Gettin' 'er Done

A comic strip in Sunday's paper showed three kids at the beach trying to cram everything into their last day of freedom. Kids may not realize it, but teachers do the same thing.

I've got a huge list of stuff to get done today, but I'm determined to work in a leisurely walk with the dogs, for the skies are sunny and the temp moderate. Perfect for strolling along the stream. Maybe I'll even bring a book along. But, before that the closet needs rearranging---the shorts and T-shirts bumped to the back, and my teacher duds to the front. The house needs vacuuming and cupboards need stocking. Oh, and zucchini bread needs baking. Don't want to forget that. And, the flower bulbs I wanted to order----

I think I'll begin with the walk.

I know I chose the right vocation for me because I not only get excited about the first day, but I can still reach the point of hyperventillation over a new unit or an innovative concept that I'd overlooked before. And, the kids are great; never know what the day is going to bring, intelligent discussions or a bomb threat.

But, there are always things we'd like to improve, right? My biggest pet peeve about teaching is absent students. When I was a kid, I had to be coughing up blood or breaking out in huge puss-filled sores before I could miss. And, the thing is, I didn't want to miss. Now, students are excused by many parents for wimpy reasons. Like, they had a sporting event the previous day and they need to catch up on sleep, or, even worse, they went to a hip-hop concert in Milwaukee the night before. Oh, and maybe they need a haircut or need to begin their vacation a few days early. Or the best one, yet: they need to go shopping for a prom dress or a car.

I know people want their children to have it better than they did, but, come on. We're teaching these young 'uns to be selfindulgent, excuse-makers.

Some students are responsible and get their work ahead of time when they know they're going to be absent, so when they get back to school, it's all finished. Even this can be a pain for teachers because we have to guess how far we're going to get while the student is gone. Other students don't even bother to worry about their work until they return. And, then they look at you with those sweet little baby blues, smile, and say, "Did I miss anything?"

"No, not a thing," I want to say. "We sat here and did absolutely nothing while you were gone. Thank heavens you're back so we can continue with our learning."

Work Day

Friday was a work day, an apt name for the last prep day before students return to the hallowed halls of PHS. I made seating charts for five classes, a total of 115 students. That's a lot of names to learn, so I like to alphabetize them by their first names so it's easier. "J" is the most popular letter for first names this year: Jason, Jeremy, Jenny, Jacob, Jenna, John, Josh, Jesse, Jessica, Joe, etc. If I start stuttering, you'll know why.

Hanging the posters that fell down over the summer is frustrating. Seems there are always those stubborn ones that do not respond to poster putty, masking tape---or even duct tape. I have a full-size one of Mark Twain that always folds in the middle, the top half lapping over the bottom like he's taking a bow.

I made out my Sept. calendar, plugged in the holidays and special schedule days, like early release, then put in my lesson plans. I'm teaching the same classes this year as last, so it was a snap; just a few things I wanted to tweak. Then---there is cleaning out and pitching stuff I don't use anymore. Knowing what to keep and what to throw out---that's everything in life---and writing.

Reflection: Being a teacher in a small town makes me a mini-celebrity. When I go to any of the local eateries, or shop at any of stores, no doubt some of the other customers or the hired help is one of my students, or has been one. Once I was out walking the dogs on a spring night enjoying the solitude, and someone in a white tuxedo popped out of the moonroof of a limo, waved and yelled, "Hey, Mrs. Kies, how ya doin'?" On Monday I found out it was one of my AP students who was on his way to prom. Last week I was walking by McDonald's and one of last year's students bellowed out the drive-thru window, "Hi, Susan Kies!"

How do they find out we teachers have first names anyway?

If I feel furtive, I might risk a visit to the beer tent during our Dairy Days celebration in two weeks. I'll have to come up with a better disguise, though, for the sunglasses I wore last year didn't work.

On a smaller scale, I know how Brad Pitt feels.

Teacher Inservice

My previous posts have read more like articles. I will occasionally post one of those, but they take longer to write---and my first day of inservice for school was yesterday. That means less time. So, to keep writing on a daily basis, I've decided to post more often and keep it more casual, for now.

Going back to school after a summer break is like jumping in cold water on a hot day. It feels good, but it's still a shock. My pre-school jitter dreams began last week, so I know it's that time of year. My dreams range from going to school to find out they've moved my classroom on me, and I look and look and darned if I can find it. Another has to do with students showing up and I'm not ready. Yup, not a lesson in sight and there I stand wondering what to do.

