molasses cookies and began the last part of my drive home. When I pulled into our dooryard, the grill was going, Andrew was hauling grain for the pigs, and relative quiet washed over me. My bubble out of time evaporated and I was entirely home.

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Rafe–At War

Posted on August 16, 2014 by Susacadia

Rafe had her pint of ale clutched in her right hand and balanced on her knee. She sat in the speaker’s chair, looking over her audience. Jenna had asked what story Rafe would tell tonight, to answer Auntie Finn.

“Not one suitable for little children, that is for sure. I will not be responsible for nightmares.”

Jenna had raised an eyebrow, channeling the nine year old who had done their mother’s bidding, bossing Rafe from here til noonday.

Rafe snorted. “I know you would like nothing better than for me to tell a cautionary tale about how-not-to-squander-our-special-gifts. But that is not happening. These people want to know if I can get the job done. Will I be able to help. I can’t do that by standing up and saying ‘My fault. I was a bad girl.’ They might not want to live with me after my story tonight, but they don’t care about that now. They do want to know if I am bad enough to go the distance.”

Jenna circulated among the families during the supper hour. The smallest children had been put to bed. The rest of the kids were with their families. Not in a pack. The grumble of geezers had left the Pig and Toad and moved closer to the fire finding places among the family hearths.

Rafe took a pull on her ale and began.

->>o<<-

Here’s what I remember best of that day. The sun was bright and rose early. A skunk had wandered through camp during the night and sprayed the commander’s tend. The only person able to eat and hold it down had been dropped on her head as a child and could not tell the difference between an onion and and a lemon without laying eyes on them. She ate her fill and laughed as the rest of us puked.

We called ourselves the Ragged Range, a half century of women, and it was our day to go into battle. For some of us the skunk made no difference. We wouldn’t have eaten anyway. ‘A full stomach makes for an empty head,’ they say. The skunk just ensured that we were not alone in our ready wits that day for as long as our wits would last. Hunger fed our anger and we nourished that, ready to slip the line to Berzerker rage.

Normally we were spies and provisioners. We went to market as traders and listened in to the chat that went on. We went to dances, and barn raisings, and public houses. If anyone asked, we’d say, “Oh, I’m Alice’s cousin, just visiting for a few days. You know Alice, don’t you?” That was our story. Women working are a gossipy lot, and men are worse. Even those who should know better assume women are thinking about their next meal, or their kids’ next meal, rather than politics.

We’d listen, and prod, and learn what we could. Especially what our employer was trying to keep secret. We were paid to do what we were told, but our allegiance was to the brothers and sisters in our cohort. One of the things we found was that the opposing army included the Thundering Herd, a company we’d ridden with the summer before.

We were trained to soldier as well as spy, and every one of us had two weapons of specialty, and a half dozen more in addition to the righteous anger we could command better than any mixed company.

That morning, with the skunk, there was anger aplenty. Rather than thinking of the glorious sun, and the glint of armor, and the thrill of the fight, we were aware of the smell and the heat as we started to sweat. The skunk’s gift would return every time it rained, and every time we got soaked in a river crossing. The food would be foul until it was gone. Some would go to the pigs, but we would eat the rest or go hungry. We were keyed up going into battle, against friends, people who knew at least some of our ways, as we knew theirs.

There were things we didn’t know that we should have. We didn’t know the skunk was a gift from our ex-comrades. We didn’t know they had laid a trap for us. We didn’t know that I was their target. Would any of this have made a difference? Who is to say.

We set off, brandishing our public weapons, subtly adjusting the hidden ones useful in close fighting. We crested the hill and saw the enemy advancing across the wide valley. Our battle cry leapt from our throats, our horses stretched their necks, and the sods flew behind us.

I sent forth a small hum to break any trip wires that might have been strung. That there were none to break should have been my first clue, but I was already starting to slip beyond rage, training and reaction taking over. Hunger did not keep my thinking brain with me, long enough. We and our horses were all about the stampede, rolling down the hill to trample our enemies.

