A few more leaves to mark our fall, which seems to be happening in more pronounced stages than usual this year. The oaks are, how you say, reticent:
Not that I mind. We’ve all shifted clocks and grumbled about that to ill effects. We’re all in various stages of layered clothing — depending on where you live or the thinness of your blood, as some people say — and now the betrayal of the trees. I’m always glad the oaks stick around. Mostly because we have several pin oaks.
Whomever plants pin oaks has never raked the leaves from a pin oak.
Critique meeting of the Crimson today. Story count is up. Layout is good. Quality is sturdy. Art is coming along. Now I need new challenges for them. You can see some of the students’ work here, if you like.
Also did some grading. I entered grades into a spreadsheet. Doing some other things with spreadsheets. I know some people that like spreadsheets. Well, how well can we really know someone who likes spreadsheets?
I prepared files. I printed documents.
Also, last night, I finished the files for the large present that we are delivering this weekend. I got the thing down to 26 pages. It includes maybe 16 sources and three appendices.
Never let the geek in your family prepare documents as gifts.
So that got printed out. It looks nice and clear on the good machine, the machine so important we named a room after it — the copy room. It has color maps end everything.
The document, I mean. Though the copier also probably has maps in its manual. It also faxes. And makes a mean espresso, from what I hear.
Anyway, this was the next thing that happened: I briefly explained the purpose of this file to one of the nice people in my office. She thought it was great. Then she gave me two different types of protective things to keep the file in. Everyone likes this gift. Everyone has thought the idea was nice. Four different people have chipped in. And none of them know the recipient.
But, to know the recipient, you’d want to help even more. That kind of guy.
All will be explained this weekend. I write vaguely about it because it is fun and mysterious, but also just in case he decides to explore the Internet beforehand.
Things to read …
Corpsman! Mother! Jesus! A Marine remembers Iwo Jima for the last time. Chuck Dean, you’ll see, is one of the stronger writers at al.com, but how can it be for the last time?
Jarvis struggled as we spoke. He often had a hard time catching his breath. He told me his doctors were treating him for pancreatic cancer.
“It’s not good,” Jarvis said.
As we talked Jarvis said that years ago he had not wanted to talk a lot about the battle. But later in life, Jarvis changed his mind.
“I came to see that it was important, very important that people understand what happened over there to us, to my Marines. It was important because people need to understand the horrors of war so that they think long and hard before getting into one. And they need to understand that those who fought in the war were just boys, really. That’s all I was. The day after Pearl Harbor every boy at Minor High School went down to enlist, including me. Some of them didn’t make it back. People need to remember them and what they did and why they did it.”
Jarvis paused after a while and looked at me with a thin smile.
“You know Chuck, you might be the last person I tell my story to.”
I told him I hoped not. I told him I was honored to hear it and would be honored to tell it.
He smiled again. “Well, I think you might be the last person I tell it to, and I want to ask you a favor. When you tell it, please tell it good.”
These next two stories? These are not the thing those young men fought for:
Man charged with using stun gun on wife after football bet in Mayville:
Before the game, avowed Packers fan Nicole Grant allegedly bet her husband, devoted Bears backer John Grant, that she would allow him to use a stun gun on her for three seconds if Green Bay lost, according to a criminal complaint.
Grant, 42, found himself in Dodge County Circuit Court the next day after allegedly making good on the bet. He was charged with possession of an electric weapon during an initial appearance. If convicted, Grant could face up to six years in prison.
And this one, Hijacker returns to the United States:
Instead of becoming the next Che Guevara, Potts found himself a foreigner who spoke little Spanish in crowded and often violent prisons. But he refused Cuban offers to return home.
“If you are not able to suffer for the cause you are just a play revolutionary,” he said.
[…]
But the one-time hijacker will return to an uncertain future. Potts was unable to negotiate a plea deal and, while he hopes any sentence he faces in the United States would be reduced by the time he has served, there are no guarantees.
That story is just full of quotes that are the opposite of genius.
Quick links:
I know people that work here: Job fair held for more than 1,100 workers who will lose jobs when International Paper closes
Third cyclist killed near Springhill Avenue in two weeks
ProPublica has found the one “sob story” worth your while: Loyal Obama Supporters, Canceled by Obamacare
And, finally, I’ve been hanging on to this for a while. May as well use it here. #Story50 tips for the factual storyteller from Adam Westbrook
