The Teaching Of English

 I called the Coudersport Public Library this morning to arrange for a Grab 'N Go pickup of a book I need for a writing workshop on my horizon. And when I eagerly opened the book, this greeted me.

Maxine Shear - artist, thespian, community booster and fellow Presbyterian.  Josephine Olin - though I would never have dreamed of calling her by her first name – was an English teacher in the Coudersport school, a woman I credit with my love of the ways words can fit together.

I didn't expect that it would be that way. I had heard tales from my older brothers about how strict she was* and it was just my luck that she was going to be my homeroom teacher for seventh grade.

That was back in the day when the "new school" was still new, with its rows of lockers lining the hallway and the wide terrazzo hallways, echoing the sounds of footsteps, doors slamming and the loud buzzers that signaled time to move between classes.

We started the day together with the pledge of allegiance, the lunch count and the taking of attendance. She'd read our names and we'd answer "here" or if  really daring, "present."

This textbook was waiting on my desk on that first day in seventh grade.  The typecase image in the background felt friendly to me for I knew how all those letters came together to form words. My mother did that kind of work, her hands flying between the typecase and the makeup rule on the days I'd stop in at the Enterprise office after school.

Mrs. Olin's classroom was always quiet and calm. She was indeed strict and did not tolerate any bending of the rules. No gum, no note passing, no excuses for homework undone.

As the school year went on, we worked our way through the textbook, learning the rules of grammar. I loved diagramming sentences and took great pride in putting the various parts of speech into their proper places on the blackboard. 

One afternoon, late in the school year, we were working on vocabulary. Moving through the class list in alphabetical order, we were instructed to stand and read sentences we had written using our vocabulary words.

I believe I was flashing a surreptitious grin to Susie Frederick for I had snuck one of our little word plays -  lima bean green – into my sentence and had made it through my reading without laughing out loud. 

Dick Keck, one of our class jesters, was next. Upon arising from his seat, he proceeded to expel a most spectacularly loud fart. There was an instant of paralyzed silence and then the classroom erupted in laughter. Mrs. Olin, seated at her desk in front of the classroom, simply folded her hands and put her head down, her shoulders shaking almost imperceptibly.

After a moment or two, she lifted her head, fixed her gaze on Dick and said, "Richard, your sentence please." and the red-faced Keck proceeded.

*From brother Steve, who all these years later posted this comment today on my facebook page : "Mrs. Olin was quite strict. I resented that. Even though my English skills were very strong, she could still catch me out."

500,000 + Gone

Candles to remember Potter
County victims of Covid-19
(January 19, 2021)

Last evening, President Biden and Vice President Harris, with their spouses, stood outside the White House to honor the lives of the half-million souls lost as a result of Covid-19. Candles, one for every 1,000 lives, flickered on the steps. The bells of the National Cathedral tolled. The President shared words of comfort for those who mourn and the rest of us who mourn alongside them.

"This national will smile again. This nation will know sunny days again. This nation will know joy again. And as we do, we'll remember each person we've lost, the lives they lived, the loved ones they left behind," the President said.

All of our lives have been touched by this pandemic and it's not over yet.  The rollout of vaccines and finally a coordinated plan from our federal government to mitigate the economic effects provide hope that the ground that has so shifted beneath us will soon begin to steady again.

I shared my experience in pandemic response planning back in May in this post. When I wrote that essay, the numbers of deaths and infections had begun to creep upward but I couldn't imagine that, in the United States, which boasts of its exemplary health care, in the country that Trump claimed to have made great again, we would experience such heartbreaking carnage from this virus.

In the words of Dr. Anthony Fauci, "Back in the late winter and early spring of 2020, when we gave the modeling number of 240,000, people thought that we were being hyperbolic about that and somewhat alarmist. Clearly that is not the case."

What had been broadly signaled by scientists through the early months of the pandemic has become crystal clear in the month since the new administration wrested control from the cold hands and hearts of Trump's denizens. The public health response was hampered by inadequate resources and blatant misinformation in blizzard of bad communication, mixed messages and the lies that were the hallmark of the Trump era. When paired with the political division in the country, exploited by the Trump  to advance his own agendas, even the simple act of wearing a mask to protect oneself and others became a political statement.

From Fauci, "I think this is a dramatic example of the divisiveness in our country. We've had a complete distortion and throwing aside of scientific facts and evidence. And a certain part of the country believed the hoax aspect, the fake news aspect."