I kept my hum going, and still there were no traps to spring. The air was clear, a heavy dew had laid the dust to rest. Our noses were filled with the stench of the skunk and our eyes were on the colors of the troops we would soon meet and the honed swords they carried. Our ears were tuned to our horses hooves and listening for the blast of the signal horn that gave us our direction. We did not smell the stink of pine oil when we crossed it, nor the smoke, nor see the flames the enemy lit behind us, until it was too late. By then the flames drove us onward, forcing us to meet the enemy. There was joy in that, in meeting our fates, grappled on the battle field.

But our horses. Our horses did not share our focus. They saw the flames and felt the smoke in their eyes. In their panic they became our enemies, too. Huge bodies, caroming off each other, crushing legs, trapping weapons, fighting the reigns, snapping at each other as well as their riders. There we were, equally trapped in our Berzerker frenzy, too slow to return to ourselves to save our purpose.

I drove a path through the enemy and up a hill to the east. From there I turned and opened my throat and sang. I had used my voice to dig latrines. Now dirt flew up along the fire’s leading edge creating a break. The dirt fell back on the fire and smothered it. Trees fell, smothering the flames along the forest edge. The heavy damp from the night before helped us here.

Half the troop was unhorsed. They set about raising their pikes, anchoring them in the soft earth, a deadly palisade confronting their attackers. The rest won through and joined me on the hill. When we saw what our comrades were about we fell on the enemy from behind and drove them mercilessly onto the raised pikes.

On another day we might have shown mercy. On another day we would not have been leading the charge. This was our job. And their job. There could be no regrets. They had tried, these one time allies of ours, to do the same to us.

->>o<<-

Rafe looked at the people she had grown up with, and their children. Some of the old soldiers were nodding.

“I was there, that day,” said one of the men. “I remember you flying through the fire, through the mayhem, through our troop, and up the hill. You were a sight to behold.” He ran his palm over his mouth and down his stubbly neck, holding it there. “That was my last battle.”

Rafe smiled, her eyes kind. “I’m glad you made it.”

Barton Stubbs had listened to Rafe’s story, leaning against one of the pillars. He spoke now. “I remember you dropping me from a tree when you were, what, twelve? Nobody much talked, around town, about what you could do with your voice.”

“I’d learned some manners by then.”

“Can you still do it? The voice thing? The song?”

“I believe so.” Rafe let the folk murmur a bit before continuing. “And even if my song is not the key to this problem with the river, I believe I can discover a solution by the time we reach the river’s source.”

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Riding the Bus–Magic and Not So Much

Posted on August 9, 2014 by Susacadia

“I have often thought,” said my dad, driving me home after my second and last year at boarding school, “that we would all have been happier if I had just given you a hundred bucks and a roadmap for your tenth birthday.” At age 16 I couldn’t have agreed more. Now, I’m a bit appalled.

It was late days in November. It was 4:30 and dawn was not even a dream in the dark, with a light shining over the door to the administration building, sparkling on the frost. I stood under a steady street light, waiting for my first bus ride, cross country, from Poughkeepsie, NY to Bangor, ME. I was going home for Thanksgiving. I was fifteen years old and had arranged the bus trip myself. Maine seemed a long way off.

The night before, the Duchess County Sheriff’s Department had sent a patrol car through the campus and toilets had flushed in every hall in all three dorms. Timothy Leary lived just up the road, and it was the summer after Woodstock. I waited for the bus that would take me to Port Authority, another Sheriff’s vehicle cruised by. They must have seen me, but didn’t stop. The trip started in the dark and ended in the dark. At first I sat in the back, in the fashion of some character in some book. I moved to just behind the driver for the last six stops. By then I didn’t even have to ask “Are we there yet?” There were only two or three other passengers, and the driver, probably as bored as I was, was telling me the name of the town and how many stops to go.

I learned some things on that trip. First, check to see if the bus is stopping at every Woolworth’s 5 & 10, or drug store to change up its passenger list. If a bus was headed up US 95 rather than Rte. 1 I could leave two hours later and still beat the coastal bus. I’ve enjoyed locals, both busses and trains, since then; the journey is more important than the destination.

