weather forecast

The sun is shining, there are a few puffy white clouds in the sky, the dog has successfully treed four squirrels and there's a wonderful smell on the breeze.

Based upon these words, I conclude that this afternoon Indiana will be hit by its first tidal wave in centuries.

Memorial Day

One of my favorite historical photos comes from a 1973 issue of Life Magazine. I first saw it in my AP US History textbook and couldn't stop looking at it. The picture is of a POW finally returning home. We can't see the soldier's face - he could be anyone. What we can see are his four chilren and his wife, running, running, running toward him, arms outstretched, clearly delighted, thrilled, overjoyed.

It's not often that I advocate a position held by George Bush, but today I make an exception. He suggests that all Americans take a moment at 3:00 PM local time to pause, reflect and ponder (or words to that effect) upon those who have served, those who have died, those who bear physical and emotional scars.

Put down the home improvement project, let the coals on the grill burn for a moment and stop sending me all of those e-mails about honoring service, patriotism, support our troops, amazing battles - I've heard 'em all and taught many more - and just pause. Think movies, think of family or friends, just think generally, but take that moment.

misery loves company

It's been a rough few weeks at lemming headquarters - nothing to blog about, just one of those times when everything builds up and gets nasty. (Evil student is not going to like their final grade, but I can prove that it's the grade earned.)

Then I learned that a neighbor is the latest victim of foreclosure and has experienced several other personal set-backs that make my life look downright tranquil and calm. Perspective is good. I have much for which to be grateful.

Poetry month got me trying to remember all of the bits of verse which I was either required to memorize or memorized along the way for other reasons. "The world is too much with us, late and soon" was for 12th grade British lit. I've managed to reconstruct it. Now I'm working on a piece by Edna St Vincent Millay which I memorized because I was in a play, one which had nothing to do with poetry. I had to spend 20 minutes on stage, reading a book, while all sorts of other activities happened around me. "All right, let's be practical with this time and learn a poem," thought I and so I did. I think I have about 2/3 of it and more comes back every morning in the shower.

I have a mind which remembers poetry. I have a body that can walk and reach and move. I had a reasonably nutricious dinner. I have a dog who was prepared to defend me from an earthquake. Life could be a whole lot worse.

few things are better

Driving to work on Tuesday - sun shining, a light breeze, the flowers smell terrific, the road construction is done, I'm not running late and Aretha Franklin comes on the radio.

This is a second day of cold and rain and I'm still smiling.

all but the shouting

Well, that's that. No more phone calls, no more mailings and the CNN camper is no longer parked downtown - Indiana has gone back to being a backwater. I got to cast a presidential vote that actually counted for something, but now it is back to the mundane dross of life; I will vote in November, but it won't matter. I do wonder how many of the votes for HRC came from crossovers who think that #1 she will be easier to defeat in November or #2 that she'll get elected, mess matters up and then a "real" Republican will get the nomination in 2012. I probably shouldn't say this too loudly.

I get to cover all sorts of wonderfully depressing topics today in my classes so, naturally, it is grey and wet. As a recovering English major, I will occasionally get random fragments of poetry stuck in my head, at which point I am then obligated, as per the terms of my student loan contracts, to determine the full text. For years, I struggled to find the poem with the phrase "when it is cold November in my soul" only to learn, eventually, that it is actually from a novel I thoroughly loathe: Moby Dick. Well, at least that's one brownie point for Melville. (For the reacord, I've read lots of Melville, all of it under duress.)

It's not a "cold November in my soul" but it feels that way outside. Sam has absolutely refused to set the smallest fraction of his being past the door.

my little bit of history making

I woke up at 5:45. Bed was deliciously warm and comfortable.

"Hmmm..." thought I, sleepily. "The polls open in 15 minutes. I'll go back to sleep now and vote this afternoon." Then I remembered Joe's experience in the Great Gambier Voting Line of 2004 and jumped out of bed. No shower, just sweatshirt and jeans and off -

My polling place comprises several precincts. There's never a line. Never. I have voted at all hours of the day (though never 6:05 AM) and there's never a line. The place was full . Naturally part of this was due to Joe - admit it, Joe, you had something to do with this - as each precinct had only one functioning voter machine out of four.