He continues: "I mean, I think if we had had the public health messages – from the top right through down to the people in the trenches – be consistent, that things might have been different. In fact, I'm pretty sure they would have been different."

It's not going to get better as soon as we all would like. We're all so tired of the scramble anytime we leave the house - do I have my mask(s)? Is the hand sanitizer bottle full?  How much longer will we take a survey of the number of cars in the parking lot at the grocery store before going in? When can we plan a family gathering or just a simple movie date?

But our president had words of hope last evening even in remembering all that we have lost.

"We remember each person and the life they lived. They're people we knew. They're people we feel like we knew. Read the obituaries and remembrances, the son who called his mom every night to to check in, the father's daughter who lit up his world, the best friend who was always there, the nurse, the nurse and nurses, but the nurse who made her patients want to live.

"So today, I ask all Americans to remember. Remember those we lost and those who are left behind. But as you remember, as we all remember,  I also ask us to act, to remain vigilant, to stay socially distanced, to mask up, get vaccinated when it's your turn. We must end the politics and misinformation that's divided families, communities in the country. It's cost too many lives already.

"We have to resist becoming numb to sorrow. We have to resist viewing each life as a statistic or a blur, or on the news. We must do so to honor the dead. But equally important, to care for the living."

Limbaugh

Death came to Mr. Rush Limbaugh yesterday.  If you're anywhere near any kind of a screen you cannot avoid seeing his moon face. 

One of these photos is familiar to me. This fellow was loud and uncompromising and so very full of himself. I'm not writing about Mr. Limbaugh now, but rather about a man I worked with who had a large framed portrait of Rush Limbaugh in a prominent place on his desk. It was carefully arranged so people coming into his office for a meeting would be greeted by Rush's shit-eating grin and if you cared to look closely, you'd see that Rush had used a Sharpie to scrawl a personal message to the fellow on the other side of that desk.

The Limbaugh photo was far cry from the inspirational workplace posters in the vogue then. It's the opposite of the framed diplomas used to add authority.

That photograph was a signal – both to the men and to the women – that there was no even playing field in this office. It was a dangerous place for women, for the man behind the desk let you know that he viewed you as either a "feminazi" or a sex object. He emulated Limbaugh's entire demeanor – the bluster, the bravado, the snide comments spewing out of his mouth with a contemptuous jokiness.

I had learned the lessons of getting along long before mandatory sexual harassment training so this was just one more of the familiar experiences of a woman in the workplace. I just turned my attention to working around the big-mouth and there came a day when the fellow packed up his prized possession and moved along on his career path.

Limbaugh's giant megaphone has been silenced by death. But somewhere, this other fellow has likely pulled his hero's photo out of its frame and posted the screen shot on his facebook page.

Feathered Friends

 Last week Arthur called upstairs to me to come down to see something. He was standing in the living room, our new binoculars in his hands trained out the window to a nearby lilac bush. There, in the tangle of branches near the top, was some kind of large bird. It was an owl, identified after consultation between the bird book and binoculars, as a barred owl. We've been keeping lists of birds around our feeders for the Great Backyard Bird Count,  but the owl has not shown himself within the proper time frame, which ends today.

Bird watching and winter feeding is a past-time enjoyed by both sides of our family through the generations.

 The birdfeeder you see above was built by Arthur's grandfather, J. Walter Metzger, known as Pa in this family. It's situated outside the kitchen window just above the sink and spruce trees and a maple tree provide adequate cover to attract a lovely winter assortment.

A suet Valentine from our Crandall Hill bird friends

My grandfather, W.D. Fish, often wrote about his backyard birds in his weekly newspaper column.

"Golly's birds gave him a cold shoulder for four straight mornings last week. He had begun to wonder, and then one morning came a male Cardinal. The brilliant bird took his time for a hearty breakfast of sunflower seeds. The next morning there was one Bluejay, and for a few seconds a Chickadee visited the feeder, just outside the window where Golly has his own breakfast.

Since then the usual variety has come to breakfast and all are very welcome regardless of the brilliance or somber appearance of their attire."

This feeder is at the other end of
the house, visible from the piano bench
in the music room

I particularly enjoyed reading of his plans for a Christmas feast.

"Just outside the kitchen window, reaching all the way across its 4-ft. length, was the table for special guests. The menu offered small grains, cracked corn, sunflower seeds, suet, bread loaded with generous gobs of peanut butter and raisins for a treat. Dozens of evergreen trees form a small forest back of the birds' table.

