It takes an effort, a substantial, engrossing energy to write and often I'd rather not for fear of having nothing to say and doing that. One may go for the fable, wrapped in myth, showered by poetic images, add heroes, horses, houses rising and falling. Then, there's the real problem- what the heck to say, how to say it, say it, revise it and put it out for show. I can start with something I now realize: not being able to write in cursive is an obstacle to composition for many people. . Instruction in cursive emphasized sentences. capitals, periods, and in so doing was an important element in better writing. I noticed over the years that the failure to organize sentences and use of capitals became more and more obvious, wide-spread and were worth the time to consider what factors were at work. The experts had written off handwriting instruction because of spelling and grammar checks in word programs. The lock and key effect characterizes handwriting in that composing by hand gave one practice in the use of capitals, periods and other mechanics. Looking back it was just those kinds of errors that made high school compositions so poor.

Granted, handwriting in and of itself isn't the whole truth, but is links up very nicely. But, one may offer that many people are currently writing online who never really wrote anything out long-hand. I don't think we did the best for students by not teaching handwriting. So what, some may say. And they are probably more correct than I am. Readers and writers are all usually self-taught. Thus the more you know about the language, the better you write and read.

I feel lucky to have been a teacher. As jobs go, it was a very rewarding profession. Most of my remembrances are pleasant and many of the things I taught were a great education for me. To write, one must write; those who can't, don't; and many of those who can, don't. It's such a difficult task to say something, to tell a story, relate an experience, thus when a person who hasn't learned to write, to think of things in organized ways is faced with the task; he cringes.

Having had nothing to say this evening, I feel satisfied with what I have written, for I didn't have a specific goal in mind, a fixed method of delivery. All I can say is I expressed an opinion that has little support in modern education. There are few fixed laws about language and its use. This area interests me and I often give time to considering how people communicate. Too tired to bore, any more. Good night.

October 2009

Began a blog three days ago but let it sit. Not much to say about the world, its denizens, machines, people. Had it in mind to start promptly on October 1st. Well the 2nd is just as useful as the 1st.

First there is the matter of the day- what mattered, which is usually nothing; sometimes very tiresome and difficult; and even less of the time something memorable, satisfying or practical.

So this October 2nd 2009 was not an abnormal day. The weather moderated; it didn't seem so cold and later in the day a warm front pushed in and brought us rain. We were out most of the day even though it was Friday and a busy day now that people are working four day weeks. Yet none of the stores seemed rushed. The traffic was not maddening, not particularly heavy. Of course it's always heavy- traffic that is- because it's cars, trucks....

Have begun The Brothers Kamarazov for the third time and taking it slowly, getting to know the characters. Think I'll take until Christmas to read Kamarazov and then read Crime and Punishment. Doestoevski creates substantial characters, endows them with flaws and goodness and exposes them to a situation, an event. In so doing the characters come to life- Nikolai the disagreeable drunken sot lost in self-loathing and surviving on his loathsomeness. Alexy simple but complete. The one special character. And then the' elder'...

More about the book tomorrow. Yesterday was terrible, headache from the time I woke, magnified by going to the movie theater and the double decker head ache- front and right sides of forehead, drifting down to the eye and cheek bone. Eventually the tenderness, pain, discomfort, recognition of a migraine came over me. It was a time for serious medication: flexeril, lorazepam, Ultram and Ambien to the rescue. Ultimately I took Imitrex, put cold packs on my head and neck as I laid in a hot bath, chewed and sucked on a popcicles which really helped, drank a coke and had a honey bun and the head ache dissipated. I topped off the mini-stroke with a burst of caffeine and sugar. Gotta love it when it's gone. It was gone. I was gone to sleep that is, perchance to dream, Aye there's the rub. When I woke my tongue felt dried and hard. Had a glass of water at 4 a.m.. and then went back to sleep until 9. We've begun sleeping in more and with cold weather coming on we are beginning to hibernate.

Got something in the blog. If the reader will forgive me a short humble entry after a busy day, I promise the following ( few though ye be): a blog of humor, insight, and hopefully delight.

Good night.

Stratford

Today's blog is short for I am back in my unexamined indifference or the attempt of it. Of course that is a lie- the unexamined indifference.  Tired worries resurrected. Toil resumed.

