Meeting a Veteran

Thursday, May 31, 2012 at 1:14am

I don’t suppose it’s unusual to meet a veteran except I met this veteran at the grocery store. I kept seeing him on nearby aisles and sometimes the same aisle. I noticed him in the section near the cheese and eggs, and he was eating pieces of a candy bar. I decided he was homeless, but it did appear that he had an unusually nice silky fabric handkerchief in his coat pocket. He was wearing a suit coat that didn’t match his pants and was probably two sizes too large. He seemed quite old until I got closer, and then I realized this was the oldest man I’d seen in a while. His hands were red and completely wrinkled like a prune with long fingernails, more from neglect than attempting to have long nails. He seemed to have hair everywhere, the face and scalp. But then he started talking to me.

I hardly knew whether to run or speak or ignore him or what. There’s a large part of me that is fearful of strangers even in a grocery store, especially if they appear homeless or like they don’t belong there. I wish I weren’t that way and that I could just speak to everyone, but it can be a dangerous world out there.

He begins talking to me, “I’m a veteran.” Then in quite articulate speech he begins telling me stories of who he fought with and where. My history of the various wars is limited, but it was sounding like he was in Russia. It seemed like no one from WW I would still be living so I wasn’t quite sure. I had this very quick history lesson though I couldn’t recall a thing. I was so stunned I just stood there sort of speechless. Fiinally, I said my daddy fought in WWII in Africa. He then added that my dad would have known of this and that person if he were in North Africa. So we stood there talking in front of the frozen vegetables.

He was looking for peas and carrots. “They were 88 cents last week,” he said.  Finally he found them in the dollar section. We concurred that a dollar was still a little cheaper than the others for $1.49. I never did notice what all was in his grocery cart. I felt impolite in a way to look too closely to his cart or his face, yet I couldn’t help noticing his hands. They were by far the oldest hands I’ve ever seen in my life, all withered and red, like the hands of a worker, a laborer or someone who’d been exposed to the elements. It didn’t occur to me to take a picture, but now I wish I had pulled out my camera and asked him if I could take his photo. He had one of those faces and demeanors like you’d see in some photo collection of the aging.

All I could think is he’s a veteran. What can I say? I can’t stand here all night and talk to him when he told me he had so man stories to tell. So the best I could come up with is that he should write a book for all his stories, and I’d see him next time. Then as I walked off I felt sad that I was in a hurry to get away from him. I might be the only one he’d talked to in days. Then I reminded myself. It is the city, and a woman does have to be careful, even in the super market. However, I could have given him my 40 cents off coupon for frozen vegetables.

For my Mother Who Died Today

Tuesday, June 19, 2012 at 9:52pm ·

356. Auguries of Innocence 

by William Blake (1757–1827)  

TO see a world in a grain of sand,   

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,  

And eternity in an hour.  

A robin redbreast in a cage         5

Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill’d with doves and pigeons

Shudders hell thro’ all its regions.

A dog starv’d at his master’s gate

Predicts the ruin of the state.         10

A horse misused upon the road

Calls to heaven for human blood.

Each outcry of the hunted hare

A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,         15

A cherubim does cease to sing.

The game-cock clipt and arm’d for fight

Does the rising sun affright.  

Every wolf’s and lion’s howl

Raises from hell a human soul.         20

The wild deer, wand’ring here and there,

Keeps the human soul from care.

The lamb misus’d breeds public strife,

And yet forgives the butcher’s knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve         25

  Has left the brain that won’t believe.

The owl that calls upon the night

Speaks the unbeliever’s fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren

Shall never be belov’d by men.         30

He who the ox to wrath has mov’d

Shall never be by woman lov’d.

The wanton boy that kills the fly

Shall feel the spider’s enmity.

He who torments the chafer’s sprite         35

Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf

Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief.

Kill not the moth nor butterfly,

For the last judgment draweth nigh.         40

  He who shall train the horse to war

Shall never pass the polar bar.

The beggar’s dog and widow’s cat,

Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer’s song         45

Poison gets from slander’s tongue.

The poison of the snake and newt

Is the sweat of envy’s foot.

The poison of the honey bee

Is the artist’s jealousy.         50  

The prince’s robes and beggar’s rags

Are toadstools on the miser’s bags.

A truth that’s told with bad intent

Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;         55

Man was made for joy and woe;

And when this we rightly know,

Thro’ the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,

A clothing for the soul divine.         60

Under every grief and pine

Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;

Throughout all these human lands

Tools were made, and born were hands,         65

  Every farmer understands.

