Old Book, New Book

When we were teenagers my brother, sister, and I devoured popular epic novels at an amazing rate. Plot driven and securely anchored in place and time, those books taught us a lot about the world. James Michener was a favorite, and long before any of us settled in Virginia, we knew all about the history and ecology of the Chesapeake Bay, particularly its Eastern Shore, because we had read his book, Chesapeake. To this day, I can't look at a great blue heron without thinking of the nickname fishing long legs.

Even so, and as much time as I've spent on and around the actual Chesapeake Bay in the last 35 years, I have never thought to revisit the book. Set aside the 865 pages(!), when it comes to stories, I'm a forward-looking reader, and I like to be surprised. But there was something about the heron I saw yesterday on my walk around a little local lake that prompted me to download the book last night.

I needn't have worried. As Billy Collins says in his poem Forgetfulness, 

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel 
which suddenly becomes one you never heard of

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones. 

It wasn't quite that bad~~ I remembered Michener and fishing long legs~~ but the rest seems new to me!

A Journey

It was only 4.7 miles around the little man-made lake, and yet in the couple of hours it took us to walk the circuit with the dog we witnessed a hawk dive into the leaves and fly off with some poor little squeaking rodent in its talons, and beheld a great blue heron wading near the shore dunk its head into the shallows, remerge with a wiggling fish, and swallow it in one gulp. Dozens of giant trees stood snagged and splintered by the huge windstorm 2 weeks ago. We spotted an eagle's nest, plenty of Canada geese, mallards, and cormorants, and the marsh whistled with red-wing blackbirds, while the woods buzzed with Carolina chickadees and tufted titmice. People ran, jogged, limped, rolled, and strolled with us and against us. A bearded man svengalied his four dogs with rap music so that he could snap a pack photo on a little dock. The sun was out; a cold wind gusted; leaden clouds filled the sky; it snowed; the sun returned; it snowed again. And 9500 steps later we climbed into our car and headed home.

Shhhh! Top Secret

So this week I have continued posting a little puzzle or task in our class writing challenge to encourage more kids to take a closer look and read through some of the posts. The reward has been a Jolly Rancher for any who successfully answer the question.

Yesterday I posed the following: Hello students! It's time for our next JoRaCha. That's it! Using the above form of abbreviation, hand me a slip of paper with your *secret* name.

I was thinking along the lines of NaNoWriMo or HeLa cells, creating an abbreviation by using the first consonant(s) and vowel of the word to stand in for it, and lots of kids were able to figure it out. It was all good until NoBe, BeLa, and ElDa decided to decipher my secret name. They were giggling so loudly at their table that I stepped over. "What's so funny?"

"You!" one said. "Your secret name is TraSh!"

"No!" I said, "You have to add the 'e' at the end!"

"Maybe the 'e' is silent!" another teased.

"Or else your name is TraShe!" said the third added, pronouncing the second syllable. "Would you rather be trash or trashy?"

They had me there-- I began to laugh right along with them. "That's Ms. TraShe to you! Good thing it's my secret name!" I said.

Third Millennium Shopping

News today that Toys R Us is liquidating all their stores. The retail landscape has changed so drastically in the last decade or so that such a turn of events is hardly surprising. To be honest, I can't remember the last time I was even in a big box toy store, although there is one just a couple of miles from my home. A toy store is always much more fun with kids, and the kids in my life are either too old or too far away to go shopping with me. Still, I think it's kind of a loss.

When I was a kid, the big toy store near us was Kiddie City, and the times our parents took us there were always special. I remember shopping for a sand box, a swing set, birthday bikes, and skates. Floor to ceiling shelves lined aisle after endless aisle, miraculously filled with real toys that until then had only been the stuff of technicolor TV commercials. There was New Born Thumbelina, Rock'em Sock'em Robots, Marvel the Mustang, stacks of Easy Bake Ovens, Playdough Factories, and Light Brites.

Oh, I have embraced our new shopping where everything in the world is available with free 2 day shipping. It's thrilling, but occasional disappointment is necessarily built into that deal. Of course there are instant printable return labels and the option to drop your box at the nearest shipping store, where it is added to a mountain of other anonymous brown cartons, each one containing an item that wasn't quite right.

Sort of the opposite of a toy store, really.

Dauntless

Around here, winter has been rather unsatisfying this year. I saw more snow in Georgia in December than I did in my neighborhood all winter long, but since we were still scuffed by every single major storm to pass our way, the weather has been extra cold and extra windy.

And it's the bitter wind that can really get you, especially in that predawn hike from the parking lot to the school. I keep a box of tissues on my desk just to wipe my nose and eyes every morning.

When confronted with such adversity, it is always my first instinct to hunch my shoulders, lower my head, and brace my entire being against the blitz, but this winter has taught me something new. Instead of bowing to the wind, I lift my chin, square my shoulders, and march straight ahead!

Right to my box of tissues.

The Facts About Fiction

Several students gasped when the bell rang at the end of class, then lifted their voices in a collective cry of "Whaaaaaaat?" So intent were they on building believable characters for their fiction pieces that they lost track of the time.

"Can we please keep working on this at home?" someone pleaded as she hastily packed up her books.

What's that? You're asking for homework?

Now that's a good lesson!

Z and the Horrible, No Good, DST

The time change did not agree with Z, one of my favorite homeroom students. Because Z requires self-contained classes, I only get to see him in the morning, but I always enjoy those few minutes. He gets to the room a little before the other students, and it is then we usually have our most interesting conversations.

"I want to throw my iPad out the window," he told me a couple weeks ago.

"Okay!" I answered, "Let me do it for you." And I opened the hopper window next to him and slid his device between the glass and the screen. Then I locked the window. There was no way he could reach it.

"No!" he said, "I want to throw it out to the parking lot!"

"We can't" I shrugged, "because of the screen."

"Oh," he sighed. "Then can I have it back?"

"Are you going to follow the directions?" I asked.

"I promise!" he told me, so I gave him back his iPad.

And that's how it is with him. When he's looking for a fight, you have to bob and weave, like this morning.

"Snatch my iPad," he ordered me, "just snatch it away!"

"Are you g-r-u-m-p-y, grumpy, from losing an hour?" I asked him. "Because I am!"

In response he removed his shoes. "I'm going to the bathroom," he told me, "and I'm going to throw my socks in the toilet!"

"Go ahead," I answered, "but then you'll have to wear wet socks all day."

"I'm going to eat my lunch!" he threatened next.

"If that will make you feel better," I nodded, "but you will probably be really hungry later on."

"Then I'll sit on the table!" he said.

"Too bad that's against the rules," I reminded him.

"Call my mom!" he cried. "Just call her!"

"What will I tell her?" I asked.

"Tell her I'm coming home!"

"But nobody's there to let you in," I said, sympathetically.

And so we continued, until he finally agreed to go to the clinic where he laid down to try and get back that hour of sleep.