This picture was made in August of 2001. Tonice put his arm around Ocie’s shoulder, “She’s my baby,” he said.
Ocie pointed out that the next January would be their 62nd anniversary.
Sadly, they didn’t get to celebrate together. Tonice died that fall. This was the last picture of the two of them we have. We buried him on a gray, muddy day with a copy in his breast pocket. Ocie missed him terribly ever after.
He was the most humble, honorable man I’ve known. My great-grandmother was as sweet and gentle a lady as you could meet.
I hope they’re getting to celebrate together today.
After my class today, we had a nice presentation by a small group of students on advertising, one stood stuck around a little longer than usual. We talked about interviewing and resumes for two hours.
I’ve come to conclusion that the most rewarding moments of teaching aren’t in the traditional classroom environment.
So I’m packing up my things for the night and find I have a voicemail. A friend’s in-laws are in need. It seems they’ve had a catastrophic pipe failure that will require re-doing a room. And they’ll need tile. Lot’s of it. The local Lowe’s only has so much, but others near me had more, so I was sent on a mission to buy them all out.
I could sympathize in emergency repair, so I found myself visiting three Lowe’s tonight — I had to pick up a new garage door opener for our house anyway, so really only two of the store visits were for someone else. The very patient people working at the front of each store called their tile-needing customer and let her pay over the phone. I must have $600 worth filling up my entire back seat.
Got home to a delicious turkey wrap from Amsterdam, and then loosened the two screws from the old garage door opener. Opened the new one, wrapped the wires around the contacts, tested my installation (A success!) and mounted it to the wall.
This home repair only cost me $8.
Now let’s review:
When we first moved in we broke the thermostat. That cost $50.
Then I broke the shower head trying to fix a drip. That led to a larger problem which required plumbers, a drywall saw and an acetylene torch. It should have cost us about $1400, the plumber said, since it was a weekend. Fortunately the house warrant and the new shower head stuff cost us around $100.
And then we woke up one weekend to find the frozen contents of our refrigerator hanging out in liquid form on the floor. That cost us $50 (thanks home warranty) plus whatever we paid for ice and dry ice to preserve our perishables.
(We’d been in the house for two months by then.)
Then, in October, the dishwasher broke. Fifty more bucks. (And our second in-house electrocution.)
Then it broke again in December. We had it repaired during the holidays. Yep, $50 more.
This list does not include the bird feeder or the cable/Internet problems.
January we had a month off from from fixing anything, but lately the garage door opener died. For a few days we’ve opened it the old fashioned way, with the remotes in the cars, but now we’re boldly living in the 21st century again.
On the other hand, we haven’t had to re-do a room because roots destroyed pipes and brought a sewer into our home. So there’s that.
Back into the swing of things today. It was this evening before I realized I felt normal today. Weird. I’ve plowed through many long projects, pulled far more consecutive all-nighters and found myself in lots of anxious tests, papers, projects, work assignments and so on. But the comps last week beat me up far better than any of those things. I wrapped that up Thursday and I couldn’t get back to feeling normal (meaning exhaustion and general ease) until tonight.
I went to bed last night before 10 p.m., for example. That just doesn’t happen.
Anyway. Back to it today. Back to the phones and the email and the syllabus and grading and so on. Lots of grading this week.
Also rode the bike a little bit. A tiny bit. My pedals arrived — I’m not sure if I care for them — and so I did a few laps around the neighborhood sizing everything up. Feels like a good bike, the new Felt. Now I just have to remember how to ride.
It’s like riding a bike. Yes, I know. I learned to ride a bike on a gravel road. Merry Christmas, and thanks. It was no one’s fault in particular. My first big boy bike was delivered by Santa to my grandparents who, until the last few years, were so far out their county didn’t even realize they were out there. Necessity being a mother, I was taught the Jedi trick of balance, was pushed, pedaled and fell.
But if you fall on gravel you learn quickly how to prevent that from happening again.
