Little Wonders

We were walking back to our car on the trail today when we saw a boy of about 4 and his mother coming toward us. We smiled and so did they, but as they passed us the boy paused and made eye contact with me. "Excuse me," he said in the most polite of tones. "Do you know if there are any eagles here?"

"There are," I answered, "but we haven't seen any today." Before the shine of anticipation on his face could fade, I continued quickly. "You know what we did see? Swans! There are hundreds of tundra swans right down there, and they even have a telescope to see them better."

His eyes widened, and he looked at his mom.

"Cool!" she said as she followed his lead down the trail. "Thank you."

"You never know," I called after them. "You might see an eagle, too."

Battle Scars

Ouch! I have a little blistery callus on my left index finger. Must be all that ukulele playing.

Just sayin.

That Looks Good

We had our annual international movie day today at school. The film we showed was Not One Less by my favorite Chinese director, Zhang Yimou. It was a good movie, and the kids liked it, and after a day immersed in images of China? We're having Chinese food tonight.

Culture Shock

Believe it or not, there is such a thing as middle school wrestling. I say this, because despite my 20 years in a middle school, I am one of the incredulous. Oh, I go to the meets to support my students, past and present, who wrestle, but I'm never there more than thirty seconds before I feel my face physically contorting in shock and consternation. I literally must massage the alarm out of my expression.

Set aside the snug, uniform "singlet" that all wrestlers sport, and even the practice of waiting on hands and knees as your opponent takes his position above you, the rest of the competition still seems very inappropriate to the uninitiated, especially those of us who spend our days discouraging practically everything the wrestling coach wants the athletes to do.

Let's put it this way: Instead of "Get him!" I want to yell "Get off him!"

Could Have Been

There was a segment on Marketplace this evening about the unreliability of memory. It seems that some researchers showed dozens of people photo-shopped images of news events past, and many of the test subjects conjured memories of them. Not only were they convinced that they remembered the fictional incidents, but some also recalled their emotional reactions at the time.

That doesn't surprise me in the least. As a bit of a memoirist myself, I know how slippery the past, even the very recent past, can be. My only defense, when challenged, is that I have presented the story as I recall it, and I claim to do no more or less than that.

Even so, someone else's faulty memory can be stunning. Once I posted a picture of me and my high school roommates. Taken in December of 1977, we are all wearing matching striped pajamas that one of the other girls in the photo gave us. It was a few days before Christmas break, and we had all immediately donned the jammies the minute we opened our packages.

What else would we do but take a picture? I recollect it so clearly: I propped my Minolta SR-T 101 on a chair and set up the auto-feature. There were 15 seconds on the timer, but on my way back to the group I tripped. As I rolled over, my friends grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up into the frame just as the shutter snapped. Of course we were all laughing.

Several folks from those days posted comments on the picture, including this one:  

Actually, wasn't this taken the year I was there? This was taken in Karen and Liz's room. In fact, I'm sure I took the picture.

That's just not how I remember it.

My Pogo

We had a conference today where the parent called her daughter by a nickname the whole time. Not so unusual, really, most Sams were once Sammys and some Kennys have even been Brandons at home, but this girl happens to be Sweet Face to her family.

It was cute, if a little distracting. Truth be told, she does have a very sweet face. Later when I was telling a colleague about it, another teacher came into the room. "We were just talking about Sweet Face," I told her.

"Did someone call you that?" she joked.

"Oh... to be honest? I'm afraid everyone calls me that behind my back," I said. "In fact, it might just be my pogo.*"

*Making fun of your friends about something annoying that they do, all behind their backs. Coined by the show New Girl.

Retrospect

"Will you fix this book for me?" a student asked this morning.

"Sure," I agreed without looking up; as far as I'm concerned, book repair is part of the job. I have a ready supply of packing and duct tape for just such occasions. "Where is it?"

She handed me a ragged lilac-colored volume and its sundered cover. I literally gasped. It was the exact same edition of Little Women that I received for Christmas the year I was in sixth grade. The very one that I read and loved with all my heart, probably just about this time of year 39 years ago.

"Where did you get this?" I asked in wonder.

She shrugged. "It's my mom's."

I flipped to the page facing the first chapter. A pen an ink drawing of a man in a topcoat tipping his hat to a young woman on the street with the caption, May I go also, and take for you the bundles?" sent a jolt of recognition right through me.

I reattached the cover and then paged through a little more, looking at the chapter headings, Aunt March Settles the Question, Lazy Laurence, and so forth, but than I returned to that first illustration, out of place, at the beginning of the book. I remembered how it bothered me back when I first read it.

Jo March? Why in the world would she marry Professor Baer, especially after rejecting Laurie? Duh! That girl was clearly gay!