We bird lovers – all in absentia except Golly– admired the pair of chickadees, tiny, alert and nervous but hungry, dressed in their Christmas best. Others came, including the Blue Jay family of a half dozen members. The Jays were suspicious as always, greedy and hungry, but there was plenty for the whole hordes.

There may be some slight differences among the bird families but they are all just as nature made them, and Golly is neutral. They settled their arguments among themselves long before Golly was born.

A welcome awaits them all– Merry Christmas to all the birds."

The Christmas spirit had evaporated a few weeks later when he wrote:

"The Blue Jays that hide out in the evergreen trees in the rear of Golly's domicile, are keen and alert rascals. At times they provoke this scribe."

And the next Christmas came this:

"Golly suggested last week that the Blue Jays go away top of Dutch Hill and play Ken Barrie for free board.

Of course, Golly expected a comeback from the Scot but he did not expect poetry. But that's the way it is. Ken busted into a session with the muses with the following result.

Golly went out the other day,
To fill his bird feeder trays.
He thought he would find his Chickadees,
Instead he found only Jays.

Get out of here you greedy bums,
Get out and do not tarry
Beat it up on Dutch Hill
And feed off a Scot, Ken Barrie."

In an instant they were off,
A stream straight, long and steady,
If dear old Bill had only known,
Ken has hundreds here already.

Now it's Christmas season, Bill,
Have not a thing to fear.
I have a little old stale bread,
And I will feed them while they are here.

But when Christmas days are over,
and money I will lack,
So, I will cut down on the feed,
and dear old Bill will have them back,

– Sandy MacClaus

 

The Power Of Words

I love words. I love arranging them, then rearranging them and puzzling for the just the right words to bring clarity to scattered thought. Career choices made since my ill-advised stint in nursing school always brought me back to words. Newspaper reporting, communicating for our local hospital, writing promotion for our fledgling farm were all places I could play with words.

I expect my appreciation of words and how they're used sent the first ripple of concern (that's an anemic word, ripple – it was more like a crashing wave of terror) through my brain when the name calling became everyday in the Presidential campaign of 2016 – Crazy Bernie, Little Marco, Lyin' Ted Cruz, Rocket Man, Crazy Hilary. Characterizing other humans as wacky, lame, psycho, dumb as a rock, even tossing off the comment "such a nasty woman" in a what was supposed to be a debate between Presidential candidates.

On Inauguration Day in 2017, there was no poet sharing carefully chosen words at the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as 45th president of the United States. No Yo Yo Ma and no James Taylor, either.

Then came words like witch hunt, fake news, rigged, and hoax in every day communication from our government and its leaders. We all had to listen to superlatives - tremendous, tremendous beyond belief, big league and its close cousin bigly.

He chose his words carefully to paint with broad strokes, a dog whistle to his base by saying things such as "rip the baby out of the womb" and references to the blacks, the gays, the muslims and the bad hombres and the radical left.

A long history of United States diplomacy across the world was replaced by this kind of rhetoric  "stupidest deal of all time" referring to treaties and we're being "ripped off by other countries" referring to international trade agreements.

The barrage of words culminated in Trump addressing the crowd gathered on  January 6, 2021 for his "Save America" Rally.  "The media is the biggest problem we have as far as I'm concerned, single biggest problem, the fake news and the big tech... they rigged an election. They rigged it like they've never rigged an election before... our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats. .. you'll see some really bad things happen ... It's a pure theft in American history, everybody knows it... Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. If he doesn't that will be a sad day for our country ...we're going to walk down and I'll be there with you...we've done things like nobody's ever though possible. .. we will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies that we've been forced to believe ... we've amassed overwhelming evidence about a fake election...we had a lot of eyes watching one specific state, but they cheated like hell anyway ... you have one of the dumbest governors in the United States ... he turned out to be a disaster ... I 'm not happy with the Supreme Court, they love to rule against me...."

And the not-so-silent dog whistle rallied those who have been convinced by this kind of rhetoric, years and years of incendiary language,  that the only solution to these assaults was to storm into the U.S. Capitol to "stop the steal" and take back America.

The words, shrieking voices shaking with anger, spilled down the Avenue, through the halls of Congress and across the land. Destruction, desolation, fear, hate. The news commentators chose the word excrement to describe the shit rioters left behind.

Just days later, other words spoken in those same spaces, were chosen ever so carefully to nurture a small seed of hope, the words selected by a young woman who stood in beautiful dignity as the sun broke through the clouds.

"... So let us leave behind a country 

better than the one we were left with.

Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,

we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.