I had Douglas Adams beat by nearly ten years. I learned to carry a towel. Blanket, pillow, and sopper-upper of icky stuff – a towel is the all purpose traveling companion. I wished I had brought food, too. I wished I had thought to bring Dramamine. My next trip north I brought both. The Dramamine knocked me out for the first three hours, and I still had an onion roll and half a brick of cream cheese in my back pack by the time we rolled into Bangor. Some poor lady I had trapped next to the window crawled over me to get off the bus. Or maybe I got up and moved, but stayed asleep. I was a Robert Heinlein fan and several of his books featured soldiers who could sleep on their feet and in other awkward situations. I was in training.

There was a magic that happened as soon as I boarded the bus. Home, or school, faded away and I existed in the moment. By the time I arrived, I was wholly at my destination. It was as if I travelled through an air lock, arriving ready to start. When I started to work, a commute was necessary. Whether a half hour drive, or a twenty minute walk, I needed that time in my bubble.

A second important bus ride was the year I took the Magic Bus back to Tangier from London. $34 bought a three day trip on a bus, ferry service across the channel, and an overnight stay in Barcelona. I took that trip twice, both times going south. The bus was filled with British retirees heading to Malaga for some fun in the sun. They started drinking when we hit France and did not stop. Now that I am in their league, I can see the advantage of the bone-numbing altered reality. They sang songs, told stories, and made copious use of the on board toilet.

In addition to the bus driver, there was a coach wrangler. We actually had three different drivers but only one on board at a time. The bus would pull over in the middle of nowhere and the old tired driver would get off, and a new, hopefully fresh, driver would get on.  The wrangler was constant, asking if anyone needed to go “winky-tink,” providing cork-screws, egging the singers on, and flirting with the two young Moroccan men who, along with me, were just taking a cheap ride home.

My knees killed me. Even though I took full advantage of being friendless (no seat-mate) to stretch out, I was more than ready for the stop in Barcelona. Were I not nearly broke, I would have bailed on the bus and taken a train the rest of the way home. I was in my mid twenties and nearly knackered. The retirees kept singing.

Barcelona was a kick. We arrived in the early evening, and I was invited to accompany some passengers to an early (10:00pm rather than mid-night) dinner . They had all made this trip before and knew where to eat. They were looking for pals of theirs, transgendered people who were undergoing the “cure” in Spain rather than staying in England or the US. It was a weird night in this city of architect. Two cervezas with a wedge were plenty what with straps pulled down to reveal newly minted breasts, and skirts hiked up to confirm they were still in progress.

Back in Morocco, with ready access to my pay that had been accruing over the past two months, I sprung for a first class train ticket, got a hot meal delivered to my car and stretched out. The first Magic Bus ride was something of a lark; the second, I can only imagine, was because I was again nearly broke and it was the cheapest way home.

The last bus ride was the one that signaled a sea change in my traveling attitude. This was the last leg of a trip to Mexico and back. I was well into my fifties, and the return trip had been filled with the sort of events that made me wonder if I was getting a Karmic slap. Thunderstorms grounded us in Taos. We spent the night on benches in the airport for a 3:30pm flight out the next day. We eventually got to the Airport Hilton in Boston, then had to rush through a series of overpasses and tunnels to catch the bus back north. Nothing was so sweet as the “Welcome to Maine” sign over the Portsmouth bridge.

At some point I was no longer in it for the journey. I just wanted to be home. It seemed as if all the knocking around I had done was enough. I hadn’t seriously traveled since Andrew and I went to London, and then on to Las Vegas to finish our elopement. We had visited family and I had gone to conferences, but those were never about the trip, just the destination. Once we had taken a camping trip through eastern Canada. That had felt the pressure of time and the remnants of a hurricane. A couple of the campgrounds were sweet, but a schedule drove us onward. We fetched up in Yarmouth and made it onto the ferry to Bar Harbor. That last leg of our journey seemed blessedly non-existent.