There was an elderly man who could barely walk, a little confused by the technology, but determined. The woman ahead of me in line knew she would be late to work, but felt that voting should come first. Unusually for my polling place, I wasn't the youngest voter in the room. Most of us under-forties were clad in the same general attire, but enthusiastic.

Only took 45 minutes.

I'm sure that many of the people in the room were Republicans. I'm going to pretend that most of us were voting Democrat. This is Hoosier History that has nothing to do with basketball or fried brain sandwiches. This is awesome.

scorecard update

Mailings:

Obama: 2 more
Clinton: 1 - the first one yet

Phone Calls:

Obama: 1
Clinton: 1

Can you tell I'm psyched? Does it show? At all? Nah, probably not. I'm a very quiet and subtle person when it comes to anything involving history, and this is historic damnit!!!

Indiana will go back to being an unnoticed backwater when this primary election ends, our citizens laughed at as hicks and denigrated as in-bred fools, but for a few precious days, even the BBC has sent reporters here. There's been a CNN camper parked downtown for days with reporters constantly standing outside and taping whatever it is that they tape in those segments.

Now then, what do I wear to the polling place...

a scorecard

As of 10:30 Saturday Morning:

Phone Calls:

Clinton: 1 - very nice older lady, we had a great chat
Obama: 3 - they have an organizational edge in my book because they made sure that I knew when the polls opened and closed and where my polling place was located

Mailings:

Clinton: 0
Obama: 12

Visits by Jehovah's Witnesses: 1

I cannot even begin to tell you all how psyched I am for Tuesday. Indiana hasn't mattered since 1968. (For the moment, I am choosing to forget about RFK and just be excited.)

six and six

At this point I have been tagged by so many people that I cannot list all of them here, but I do promise to follow the rules and leave a comment on all of your sites.

1) I am terrified of heights to the extent of being unable to move. I've had to be carried off ladders and led off of catwalks.

2) I once played the role of the princess in "The Princess and the Pea." This involved spending 40 minutes in total on a bed ten feet tall without any railing. (I still have a piece of it.) How did I manage this? I had a friend on the unseen side of the bed who spent the entire time I was up there smiling, giving me a thumbs up, waving, and generally being supportive. Wouldn't have gotten by without him - thanks Gio, wherever you are.

3) I have a terrible weakness for soy sauce, even on odd foods, such as mashed potatoes.

4) For a month the arrow keys on my keyboard have not functioned. My tab key has not worked for two years. My caps lock key died about 18 months ago. Needless to say, I have a new keyboard, but it is still sitting un-opened in the box.

5) John Bellairs is one of my favorite authors. He's deliciously creepy and throws in all sorts of little historical references - and you need to know your history to get them. Hannah Dustin doesn't get a lot of attention in history class.

6) If given thousands of dollars toward a plane ticket and other travel expenses, I would head straight to Wales.

for the record

#1 - I got mail today from the Obama campaign. I got a phone call from the Clinton campaign. My vote matters! It's not principle,it's not just - to hell with just, candidates actually want my vote!!!!

#2 - This poetry thing is getting far bigger than I ever imagined.

if everything happens that can't be done
e.e. cummings

if everything happens that can't be done
(and anything's righter
than books
could plan)
the stupidest teacher will almost guess
(with a run
skip
around we go yes)
there's nothing as something as one

one hasn't a why or because or although
(and buds know better
than books
don't grow)
one's anything old being everything new
(with a what
which
around we come who)
one's everyanything so

so world is a leaf so a tree is a bough
(and birds sing sweeter
than books
tell how)
so here is away and so your is a my
(with a down
up
around again fly)
forever was never till now

now i love you and you love me
(and books are shuter
than books
can be)
and deep in the high that does nothing but fall
(with a shout
each
around we go all)
there's somebody calling who's we

we're anything brighter than even the sun
(we're everything greater
than books
might mean)
we're everyanything more than believe
(with a spin
leap
alive we're alive)
we're wonderful one times one

two earthquakes

#1 - the human mind is goofy. I woke up to the bed, walls, ceiling moving - and Sam, on all four paws and ready for anythng needed in defense of his mistress. He fell off the bed, but continued to survey the surroundings and general vicinity for the source of the danger. "oh, Sam, it's only an earthquake," I said, and went back to sleep.

