Pancakes, snow and art

Pancake breakfast season is upon us again. I wonder how many organizations I could name that do not have a pancake fundraiser. And, so, it was the Hudson High School Parent Teacher Organization's event yesterday. Laura and I were in the crowd.

A sign at the door announced all pancakes were gluten free. In addition, all pancakes were donated by the local Perkins Pancake franchise, as were the accompanying sausages. 

Factory pancakes, re-heated in a steam unit, served over two questionable sausages. At the table, imitation butter and syrup. But, the coffee was real, and my $16 probably is well spent. We left the deafening cafeteria for the quieter student art exhibit in the gym.

There was a lot of good art on display, but these bowls held my attention. My mother would have loved these. All those church bulletins and colorful magazine pages she could have kept from the landfill.

Perhaps in my dotage I will look into the rolled paper art form and make all presents in-house.

This structure is at the end of one of the exits of the high school, and is where I pick Laura up after school, if she needs picked up. They call it The Gazebo. Ours is not to question, etc. I liked the lace edging the melting snow commenced making.

This morning the snow on my neighbor's roof caught my eye. Each section of his tin roof is sending down a a distinct unit of snow.

A terrible analogy

Stronger folk than I demonstrate around the world, while my little stream of postcards flows to Washington, and potus throws out executive orders with sound and fury which, unfortunately, signify something. His is an ill-considered power move, an effort to be seen as powerful and effective out of the gate. 

Social media around the world, anyway that which I read, shows resistance large and small. How about America First, Netherlands Second. That’s a great set of buttons from a lot of countries. He does read polls, I hear, so every poll we answer may help. In small ways and big, just resist.

Back in the real world, Laura and I went shopping for a dress recently. For the next dance, of course. Miss leggings and flannel shirt seven days a week sure likes to dress up for a dance. Grandma fashion adviser thinks her build is more suited to straight lines than to layers of net and chiffon. No more pouf.

We sorted though half a dozen tall racks of dressy dresses. Most were floor length, so the hangers were over both our heads. Several trips to the dressing room later, I had two prime candidates over my arm, when we broke right out of the racks and straight into The Dress.

Like two kids. “I like that,” said Grandma. “I love that,” said Laura. “It needs a leather jacket,” said Grandma. This child has had a leather jacket on her wish list since forever. We added it to the purchase and headed to checkout. Her Christmas money was wiped out.

The dance was last night. We done good. Makes me almost remember being fifteen.

Lunch with Jeanette

I lived at the top of my old road for twenty eight years. Jeanette lived at the bottom most of her life. She called on the new owner of my old house and told her what to expect, and to be prepared to tell her if the mail has been delivered in the winter. Jeanette has a long lane and cannot see her mail box from her house.

Then Jeanette headed off for my house. The lovely new lady of the old house called and forewarned me. 

I like Jeanette. She's self entertaining; she talks all the time and seldom expects an answer. She had two invitations to lunch sponsored by the middle school (where Laura was just last year), and the person she always takes is feeling poorly, so, of course, "I thought of you right away." And off we went.

Heading to be served our Thanksgiving dinner. The little face over Jeanette's shoulder is leading us to the head of the line. I apologized to the youngster in red shoes for cutting in, and he said, "No, please, you go first."

The string ensemble played, and probably well, but could not be heard over the lunch room din.

My place mat. I considered obliterating the name at the bottom, but on consideration I think the lovely little saying may be one of those ubiquitous Irish proverbs, and is cited as Ireland, County Derry. If some parents with the surname of Derry chose to name a child Ireland, Hooray! I am descended from County Derry.

Jeanette's plate.

My plate. Same as above, without turkey, shredded, and dessert. From six o'clock around, one ice cream scoop of Stove Top stuffing, extra salt. That large, horrid canned corn. One melon scoop of sweet potatoes, extra sugar, oatmeal topping. One spoonful of apple pie filling. One serving of jellied cranberry sauce. One ice cream scoop of instant mashed potatoes, extra salt. I'm still waiting for the salt and preservative induced skull splitting headache to subside. 