Now we are on our journey to the Eastern Apicultural Society meeting in Kentucky by train. I’m trying to be conscious of thing things I’ve learned. I’ve accepted that bossy is my nature and I know that I’ll make decisions. I won’t let “What do you want to do?” catch me by surprise. I’m focusing on the journey and watching people and enjoying the swirl of movement. I recognize that I am something of a solitary bee, not a hive animal at all. I’m making an effort to travel well with others. I’ve got stuff to do; I don’t need anyone else to amuse me. I know I’m going to get home, eventually. And, although I haven’t needed it yet, I’m carrying a towel.

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Reunions–Granfalloons Done Right

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Susacadia

Reunion 2014 - from Terry Shehata's cameraThese people I felt so awkward around in high school, back in the early 70s? It turns out I really like them.  I was a late comer to their party. Most of them had been together since kindergarten, but I arrived at the beginning of my Junior year, having spent no more than two years in any one place since I started public school. They had been as welcoming as teenagers can be. Orono was not such a small place that a stranger in town attracted attention, and I lay low and was probably a bit prickly.

I know that I joined the youth group at our family’s church. I participated in a synchronized swimming group sharing rides with a couple of girls from my class. I attended a couple of dances, played ghost-in-the-graveyard on a couple of early summer nights, went on a couple of dates, passed notes, took a role in the Senior Play. In math class the back row was reserved for the nerdy kids who didn’t need to listen and got their homework done before class was over; I sat with that bunch. But by and large I remember myself as a loner. Our guidance counselor called me in to his office one time during my senior year and suggested that I give a pass on the whole academic thing and take an interest in the boys that were buzzing around waiting for me to look up from my books.

I am in wonder that I feel this kinship for this group of people from such a small part of my life. We’ve kept in touch, sometimes through jobs, more regularly through FaceBook. This was a half reunion. Our class does that when someone we haven’t seen for a long time comes to town, or to memorialize someone who’s passed, or just because. There are a lot of us who moved back to Maine, or who never left.

So  who are we, this class of OHS ‘72?

We 60.

We are empty nesters, or our kids have boomeranged back.

We have kids ranging from college age to their late early 40s. Some of us are grandparents, while others are not even in-laws.

Many of us are in education, or married to educators. One, who ended up as vice-principal at our high school, I’ve used as an example to rascally boys I have taught. (“You’re just the sort of kid who will end up being a VP.”) Two are doing a bit of team teaching across country as their classes learn about different regions.

We are caught between changing social schemes. We remember the days when teachers were respected, when the public had faith in us knowing our jobs. We understand the financial pressures as tax payers, but still regret that todays students miss the fun we had. “What kids learn in first grade, we didn’t get until well into third grade.” On the other hand tracking is formally gone, and it is easier to decide you will go to college after all.

A couple of us are digital natives (thank you CUPL, COBOL, punch cards), but we are all users. The number of digital phones, cameras, mini-tabs that got whipped out were amazing. Pictures were posted by the time I got home from the restaurant. One got told to stop checking email and put his phone away. I kept mine on buzz so I could tell when my son was ready to get a ride home.

We have mellowed. Although, just as in any family, the wise-guy got forced back into his he’ll-say-anything role, but unlike a family reunion no one truly flipped back to being five again. Everyone was a bit careful about the memories that got dredged up. I think this is, perhaps the true joy of these reunions. We are all familiar enough with each other’s large stories – jobs, families, homes, and the like – that we have a common language. The stories that come out are all about becoming re-acquainted.

At age 60, we approach people, jobs, and life differently. We are at ease with who we are. We have a clue about what we will become. We are familiar with living in our own skin, if not entirely comfortable. I will wager that we all know how we got to where we are. And if the road was not entirely pleasant, we own the bumps and our destination.

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Rafe–Auntie Finn’s Story

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Susacadia

Rafe entered the common area of Winter Home, followed by Wilf and Molly. She made a show of unkinking her back and sauntered around the nearest hearths, losing her shadows along the way. Children’s eyes followed her as she moved. Some were rushing through the last of their dinner, but most had finished and were poised, waiting to see where she would alight. She heard snatches of manners being taught (”…had her dinner,” “…clean shirt…”, “Don’t waste…”) as she lengthened her stride and targeted the Pig and Toad. Their parents wouldn’t let them follow her there.

