Ok, so this blog starts off with one of those tired sayings that are as true as they are worn out! I had to add my own but of spice to it! I am allowed to do that.. It's called poetic freedom. Today on the third day of my new life, I did more than I ought to have. I suppose I'm in denial of a sort.. two surgeries and 12 treatments can drive a person to distraction. When I first got the prognosis of bladder cancer and an all too optimistic prognosis I didn't take it to heart. But cancer is a bitch.. a real nasty bitch, not to be overlooked or considered lightly. True bladder cancer is seldom fatal.. But am I in the seldom category or the survivor and am I in any way able to decide. YES says I on the first day of summer, on the first day of a new life.. a birthday for the sun and for the sinner as I dub it. eecummings said it better than I ever could. The trouble with cummings is that he is so inventive and unpredictable that his poems are almost impossible to memorize. Memorize! Ooops.. now there's a word that's gone out of style.. or maybe it's coming back. Memorizing poetry went out with high top shoes but you know high top shoes never truly went out of style. As a former teacher.. (which is a bit like saying a former Marine) I expect that some brilliant minds ( probably on the West Coast or at the Ivy League ) will propose that schools should go back to requiring memorization. It's never really gone out of style.. I remember as a kid in second or third grade memorizing the 5 tables.. loved it so much I memorized , 6,7,8 and 9 tables just for the heck of it. I worked my way up to the 12 tables just for the sheer joy of it. Then as a young Greek-American of sorts.. we were required to memorize a poem and recite it before the class. Now there is some rock solid great instructional demands. Imagine standing before a class of peers and reciting a poem (in a foreign language at that). Fenga rikey mou lambro, Fenga mou na perpato, Tha peino sto schoolio, tha matheno grammata, grammata ti pragmata, tou Theo ta pragmata. Any Greek-American kid who went to Greek school knows that one, literally a credo to go to school and learn math and language. A poem with a lasting meaning in mixed trochaic meter!
Yikes and wow.. hope I haven't lost too many readers with that one.. I learned it over fifty years ago.. I remember hoping not to be the first to have to recite so that I might listen and learn as others recited! Which I did and it worked. Then there was the memorization of the Greek National Anthem.. which we all did and sang. It may seem un-American but it really wasn't. But I'll bet at the time J. Edgar Hover had his eyes and ears on the Hellenistic community. The Greeks were suspected of being socialists at the time which they no doubt were, but aren't we all now?
Bill Mahrer was on tv the other night and though I seldom watch him I have to agree with what he said about Socialism. Everybody fears and yet everybody wants it. And now we've got it right here in America thanks to FDR and Ms. Perkins. Hey, if you don't know who Ms. Perkins was, google her up! Great, great lady. God bless her soul! As to FDR.. Hoover even had a file on him and the Mrs. Now there was a blooming socialist, feminist. Thank God they were here when we needed them. For those who don't know anything about American during Hoover.. well, it was a different world. Presidents came and went but Hoover ran the show. Here's a nugget for you, I've read that J. Edgar knew about Pearl Harbor before it happened! Find that hard to believe.. well who wouldn't. But you moderns have no idea what this country was like before 1972.. actually I like to put the critical year of change as 1962. American after 1962 became a much different and better place for many people.
That's all I've got for you folks. Tomorrow is another day in the fight against cancer for so many of us. Be well my friends.You may call me the second most interesting man in the world. Kali nicta sous! Good night all.
Lem
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