We were constantly attended by seventh graders who wondered if the food was good and what did we have for family Thanksgiving. When their shift ended, they disappeared and were replaced by new caretakers. It was all too sweet, and Jeanette had someone to listen to her for an hour.

Jeanette's bumper sticker. She said once she got out of her car and found a perfectly coiffed and well dressed woman reading it. When Jeanette came back to her car, she found a dollar bill under her windshield wiper. It said: "I am rich, but I will help you." Jeanette pulled it out of her purse and showed me.

Saturday night, waiting for the band show to end

This year every child in the school system, from fifth grade up, was issued a Chrome Book. This is a little tablet sized computer that runs on Chrome. All communication, school work, assignments, announcements, occurs via Chrome Book. Emily worked for the school all summer, “enrolling” the several hundreds of Chrome Books required.

Of course, I discovered early on, the Chrome Books have no parental controls. I asked for them, as a condition of Chrome Book being used in this house. The request has caused a great deal of trouble between the system and me; it remains under “discussion and review”. I wonder if I’ve ever mentioned how I dislike doing business with the generations succeeding me.

Just as a check, I asked a parent in a different school system that also went to Chrome Book this year, if she realized there were no parental controls on the little darlings. After consideration she admitted she did not, but added her children were trustworthy.

My aunt’s fanny.

In this house I put up with its abuse for a week or so, and then installed my own parental control of removing it to the kitchen, its new home when it’s not going to school. And on the Monday I had a phone call from school—the previous Friday night, Chrome had attempted an unauthorized site. A red flag on Friday and I was notified on Monday!

The counselor got my ballistic best. As I later explained to Laura, I yelled at her counselor. “You yelled at Miss O?” Damn right I did. I understand my concern has moved up the agenda, but I have little expectation beyond my parental control of looking at the damn thing in the kitchen.

And, this started out to be a post about Laura’s dislike of electronic record keeping. We went shopping for a month at a glance calendar the second week of school. She likes to see her assignments, obligations, appointments in pencil, flat on her desk.

When we moved here last July, the grocery list moved from inside the pantry door to the kitchen table almost at once, and Laura keeps it constantly updated. This little notebook has so many pages gone to the grocery store I think a new little notebook will soon be on the list.

Even more than the grocery lists, I like the menu list. It lives on the kitchen table, too, and I’m never in doubt about my next meal.

Sales tax holiday

This is me, sitting on the relatively comfy seats in the shoe department,

waiting for the shoppers to return.

No, we're not buying shoes. It's just the only comfortable place to wait.

They have what they need to start school.

Noticing the obvious lack of socks and underpants, I did ask.

No, they have plenty.

Kinda funny, no? A good foundation and then some flashy colors, to face the world.

Off to pay the piper.

Two hundred dollars fit into one bag.

Paperwork

Returning a child to school these days involves a tree’s worth of paperwork. It is good the initial ten pages with basic information now come home in preprinted form, asking me to only make corrections. Ten pages is no exaggeration; each child is documented down to medications and third and fourth alternate adults who may remove the child from school.

Then come dribbling home individual teacher missives, telling me what my child will be taught that year, how often the teacher will be in contact with me by email, reminding me of assignments due from my child, and generally including a “contract” for the year, pledging among all of us to be in our best learning mode and behaving always appropriately, to be signed by both my child and myself.

Have your toes curled yet?

Emily brought home two more forms to go back tomorrow. One is to participate in a research study being conducted by a Dr. of her subject and a recent graduate of Emily’s school, now at Kent State University. Its title is “Teaching and Learning Experiences in a Service Learning Classroom.”  

Part of the curriculum of Emily’s high school is community service, and she is participating in hers by assisting in an elementary school class room two days a week.  The study seems a little hokey to me, but, then, I’m not the expert; the form will go back, signed.

