Daily Blues & Views

57 years ago today, right about the time this is written, I remember exactly where I was.  On this hot Southern California afternoon, I was not swimming with neighborhood kids.  I was not playing baseball or records, or even getting ready for my Junior year in high school which was just two weeks away. I was watching television, or rather watching history.  This was the day and time of the March on Washington, D.C. and the list of speakers and entertainers held my attention.  I recall trying to get my sister and a couple of her friends to watch with me but they were only interested in their social scene about to be revived with the approaching new school year.  My mom was in our pantry sitting by an ironing board.  Periodically, I'd run back there and scream, "You gotta see this, it's history in the making." "You can tell me all about it," was all I got in reply. So I returned to sit by the old Packard Bell TV with the well-worn dials that adjusted volum...

I heard recently from a former colleague of mine.  We talk from time to time.  He calls me, truth be told, and seems to have a need to fill me in on life in the Bay Area.  I moved 14 years ago after living there for about 35 years.  I'm fortunate to have his friendship because I do value the newsy updates. This latest call was consumed by our discussion of life after COVID and the upcoming opening of the school year.  We both are fortunate to be retired and not have to deal with the online challenges currently facing our colleagues still in the classroom. Always, he fills me in on who died, and who is and is not doing well.  This last call, however, had something with a twist.  We talked about the daughter of a former colleague of ours who died about 6 months ago.  The daughter was charged with scattering her mother's ashes at the mountain camp that they both attended every summer for many years.  The camp is a beautiful, woodsy sight in th...

Like many retired teachers, I get the pull come late August.  It's always been an exciting time for those who enter the classroom because the teaching profession enjoys the luxury of starting over every year.  That little renewal is often what it takes to keep fresh, keep motivated, keep going.  The job itself is exhausting and predictable is the loss of anticipation and the subtle depression that slides in by late October. I continue to have school dreams too.  Most educators have them and even after retirement, they continue to surprise.  Last week I had two such dreams, the most significant being one where a class of seniors, feeling done, did not want to stick around so they slowly bit by bit exited the classroom.  I was powerless to do anything short of issuing threats, pleas, warnings, or immediate consequences.  Easy dream to interpret. Powerlessness figures heavily in educating another human being. My feeling is that this latest cluster of...

When all the "what was it like?" questions about the great pandemic of 2020 are asked I wonder how many will answer with only the physical conditions and ramifications.  The mental consequences are beginning to add up now.  People are depressed.  They are beginning to talk about their mental health freely.  Simply put, there is much to be depressed about.   Unforeseen was the fact that personal freedoms would collide so sharply with the good of the order.  There has emerged a basic misunderstanding about what exactly basic freedoms are, and how they manifest themselves in a democracy.  My first government teacher used to use the old cliche, "your rights end at the tip of your nose."  Simply put, your rights and freedoms are not absolute.  I supposed we could say that those rights end at the tip of your unmasked nose for some. One of the first things I learned to do when I taught seniors American Government was to draw a continuum with a ...