We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west.

We will rise from the windswept northeast,

where our forefathers first realized revolution.

We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states.

We will rise from the sunbaked south.

We will rebuild, reconcile and recover.

And every known nook of our nation and

every corner called our country,

our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,

battered and beautiful.

When day comes we step out of the shade,

aflame and unafraid,

the new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light,

if only we're brave enough to see it.

If only we're brave enough to be it."

The words of Amanda Gorman "The Hill We Climb"

Tomorrow begins the second impeachment trial of the 45th President of the United States. We'll be once again subjected to these hateful words and the other words that will stand to describe what seems so indescribable.

In the coming days, I plan to lose myself in a different kind of words, reading from the stacks of books waiting for me to lose myself in their particular celebration of  words – "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Bill Moyers' "The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets"; old favorites that I turn to again and again, "Dakota, A Spiritual Geography"and "The Cloister Walk" both by Kathleen Norris, and Madeleine L'Engle's "A Circle Of Quiet." And to truly escape, I have my Colville friend Maury Barr's mystery novel "A Glimpse of Gold," and novels by Joyce Maynard, Emily St. John Mandel and one recommended by a fellow writer in a workshop I just completed, "Empire Falls" by Richard Russo.

What – and whose – words are you choosing?

A Tale For The Birds

A view of the camp on the Nine Mile

We've taken to wandering around the hills of Potter County in these days of social distancing, this time stopping for a ramble around Denton Hill State Park on a late Sunday afternoon. Someone had left a path of footprints in the snow along the Nine Mile beginning at the foot of Avalanche and following the trail provided a different perspective of our old family camp, known as Golly's Folly until it was sold in the 1960s.

The "Golly" of the Folly was my grandfather, the newspaperman whose weekly newspaper column in The Potter Enterprise was read by thousands (as he liked to boast) in the 1950s and 1960s. He often wrote about his little camp in the Black Forest.

When I was a child, Merve Chamberlin's camp and the Folly shared a chunk of leased state forest land. It was often told that "Merve is very critical of children" and we knew to steer clear of that side of the lawn when the shutters were thrown open next door. The line of demarcation was a large stone structure, a bird bath I was told, but in my memory it was always obscured by a thicket of prickers.

The bird bath was something of a magical mystery to this child, though I never asked anyone about it. I liked to imagine it was a relic of some long-ago tribe of Indians. Or maybe the creatures used it as a woodland shrine. It's a landmark I look for each time I stroll down Memory Lane on the Nine Mile.

Now I know the story, thanks to unearthing this Golly column from the summer of 1949. It was July and the Enterprise always closed down the week of July 4 to allow the staff to have a vacation. Granddaddy often spent that time at the camp.

One guest last week suggested a bird bath. This guest was so insistent that a survey of the town was made to purchase one to present to the shack. Local dealers' stocks were depleted. None was to be had.

By the time this information reached us, we had become bird-bath conscious. With the assistance of our good neighbor, Merve Chamberlin, we rolled a half-ton rock in position on the lawn.

With heavy stone hammer and chisel the work of hollowing the top of the old hard-head rock was started.

Bang, bang, bang!

We counted the strokes of the hammer. One hundred whacks and the rock was hardly marked.

The constant dripping of water wears a hole in the rock, we have been told. So we whacked and banged along – 100, 200, 300, 1000, 1800 strokes. There we lost count and something happened we had not anticipated.

In trying to make the reservoir as large as possible, we had chiseled too near the edge of the boulder and off went the rim already nicely started.

That was tough but we decided that as soon as cement can be transported to the shack, we will continue the work and build a bird bath.

In preparation for this Friend Merve located a gravel bar along the stream and together we sifted sand from the gravel – clean, sharp sand. It was not kid play to transport the sand after it was sifted.

A bridge of a sort was thrown across the stream, very low at present. Pails and boxes were filled and loaded into a wheelbarrow, but there was a marshy stretch to be filled for the one-wheel vehicle and after this, a trail had to be gouged out of the bank to the roadway.

It was hard work but by nightfall a ton or more of sand had been stockpiled near the two camps where either of us may use it as needs may present themselves.

That night, dead tired from the strenuous activity, there was a genuine satisfaction in the accomplishment of a task that had seemed hopeless at the outset.

Friend Merve declared that he saw birds flying about with bath towels late Saturday afternoon and chattering as though disappointed because their bath was not ready for use. Golly would not question his statement but his writer saw nothing of the kind.

photo from late winter 2016

 

March 2021