90 minutes later, on the other hand, I actually woke up.... "OMG Sam, it was a ^*&(*&%$#%^*&()(*&%^*& earthquake?!!!"

5.2 on the Richter Scale.

#2 - an e-mail came today, out of the clear clue sky. "Prof lemming, you have forgotten me " like hell I have, you have no idea, "but you changed my life in ways gjlkjjlkrty."

I what?!!

To hell with that, you nomiated me for my first teaching award. All I did was offer you advice on a few papers. OK, I did talk to you after class, but all good teachers do that, right?

You wrote to my chair. I didn't do anything special, nothing unusual, but you thought it was special. I can recite parts of that letter from memory. You think that I have forgotten you? Not even an earthquake would make me forget you.

confessions of a history geek

Not even of a history major, just a history geek...

I had a class today which I could have done 95% of the top of my head when I was 17. Oh yes, there are nuances, facts, figures which I'm sure (I hope) were refined during the 10, 000 years I spent in graduate school. At the same time, I did 28 minutes straight without once looking at my notes. It's nice to be competant occasionally.

The latest poetry wasn't chestnuts - it was just awful. Why do people have the idea that all poems have to rhyme?

At my undergraduate institution, you had to complete a senior comprehensive exercise in your major to prove that you had actually learned something in four years. My exact memory of what happened after I passed is a tad vague. I do however vividly remember standing with a group of other English majors and shouting this at the moon.

(excerpt)

we're anything brighter than even the sun
(we're everything greater
than books might mean)
we're everyanything more than believe
(with a spin
leap
alive we're alive)
we're wonderful one times one.

-ee cummings, "If Everything Happens that Can't be Done"

confessions of a recovering English major

With one painfully boring exception, I loved my English classes in college. I majored in History because I knew I could do it well; I majored in English because it meant I got credits for reading novels and poetry. Hey, it seemed a good idea at the time, even if it meant that I wrote about five bazillion papers in four years. For this I am still making student loan payments.

It also means that when I listened to "Prairie Home Companion" spoof English majors on Sunday, I instinctively started to think about post-structuralism and its relationship to gender identity and deconstructionism.

Anyway, this is apparently National Poetry Month or some such because people keep sending me poems. These are normal, rational-seeming folks, and it is nice to see what gets sent my way... certainly a break from the usual dross of life.

I'm noticing something, though - almost all of the poems (upwards of 20) are old chestnuts. There's nothing wrong with "Two roads diverged in yellow wood/ and sorry I could not travel both" it's just that even as a freshman in college I was sick of it. Wordsworth's poem about daffodils is terrfic, but again, it's so over-used and repeated.

Now. I'm not arguing that we should all memorize "The Man From Snowy River" (up the Australians!) or that "Dulce et Decorum Est" doesn't make me cry (it does) but Frost and Owen and Dickinson and their kin did write other pieces.

P.S. There's a bumper sticker that says, "If You can read this thank a music teacher." (Then there's a few bars of Beethoven.) Official thanks to the teacher who first walked me through Paradise Lost.

advice to tech support

The phrase "oh yeah, this happens all the time" is not reassuring.

Nor is "we have no idea why this happens."

Lie to me. Tell me that it has to do with the orbits of the moons of Jupiter if you must, but please pretend that you understand why my computer is behaving in a strange way for the umpteenth time.

