Daily Blues & Views

 With America poised for a big 250th anniversary party, I'd like to offer my thoughts on the verge of the huge star-spangled, ultra patriotic orgasm about to take place.  Rather than go with the explosions that linger far into the night and the one after that and probably the one after that, I offer a rather thrifty 250. What I am going to do, and what I recommend my fellow Americans do is the following:  Search and find the first verses of Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land.  Then, read, sing, or recite them slowly out loud to yourself and anyone else you might be near or able to hold captive.  The key here is slowly.  You might want to practice first.  Read the words over slowly in your mind.  Then, when you think you've read them slow enough, do it again, but even slower.  You don't have to belt them out, but find the volume you feel comfortable with.  The slower the better.  Something might reveal itself much like the detail...

 What has done it for you?  What in your vast life experience has produced that one emotion?  That unique feeling?  That unforgettable happiness?  How have you experienced Joy?   Other than the fact that my first real girlfriend was named Joy, I estimate that this welcome friend has occurred in my life a handful of times.  It usually comes with something as life changing as getting that job you wanted, or perhaps an unexpected stroke of good luck.  A reward of some kind or that wonder feeling that comes with being validated, understood, valued.   Joy often comes when you are open to it.  Case in point.  Many thousands of people have recently felt the exultation of  joy because their team has won a championship, their horse a race, or their candidate a political contest.  But what of those that eschew sports or politics or or other interests.  I think they miss out on something very beneficial.  Something with big...

 Last weekend I met up with a former student of mine.  He graduated high school in 2007, so it had been a good 20 years since we'd seen each other.  He was visiting a sister in Portland and looked me up.  We met for coffee.   David was always one of my most memorable students.  He was in a Jr. Honors English class with me and then took my Intro Psychology class too.  Aside from being highly motivated, and intellectually curious, David was a good athlete and quite a good looking young man.  His father is Jewish and his mother is Japanese, so he has that striking quality that bi-racial kids often do.  It occurred to me once that I had his mother as a student in my first year of teaching back in 1973.   We spoke of many things, especially world affairs.  David does geo-political analysis for a tech company, reflective of his educational background which includes degrees from UC Berkeley and Georgetown.  The conversation was heady,...

 Meet my friend Patty.  She's striking because of 3 things.  First, she always has a kind word and a smile.   She often has thin, brightly colored ribbons streaming down her  shoulder length hair.  And then there is her posture, or lack of it.  Patty is one of those folks who walks all bent over.  It might have been scoliosis, but no body asks.  On top of all this, Patty has been battling cancer for the last few years.   I met Patty in the Tai Chi class I've been taking for the past couple of years.  When she can, she shows up.  Sometimes she goes through the motions while sitting down, but more often than not, Patty keeps up, doing the best she can despite her physical limitations. Patty is inspiration incarnate.  When many of us older folks in the class are feeling tired, or sore, or just not our sharpest, Patty is there.  She shows up.  If she can, certainly we can too. Patty likes a good joke and is a faithfu...

 Maybe it was his eyes.  They certainly were wild.  It was as if he were living in a dream and trying to wake up.  But the voice was kind.  Want to buy a song?   For a dime or a quarter he's give you a live performance.  For those that did, it was either "Merry Go Round" or "Linda and Laurie."   He was a character found along the streets of LA and in 1968 most often on the UCLA campus.  He'd join the throng on their way to a class along this sprawling campus and peddle his songs.  His hair was curly long and contributed to the name he acquired, Wildman Fischer.   In the Spring of 1968, that most decisive and formative year, I was a Junior at UCLA.  Seeing Wildman Fisher was a daily occurrence.  I may have even given him a dime or quarter.  I had just submitted some poetry to a professor who selected 10 students for a seminar.  When I was selected to join that elite group, I fancied myself a poet even more.  ...

 I thought they might work.  After all, these folks didn't learn to write the way we teach now.  They probably came out of English classes with 5 paragraph essays, literature anthologies, and grammar Nazis. Most of us did.  So, perhaps many of the teaching strategies developed after 1970 would be liberating, doable, and most of all welcome.   So, I proposed the idea of teaching a writing class for older folks to the director of my local community center,  As luck would have it, Portland Parks and Rec already had a "Writing From Memory" class on the books.  It just hadn't been taught for a while.  I interviewed.  I developed some curriculum.   I taught the class at one of the 5 week sessions.  Slowly, it gained un popularity andI went from3students to 8.  Perfect.  With i hour sessions once a week, that is barely enough time to review something, teach a skill, and have the people read and get feedback for their work.  ...