May 16, 2013
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The Daily News
The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down
You can’t let go and you can’t hold on
You can’t go back and you can’t stand still
If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will.
—Robert Hunter
1 Great song.
2 It was written by the venerable Robert Hunter.
3 Sorry kids. It was NOT written by John Mayer, although at least three internet lyric sites stake that claim.
4 I’m thinking about throwing a bunch of boushit out there into the digital cosmos just to see how many idiots would see it as Truth.
5 Something like this might work: In 1962, President John F. Kennedy fired Vice President Lyndon Johnson over a dairy scam, and hired Jerry Mathers as his new VP. Mathers as most people know, was that laughable, spankable Beaver Cleaver in the television series Leave it to Beaver. Few people know that he went on to become JFK’s right-hand man.
6 Anybody looking?
7 The Wheel. What a great tune. It was played at Jerry Garcia’s funereal celebration in Golden Gate Park about a bajillion years ago.
8 Hey, it’s Dead week. A little bit of Deadly trivia never hurt anybody.
9 If you recalI, I started this year off with The Dead’s Uncle John’s Band.
10 Why not end it with the same guys?
11 Somebody somewhere already ended the year prematurely anyway.
12 Anybody looking?
13 Here’s a bit more:
Won’t you try just a little bit harder
Couldn’t you try just a little bit more?
Won’t you try just a little bit harder
Couldn’t you try just a little bit more?
Round, round robin run aroundGotta get back where you belong
Little bit harder just a little bit more
Little bit further than you gone before
14 Fun stuff.
15 Three websites have John Mayer as the lyricist. Jerry Mathers and Bill Kreutzmann evidently wrote the music.
16 There’s a reason I have a job.
17 Moving on, Part the First: I started writing this folderol at precisely two a.m. It was, of course, totally different.
18 I was asleep.
19 I awakened to a blank entry.
20 So I did what any normal, red-blooded American would do.
21 I went back to sleep and hoped it would write itself.
22 I awakened a half hour later thinking that the task had finished itself.
24
25 I missed the meeting yesterday. I felt a little woozy.
26 Anybody looking?
27 I also had a TON of work to get done, not the least of which was emailing parents, running off study guides for finals, and slamming Crystal Light and chewing down spoonfuls of Nutella.
28 Yummy.
29 Space food.
30 Dust and chemicals. Always a good glue.
31 Moving on, Part Two: I had to allow time yesterday for passing back the sixteen-thousand sheets of paper I had graded. I put on some Jack Johnson mix which made the whole thing go sweetly. A couple of students in my Disney class asked if they could go into the staff lounge next to my room so that they could study for finals. Despite all the attacks on our staff in the last few days, I allowed it. Nobody is ever in that room during class, and people on our floor let students do that all the time.
32 I opened the door and let them in. They all joined in thanking me, and telling me I was the best teacher ever.
33 I sometimes think that I could point to any teacher in my building and say that they are the best teacher ever.
34 We have an excellent staff at our school, despite what the lunatics think.
35 AnywayZ…
36 It’s “anyway” dude, just for the record.
37 AnywayZ…
38 I went back into my classroom and watched the paper-passing back in full swing. The lights were ambient and Starbucksy, and the atmosphere very friendly and loose.
39 I noticed that I still had a ladder in my classroom. I had gotten it from the selfsame room next door.
40 I used it to let students hang their Renaissance masks on the walls.
41 I thought of the students in the teachers’ lounge next door, and decided to bring the ladder back into the room and check on them at the same time.
42 I took the ladder down, swung it over my shoulder and walked to the teachers’ lounge.
43 The students were quietly studying. I said, “It’s just me. I’m returning this ladder to the room. Keep studying.”
44 One girl looked up, all ears and braces, smiled and asked, “Is that where teachers go to get high Mr. H?” She stared at the top of the ladder.
45
46 Hilarious.
47 I said pointedly, “We don’t do THAT!”
48 I am a punster. I do puns all the time. I always tell my students, “Sorry, sorry. I’ll never do that again.” But I always do it.
49 It’s my personal form of Tourrette’s. Did I spell that correctly?
50 Anybody looking?
51 Dead Week. I wonder if they ever did anything in A-flat minor. Unfamiliar with that key? Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I’ll show you A-flat minor.
52 Hope you don’t mind my having a little pun at your expense.
53 It is into the 5 a.m. and I think this is a good time for me to get outta here.
54 I’ll see you again.
55 Gottago. Fly low. Happy Dead Week.
56 Peace.
~H~
www.xanga.com/bharrington
Small wheel turning by the fire and rod
Big wheel turning by the grace of God
Every time that wheel turn round
Bound to cover just a little more ground