Every tear from every eye

Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,

And return’d to its own delight.         70

The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,

Are waves that beat on heaven’s shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath

Writes revenge in realms of death.

The beggar’s rags, fluttering in air,         75

Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm’d with sword and gun,

Palsied strikes the summer’s sun.

The poor man’s farthing is worth more

Than all the gold on Afric’s shore.         80

One mite wrung from the lab’rer’s hands

Shall buy and sell the miser’s lands;

Or, if protected from on high,

Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant’s faith         85

Shall be mock’d in age and death.

He who shall teach the child to doubt

The rotting grave shall ne’er get out.

He who respects the infant’s faith

Triumphs over hell and death.         90

The child’s toys and the old man’s reasons

Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,

Shall never know how to reply.

He who replies to words of doubt         95

Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known

Came from Caesar’s laurel crown.

Nought can deform the human race

Like to the armour’s iron brace.         100

When gold and gems adorn the plow,

To peaceful arts shall envy bow.

A riddle, or the cricket’s cry, Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet’s inch and eagle’s mile         105

  Make lame philosophy to smile.

He who doubts from what he sees

Will ne’er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,

They’d immediately go out.         110

To be in a passion you good may do,

But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state

Licensed, build that nation’s fate.

The harlot’s cry from street to street         115

Shall weave old England’s winding-sheet.

The winner’s shout, the loser’s curse,

Dance before dead England’s hearse.

Every night and every morn

Some to misery are born,         120

Every morn and every night

Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,

Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie         125

When we see not thro’ the eye,

Which was born in a night to perish in a night,

When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,

To those poor souls who dwell in night;         130

But does a human form display

To those who dwell in realms of day.

http://www.bartleby.com/41/356.html

Bathrobe Day

From: "Ro
To: Be, Ju
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 2:00:00 PM
Subject: Bathrobe Day

I feel a bathrobe day coming on. It's now almost 3:00 pm and I'm still in my pjs. It's very cold in Atlanta today, 36 degrees and I don't know what the wind chill is, but it feels like maybe 10 below zero. So what do you girls think? Do I get dressed or make this one a 2 pajama days with clean ones at bedtime.

I did sleep well with CPAP last night, didn't awaken until 6:30 this morning when the neighbor's dog was barking. Only thing, I didn't get to sleep till after about 1:30 or 2:00 am. I did listen to some mighty fine music though on Youtube before I did finally go to sleep. Since they were pieces I had played, I'm afraid the effect was counterproductive for sleep as I found myself wanting to play them as soon as possible. Oh well, it's a start. I'm still hanging in there with the CPAP and music instead of Craig Ferguson.

I do need to get dressed though. Funny thing how around here the grocery stores prefer customers to show up dressed. I guess in my pjs I could pass for a drag queen today though. (Our neighborhood Kroger is known as the gay Kroger whereas others may be known as the Jewish Kroger, the hippie Kroger, etc.) I also need to get my smoke detectors. I didn't order them from Amazon because I wanted them sooner. That was a week or two ago. They would be here by now and much cheaper, free shipping and no tax.

So Sister, get on it right away. You need to write songs about the birth of your children Ke and Ju as Jay-C did for Blue Ivy. You're a little late, but that just gives you more information to work with, right. How could you have know Ju would be a singer with three children or Ke a firefighter with four children? Besides, you can then have Ju sing it. How cool is that, Julie?

See you guys. Love from Siberia.
Ro

What's a Teacher to Do

I remember several years ago I had gone on tour with a young hip-hop r&b singer along with his all black entourage. I was in the minority as I joined them all in the Bahamas. Our first evening of school having just met my young student, he wanted to work on social studies. Needless to say, the unit was slavery. So here I am in a swank hotel in the Bahamas with my new student, and the subject is an in-depth study of slavery at the 7th grade level. The best I could do at the moment was suggest maybe we work on reading his literature that evening, knowing I'd have to give the subject of slavery some thought. It's a sensitive subject to teach, especially when you're a white teacher teaching a black child, or when many of the kids' parents don't remember the days before civil rights, much less slavery. They never knew separate hospitals, restrooms and water fountains for blacks, no blacks in white restaurants, movie theatres or hotels. It was a different world that my generation grew up in. It is appalling to think a person in the days of slavery would be beaten or deprived basic human rights. But in more modern times "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" was scandalous to many at the time it premiered in the theatres. That was a time you did not consider dating a black person if you were white. Even churches were segregated, or maybe I should say especially churches.

