Good Friday

No Telling

It’s been a pretty damned nice day. Really.

I have a friend who once astounded me by keeping a Gratitude Journal. She’s that kind of person, glass half full and all, and kept whole scribbling book just to write down those things that happened to go well. She sees the lovely in everything, and I’m a little envious.

Not that I’m some old crank screaming at kids to get out of my yard or anything. Not yet, anyway. I’m like everyone else – smooth mornings, trying afternoons, exhausted evenings – sometimes too busy with the minutia of the everyday to stop and say, hey, that was a delightful moment.

Well, I’m doing it right now.

There was a time this morning when I looked at my 11:00 Intro to College Writing class and saw My Reason. The one I get up for every single morning. There they were, two fresh weeks into the semester, terror and self-consciousness gone. My students were writing and talking about their writing in little clatches here and there. I floated from group to group listening, smiling, nodding. One group helped a friend with his essay’s opening. The ideas flew. Another group laughed about a piece one of them had just read aloud, and as they remarked and responded, the writer scribbled furiously in the margins of his own paper.

At 11:00 I had a classroom of students who owned the writing. There was no need for me to stand at the podium and pontificate about audience and structure. Something clicked in that room today, and my students collectively and independently became writers. Not students in some composition class with an assignment – writers.

My gratitude is in being there to witness it.

At 2:30 I rode with Em to pick up The Perfect Grandson at pre-school. This was my first time to visit his school, to see his new life outside of our little house. Em led me down a hall and into a room filled with two year-olds chatting and resting and playing – a whole rainbow-coalition nest of other people’s perfect grandchildren. It’s such a tremendous responsibility taking care of other people’s beloveds, and those women whose names I don’t yet know who nurture these delightful fat-cheeked toddlers are angels. I’ve made a mental note to tell them them this, because they need to know.

Then The Perfect Grandson came careening from across the room with his crazy hair and big light-up Spiderman shoes.

“Meee-Meee!” and buried his little face in my skirt. That knee-hug was a moment so fine I want to weave 2:30 today into a scarf I wear around my neck until I die.

I am indeed the luckiest woman on the planet.

Dancing the Body Electric

No Telling

I‘ll admit it, I have an electrical problem. I’m not talking about my house, because it’s so brand new everything is probably under some warranty or other. I’m talking about me.

I have a fairly checkered past when it comes to small electrical and battery operated nuisances. There’s not a watch made that I can’t stop just by wearing it. I even wore a series of them around my neck on a chain – charming little pendant watches – thinking it was the direct contact with me that was the problem.

Nope. About once a month I’d be at the jewelry shop getting a battery replaced or apologizing while my favorite repairman scratched his head in disbelief. As a second-generation watch-guy, he’d seen cases like mine before. Chip died not long ago, and I quit wearing watches altogether.

Light bulbs. Now, they’re a real issue. I can blow a light bulb dark faster than anyone. Those can be a bit pricey to replace, so I tend to leave them be and live with a few lamps here and there. Climbing up and down the ladder that much is a worrisome venture anyway.

As a public school teacher I had an unnerving habit of blowing those little overhead projector bulbs regularly. Students in my classes took this phenomenon for granted after a while and one of the sweet backrow-boys would always scuttle off to the office to bring back more bulbs. Sometimes they came back emptyhanded.

I was rationed. My reputation was so tarnished that none of the other schoolmarms would loan me the use of their projectors, not even in a pinch. We were close friends who would and did share our last dimes and many times our county-line box-wine. Not their overhead projectors, though. They knew better.

There are other incidents. My favorite was the time both Em and I were writing furious poems at the dining room table and the chandelier bulbs began going out one by one. And the other time when we argued loudly over something teenagery and knocked out cable TV for three days. I suspect she’s got a few electrical issues as well.

Oh, and the neighborhood street lights. That’s okay. I don’t walk the subdivision loop anymore and no one on the Homeowners’ Association board has fingered me as the culprit. Let’s just keep that one between us.

The point of all this is that I think it’s getting worse. Recently I’ve found myself stuck in elevators that don’t seem to stick for anyone else. Twice last month and once again already this month. The first one was a particularly good stick, one warranting pushing that button and asking the campus police for a little assistance. The other two I’ll call “stalls.” The elevator hesitated, then decided to deposit me on a floor I didn’t choose all the while refusing to open the door.