“So, what’ll it be, Auntie?” Of course it would be Maud who was tending food tonight.

“Whatever is hot. Is there any ale?”

“For you, Auntie, yes, there’s ale. And turnip stew with jerky.”

Rafe looked surprised. “There’s not ale for everyone?”

“Well, no, there is. Two pints a day. But most of that lot, on the bench, have theirs with breakfast and lunch The rest of us have already finished dinner and are waiting for a story to begin.”

Maud left, giving Rafe a moment to survey the room. There had been changes over the two weeks she’d been gone. Children weren’t wandering from fire to fire. A couple of nervous youths sat directly in front of the ice room door. And the room was full. Only the cabal she had just left were still absent. No one was keeping private. No one was strolling in the moonlight. Were they waiting for her news? Jenna’s decision?

“We stick together,” said Maud placing the ale on the table and keeping an empty bowl in her hand. “No one wants to seem like we’re holding anything back.”

“There are shortages already?” That was odd. Even though there was no eager sharing with strangers in most of the places they’d seen, it had been possible to get ale for coin. And while coin was useless in Riverside, she had not known that common property was so jealously guarded.

“No,” said Maud. She gestured with the stew bowl toward the central fire pit. “But we had riders come in from the east, from Pig Snout, just after you left. Ma and Barton both said that we’d best keep just one cook pot after that, and make sure we had enough ale kept by.”

Rafe watched Maud wind her way through the family groups. She returned with a full bowl, and set it on the table saying nothing, but drawing Rafe’s attention to the speaker’s bench with a tilt of her head.

The kids were all being antsy. They started to gather around the bench, watching Rafe at her table, following each spoonful of turnip to her mouth. Some of them were even chewing with her. Then Auntie Ern Finn broke the crowd apart and settled her self on the bench. She clapped her hands together, like a wood cutter make sure he grip would be strong. That got everyone’s attention.

“Well, then,” she said, “I expect you are all waiting for a story tonight.” Her deep voice was soft, but it hummed under the noise and cut conversation as if she had actually wielded an axe.

“But, Grammy Ern Finn, Rafe…” Rafe grimaced, not concerned about being the Teller for the evening, but because the woman she knew as Auntie, was now Grammy to the whole village.

Auntie Ern Finn cut off the small objector. “Let’s not bother Rafe tonight. She’s had a long hard ride, and a harder conversation with Jenna Smith, I suspect.” Auntie Ern Finn settled her skirts and apron and held out her hand for the ration of ale due her as the Teller tonight.

“But she’s got new stories.” This complainer was different from the first, and perhaps a bit older.

“Ah! Well I have a new story. One we never tell, but perhaps should.” Auntie Ern Finn met Rafe’s eyes and nodded once. Rafe knew what was coming and that this was all the warning she would get.

“This is a story of an accident of birth, of a great burden, and naive misuse of power. There are very few people alive who know the truth of this story, but true it is. I know it. I was there.”

There was silence. Auntie Ern Finn took a pull on her ale, sparing a last glance at Rafe, and began the story.

->>o<<-

One time, back in the days, there was a little baby girl born to a couple. She was their first child and they had hopes for her beyond belief. Before they even knew would she be a boy or girl, they waited to see would their baby be big, like its Ba, and maybe follow his trade? Or would it have clever hands, like its Ma, and take up hers? They did all the usual things that any parents do. They tried out different names, they sewed clothes, made a cradle. They imagined how their child would be with them and the things it might do. The remembered the nursery songs they had grown up with, and practiced singing them to the round bulge in the Ma’s belly. They believed their baby would be extraordinary in the same way all parents believe.

In due time the baby was born, and they discovered they hadn’t imagined wildly enough. The mid-wife caught the child. She barely had time to notice that she held a girl baby, and be glad it was drawing breath, when first cry shattered the air and her spectacles exploded into a million tiny pieces. The windows broke and so did the lamp chimney, the looking glass, and the water pitcher.

We heard shouting from the other room where the men were waiting to toast their friend and his first taste of being a father. We learned that their whiskey tumblers had cracked spilling the toast on the floor.