I recall a minister in rural GA within the last 20 years who was fired because he had given a black family a ride in his car to church. There was much ado about his wife who was a teacher talking to all the black kids at a football game and sitting with them. A Korean artist friend of mine when she first moved to Atlanta back in the 70s recalled her first impression of GA was a huge Klan ralley in South Atlanta. My first trip to Atlanta in 1961 and to the Fox Theatre did not allow blacks to sit anywhere but the top blacony.

I don't know what to say about the current big controversy in Gwinnett about a few test questions a teacher made up to coordinate the social studies lesson on slavery with math. But then is the reenactment of the immigration into NYC back at the turn of the century also questionable. Does that mean a teaacher would be discriminating if she calls to mind the way so many immigrants were discriminated against? Why I recall just a few short years ago, maybe in the mid-90s I heard on a filmset in my own classroom a very dark skinned ten year old child tell a light skinned African American girl of the same age that she would go far, because she was light. Sure enough the light skinned girl has done well in Hollywood. Back then we talked about it a few minutes and how many other things are more important than skin color.

I'm glad I'm not a young teacher beginning my career. I would be afraid to say anything in the classroom. In that I'm sort of obsessive by nature in the first place, I would be so busy making sure everything was politically correct that I would be afraid to say anything except what is in the book. What if I taught my African American unit of poetry as I used to teach and I mentioned the black-faced minstrels? What if I mentioned that Stephen Foster's songs were more accepted because he was white? What if I mentioned remembering eatting at Aunt Fanny's Cabin in Atlanta and young boys buck danced, then came around with jars for tips. What about Mammy's Shanty who had only black waiters but no black customers. What if I mentioned Lester Maddox putting a coffin in front of his restaurant like it was the death of his restaurant if he had to integrate his restaurant, and he went on to be one of our governors. What if I mentioned the black kids on my grandparents' farm back in the 40s who helped their parents pick cotton.

Guess it's good I'm nearing 70, and I won't be have to obsess over every single word.

Silence: Too Long I've Been Silent

It's like Silent Spring we all had to read in my 2nd year English back in the early 60s in college. It had just come out so was quite the book at the time. My silence isn't about the birds that are quiet; it's that we've all been quiet way too long about many things happening in this country. For me I noticed my silence a few minutes ago when I couldn't remember my password to my blog. Once I remembered it, the password wasn't accepted so I had to change it. This would be a clue like when Rachel Carson noticed the robins weren't singing any more.

Any way, I'm back from my hiatus. I'll start with a part of a poem I had printed on some recycled paper and found the other day. It could already be here under poems, but I don't recall. I'll look later.

We all know the meaning
you come to a corner
and you go straight or
you turn left or right
but rarely, unless there is
a barricade, man-made or natural,
would you ever turn back.
But in a life these turning points
are sometimes a zigzag or a curve
and even a deadend with no choice
but to backup and start over.

It may be a book you read. . . .
(Now I'll have to look to see if I finished this somewhere or stopped in the middle).

Later: Just found it on my blog. "Turning Point" from Feb, 2010. 1st and 2nd drafts. Guess this would qualify as 3rd draft. Gee, I think I like the unfinished phrase, "it may be a book you read.'

Your Brilliant Mom and the Signs in the Store

Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 7:37 AM
I bought some Diet Pepsi that was on sale 10 for $10.00. That in itself annoys me that they don't just say $1.00 each. In another place it said 4 for $5.00, and in small print, buy 10 it's $.79 each. I checked a couple of times as there were three different prices on Diet Pepsi.

I get to cashier at the Kroger and my Diet Pepsi is $1.25. I say that the sign read 10 for $10.00. He sends the grocery bag girl to check price, I say that's okay but he says shell be back soon and needs to check. She comes back with 4 for $5.00. I say, that's fine, but he says he'll go check. He comes back with a sign that says 10 for $10.00 and in tiny print "for potato chips." I don't even remember seeing the potato chips in the display of about fifty 2 liter bottles of Diet Pepsi. I thank him for his trouble and pay for the groceries.

I get home, unload the groceries, all is well. I really didn't want ten 2 liter bottles in the pantry just to get them for $.79. There's a slight difference in wording if you have to buy ten to get the sales price or if you buy one you still pay the sales price.

So next morning at breakfast I decide to fix scrambled eggs and see the ones I bought aren't in the refrigerator. I go check the car to see if I left them. Sure enough in the trunk is one of my canvas bags with the eggs in it. I bring the bag inside, put the eggs in refrigerator wondering if they will still be good. To my surprise there in the bag with my eggs is the pound of ground beef I had also bought. No doubt here, the meat goes in the trash ($3,00 or thereabouts in the garbage). I'm not sure of the egg rule. My grandmother didn't always refrigerate them right away, but then they were straight from the hen house. My eggs were relatively still cool in the trunk of the car in the garage when I brought them inside.