Today we had technology training. We have a new electronic gradebook program that goes along with our attendance software, so it should make life a lot easier and save time. But, as Thoreau noticed, "We don't ride the railroad, the railroad rides upon us." Technological advances ease our lives, but then we are expected to do more with that extra time. And, sometimes the "more to do" can be more drudgery that the original task the technology replaced. Still, I wouldn't go back to keeping grades by hand and adding them up with a calculator. Nope. So, bring on the extra work.

The school without kids is peaceful, but hollow. Schools are meant to be filled with students. I'm looking forward to Tuesday!

Meetin' Mike

Critiquing writing with a room full of good writers can leave you feeling like you ran a marathon up Pike's Peak in 90-degree heat. I attended Michael Perry's workshop in Mineral Point's Shake Rag Alley this past week and am currently in cool down mode. Decompressing.

It is a satisfying exhaustion, though. Like I've progressed in some way. But there is also a tinge of the let-down feeling I get after Christmas when the presents have been opened, the family goes home, and life returns to a routine.

Shake Rag Alley is an Eden for inspiring creativity, flora-filled gardens and a trickling spring right outside our door. It was here, in the reconstructed carpenter's house, that we fourteen wanna-bes gathered because we coveted what Mike Perry has: artful story-telling ability, success, readers, savvy, humility---and, most importantly, an agent and a publisher. (Perry is the author of the nonfiction memoirs Population 485, Truck, Off Main Street, and most recently, Coop.)

Mike candidly revealed the work involved in writing. He helped us see that hours of observing, thinking, jotting, stalling, writing draft upon draft, and, simply "putting one's ass in the chair" for long periods of time are necessary. I knew that part, but it was still comforting to hear it from someone who makes writing look so easy.

The element that yanked the paper from under my pen was the marketing. I thought if you write something good enough, someone will notice. A publisher will call, or an agent will request to represent you, and you can just sit back and write and harvest the kudos. Mike shared anecdotes of self-publishing and piling boxes of books in the car to peddle throughout the Midwest and wherever he could. He did benefits, radio spots, anything to stay alive and write and be known.

Even today, he spends 100 days on the road promoting his work. He is not complaining, however, and heartily admits that he is a lucky guy to do what he loves. "Yes, it's work," he says, "but look at my brothers' hands and look at mine. They are loggers. They do real work."

Horse farms, berry-picking, hitchhiking, philosophy, parent-care, love and loss and canoeing---the composition topics and personalities of the participants ran the gamut---in a good way. We cheered and chastised each other, in that order, and Mike got a few wise words in here and there, too. We were Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Stein, etc., the expatriates meeting in the same room every day to dissect and mend our words. OK, so I'm exaggerating a bit. A lot.

Mike began the workshop by telling us he'd never done one before and that he was really, painfully shy. And that he digressed a lot. I thought, Oh great, thanks for the apology up front. This guy's going to talk in circles and give us illogical spurts of absent-minded brilliance and look at the ceiling the whole time. I've had many a professor like that.

On Tuesday evening when he read and performed before a paying audience, I was dumbfounded: Is this our introverted sensei, mimicking voices, aping characters, and doing wacky improvisational asides? The audience laughed so hard, we barely noticed the hard pine benches of the Alley Stage, nor the hungry mosquitoes. Mike ended with a reading about strong women who go on after losing children. His wasn't the only teared-up eye in the cool night air.

As the week went on, Mike used his cell phone to keep himself and the class on task, though there were a few frolicking off-topic jaunts into storyland. He wholly shared his writer's mind and musings with us.

I took notes, so I could share some Perryisms, words to write by: "A little more cinema needed," "Peggin' the wanko meter---dial it back," "The elegant variation---don't try too hard," "I'm lookin' through the window, but it's not really well lit, yet," "Give it the mirror test," and "What are you feelin' in your tummy---hearin' in your head?" And the ever repeated, "That sounds like a little bit o' throat clearin' to me."

Mike reminded me of somebody. All week, I strained to think who it was. I've heard tell he's been compared to Garrison Keillor, but that wasn't who my mind was conjuring. That hammy personality and devotion to his large family. That quick, clever humor and "Aw, shucks" niceness laced with an occasional naughty comment. Ben Logan? Nope. The high forehead and deep-set eyes forming dramatic facial expressions. Finally, on Thursday the connection connected. That's it! Just push the front teeth together a smidge, add a little coiffed hair and some trendier clothes, and you've got it---Donny Osmond.