At the time we thought a djinn had attended the birth. We called a priest to give a blessing, say prayers, and cast her own spells. In the meantime, they quieted the child at the new Ma’s breast.

The priest arrived quickly and did what she could.The baby seemed happy enough. The parents were happy, too, and attended to the daughter’s needs so quickly that she hardly ever even whimpered. They did everything they had planned. The baby preferred her Ba’s voice when he sang, and loved playing with her Ma’s long silky hair. They got used to being three instead of just two.

A month went by and the new family was ready to start visiting. Family and friends had already been to the house, bringing gifts for the new arrival, and teasing the parents about their new roles. Now it was time for them to return the favor and bring a small gift to everyone who had visited them. The first place they visited was the new mother’s Ma, the Grandma. The mother bundled up her daughter, because she had been warned of the dangers of letting the child get cold, even though it was early summer. She slung the baby onto her back, fastened the carry-sling tight, picked up a loaf wrapped in a bread cloth of her own weaving, and headed off, thinking about all the stories she could tell about how adorable her daughter was. As the Ma walked through the village with her baby, they happened to pass through a cloud of mosquitoes and one happened to bite the baby. Just as any child will do, she drew in a lung full of air and screamed at the outrage.

And at the same time every single window on the street broke, shattered, from the smallest attic window, to the big one at the Mercantile.

You know, because this is a story, that the one caused the other. But then, because no one had ever heard such a thing, then it just seemed odd. We would have blamed a djinn, or a haunt readily enough if it weren’t for the next thing that happened.

The new mother quickly gave her daughter a sucker, and kept on the road to the Grandma’s house. I’m sure she looked over her shoulder every so often, but hustled on, anxious to get some comfort from her own Ma. She knocked on the big wooden door with the big iron knocker fastened in the middle, the one her husband had made for Mid Winter. Her own Ma, the new Grandma, opened the door and welcomed her family inside. The new Ma unfastened her carry-sling and slid the baby into the crook of her arm, just as slick as you please.

This is where the next thing happened. That soon on the heels of the baby crying in the street that there could be no mistake. The Grandma leaned over, as Grandma’s do, and took a little squeeze of the baby’s round rosy cheek. You know how they do that. But before she could say “O! what a scrumptious little pumpkin pie!” the baby sucked in her breath and screamed. This time there could be no doubt. Bang! Every piece of glass, and every piece of pottery in the room exploded. And in the next room, every bit cracked.

It was not the sort of news that a family could hush up. Pretty soon the Ma couldn’t take her baby anywhere there was something that might break. Her family told her outright not to visit – or to visit alone. More and more she left the girl with the Ba and went off visiting on her own.

The girl was happy enough in her Ba’s shop. He worked with nothing she could easily break, and as long as she was kept dry and fed, she was contented enough, and a scream now and then did not do much harm. Since he worked with fire, not having glass in the windows was not much of a problem. Oiled cloth would do as well, and he learned to keep water in a wooden container

But the Ma was another story. There was plenty in the house that could break, and using wood felt like a sacrifice. She was miserable. She had dreamed of having a child who was special, but not special like this. The Ma had wanted a child who could sing like a dream, or weave fairy patterns in cloth, or cook or build like magic. She had not wanted a child who could break anything made of glass or pottery. That was not the kind of special she had wanted. The more she despaired, the more the baby cried, and the more things broke.

The baby had been born in the early spring, just after we all moved out of Winter Home. So by the time it got cold, and the daylight sparse, the girl could already talk a bit, and her Ba, at any rate, could reason with her some. She had learned to ask for what she wanted, most of the time. And her Ba took care that she was happy.

But in a crowded place like Winter Home, it is impossible to keep things cheery all the time. Other children teased her. She saw the toys they had, that she wanted. Kind people offered her treats and she wanted more. She wasn’t really old enough to have all the words she needed. Those few who thought others were just being cruel about how odd the little girl was — they soon learned different. If the Ma got sympathy from some she was blamed by others. It was an unpleasant winter for all.