The other day, I rode that badboy up and down half a dozen times before anyone could get the thing to release me.

I‘ve almost made friends with the problem, really. It’s a lot like the watch-and-light-bulb thing. If I half expect the elevator to malfunction, then there’s no reason panic. Eventually, the door will open. As long as it deposits me and my trick knee on the first floor, I’m golden.

I figure if it happens again I’m going to outfit that elevator with a comfortable chair. I’d carry a flashlight for emergencies, but that’s just asking for trouble and darkness. Maybe I’ll stow a box of kitchen matches and a fat candle under the cushion, just in case.

Why We Should Name the Storm

No Telling
Oldest known photograph of a tornado – August 28, 1884. South Dakota.

Yes, it’s hurricane season. I’ve been watching reports lately about that feisty Jimena, the one who threatens to ugly-up the Baja peninsula. Odd are she’ll wrap herself up once inland and head right straight through Arkansas. They always do, and even though these hurricanes are watered down by the time they visit us, there’s usually plenty of rain and a few fiery storms to make things interesting. We’ll have an errant tornado or three.

The tornadoes we’re stomped with have no names, at least nothing as swanky as “Jimena.” It must be because hurricanes are measured by what devilry they may bring, while tornadoes are only measured afterwards. All storms have numbers – category 4, F-3, that sort of thing – but only hurricanes have names.

So why can’t we name our tornadoes? I think we need a frame of historical reference at the very least. Here’s an example:

“That twister back in ’93 was a demon. ‘Member it?”

“That one that took Mr. Hightower’s fence and made a necklace of it over to the water tower?”

“Naw, I’m talkin’ about the one in the fall, the one that sliced the Chevron station in half. Found that ‘Pay Inside’ sign – remember? -stuck in the front glass of daddy’s Ford. You was there.”

“Damn. I thought it was that one closer to Christmas when we found all them dead fish from the waterspout. Them filleted ones.”

“Naw, now, that was the Chevron twister. Picked up the whole stockpond and shook it like a hound.”

“Ohhh, yeah. You’re right. I was there.”

You see my point. Our disasters need naming just like anyone else’s. Probably even more so, because we can’t rally ’round a good storm story if everyone’s confused.

I realize the National Weather Service (NOAA) has a lot on its plate just now, what with all the hurricane naming and warnings and projected paths and such. I hate to give them more work than they can comfortably handle. They’re performing a vital service and I’m sure many of their employees are working long days.

So here’s my proposal, NOAA: You name the tornadoes whenever you feel it’s warranted, and I’ll do the gruntwork necessary to supply the names. Gratis. In fact, I’ll start out with a few right now. Feel free to use them as you see fit and let me know if you need any more. I found these in the local phone book and there are scads more where these came from.

Tornado Names: Female

Anaverle, Beulah, Cozetta, Dymple, Elva, Flodine, Georgia, Halogene, Iva, Jo Nell, Kitty, Lurleen, Mavis, Nevetta, Otha, Pearlene, Queenie, Rowleena, Sissy, Twanette, Una, Vernice, Wanda, and Zelma.

Tornado names: Male

Ace, Buford, Clyde, Dax, Elmore, Finis, Garrett, Harvenious, Israel, Junior, Kimbro, Lester, Millard, Noble, O’Dell, Percy, Rusty, Skeeter, Twig, Ulis, Vester, Windle, and Zeke.

I left a few letters out, mainly because I’m not partial to names beginning with Q, X or Y. Makes no difference. What’s important is that we give each tornado a distinct identity. Simply calling a twister an “F-2” is hardly personal, and believe me, nothing is more personal than finding your car twisted around the uprights at the local ballfield.

Besides, using local names gives the storm a regional flavor. Retelling the storm would be much easier, and dire warnings more effective.

“Get the kids in the cellar, honey! This’n makes Skeeter look like a soft breeze!”

Exactly.