Oh, and P.S. do not take it as a compliment that everyone on my floor has your extension on speed dial.

more politics

Thanks to all for the feedback about my HRC/ BO comparison. I had no idea my random musings would generate such passion.

I don't want my vote to be cast "just" about the war. I knew (and know) far too many poeple who based their vote four years ago solely on 9/11 and a conviction that only GWB had protected us from it happening again. Do not underestimate the conservativeness of Indiana. John Kerry carried Marion County (aka Indianapolis) in 2004, but he and Gore are still the subject of scorn and derision here in the land of the Hoosiers. Being a left-leaning liberal sort of carbon based life form in Indiana is not an easy matter and we tend to be quiet about it. While the pre-varicating drives me up the wall, it does force me to really think through, think through carefully, what I believe, what I support and how to live it. Bear in mind that I live and work alongside people who wish that GWB could serve a third term.

Plus I teach history, so I'm probably waaaay too caught up in the historicity of the moment. Call it an occupational hazzard.

I did do some serious reading this morning about the candidates - their positions on issues other than Iraq, long-term hopes and allegiances, etc. I'm heartened that both BO and HRC have prioritized health care, though after living through the early 1990s, I'm not sanguine. Obama can be as independent as he likes, the insurance companies have scuttled health care reform before and will do it again.

On a happier note, a quote for the day:

She refused to bebored because she was not boring.
-Zelda Fitzgerald

decisions, decisions, ah, pay me a lawyer's salary please

All right, I'm working on this decision process.

Hillary:

Pro - Bill Clinton's voice is pleasant.
Chelsea has no visble drinking problem.
A woman president, how cool would that be?!

Con - she voted for the war.

Barack:

Pro: Michelle seems very smart and savvy.
Kids seem reasonably normal, as far as Hyde Park kids go (the U of Chicago is a very bizarre place.)
An African American pesident, how cool would that be?

He did not vote for the war.

Is this it? Is this all that my vote decision process will come down to at the end of the voting booth curtain? Not that the war isn't significant, but there must be more... I'll keep looking.

Just a passing thought - Bill Clinton campaigned for HRC in Bedford. When was the last time, if ever, that a former president visited Bedford? Benjamin Harrison, maybe? Wow. We're actually having a primary, what a great and wonderful concept.

the ballot box

Last night, it struck me - quite forcefully: I have to actually decide which candidate will get my vote in May.

I've been following the election, obviously, but it's been largely with the slightly detached and disinterested eye of someone who will have to teach it one of these days. Oh, I would go to the polls in May and squint at the silly electronic screens, but I would do it simply because I can rather than because it would have any meaning in the long term vis a vis the selection of a candidate. Surely by May the race would be down to one person for each ticket...

Apparently Indiana is going to be a big battleground state for Obama and Clinton. Indiana? Who would have thought it??! I am stunned. Chelsea Clinton did a big university speaking tour here and Bill has been spotted all over the place. Meanwhile I saw the first ad I think I have EVER seen in all of my years living in Indiana for a presidential candidate during primary season (Obama.)

In all honesty, I am not wild about either of my options - Obama and Clinton both bring odd bits of baggage and their own myopic views and weaknesses. Both seem to be quite passionate about public service and to truly believe that change is actually possible. Whichever way I vote, it will be a historic vote as cast by moi. I am only one citizen but damnit, that's the point.

(No, McCain isn't an option. His embrace of GWB creates serious problems in my mind, not to mention that we disagree on some issues that are of vital importance to me as a voter. I might have voted for him in 2000, but not in 2008.)

So anyway, I am slowly shifting from detached cynicism to trying to make a decision. I'm trying to weed out the "I landed upder sniper fire" and "he's a Muslim" stories and actually pare down to their ideas, their ability to connect with others and their overall enthusiasm.

If nothing else, "Hillary" "Barack" and "John" all pass my "Prayers of the People" test.

update and hodge-podge

Eighty-nine students understood the last assignment. Guess who continues to insist that it is, "so hard and it makes no sense." Ah well, enough of that.