Time passed and the girl learned to tame her voice. Perhaps too much control. She was a minx and not always well behaved. What had first been accident became, from time to time, malice. But she was not without friends, and those she had were true to her. The Ma learned that not all her children would be afflicted with strangeness, and she learned to love them at any rate. And the Ba adored his first child. He saw her strength. He cherished both her anger and her control. Some said he coddled her, even urging her to get beyond her place. When the day came that she went Sojourning, there were many in Riverside who were relieved, not least of all her Ma. But her Ba grieved for her always.

->>o<<-

Auntie Ern Finn finished the last of her ale and, again, met Rafe’s eyes. Rafe saluted with her own mug. “Fairly told, Auntie Ern Finn . Thank you.”

“Rest up. I won’t tell your tale for you tomorrow night. You’ll have to speak for yourself.”

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I Would Flip More Than the Classroom

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Susacadia

There is a gulf between what we know works (projects, passion, personal initiative) and what is mandated (rigorous testing, uniform presentation, threats). This is like the disconnect we all recognize with someone saying the beating they’ve just delivered was out of love, for the kid’s own good, because the victim made them do it. It certainly feels that way as a teacher. Kids tell me it feels that way to them, too.

I listen to Sugata Mitra exhorting TED audiences to build a school in the “cloud” and I know that is how we should be teaching. I know that the best teaching I’ve done is using my role as coach to help kids form their own questions and discover their own answers. In a class that was reading Tarzan we had research projects going on parasites, Peace Corps, sign language, transatlantic currents, language acquisition, the British Raj. The list was as varied as the twenty students in the class. Some found experts to consult with in the school. Others started correspondence with folks at research facilities in local universities. We worked on good questions, formulating a research plan, selecting materials and modes for good presentations.

Did I worry about the Common Core while we were doing this? Nope. Not at all.

Why not? Because there was no need. The Common Core asks three things of students – at least in English Language Arts: Read widely and critically, write so others can understand you and be compelled by what you say, and communicate clearly using a variety of modes.  Everyone in the class knew that is what we were about. We all realized that it would happen, because you can’t approach a written work, in the way we were doing it, without learning those skills.

Start ignoring the exhortations of government policy makers. I never worried about everyone being on the same page skill-wise. It was not necessary for them to wait for each other to catch up. I recognized that there would be clumps of students in each class who were in the same ball park skill-wise. As long as everyone, myself included, was learning something then we were good. We came out of each day moving forward. Students helped each other. There were regular conversations about progress, resources, web sites, people to talk with. We used this approach with The Moon Is Down and Pigs In Heaven as well. Then switched to articles of students’ choice from a set of books I had scrounged that dealt with travel and adventure, since the course was “Travel and Adventure Literature.” These were primarily from the “Best American” series, but also from some “On the Edge” essay collections. They demonstrated what they had learned in terms of critical reading, writing, and presentations. Because young people also need to learn how to work in groups and negotiate as part of learning “argument,” in groups of three of four, they also had to present their collection of essays in a bound form with cover, linking language, and persuasion.

This was my model for teaching anything. I did it with Science Fiction, World Lit, American Lit, Poetry. You name it. Everyone had to try out strategies during the common reading phase of the course. No one could use Google as a reference – although they were all encouraged to use Google, among other search tools and document repositories, to find references. We learned that citations were more about provenance of thought than plagiarism. They learned how to scaffold their own work. And they all had choice. They learned to relate a wide variety of topics, to things they were interested in.

I did not learn to do this in any education class I took. I learned it from a pair of marvelous American Studies teachers I shared a wall with. And I learned it in a leadership class in Business School. There is a continuum of leadership from tight, think Master Sergeant, to loose, think research facility with hundreds of people working on their own projects.

The tight leader is good for situations and subordinates who shouldn’t (or can’t) think independently, where there needs to be a uniformity of product, and where the unexpected can result in demise. (Doesn’t this sound like what a lot of administrative imposition on teachers is like? Hmmm?)

The loose leader is good when problems need to be solved, where learning and work are organic, and where success is determined by an ability to change and adapt according to both external and internal influences.

