Hemingway in Juvie

 Ken Burns and Lynn Novick have a new film.  This latest collaboration is more a biography than a sweeping concept.  It concerns the life of Ernest Hemingway.  Apparently, according to the filmmakers, the Hemingway most people know is not the real person.  The toxic masculinity often associated with the great American author was more an image rather than the reality.  There are some questions, too, about some of the more sensational stories connected with Hemingway's life.  

Today, that is not all that surprising.  We live in a time of revision, so anything that is suddenly revealed to contradict conventional wisdom is generally taken as less astonishing than one might expect.  I expect no change in the position taken on Hemingway's writing.  His work stands alone and remains strong.  To be sure, Hemingway has his fans and his detractors, but he is, arguably one of the greatest American authors of the 20th century.

I taught a few Hemingway novels in my day.  For adolescents, they are both readable and tolerable.  Some contain valuable historical perspectives.  His sparse style is useful for students struggling to find a writing voice that is often clogged with convoluted verbiage.  

Hemingway's short stories are often underappreciated in academic circles.  He's been anthologized a good deal, and in my view, it is some of his best work.  

When I think back to teaching Hemingway, one experience stands out.  After being hired and laid off a few times, in the Fall of 1985, I returned to the high school where I spent most of my career.  It was about 3 weeks into the school year when I received my classes and was able to settle into my assignment.  For the first week, I had only 4 classes but was told another 9th grade English class would be soon created.  It will be a small class, the administrators told me because it will be created from a few students from larger classes and a few late arrivals.  The class, when I finally met them had about 15 students.  On a typical day, about 10-12 would attend.  These kids, mostly male, were the rejects from the larger classes.  They were entering the school year late because some had been in Juvenile Hall.  Others had been expelled from other districts.  It was my last class of the day.  Unexpectedly, it became a pleasure to teach these kids.  Because there were not 35 students in the room, the energy was different.  We'd sit in a circle and take turns reading, discussing, and sharing ideas.  This class may have been all male.  I can't quite remember, but to the best of my recollection, it fits with their profile.  I wanted to get them to buy into the idea that reading and thinking deeply about literature was worthwhile.  I also wanted them to have some success.  For those reasons and a few others, I chose Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.  

I read with and to them.  Reading to younger students in high school probably isn't done enough.  I'd be less than honest if I didn't say I had to convince this group that this was a novel they'd enjoy and relate to.  I gave it my all.  So much teaching is engaging an unwilling audience.  I once read a survey that found the number one quality of an effective teacher is a flair for the dramatic.  I emoted.  As I later told a colleague, "I taught the hair off that book."  In the end, I'm fairly sure those kids learned a little more than the plot of a novel where an old man catches a big fish, only to lose it to sharks.  

Writing on Ice

 It's everywhere. Mostly unwanted, but often the cause of much pleasure.  Graffiti.  I prefer the written kind, though I must admit some of the artwork out there is nothing short of stunning.  It's on walls, railroad cars, and often over road signs or freeway overpasses.  It's political with little regard to correctness.  It's often lewd, immensely humorous, disrespectful, if not sexist, racist, misogynist, or a prime example of vandalism.  

My first recollections involve public restrooms, especially public school restrooms.  

"Here is sit broken-hearted, tried to shit and only farted."  This was hysterical in the 7th  grade.  It was soon followed by someone's phone number, with one of the myriad versions of "for a good time, call...

I suppose we all remember our favorite piece of graffiti.  I certainly do.  Sometimes, depending on the circumstances, they hit just right.  Like the time I was driving a truckload of my parents' furniture from Southern California to Northern California.  It was shortly after my father's passing and I had just finished cleaning out the family home with my sister and having a weekend-long garage sale.  By 9:00 pm on a Sunday evening, I decided to stop for gas and dinner about an hour before completing the trip.  With enough gas to make it home, I stopped by the men's restroom before entering a restaurant.  It was right in the middle of the Watergate hearings.  As I positioned myself in front of a urinal I chanced to see something written on the wall just at eye-level.  "Smile, you are holding Nixon by the neck. " That piece of graffiti kept me smiling for a good while.  

Sometimes a piece of Graffiti will spawn responses.  As a grad student at UC Berkeley, I saw plenty.  A favorite spot was inside the elevators in the large buildings.  In Tolman Hall, the Education/Psychology building people would cover the walls with messages and responses.  This became so prevalent that ultimately they covered the inside walls of the elevators with carpeting.  While driving through the city of Berkeley on my way to work, I'd pass a building with  big black letters sprayed on the wall saying "Jesus is Coming"  Underneath in red, someone had written, "So is  Yo Mamma."

I've retained other examples from my fairly long life but some are too repulsive to repeat here.  Shockingly racist scribblings found in both the deep South and Northern states.  

I recall a certain billboard that stood on the first floor of Royce Hall at UCLA.  While not the traditional form of written graffiti, people began attaching notes and signs with messages to each other.  Written under pseudonyms, this occurred well before personal ads and computers.  Like graffiti, folks had something to say, and other folks had something to reply.  Though short-lived, this spot became very popular.  Another example of trying to be known and appreciated?  Perhaps, but like all graffiti, it became, in the words of Arthur Miller, "Like writing your name on a cake of ice on a hot July day.

Ordered Liberty

 He said it might be child abuse.  The doctor, an infectious disease expert, was angry and incredulous because the news story centered on children burning their masks in front of the Idaho state capitol.  The doctor thought these kids were being manipulated into believing that wearing a mask was more an infringement on their rights as Americans than on the health of their fellow citizens.

Our country is COVID weary these days.  College students in Boulder, Colorado gathered by the hundreds and unmasked,  partied like there was no tomorrow.  Hopefully, for many of them, there will be many more tomorrows.  Their arrogance and stupidity will soon be forgotten, but when the next uptick in infections correlates with these actions, they will have to pay the band for all their liberated dancing. They may want the pandemic to end, but their behavior says otherwise.

It's not enough to be tired of wearing a mask and washing your hands, and social distancing.  It's been a year, but only a year.  As inconvenient as it has become, it beats the alternative.  
Is it that the anti-maskers are unaware of the necessity to protect themselves and others?  Possibly, but what stands out for me is that they have a rather poor understanding of just what their rights are and how they function in a democracy.  

They behave as if their right not to have to wear a mask is absolute.  Not so.  Those rights they clamber for are limited by the good of the order.  If we take the old cliche about hollering fire in a crowded theater, the same applies here.  Colorado students, kids in Idaho (and their parents) you do not have the right to impact someone's health adversely.  Whether you agree or disagree, you have entered into a social contract that does not guarantee any rights when they endanger others.  

That these folks don't know this is perhaps the worst tragedy. Something will have to change.

Why? With the vaccine shining as a light at the end of this tunnel, aren't we almost home safe?  Not quite.  What about other tunnels in the years to come?  Viruses mutate, new ones come to light all the time.  Save those masks.  

Picture yourself being interviewed 20 years from now telling some high school student how it was before masks became an essential accessory.  Yes, there really was a time when we sat side by side in a movie theater, and people by the thousands packed the biggest stadiums and arenas.  

Our biggest challenge now seems to be playing for the same team.  Getting everybody through with a new understanding of both safe practices and how they operate in a democracy where rights are tempered by what is best for all.