The top form is one on which I can have an opinion, and it is a mixture of howling laughter and complete disgust. I cannot imagine such a missive in the hands of my parents back in 1960. Actually, I would have been ashamed to give it to my father, who scrabbled together enough money in the thirties to give himself two years of college education, crammed into the space of twelve months. He ran out of money and went back to work.

My parents were willing to send me to college; being accepted into a college was up to me. I asked several teachers for letters of recommendation to enclose with my application and my essay, and that was the end.  There was an application fee even back then, and my mother wrote out the check with her pearl handled pen and gave it to me for the envelope.

I don’t know why this request bothers me so, but it does. Perhaps I could ignore it, but Emily, and the school, expect it back. What happens? I envision form letters spewed out, my adjectives, adverbs and even paragraphs, inserted at appropriate places. Are teachers no less observant now than fifty odd years ago? Do they draw the grades they assign from a bingo cage, having never observed the student? Of course not.

What great educational principle have I missed in the years since I started college that I have this piece of paper on my desk, to fill out and return?

Almost back to normal

Laura and her friend Gia, on the way to the 7th grade dance last night.

Emily and some of her gang,

off to the high school dance tonight.

Grandma and Aunt Linda back from Boiling Springs this afternoon.

More on that another day.

Today I must be awake enough at eleven to get Emily from the dance.

Not the NFL, but…

Emily came in from school Tuesday and showed me her finger. The middle one.  She and her friends had hugged goodbye and were moving toward school busses. She hangs with an extraordinary bunch of huggers! A girl Emily knows from band asked for a hug, too. Moving in the line into the bus, Emily said no and the girl aimed a kick that Emily deflected with her hand. Bent the middle finger right back, Emily said.

Dr. Grandma diagnosed a well stoved finger. In addition to ice, we rounded up a finger splint so old the foam had dried and fallen away. The splint was resuscitated and applied, and I told Emily to go to the school nurse the next day and report the injury.

The report I received from Emily when she came in Wednesday night was completely unexpected. The nurse offered her pain meds and sent her along. She had a test in another class, explained her problem to the teacher and was told to do her best, writing with the injured digit. The same thing happened in another class.  In spite of complete information on the cause of the injury, three teachers and the nurse took a pass.

School is closed for the day by the time these end of the liners get off the bus. I knew I would be making a phone call first thing Thursday morning, but gave school a last chance. Emily had band practice Wednesday night and I told her to tell the band director, who had not been there during the day. The band director (you remember her!) sent Emily along, telling her she could just march with her flute at the game Friday.

Thursday morning I was on the school website looking for a counselor to call when I received a call from a principal. Emily had just left his office; her friends had convinced her she was doing all the heavy lifting over a damaged finger that wasn't her fault, she must see the principal.

The principal told me the staff involved would be retrained, the other girl would be disciplined and Emily should report any incidents in future to his office, even if it meant missing the school bus home. I told the principal I considered Emily’s teachers her first line of defense; I was not happy they did not come to her aid.

Emily filled in the details Thursday night. The other girl received two days in-school suspension and must play her instrument from the sidelines while the band marches at halftime tonight. Apparently playing your instrument from the sidelines with the band on the field is a mark of shame.

We saw the doctor today; x-rays show no break. Ice and routine finger flexing and a supporting splint is the protocol for recovery. Sadly, well stoved fingers recover slowly, and Emily will be paying the flute playing and class note and test taking price for some time.

I stopped at the drugstore tonight after I dropped Emily and Joe off to march at the football game and got her a new splint for the homecoming dance tomorrow.

A Jaguar followed us on the way home

XP, that is. Seventy five grand or so. Right out of Hudson into shabby little Boston. We admired and speculated. Perhaps he’s going to ---. Maybe he’s on vacation. But we turned onto our street and it kept on going. Just passing through.

This morning we registered Laura for seventh grade. She stood in the biometrics line and I turned in paperwork.  “How did you get roped into this?” the registrar asked me. I smiled, we shuffled the papers and I signed right under my 2013 signature that I was turning the kid in for another year. “Oh, you own them!” she smiled. “Well, have a good year.”