[I fell off a bike just a few weeks ago, so take that gravel road! (My grandparent’s road is paved now) I couldn’t stop fast enough, and I had the choice between a curb or a port-a-potty. I got over the curb, saved the bike and managed to execute a perfect fall, distributing the kinetic energy of my motion as evenly as possible over the ground … and laughed as I was covered in mud.]
So maybe gravel doesn’t teach you how to never fall again. But you learn quickly all the same.
On this day in history, since I couldn’t anywhere to take pictures today, this is stripped directly from my Twitter stream and indulgently embellished beyond the 140-character limit.
In 1997 there was the North Hollywood shootout. It was a Friday. (I just clicked back through my calendar to be sure. You want depressing? Click back to the point you were in college and wonder why carpal tunnel is kicking in. Too many clicks.) I was a sophomore, so I’d probably gotten smart about morning classes by then. Let’s say I was just waking up. Two bad guys killed, eleven officers and seven bystanders shot. More than 2,000 rounds of ammunition were expended. There was a television movie, which was better than it should have been. Some of the footage was made at the scene of the shoot out, six years earlier. Also, the film used 40,000 rounds of blanks.
You can just imagine how that played out in production meetings.
“So we’ve got to find a way to get more than 2,000 rounds in 44 minutes. That’s almost a shot per second!”
“Have you seen the work of John Woo?”
“Right. Better make it 40,000.”
On this day in 1993 the Branch Davidian raid started the standoff in Waco. I was in high school (and, thus, am not clicking back that far to see what day of the week this lands on.) Four feds and six Davidians were killed as the ATF tried to serve a search warrant. Since that worked so smashingly they decided to lay siege for 50 days. Seventy-six people, including almost two dozen children, died in the infamous fire. Not the government’s best moments.
Something brighter then! Remember 1991? I don’t recall specifics of this, but I clearly remember when the Gulf War began. But on this day, 20 years ago, President Bush declared victory, seemed destined for a second term — if Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf didn’t swoop in — and life was grand. Oh, sure, some folks wondered about Baghdad and why the good guys didn’t march on in, but other than small details like that, life was good.
A few others wondered how they could spell Schwarzkopf and make it count on write-in ballots. So beloved was the general from New Jersey that even Madonna had a lyrical fling.
Can’t imagine that these days.
In 1983, there was the M*A*S*H finale. I don’t remember seeing it then. I wasn’t even in kindergarten yet, but I do remember the intro from the original airings. It was years before my mind could convince my eyes the helicopters weren’t flying backwards. Optical illusions are tough, I guess. It was longer still before I would see the finale. And I worked for a year or so at a television station that aired M*A*S*H constantly.
It is still in the top five, ratings wise. There are four Super Bowls and the farewell. I wonder how that show would do, today.
And, finally, in 1958 a school bus rear-ended a wrecker on a foggy morning in Kentucky. The bus fell off into a ravine and, ultimately, into a flood-swollen river. Twenty-six kids escaped. Twenty-six more, and the driver, could not get out of the bus and drowned. This is the worst school bus disaster in American history. The other worst bus disaster in the country was in 1988, also in Kentucky, also killed 27. (That one was a drunk driver hitting a school-turned-church bus, causing a vehicle fire that the victims could not escape.)
Because of these two incidences Kentucky requires buses to have more exits (nine) than anyone in North America.
The drunk driver that hit that bus in 1988, incidentally, received a 16-year sentence as a repeat offender on 27 counts of manslaughter. He was considered a model prison and was released after 10 years. (He declined an offered probation.) The church members, those most profoundly impacted by what was a truly national story, largely forgave him. The profound amount of courage that must take will always mystify. Now he lives just a few miles from the crash site.
You’d think you would get as far away from that as you can.
And now, for no particular reason, Dilbert:
I went back 20 years (more clicking) on this date. Dilbert has said exactly five things on February 28th. You’re welcome.
Out came the news today, some pathological deviant decided to do dastardly deeds. As of this writing the police are reportedly near an arrest and the fate of the trees is uncertain, but the situation is very grim. The best forestry specialists and horticulturists around work just down the street. If the stately old trees can pull through, they’ll be the people who make it happen.