I don't know what the lesson is here, if any. I can't imagine putting eggs in the bag with ground beef and nothing else. But then why didn't I get all the groceries? Why didn't I read the sign correctly? Oh well, my dog Hoover and I had a great breakfast, scrambled eggs from the older eggs that had been in the refrigerator, just in case I decide to trash the fresh eggs.

In the meantime, isn't there a law about this kind of advertising. It is disgusting they can't say pears are $1.00 lb. instead of 10 lbs.for $10.00. Some people don't know that if you buy 1 lb. it's still $1.00/lb. If you aren't totally fluent in English, you wouldn't get the subtle difference of when you have to buy ten to get the sale price for one ot when you can buy one and get the sale price.

No this is not a riddle, just another day of grocery shopping at Kroger. I think I'll just shop at another store where they don't spend so much money on misleading advertising and huge displays. But those stores are very few. Even Staples had a sale sign, one cent each for notebook folders. In tiny print it said "limit 10," and in even smaller print that you had to buy $5.00 on other things. Teachers could get 25 for a penny each. It was a great deal except I went back four times, and spent about $50,00 on other stuff.

Is this brilliance or the onset of Alzheimer's Disease?

Mom

RESPONSES

THOMAS:
Yeah, I understand. A lot of misleading language out there. It's best to double check things. I called before going to a job this morning, It's not until next week. So, these things happen. I'm keeping a planner now. Imagine that. So, it helps to write down what you are doing and look at it so you know you are on track.


DAVID:
1. Put this on White Buffalo Bonanza.

2. I think you've discovered the origin of the kosher practice of separating meat and dairy!

3. Pick up The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollen (same author as Botany of Desire). He touches on some of these topics (the signs in the store).

• 
  

Some Days Are like This . . . especially at Camp

Monday, June 14, 2010 at 6:39pm 

I left keys in trunk of car today at camp where anyone could have stolen my car. I noticed keys when I put things in trunk at end of day. A stolen car would have put me over the edge.

1:00--Power went out so no crepes for 4th period in Fun Foods. We eat the fruit for the crepes, make smoothies from the one carton of yogurt and gallon of milk. We drink plain milk as well. We eat leftover pretzels and cream cheese from Monday, leftover nacho chips from Thursday when we had Mexican food, and more milk, more fruit-- mango, strawberries, and peach. We added a bit of cool whip. I was trying to use perishable food before it ruined. Even though they'd just eaten lunch, they had a party and ate everything.

2:00--Accidental fire drill so we all evacuated into the heat for 5th period acting. We return to class. One actor is absent so one child is both Wilbur and Fern.

3:00--6th period acting two actors are out and another one leaves after ten minutes for gymnastics. Juliet's brother is also Romeo because Romeo is absent. Three girls want to be Juliet even though two of them have been absent, and one is leaving for gymnastics.at 3:10. They want to end play with Romeo and Juliet going to heaven and the girl who is Romeo's mother and the medic also wants to be Pegasus and ride my white horse that looks like Pegasus to see them in heaven. Fortunately it us time to go, and I told her she could work on a final scene tonight.

4:00--Kids go home, not a minute too soon. After carpool I pack up to go home, and I notice I don't hear the hum of the fridge in the kitchen/chemistry lab. That's right, When the power came on at 2:00, the sockets for refrigerator didn't come on; and the electricians had now gone for the day. So I load up everything in fridge that we didn't eat (cheese, tortillas, extra fruit) to bring back home till we need it next week if it stays cold in my portable coolers long enough to get home.

So like I said after a chaotic rehearsal of "Romeo and Juliet" and plan changes in other classes of the afternoon, I must say I felt totally blessed and protected from all evil and confusion everywhere when I saw those keys hanging out of the trunk of my Acura today. No one had stolen my car from the parking lot of the junior high, and my car was in perfect order with nothing missing.

I guess if my car wasn't stolen today, I really have no worries about camp, power, or the children's plays. So what if "Charlotte's Web" takes place in a condo. Who knows, maybe somewhere people do die if they break a fingernail as Romeo and Juliet do in their play. Children's imaginations are simply unbelievable. I sit there in amazement. I could not have written a better line myself--"please don't make Wilbur move from the condo. He ls just living his life as a pig and pigs squeal."