Things I Didn’t Win on Ebay This Weekend

Fresh Ribbon


Clearly, my luck has taken a sad turn. I can’t seem to catch an Ebay break. So, instead of sharing with you the fabulous goodies I snagged for a song on Ebay, I’ll let you peek at the Big Ones That Got Away.

First up, the glorious red Corona typewriter above. I was convinced no one but me saw this beauty languishing around the $10-$15 price range. I was wrong. The bidding took a frantic turn and left me with my pocketbook hanging open. Craving this typewriter brought me nothing but heartache and the understanding that no, I cannot run with the big dogs.

What are these? I’ve never seen anything like them before, and can only assume they’re little pillow-like attachables to make slamming the keyboard a little less, well, slammin‘. I can’t decide if these were a good idea, or a terrible mess. Did the typist have to dodge flying cushions when (not if) they detached mid-memo? And why “Park Avenue”? I’ll never know. A badly-timed phone call yanked my attention away at precisely the wrong moment. Bye-bye, key cushions.

This perfect collection of vintage stationery began at around $10. Who else on the planet needs this worse than I do? No one, I tell you. Not one soul. I would have won these, too, if my computer hadn’t chose the last half-minute of the auction to do its weekly virus update. Pop-ups stole my Ebay stationery, and I may never recover.

Unlike the stationery fiasco, I’m fairly certain the person(s) who drove up the price of this vintage paper are people I know. Scallywags, all of them. Just look at that box – couldn’t you die? I’m dying a little every time I think about it.

This bizarre piece of political history needs no explanation. You know why I wanted it. It would be fascinating, though to know who the four bidders were, because it’s always comforting to know there are others out there functioning just a half-bubble off center. I have no idea why I missed this one. Just looked away for a second and it was gone.

I‘m not bitter about losing these Ebay auctions. Well, not all of them. I’d like to find the old bidding mojo again, though, because all this losing is beginning to make me look bad. I fear for my Ebay street-cred, and with good reason.

When my typewriter friends post elegant Hiawatha-watermarked typecasts, don’t worry. I’ll put on a brave face.

Snake Charming with a Big Shovel

No Telling


It’s entirely too early on a Sunday morning for this kind of excitement. I’ll need to huddle in my office and shake this off with a few more cups of coffee.

The weenie-dog doesn’t understand Weekend Time. Neither does The Perfect Grandson, but only one of them has to go outside on a leash in public at odd hours. I have a love/hate relationship with Bobo. His real name is Boner, and that explains a lot. Thankfully The Perfect Grandson is still practicing the language and has made hollering at the dog a little more acceptable. He’s Bobo now (pronounced Baaahhh-bow) and thank God for that.

Regardless, Bobo had to go outside before my second cup of Sunday coffee. I wear a lot of hats, but Em wears the one that says, “take the damn dog out.” Not my job. Besides, she looks cute all the time and I need a little spackling before I go out in the street.

I’m a Southern woman of a certain age. That carries a lot of lipstick-baggage.

So out they go and BAM, they’re back inside. Em’s hyperventilating and doing an odd tiptoe dance, Bahbow strains at his leash and throws his little black body repeatedly against the front door. Em finds enough breath to tell me there’s a baby SNAKE by the MAILBOX. She thought it was a big WORM, but then it STUCK it’s SNAKEY tongue OUT.

It was the closest thing to rap music that’s ever happened here at my house, what with the breathless emphasis and the hopping around and the thump, thump, thump of the weenie-dog slinging himself rhythmically at the door.

How silly, I thought, we live in a walled subdivision with an iron-clad set of Homeowner’s Association Rules and Regs. Snakes aren’t in the bylaws.

I snatched up The Perfect Grandson and we – all four of us – went out to the mailbox. Sure enough, there was a little brown snake half in the grass, half on the driveway. Both halves together were probably all of six inches long. It stood it’s ground and we kept our distance.

I know there are some snake-huggers out there who might take offense at what comes next, but babies and weenie-dogs and possibly-poisonous reptiles don’t mix. The snake had to go. Em high-stepped back inside dragging a frothing Bobo on a leash while I held The Perfect Grandson high and eyeballed the snake to make sure it made no fast moves houseward. The worst kind of snake is the one you can’t find. I have experience.

“SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!” said the boy, pointing down.

“You got it, buddy. That,” I said, “is a snake.”