I am relieved, for had that not clicked, I'd still be unable to seriously concentrate on my writing. Free at last!

As I edit this post, I keep Mike's helpful words in mind: "TMI is in the eye of the beholder. We WANT to know."

House

This house is not the house where I spent my childhood, prenatal to ten, where I bounced out of my crib, hid under the sink, threw a puppy out the second story window saying, "Doggie fly." That house, but not the memories, was sold years ago.

This is the house where my first date rang the doorbell and picked me up, where I listened to Janis Joplin's "Pearl" on our stereo, watched "Dark Shadows" on summer afternoons, and shoveled the driveway in winter. I helped Dad plant the trees at this house, and this is where he fell from his recliner after having a massive, fatal heart attack 27 years ago.

We threatened to take Mom's power tools away, but we knew she'd just go buy new ones. Her favorite was the leaf blower, which she used to clean up the pine needles shed by the giant blue spruce which now towers over her driveway and sidewalk at 410 Camp St. When Dad and I planted this tree, it was two feet tall, and I could run and jump over it. Now, only Superman could perform this fete.

"You've got to hand to these rural women," the neighbor woman said to me on the morning of my mother's moving sale. "I'd see her out there with the weed trimmer and the blower. And she's such a tiny woman."

"Yes," I said. "She'll miss all that. But, she'll be safer now. Have less to worry about."

Mom was raised on worry and never weaned of it. "I heard that siren, and I prayed you were OK." "What if we get too much rain?" "What if it doesn't rain?" "What if I can't sell my house?" "What do I do if I sell my house?" etc." I believe she worries because she believes worry wards off bad things. She is convinced if she worries enough about something and puts herself through enough grief, it will ward off the actual bad consequence.

Praying and worrying seem to be one and the same. She seems to live in constant fear of something, and I try to think back to see if she was always like that, or if it is a result of old age and her inability to do the things she used to.

Old people seem to go one way or the other. They either get jolly and accepting, figuring that can't really control anything anyway, so they'd just as well go with the flow. Or, they get cranky and negative for the same reason. It's all perspective. Mom, recently, has taken the latter path.

She is never content.

No matter how much we help her pare down her life. Now, no house to worry about, no pine needles on the driveway, no taxes, no snowplow filling up her driveway, she still sounds overwhelmed with all she has to do. All that is put upon her. What, you ask?

Well, the doctor changes her medication every time she goes, so she has to change that; the garbage needs taking down to the basement; her drawers need cleaning and sorting; she's got too many papers to deal with, and on and on. Malcontent, i.e. depression. She just doesn't want to deal with anything anymore.

Yup. Until two years ago, Mom cut her grass by herself with a push mower she bought at Farm and Fleet. Then, of course the bushes needed trimming, so out comes the electric hedge trimmer. One winter about six years ago, Mom was using the snow blower to clear her driveway, and she slipped and fell backward and cracked a vertabrae. But, did that stop her for long?

Her physical activity used to help her feel in control of things. Helped her burn off frustrations.

The neighbor girl and I used to play duets on the old upright grand piano that Dad somehow lowered into the basement of this house. Our favorites were from a book of folk songs, like "Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley," "The Bo Weevil," and "Jesse James." One time we put on a show for our parents and wore short outfits and pretended to be magicians. Dad had shown us how to coil a rope in the corner and hook a thread to the end of it. We ran the thread up the wall and over the pipes in the ceiling and tied the other end to my finger. While Deanna played snake charmer music on her recorder, I waved my arms around, wrapping the thread through around my hands to make the snake climb the wall. Deanna's mom got so freaked out she screamed and got up to run away. We couldn't have asked for a better response.

I also experienced my first date at this house. When the young man came to pick me up to go to the movies, my dad had jokingly set out a shotgun in the next room. We went to the movie, and he walked me home. More dates with others followed, but then I met THE ONE.

I guess Mom has had a lot to worry about in the past, and I was one of the major contibutors to that worry, and, sometimes, it was warrented. I do wish that she could relax and go with the flow, though. She deserves it.

When she sells that house, she will lose part of her independance and her past with my dad. We will still have the memories and each other. But, I know she will find many things to worry about because that's what Mom does. Maybe it's what keeps her alive.