"The life of every man is just a diary in which he means to write one story and write's another."
---J.M. Barrie
1 Funny how sometimes we find ourselves awake at odd hours, especially during the clove of seasons. With the rains and the ending of summer comes a curious combination of mugginess and cool weather.
2 I get into these sleep patterns that sometimes find me awakening to the blowing of a fan at all hours of the night.
3 I usually make my way to a computer, or maybe an old movie, or perhaps both.
4 The night before last Casablanca came on. I didn't really watch it, but it provided a nice light for goofing around on the computer.
5 I've been studying Columbus because the lit book we use in class has this passage from the journal of his first voyage. It has him peacefully making friends with the Native Americans, which paints a rather rosy picture of when he accidentally bumped his head on a cocoanut tree in the Bahamas.
6 It was interesting reading, but I turned the page to see if we could perhaps catch that lovely little moment that billions of Europeans have declared the "discovery" of America from the perspective of the people who had already been living there for thousands of years.
7 They must have felt the same way we would feel if we got invaded my Martians.
8 To my amazement, there was absolutely nothing in the book having to do with the genocide and extermination of the Taino nation. So I've been spending a lot of spare time discovering America myself.
9 It's absolutely fascinating. Not really stuff we want to see, but pretty eye-opening, what with Columbus Day coming up this week.
10 I won't bother y'all with the details, because they are almost beyond polite discussion.
11 Two summers ago I wandered into this lodge at Meek's Bay in Tahoe. Meek's Bay was founded by the Washoe Indians, and the lodge has a classic store with wooden floors, small souvenir racks, a lunch counter, and an old ice container filled ice cold bottles of soda pop.
12 It was in that store that I saw a T-Shirt that had a picture of some Native Americans with the slogan: Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorism Since 1492. I thought it was a great shirt. The entire lodge devoted itself to Native American items.
Here is a picture of the picture that was on that shirt:
13 That shirt said more about Columbus than our entire American Lit book, which seems to be filled with horseshit and turkey feathers.
14 So I'll leave it at that. For the record, you owe it to yourself to read some of that fascinating history. Much of the information came to us from a priest named Bartholomew de las Casas, as well as from some of Columbus' own men. 1492 was really the official grand opening of slavery and conquest in America.
15 Sometimes as a teacher you have to lift a rock simply to see what sorts of things might come crawling out from underneath. Anyway, it truly is a troubling yet fascinating history.
16 As I said, it isn't something I particularly want to crusade about but it certainly is worth researching. You should, as it is as interesting as it is a sobering reflection. Just amazing.
17 Moving On: There's an old movie on right now called Cheers for Miss Bishop featuring Martha Scott and William Gargan. It's about a Midwstern schoolteacher who devotes 50 years of her life to her students. Low budget but perfect for the Sunday morning red-eye..
18 It is also working as a bit of a lamp in the middle of the night, but it has some great scenes. It moves from her initial job interview, through her walking alone among desks before her first class ever, and a great moment a few years later where she asks a guy to tell the class what a transitive verb is.
19 There's an entire story of how every year when I would teach transitive verbs, that Ponch would wander into my class, always with disruption in mind. We had a pre-planned dialogue in which he would ask, "So, and what are we learning today?"
20 And I would always offer, "Why, we're learning about transitive and intransitive verbs."
21 This would always result in his taking over the class, telling them about how he almost had a job that would pay six figures, but at the last minute, the interviewer would turn to him and say this: "Well it certainly seems that your resume' is in perfect order. We are on the very brink of hiring you, but we have one last question before taking you on board.
22 "Do you know what a transitive verb is?"
23 He would then talk about how he should have paid attention when his teacher was explaining this vital link to future success. Instead, he decided to daydream that one fateful day that it was being taught, and it cost him major success.
24 And so he became a teacher instead.
25 Miss Bishop has just come from her retirement dinner at age 70. She's now apparently dying, but her last words in the film are, "...all the time in the world.." Mind you I'm in the present tense right now because I'm watching this two night's ago in order to get the beat on this morning's DN. Make sense?
26 The film is over. There are TMC commercials for other old dusty films, including Anna Karenina and Romeo and Juliet. But before that, there is a short from a series called Crime Does Not Pay.
27 Probably a good time to turn out the lights and get some sleep. This piffle goes out on Monday morning and it's Sunday morning as I write, 4:40 a.m. Probably a good idea to get some shut eye. I have to think that today is actually Monday. It's a time-management thing.
28 I need to be fresh as a daisy today, as I manage to do every Monday.
29 Well, enjoy your day. Enjoy the wet weather. Read up a little history. Think of some teacher you had. Watch an old movie.
30 Fly low.
31 Peace.
"The life of every man is just a diary in which he means to write one story and write's another."---J.M. Barrie
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