Em came flying out of the front door, having traded Bobo for a really big garden shovel. I won’t give the gory details play-by-play, but you can assume Em’s mama-bear instincts kicked in and settled the standoff. Several times. Don’t worry, I whisked The Perfect Grandson away before he could witness the carnage.

The issue now is snake identification. Since it was a baby, there’s always the possibility of more. We need to know what we’re up against. According to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, it was either a deadly-venomous copperhead, or something harmless like a king snake. This isn’t an easy ID because, 1) the snake was young and those look different from the adults, and 2) it’s not easy to ID a snake that’s in approximately seven pieces.

Em got a little shovel-happy. I don’t blame her. If it’s any consolation, snake-huggers, she shouted something like oh God, I’m killing someone else’s baby just before the shovel hit concrete. On some level, she’s remorseful.

The distinction, though, between poisonous-killer and harmless snail-eater is an important one. We’ve got more research ahead of us. I’ll need another cup of coffee and an hour of sensibility before I can say for sure.

Think I’ll put on a little lipstick and look over those bylaws again.

Clearly, I’m in the Wrong Line of Work

No Telling

For the past week, I’ve heard nothing but horror stories from my students. While these were often about parking tickets – which is their own fault – most of the terror had to do with buying textbooks.

Everyone had a story and the register-tape to prove it.

There’s the one about the poor science major whose Intro to Chemistry book was $270 – used. There’s another involving a Psychology textbook that rung up at just over $110. “I was relieved,” the poor child said, “it was the cheapest book I had to buy.” My own daughter threw down $140 for a used Spanish I book. Thank God she found it, because a new one would have set her back over $200.

Keep in mind that these folks have four, five, sometimes six classes to buy books for, as well as other pesky things like tuition, room and board, and “fees.” They’re all taking out loans.

So I began thinking about my first semester in school. My folks doled out right at $1,000 for the whole Spring 1980 semester. That covered everything, including my books. For two grand a year, you bought a kid’s college education, at least at the state university here in Arkansas. No, I didn’t walk to class in four feet of snow, but I did have a job and a car – one paid for the other. I’m walking around with an $8,000 undergraduate degree right now. For now, let’s forget about grad school.

Students attending school this year at the same university pay approximately $13,000 a year, give or take a science book or two. I realize it’s been a few years, but that’s an astronomical increase. The average four-year jaunt through the ivory towers will cost 52k – not that many of these fine students will have an average jaunt. Many programs now have five-year plans and there’s no getting around it.

Let’s forget about their grad school too, because none of them will be able to afford it.

Here’s where I got tangled up. After class, I pulled out the Granny Calculator with the Big Buttons and started figuring. If the 79’/80′ school year was two grand, and the 09’/10′ school year is thirteen grand, and school costs keep rising exactly as they have thus far…

…the unborn children of my students will pay approximately $78,000 a year to receive a state college education. That will be (clickclickclick) around $312,000 for the whole undergraduate rodeo. Feel free to check my math. I was an English major.

Ladies and gentlemen, I may very well be teaching the last generation to earn a college degree. We like to talk about Generation Y (or Millennials) as the tech generation, but history may prove them to be the Last of the Educated. All these texting, Facebooking masses will be intellectual gods.

Tonight I look at the sleeping Perfect Grandson, and even though several generations of family are socking away money for his college, it may take more than this village to educate the child. Even here in Arkansas where such a thing is relatively cheap.

I predict in the future there will be a rash of bank robberies and petty thieveries committed by women in orthopedic shoes and brandishing canes. Legions of Grammies out there trying to raise a little tuition spare-change for their Perfect Grandkids. There won’t be jails enough to hold us all.

In the meantime, I’m thinking of going into the textbook business.

Hephaestus Forges Love

Fresh Ribbon

Hephaestus

I figure ol’ Hephaestus for a typewriter man. In another time, he might have made a fine repairman of all things bent and broken, an artist in iron and steel. Why, there’s no telling what kind of machines we’d be knocking on.

Maybe he needed a little anger management training. Maybe he wouldn’t have been quite prepared for the women’s movement. I’ll bet he could fix fix a few of my typewriters, though. There’s that.