We've been back in the US for two days and I'm ready to go to Ontario.  This is serious stuff for it's a six hour drive but always worth it.  I can't explain why I feel so comfortable in Canada perhaps it's just being away, not cooking, doing chores, and being entertained with no strings.

We'll check out what plays are available- I know Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth are being performed. Some may say, but you've seen both of those a dozen times (probably more) done in a dozen different ways. Why would you travel to see Shakespeare- simply it's live theatre and in live theatre the audience participates, each performance new and never before nor after to be repeated. Art in the making, flowing, live with a working knowledge of the text, so familiar that one is able to hear without listening, to see without looking, to enjoy.  Being in Canada and seeing plays reminds me of sex- it's always different, always wonderful. One feels as one did the first time one truly made love, not necessarily sex but the act with meaning.  

We've recuperated, feel strong and are willing to take a new adventure. I'm a fool but traveling and being in a new place feels good, particularly at Strattford where we nestle into a hotel room, walk to a play, eat cheaply at Tim Horton's (Canada's Wendys), go to  spa,  pool, peruse stores and breathe. 

Two days home and tired of driving.  Simple chores, going to grocery store, getting a haircut are unsettling. Traffic obscene in every sense. Tired of the same small cares, the rounds.  At first, being home seems so wonderful after the bustle of travel, a new bed every night, hauling body and baggage.  Then it relaxes into tedium, an unglamorous set rut.  While away, all faces are new, local tragedies unimportant, politics no more important than a  glass of orange or grapefruit juice. Whatever whim satisfies against an unimposing back drop.  Floating away, flying away, going away all vehicles of insouciant disconnect.  Gladly adopting every new city

without commitment. The cities themselves whores to the traveler's desire, forgotten or remembered but not real, surface only. No musts!

And in my Dreams

and in my dreams such shapes may rise

that shake the soul with much surprise.

I dreamed I was going back to teaching last night though I was not on the faculty list. Everything had changed. Curiously enough, Bill Poulos was with me and we went to Boonsboro High School.

The department chair was a black man named Joseph (make any connection you like) and the English curriculum had been radically revised. I was lugging a machine around with me as we were leaving and was stopped and asked to return it. I didn't know what the machine was for, so as I returned it I was told it was a reading machine. Sheets of paper with holes in them were passed in front of a beam of light and the text was projected as the words were pronounced. The machine was a cross between a light-brite and the SRA machines so popular in the sixties and seventies. I was also carrying a text that was being taught- a book I'd never heard of but promised to read. I recall that the text was thoroughly politically correct but being the compulsive reader I am, I fully intended to read it. I recall that the title seemed childish and the cover an abstract design of purple and green.

As Bill and I traveled back(wards in time) he left me at the corner of Eastern Avenue and Ponca Street. He was driving a Thunderbird and parked it right at the bus stop there. I tried to tell him that he couldn't do that- the car will be towed. But he responded that he was flying out of the country and was suddenly gone.

Make what you will of a dream- Freud suggests that the words- Mr. Joseph, Thunderbird, Eastern, purple, green- are the telling details- that the visual images are not necessarily key but that sounds and their relation to reality are more important- the reading machine (me) is important. The flight to another country takes on an interesting aspect. Every reader will infuse meaning according to the importance the words and sounds elicit.

To sleep, to dream, ah there's the rub

and in that sleep

what dreams may come.

Out, out brief candle

Man is but a poor player

that struts and frets his hour upon this stage

and then is heard no more.

It is a tale told by an idiot

full of sound and fury

signifying nothing. *

paraphrase and quote from Macbeth

Poor reader, I beg your pardon for the indulgence I ask. There are no pictures merely the phantom forms that came into my mind. Tense too is important as is syntax.

Traveling is a Fool's Paradise

Thoreau began an essay with this topic sentence and then proceeded to elaboarate on the why- the usual stupid stuff: You can't escape your problems or yourself, you carry your worries, when you get back your shortcomings are still there: blah, blah, blah. Well, if Travel is a Fool's Paradise- then I am a fool-for this trip was paradise.

Thoreau is often quoted for his transcendental, ecological, passive resistance views. I never bothered to read much of what he wrote- it was ho-hum for some in the sixties, and now that we are in our 60's- he's still being quoted and he is still rather "like so what".