We're in that funny mix that is Indiana spring - some warm days, some cold days, and some bizarre storms. Yesterday's classes were accentuated by thunder, buffeted by winds and the windows attacked by rain that sounded like machine gun fire. Naturally, by the time I walked to my car, the sun peeped out from behind the clouds. Were I the sun, I think I'd have just taken the whole day off.

Getting back to my earlier meme, I wanted to put in a plug for the Judy Garland/ Gene Kelly classic film For Me and My Gal. It was Kelly's first film and Garland's first starring role in which her name went above the credits. To answer your next question, yes, she's healthy and looks happy.

It's set during the days before WW I and, surprise surprise, features two hoofers who want to make it to the heights of Vaudeville. OK, so far it's a formula, right? Here's the catch - unlike most musical leads of the time, Kelly is a bit of a cad. He's not above some cocksure yet cunning duplicity to get to Garland. Garland's brother willingly serves in the war, while Kelly is, shall we say, a tad reluctant.

When the film aired in previews, several bits had to be added to make Kelly's charecter more acceptable to audiences - I'd have liked and comprehended him and his motives anyway, but as this was aired during WW II, I can understand this need to support patriotism. Anyway, how many 1940s musicals have war sequences?

"And sometime we're gonne build a little home for two or three or four or more in loveland for Me and My Gal."

thanks for the cold noses

I was running, running, running - wanted to scream, but couldn't - running, running, running...

I awoke to a cold nose in my hand. Sam does this sometimes. The cold nose is then followed by his patented "border collie stare" one hard wired into his DNA to intimidate the sheep. He may be the same size as your average sheep, but Sam's stare could get a ram to recite Shakespeare.

It's 3 AM, so I assumed that Sam was informing me that he really should go outside right now or we'd both regret it. I stumbled out of bed, prepared to go downstairs in my state of semi-nombulance.

Instead, with the herding stare firmly in place, he blocked the door. Feeling a bit like I had time-warped into an episode of Lassie I said something like, "what is it, boy?" Sam nudged me down ont the floor and then put his head into my lap after licking my hand.

Understand that Sam is not a dog who licks. I maybe get one if I've been away for the weekend. I am convinced that my dog knew I'd been in the midst of a nightmare and wanted to comfort me. He kept his head on my lap until my heart had stopped pounding.

I'd like to thank all who have commented, called, e-mailed and otherwise offered support in the on-going soap opera. Ei, I am in love with the CD. I hate to make a blog into a thoroughly narcissistic statement, but I suppose this is one of the useful functions it can serve in our day to day lives.

In other words, thanks for all of the cold noses.

a quiet rant

I thought I was tough.

Really.

I've been called every name in the book, plus a few that even a porn publisher wouldn't include, let alone Harlequin.. In 15 years, I've gotten reasonably accustomed to the occasional problem student. I'm pretty good at dealing with them too. In all modesty, I pride myself upon being the kind of teacher that gets people to say, "you know, I hate history, but I love your class."

I work at it. Very hard. Very hard. Probably much more than any of them ever guess. I care, a lot. I am poorly paid and all of that, but what I do matters and I love it and that's the point. I don't want to make millions, I want to make people as excited about history as it makes me. I want them to use it to improve matters, be informed, create change. Don't build amusement parks on Civil War battlefields -

I had a show-down today with a student. This was the worst show-down I have ever had with anyone in my entire life and I do mean with ANYONE. Pick your worst playground bully, your worst ex-boyfriend's mother, whatever. This was hideous. At the end of it I was, literally, sick to my stomach.

I hope that this means an end to the soap opera I have mentioned in the past. I am not optimistic. I have learned that I am not the only one to have problems wioth this person... I'm just the first to confront the student directly. Lucky me.

I'm sorry; I had planned to write a long and funny post about the one film that no one guessed from my meme (For Me and my Gal, Judy Garland and Gene Kelly) but this is all I can handle right now. Tomorrow I promise to go back to being light-hearted.