At the high school all this registration business seems to happen off stage. I filled out all the same paper work for Emily (name of student, medical issues, internet policy, bla, bla, bla) and gave her the packet to deal with on day one. Including the change in biometrics.

I rejoined Laura in the biometrics line, almost behind my skippy young band mother and her Liam, the other seventh grade trumpet player. We exchanged notes for the killer week upcoming—practice tomorrow, high school band show Saturday, concert on the Green on Sunday, and (from the ridiculous to the sublime), performing at the new teacher orientation at 7:45 Monday. A.M., that is. Leave here at seven A.M. I don’t have an alarm clock for six o’clock! No nap between, I must bring everyone home. My young band mother teaches in another school district.

In spite of being fingerprinted, the biometric system did not work for any of my three students over the last two years. Like most everyone else, the “read” failed, they keyed their student number and took their lunch tray to the tables. My self that despises stupidity will not even comment.

When we reached the scanning station Laura put down her writing hand fingers on the pad. “Ooo, lovely; don’t rob a bank,” said the lunch lady. I’m going to guess there are one thousand students in this school. There were exactly two blue refusal envelopes on the table, half way through day one of two registration days.

I've tried to help these children reason for themselves, and this biometric business has been a topic. From Hamilton on down, they simply do not have the same view of privacy as I do. Being fingerprinted for lunch and all eternity is of little concern. I suppose Google already has measured their eyeballs; what’s my problem.

In case you have not been in a middle school of late, registering a child, here’s what it looks like. Without the noise (I would be mad before lunch!).

The biometrics line. It could be any line.

Just joining the picture line. Laura in a blue shirt.

Please do not miss the pink tutu over grey gym shorts. And her doll.

Little sisters!

What boys do.

The ball in the disembodied hands at left is about to be tossed to the fellow on top.

(Please don't let it be for the red shirted kid.)

Perhaps I should read the book

Laura’s sixth grade class read The Breadwinner over the semester. When she began talking about it I took an internet look. It’s set in Afghanistan, the story of first one, then two little girls trying to earn enough to provide daily sustenance to the family.

When I was twelve, as she is, I had as much as I could about the war, its heroes and its atrocities. Amazing the books on hand in homes where I babysat. Imagining much of what I read simply terrified me. I doubt my parents would have approved. I kept track of Laura’s progress in the book; we listened at supper of the current events of Parvana and Shauzia.

Laura did not seem to engage with the book. She had the facts at hand, but she was not living in the pages, relating to the lives of the characters. She and her siblings have devoured every fantasy book published, before and after Harry Potter; I hear enthusiasm when those characters are discussed.

I tried to nudge her into understanding the lives she was reading about. “Wouldn't it be frightening to have police come in and take away someone? What if your brother was taken away and we didn't know where or why?” She evaluated this a moment and said yes, Parvana was very frightened, but not with the conviction of understanding.

She is only twelve years old, and a voracious reader. I know some day the world will leap off a page for her. In the meantime, she’d rather spend her time designing and drawing “fashion.” One day she announced she had been selected to paint the ceiling tile, and she needed a ride home from school. The tile was too big to get on the bus.

Apparently there are many painted tiles on the social studies ceiling; each year a student is selected to illustrate the book the class read. We brought the tile home last week; Laura set up in the barn workshop and painted the scene she selected. I took the tile back to school today and a janitor met me in the parking lot. “Oh, Mr. Hildebrand’s room,” he said and took it away.

Madness

My pocket rang today, and when I pulled out the phone it was an emergency number I recognized from last year. 411-0000. Trouble. It was the high school calling to report they had just gone from lockdown to educational lockdown.  That meant the children were no longer hiding out of line of sight in the room, but continuing their class behind locked doors, while the police investigated a suspicious person report.

There was no notice of lockdown; why tell me it was lifted. Oh, I forgot all the busy thumbs notifying parents from behind overturned desks, they were in lockdown.