And Aphrodite? She could hold her own.

Achoo, Y’all

No Telling


Well, that didn’t take long. Let’s see…The Perfect Grandson began preschool last Thursday. Here it is the following Tuesday and every last person in this house is sniffling, coughing, sick. I’m not concerned that this is the swine/H1N1 flu business that seems to be everywhere but here, it’s just a cold or a collective allergy or something irritating that has all of us in the No Telling household grabbing tissues and drinking orange juice.

The Perfect Grandson prefers to wipe boogies all over his face in a lightning-fast one-two motion with the back of his little fist. Em says she’ll be glad when he gets older and isn’t so haphazard with his hygiene and learns to use a tissue.

I’m not telling her. You tell her.

The news is fraught with dire predictions about this flu. As someone who works in a sea of devil-may-care college students, this is the kind of train I’d like to see coming down the track before it hits me. College kids stay out too late, eat crappy food, and live too close to each other. Anything that comes on campus sweeps across it like the Black Plague. Just so you know, I’m unapologetic about wearing gloves during Pink-Eye Season and think nothing of running off students before they have a chance to touch a doorknob. Shoo! I say. And take your pink-eye with you to the health center.

My sister is an elementary school teacher in Birmingham, Alabama, and she told me tonight that just about everyone has that H1N1 business right now. She says they’re not closing down the schools because it wouldn’t make a lick of difference. I’ll bet they change their minds when they try finding substitute teachers in another week or so. Good luck with that, Birmingham.

As I am a Woman of a Certain Age it’s likely I was exposed to that last bout back in the 70s, which may very well provide some bullet-proofing. We’ll see. In the meantime I’m headed to Walgreens for a gallon jug of hand sanitizer and some Lysol spray, because these college kids love to kick you when you’re down.

I can’t do much about The Perfect Grandson’s germs, though. Especially since he wears them everywhere and all over. When the little guy feels poorly he wants extra hugs and kisses – and he’ll get them, too. He already has, that’s why we’re in this condition.

No kissing on the face, though. At least not until he’s old enough to use his shirttail instead.

Finders Keepers

No Telling

I never visited the Palace Theater in Greenwood, Arkansas. This lobby card was in a pile of others like it underneath a dusty Chatty Cathy doll with a wonky right eye.

The Girls take a trip at the end of the spring semester each year to spend money at the outlet malls in Branson, Missouri. There are only two of us interested in roadside yard sales, rusty flea markets, and the like, so stopping at the little gas-station-turned-junk-shop in Marshall had to be a quick trip. Besides, everyone needed a potty break.

I bought the whole stack of lobby cards from the old theater, finished the trip, put them in a drawer, and forgot.

I don’t know why I started digging around tonight, but there in my Hideous Gift Scarves Drawer was the pile. The woman who sold it to me for five dollars felt guilty because they were so dusty and had packed them neatly in plastic sheeting. She was a sweet woman on the other side of fifty who wore her hair piled high in the back. Miss Clairol ash blonde. When she wasn’t waiting on customers, she worked a baby quilt behind the counter. Sunbonnet Sue, so it must be a girl.

She really doesn’t matter to this story, but I remember writing notes about her when I returned to the van. Can’t find the notes, but I remember her raisin-colored nail polish clearly enough.

In July 1967, the couples who bought tickets to the Palace Theater in Greenwood, Arkansas saw Doris Day, Charlton Heston, John Wayne, and Elvis. Some sat in the balcony and necked while others sat below and pointed upward. There were only about 2,000 people living there then and I know this because eight months later a good portion of them lost their whole world and many loved ones to a drop-down tornado that flattened most of the town.

I don’t know if the Palace Theater survived the carnage. It’s doubtful. What did survive are these fairly pristine lobby cards, stacks of them dating back from 1955 through this one in 1967. Some are a little brown around the edges from exposure, but none look like they were fished out of a tornado.

The storm blew up in the late afternoon and had it hesitated, waited a couple of hours more, the Palace would have been full of young lovers holding popcorn and each other on a Friday night. Maybe somewhere near the back row there would have been young fella with a fresh shave and clean fingernails escorting his ash-blonde sweetheart to her seat.

Maybe.