Travel cleansed my soul. The views, mountains, rivers, accommodations did remarkable things to me- I called it our Woodstock, something never to be repeated. The people were lovely, generous, considerate and became a unit. Something none of us shall ever forget or be able to recapture.

But back to Henry David- obviously he didn't travel much. If I remember correctly, mostly he stayed in his home town and staged his tax protest by living in Emerson's back yard, camping out. Had he seen the Bow River, Athabasca Falls, the Columbia Ice Fields, the dining room at the Empress Hotel, or the Banff Castle- it would have done him much good. But then again he didn't live in our time where an escape from the cities provides a much needed cleansing of the soul. We forgot our trouble, left the worries behind and lived in the moment with and for each other.

I'm glad I got to know these people- like Woodstock Nation, we came together, cared for each other. And a wonderful thing happened to me- I found that I enjoyed helping the folks who needed assistance. I looked out for those who needed a little attention and discovered that that was why I became a teacher- something in me has always tended to be sympathetic to those whom I can help, love, and learn from. Serving is its own reward; virtue is the essence of the eternal in us, something many never discover.

On our last day in Calgary I discovered I might want to go to Stratford, Ontario to see what is supposed to be an excellent production of the The Most Lamentable Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe (Mid-summer Night's Dream). Then in October we'll go to Orlando, followed by a 45th class reunion in Dundalk in November and the wedding in December. Whew- we'd better get some rest.

Banff to Calgary

Today we ate at a castle (Banff Springs Hotel) and the food on the buffet could have fed a starving country.  Rooms range from 400 per night to several thousand for the premier suite. What a place to spend a honeymoon, if money were no object. The castle is outside of Banff and believe it or not, the meal was free.  Holiday Vacations arranged it because of the early difficulties we had during the trip.   We got a meal fit for a king or queen.  Although Banff is a total tourist town, it is very lovely.  Some of the houses range into the 10 million dollar range.  The owner of the New York NHL Team has a house there.  The thing is you can own the house for 40 years but never own the land because it is a national park.  To live there you must work there. Today is the end of our tour. Eating at the castle, training through the Rockies, riding the ferry are just a few of the more memorable things. What really is touching is the friendships that have developed and the cordiality among us.  We laughed together, looked out for each other.  Our farewell dinner in Calgary tonight was a tear jerker.  To think that this grand adventure has to end tomorrow makes all of us sad though none of us is sorry to have taken the trip.  Many people said they'd been on Alaskan cruises and those cruises did not have the spectacular scenery, the incredible hotels, and the food...oh was it good.  The only disappointing meal was at Lake Louise but the scenery erased any negativity.  The trip was everything we hoped for and so much more.  We visited Olympic Village, site of the 1988 Winter Olympics at Calgary. Remember Eddie the Eagle- who still holds the record for the slowest downhill race in Olympic history? And then there was the Jamaican Bob-sled team.  After Banff and the Rockies, Calgary is ho-hum, flat. Or maybe it is melancholy that we are at the end of the tour.  Tomorrow we see if flying Northwestern is better than United- I hope so. It couldn't be worse.  

Columbia Ice Field

In the afternoon we visited the Columbia Ice Field. It was 45 degrees with a cutting wind. Specially designed vehicles transport visitors to the glacier.  There are 6 of these vehicles in the world- the Canadians have 5.  The U.S. has one in Antarctica.  The vehicles cost 750K in 2000, now they'd be a million and a half.  The huge tires cost $6000 each.  What pictures of the ice field and the glacier can't capture is the true depth of the ice. We were standing on a mile of ice.  The glaciers protruding like tongues off the mountains may be 250 feet deep and hundreds of thousands of years old.  We each had a drink of water from the glacier- the best water we've ever had.  At the staging post for the ice terrain vehicles there were chipmunks...the little creatures raided the trash and occasionally boarded the vehicle for a ride to the ice field.  Vast, deep ice such as it is here is difficult to comprehend.

Some of the mountains we photographed were 12,000 feet. At the glacier it was merely 10,000.

In winter temperatures drop to minus 50, 50 below zero and with wind chills at 70 below. Exposed skin will freeze in less than a minute.  To stand on this makes one realized how insignificant man truly is.