'Stalgia

Over the weekend my 18-year-old nephew was home from college for the first time and we were lucky to spend an evening with him. Our family always has spirited conversations and this occasion was no exception. We are usually pretty good at agreeing to disagree, but when Treat began to disparage nostalgia in general, it was hard to let his point go, especially considering his youth.

Let me be honest: I missed the 70s, my 7 to 17 years, the minute they ended, and recognizing songs and trends of the 60s when they became nostalgic was a major turning point in my psyche-- perhaps the moment I realized I was an adult (and that everything comes around again, which helps explain Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley).

I hated the 80s, and so those throwbacks did little for me. Now it's the 90s that are coming back. My first reaction was denial. Surely that decade couldn't have been long enough ago that we are revisiting it? And yet we are: the X-files, Full House, Friends, Counting Crows, Sonic Youth, Bush, Goosebumps and Babysitters Club are all waiting just offstage for their encores, not to mention stirrup pants and blazers with rolled up sleeves.

But you know what? I liked the 90s. I started teaching, bought my first house, and met the love of my life. My older nephews were born in that decade; I went to Maine and South Dakota and back to Europe. Sure, there was heartbreak and loss as well, but it was also when the 70s came back around.

Raising the Bar

My dad was a guy who loved to sit at a bar. Despite the fact that he was confirmed introvert, I have countless memories of going in to fetch him when we were finished at the museum, or with shopping, or the movie was over, or it was time to board the plane, and with a sweeping gesture he would drain his beer and announce to the guy on the next stool, "This is the one I was telling you about!"

"Pleased to meet ya," his new friend would say.

"Mom says it's time to go," I would tell my dad.

Who knows what stories he told? All I know is that, personally, I'm not a bar person. My cousin, on the other hand, is a bit more like her uncle. Since she's staying with us, in the past few days I've spent more time in bars than I have in the last... 30 years?

In general, though, I confess to have found them to be very genial places. In fact, tonight when we entered a local establishment to enjoy their happy hour specials, we were haled by one of the servers. "You came back!" she greeted us. "AND you're in my section again!"

Golly! How long might it be until we're the ones she was telling them about?

Numbers Game

In my "progressive" school system, we used to treat student success on high-stakes standardized tests as a necessary evil; but now those unreliable numbers are gaining major traction as a valid measure of student, teacher, and school success. Clearly some of it is pragmatism, but how can calculating the number of sub-group students (to the tenths place) who must pass so that the school can achieve our federally mandated annually measured objectives be construed as anything but cynical?

I can just hear the conversations in our PLC now. Dang! We missed it my three tenths of an Asian.

Hardcore Connoisseur

Out running errands today, my cousin and I stopped into a new restaurant to have a snack. Outfitted in lots of rustic wood and copper, the place advertises itself as serving mostly locally sourced food. Since it was Sunday, the football games were playing in the bar, and so we grabbed a seat in there. The guy next to us was munching on a small bucket of popcorn. "I love popcorn!" My cousin said.

"It's free!" he told us helpfully.

"Where do you get the popcorn?" my cousin asked the waitress when she came to take our order.

The young woman frowned. "I'm not sure where it comes from," she answered, "I believe it's local, but I'll ask in the kitchen to find out."

The guy next to us laughed. "You get it at the bar!"

Now that's local.

Stalking Chipmunks

Sometimes when I walk my dog it's all business-- we have places to go and deadlines to meet, either during or after our little constitutional. Other times, like this afternoon, we have plenty of time and it's really about the fresh air and exercise. On those occasions, I give Isabel the "ok" and see where she wants to go. As it turns out, it's often on to the grass, along the bushes on the edge, and in tightening concentric circles, until she lifts her head and cocks it as if to wonder how we ended up there and what happened to that chipmunk.

I'll leave the metaphor to you.

All Good

At 7 PM the seven and under item line in the prepared food section at Wegmans wound its way halfway back to the bakery. I stepped in the queue with a little dim sum snack to kill the time while I waited to pick up my cousin at her 50th highschool reunion happy hour. With only one cashier, we crept forward slowly. I idly listened to the conversation of the three people ahead of me, a mom with her teenaged son and adult daughter. They had all just gotten off work and they were tired and hungry. It was only then that I noticed they were pushing a full cart toward the super-express lane.

After a fleeting flirtatation with aggravation, I let it go; by this time we had all waited patiently in a long line, and since there were three of them, I reasoned they could rightfully split the cart into separate transactions whiich would ltake even longer. Soon enough I paid for my dumplings and water and headed upstairs to read in one of the easy chairs and watch the rain outside the window, but not before they  apologized to me and the cashier when they realized their mistake.

Action!

My students were working on effective verb choice again today. after reading the poem Same Song by Pat Mora yesterday, I asked them to write a single sentence that relied on the verbs to tell a story. This is not an easy concept, but since it was only one sentence, I was able to engage almost every student in a dialog to critically analyze and revise the first draft.

The boy tip-toed quietly across the room trying not to be seen.

Me: How do you not tip-toe quietly? Isn't that the point?

Student: The boy tip-toed across the room, trying not to be seen.

Me: What room was it?

Student: The boy tip-toed across the kitchen, trying not to be seen.

Me: What did he want in the kitchen?

Student: The boy tip-toed across the kitchen trying not to be seen, took the chips, and ran back to his room.

Me: Didn't they see him when he ran back to his room?

Student: Arghhhh

Me: Try starting with the chips.

Student: The boy grabbed the chips...

Me: Go on...

Student: and tiptoed across the kitchen and back to his room.

Me: Nice!

A few other sentences from the day:

The clean dishes sparkled like diamonds in the dish drain.

"No!" I gasped as my mother collapsed to the ground.

COLLAPSE

The bright orange flames of the fire flickered in the darkness of night, emanating warmth and heat that comforts me.

The young boy trudged through the thick Alaskan snow and clenched his stomach as he fell to the ground in hunger.