But let me tell you a more important thing about my alma mater: Auburn and her family are stronger than oak and more sturdy than history. We’re going to say “Meet me at Toomer’s” for generations yet. The power of dixieland is going to be just fine.
To finish the joke about comedic timing from yesterday …
When I was in high school and working at Stanley Steemer — oh, the stories those people can tell about the people they meet on a daily basis — I befriended this guy who was about 10 years older than me. He had the best music and stories and he’d been places and done things and was just a very interesting person to talk to. We worked well together, made a lot of money and someone made a running joke that he was my father. This was funny because the age difference wasn’t that great and, also, because he was of recent Japanese descent.
So Jon would say these worldly, funny things all the time and we eventually starting ripping off a Saturday Night Live/Kung Fu joke. It was an SNL bit from before my time watching the show, but I caught on to the shtick. He would say something interesting and I would say, “Ah yes, but Master, why do you call me Grasshopper?”
He would close his eyes and say, “Because you are ugly, like insect.”
This went on for months.
And then one morning Jon says, “Oh, and the master’s blind.”
You had to be there.
Busy day today. Had lunch with The Yankee, who was hosting students at a conference, and our friend Brian. After that I finished my class prep, taught, ran this errand and that. The day gets away from you when you never sit down.
And, you’ll be proud, I taught so hard I hurt my back.
Still not sure how that happened.
This class last Thursday was canceled because of ice falling to the earth without having the decency to melt. So I felt compelled to get part of that session in today too. There was the social media presentation, and a big handful of other things to discuss. Got them out on time, though, and knocked off all but two things on the list. After two small meetings after class there I retired to my office and listened as the staff put their newspaper to bed. This is the week of Step Sing, the big song and dance revue which dominates Samford for the first part of the spring term. Everyone puts a lot of time into, and a lot of the paper people are involved. They’re all working hard in about six different directions at once. They’re tackling it all with good morale, though, so that’s encouraging.
Did a lot of administrative stuff today. Followed up on phone calls and Emails and marveled at how that job never seems to end. I got one step closer to putting one of the big outstanding projects behind me. I’ll knock that out tomorrow. Another I should also be able to soon finish and pass along to others. This is good progress, resolving the things eat into your best intentions. That’s where I am now, on the edge of being able to pull myself up that ledge, so I can proceed a-pace.
A-pace being something slightly more productive than treading water. Until you get there, though, you just have to try and stay afloat.
I don’t know how it is now, but I did these summer day camps at the local YMCA when I was young. One of the programs at our Y had to do with the wonderfully over-chlorinated indoor pool. Yes, this has changed. Anyway, there was a graduated system of developing swimming skills. You achieved things! Got a membership card! And a cool fish name! At the top of the scale, of course, was the shark. I believe there used to be a dolphin or porpoise in the mix, but if so that’s gone. Somewhere along the way toward the top of this system we had to tread water. I think it was for six days. Or 75 minutes or an hour. Whichever was most agonizing.
I hated that.
I also seemed to remember having to inflate a pair of jeans and float on them in some bogus boat-rescue exercise, but I could be conflating that with lifeguard drills.
Anyway. I can keep my head a-float and a-pace like nobody’s a-business.
Lots of things have changed in the ol’ swimming game, just to veer off to something random because when I think of pools I think of warmth and the current temperatures are the opposite of that. The Yankee and I were both certified as lifeguards once upon a time and we occasionally shock people with this story.
When I certified, lifeguard training and the protocols they used for rescue were a lot more aggressive than they are today. If you were in distress the lifeguard came to get you. If you panicked and fought the lifeguard off the lifeguard might fight back, because you ruined his or her tanning lotion. Or, on a really good day, the lifeguard might put you under the water (which ALWAYS adds to your clarity). A lot of people are shocked to hear this. These days they throw in a float and tell you to grab it. If they do get wet, they are trained to wait until the person goes under before going in.
This just takes all the fun out of it, and is when I lost interest in the lifeguarding game. Not that I ever had interest, really, but the mountain was there, and so I learned how to climb it.
There. Aren’t we all warmer now for having heard that little story? It is going to snow here tomorrow.
