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Showing posts from November, 2011

Silent Fall

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For days the leaves have been falling. They soon become ground into a wet mulch that makes it's way into the house, the car, the soles of our shoes. They lie in a soupy mix like saturated corn flakes in an enormous bowl that nobody eats or even cleans up. Until today. The first of the city mandated leaf clean-ups happened this morning. When I see my neighbors park their cars and trucks on their front lawns then I know the time has come. Since we don't pay for this needed service, and our landlords are away, we got no forewarning this time. No matter. By 9:00 this morning most of the leaves were gone...momentarily. Must have slept through the tractors with the big cages on them, the small but highly maneuverable street cleaners and the water trucks. And all the while, the leaves keep falling. By tonight it'll be hard to tell the first batch was removed. It's raining now...cornflakes for everyone. My observations on leaves have much to do with the fact that

TGI (your choice)

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This week, amid all the Thank Yous infusing everyone's thoughts and requests, saw a couple of mind numbing events. First, the overkill with the event known as "Black Friday." You'd think by the sound that this national day of consumerism was similar to the Black Monday that brought down the stock market some 80 plus years ago. But no. It's the orgy of conspicuous consumption that officially kicks off the holiday shopping season. It's the day after Thanksgiving. It's the worst in this culture all in a day. Imagine the mindset that waits in a tent in the parking lot or sidewalk in front of some big box store that features a midnight start time to get a few bucks off something that was marked up 50% to begin with. Do these people have no life? Yup. But wait. There is now evidence that the prices on the same merchandise will actually be better as the big day nears on the 25th of December. Would some folks trample over people to buy an electronic

Stealing Life

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In Per Petterson's sparse yet stunning novel, Out Stealing Horses , the 67 year old protagonist has a conversation with his daughter in one of the final scenes. He's gone to live in the Norwegian woods, near the Swedish border and is at first incredulous that his grown child has even found him. To be sure, he welcomes the visit, but the reader can't help wondering if he's disappointed that he's realized it's really impossible to escape. It may not even be desirable, he's coming to realize. Still he's not disappointed, and savors his isolation as a chance to reflect on his life and life's work. In a reflective moment the daughter says, "You were always reading Dickins at home...I remember you in your chair with a book, miles away...at first you didn't recognize me and then you replied "Dickins," with a serious look, and I thought that reading Dickins was not the same as reading other books. I thought it was a special kind

For a Living

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We can't save everyone. But we try. A teacher, a real teacher will never stop trying until...until...we're out of the picture. Even then, some students never leave us alone. Like that kid in your neighborhood, the one you catch yourself wondering about from time to time, it's fascinating to speculate how someone turned out. If it's any consolation, that turning out takes a lifetime for most. Others, however, make their presence felt through a newspaper, an obituary, a rumor, and even a Facebook page. Such was the case when I chanced to see a picture of Allen Woodard recently. My first reaction was he's alive, I think. Allen lived for the military. Specifically the U.S. Marines. Probably because there was no father in his life, and his mom was a teacher's aid at my old school, I came to take an interest in Allen. He liked to talk about world politics and when the U.S. got involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, he couldn't wait to get over there. H

Worst Case?

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The writing prompt said Worst Case Scenario . That's all, just three little words. Some went to work immediately, others leaned back, leaned forward, squirmed, dug deep into the wells of their lives to retrieve the fully repressed or fully fantasized. No me. The thought came quickly. "What if" was the lead line. The substance was being perceived by others. Wouldn't it be horrible if people ...the people in your life to be exact, all shared a perception of you and your personality that was far...very far from what you thought. In short, what if people did not think of you in the way you thought they did? Writer James Baldwin once said, "If I am not who you think I am, then you are not who you think you are." That's what I'm talkin' about. Not being who you think you are. Worst case scenario. I suppose it could be a tremendous opportunity. After all, how many times do we get to adjust our personalities. How much insight do we reall

Who was that...

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When the photograph of two people holding a sign that read, "Occupy Tundra," first appeared, I wondered how many small towns were participating in the groundswell #Occupy movement. There must be some rather non-urban settings. My sister, who lives in Bozeman, Mt. made me aware of camps currently in Missoula, Helena, as well as Bozeman. Gotta love those college towns. (two out of three in Montana.) While they are nothing like the tent cities in Oakland or on Wall Street, they do contain the same amount of disaffected, disappointed people from retirees to veterans, to unemployed college graduates, to laid off factory workers. They have kids, and wet conditions this time of year, and less than adequate food, and all manner of hangers on. The media has a field day with the sub-stories. Recently, in Portland, the coverage centered on a rat in the food tent and a syringe found on the ground. Finally, an elder covering the story for an alternative radio station pointed out