Here’s the catch. The tight leader needs to be right, and know the answer all the time. The loose leader needs to have a vision, but realizes that there is more than one path for achieving that vision. The tight leader needs to be in charge. The loose leader needs to be vulnerable and be a roll model for questioning. A loose leader needs to be able to keep people on track. A tight leader keeps them on task.

There is an impossible dream to get the brightest and best into teaching. Why impossible? Because bright creative people are messy, they tolerate chaos, and understand that innovation needs a little mayhem to be productive. This is exceedingly irksome for administrators, both school and government, who are being “held accountable” by a public that wants safety. Independent, deep thinking, creative teachers can’t tolerate the tight leadership style many principals, superintendents, and Commissioners of Education fall back on.

There is a scene in Catch 22 in which Lt. Scheisskopf floats the idea for the perfect marching man. The solution is bolts through the thighs and hands to keep soldiers’ body parts in alignment. The follies in this are legion, but one of Scheisskopf’s soldiers is exactly what it feels like to be a thinking teacher in a US public school. It is, of course, the Catch 22 of education. The ranks of teaching are swelling with, new, untried, unsure teachers, many of whom lack gravitas simply because they are young, who need to be supervised as they gain experience. But because administrators are looking for cookie cutter solutions, they treat their seasoned teachers the same way. Equal is not always just and appropriate. In the same way students need to be treated according to where there are in terms of skills and capacity, so do teachers.

This drive to standardize is applied to both teachers and students. The third thing I would change (and this is the last for now) has to do with school attendance. Students, we all know, learn best when they arrive at school prepared to work. Setting aside, for the moment, the questions of nutrition, sleep, and safe housing, Some kids, no matter how much choice they have in research topics, reading material, or alternate ways of expressing themselves, are not developmentally ready to learn with a focus that will get them successfully through high school without driving their teachers nuts, and distracting other students who are ready to explore the realms of knowledge.

Many of these kids who are un-ready as freshmen or sophomores drop out. If they return to school during what would be their senior year, the amazing thing is that they are able to accomplish not only graduation requirements, but make up any deficit they had incurred during their first two years struggling to be academic, and often surpass their colleagues who stuck with it and stayed in school. Others who stay and struggle seem to suddenly wake up near the end of their junior year, and have a fabulous terminal year, graduating with a plan for their post-secondary education solidly intact. I call them Awakened Seniors, or Pop Corn Kids for the way they seem to explode with learning and direction.

I would offer a hiatus to kids like this. It should be easy for them to participate in a work-study program, or even to join the workforce and serve as a laborer or apprentice for a few years. I know there is adult education with the possibility of a GED available as an alternative. There is, however, value for these students in becoming role models and leaders, and immersing themselves in an academic setting. There is also value for younger students in in seeing how a person approaches education when they have a specific goal in mind. Internships and school-to-work programs answer part of this need, but some kids need to be removed from academics completely. I have found older students who return to school more polite, more driven, and less inclined to put up with the malarkey a traditional student tends to hand out. The door needs to be left open.

Students would have a right to four years of free public secondary education, in a school, until the age of 25. For some this might mean at last getting the basic skills they missed during their time of disengagement from school. For others, however, it could mean an opportunity to finish the formal secondary curriculum and take advantage of early college courses allowed high school students. In a school filled with tight leaders, teachers who are forced to teach a regimented program of learning, having students at widely differing maturity levels would be difficult if not impossible. But in a school filled with teachers whose focus is on thinking, communicating, and learning, who want to help their students make discoveries, this sort of flexibility is a natural next step.

The big change we need to see, the one I dream of, is to refocus on learning. Give students choice in the things that matter to them. The basics, literacy and math skills, can be acquired doing just about anything. Teaching kids how to apply those skills in a variety of ways that stretch their understanding of the world, and their capacity to influence it should come naturally. If we want a system that will help our youth do their best, it needs to also be one that does not constrict teachers from their best. Most of us in education, students or teachers, benefit from the free swinging stride of learning, not the lock-step gate of a soldier, marching off to conquer quadratics or the subjunctive.

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