A year ago, the day before Christmas break, a man in a black trench coat, umbrella over his shoulder, prompted lockdown. Emily said that one seemed like a drill; they sat at their desks and waited for the all clear.

Since last year the school has a policy of all doors locked during school hours. Today’s lock down was for a man in a black trench coat and a ski mask, looking for a way in. Point of information: it probably was five degrees out when a student spotted the man outside, and notified the office.

Emily reported she was in Spanish class, in the wing where the person was seen outside. They piled desks against the door. The teacher wrapped a student’s belt around the door and held it in case the lock failed. The students armed themselves with books to throw and scissors, in case their defenses were breached.

The students were frightened. It was not like a drill. Emily was excused from her history test the next period, she was too distracted. She and another student stood down a blasé classroom contingent that wanted to leave before the all clear was given.

I’m not second guessing anyone; this probably is the Chicken Little world of the future. It was the video man, coming to set up a student project. Perhaps he wasn't told which door to use. Perhaps he was only walking to the correct door. Perhaps the office could have located him outside the building and asked his business before they pushed the panic button under the desk.

On the other hand, the school was reacting to every possible consequence, not the least of which was the drama being punched into cell phones by a thousand or two busy thumbs, notifying the world that, OMG, a man in a black trench coat and ski mask is walking around outside the building. So, kudos to the students, the teachers and the police who passed lockdown 101. I think the administration might augment their locked door policy with a common sense rider: Notify the office of all anticipated visitors.

It was much simpler when we knelt in the halls, protected our heads with our arms, and went home to report a bomb drill that day.

Not a black trenchcoat

Some controls are in order. Perhaps a double blind?

Science Fair, as it has been co-opted by the STEM faction, has come and gone again this year, mostly. My memory of last year is the judges went to lunch and forgot to dismiss Emily’s group until some old grandma went into the hall and asked when these children would be allowed to eat.

I have an additional memory of last year’s STEM fair. Emily emerged from her first of many meetings saying she was partnering with a student who was a sophomore, and their project was whatever it was. Then the older girl dumped her, on the advice of her mother, for the possibility that Emily might turn out to be unreliable. Emily got through a project, and boy, did we both learn STEM is about far more than tri-fold boards.

Emily and Hamilton both had STEM fair requirements this year, so off we went to the first meeting. I had just read an article about the uptake of arsenic in rice, especially in the more “naturally” produced rices and very especially in baby cereals marketed as “natural.”  Sadly I had not read enough scientific articles to toss an idea to Hamilton on the ride to school, but he did OK on his own.

In a crazy and noisy STEM meeting that first night I found a bench in the hall and my two melted into the wild and undulating crowd of students meeting advisers, arranging labs, having biological hazards assessed (give me a break!). Emily and Hamilton emerged unscathed and approved, and Emily had a tiny girl in tow. “Grandma, this is Angela. She’s a freshman. We’re a team.”

And they were. Angela is a petite ninth grader, and although she has an older brother in high school, she was as overwhelmed as Emily the previous year.  So, Angela and Emily set out to expose rice to the world. From their abstract: “People generally don’t know what is in the food they are eating. A person could cook a whole meal and not even know there is a possibility of traces of poison being in their food.”

The chemistry teacher provided test strips, Angela bought a bag of brown rice and a box of Minute Rice, Emily rode Angela’s bus to Angela’s house many Friday nights, and Grandma took Hamilton along to find Angela’s house in the dark, before Grandma got new eyes. The intrepid young ladies experimented away in Angela’s basement, and wrote a paper, with surprisingly few grammatical errors, considering neither would consider a career in the English language.

From time to time I asked how the great rice project progressed; the general response was I did not want to know. The mistakes were legion; there was no time to start over. They still called it the great arsenic in rice project, while privately conceding they had no controls in place, not even knowledge of the origin or processing of their rice samples. So, they forged on.

Science Fair was the first of February. Once again Emily was not dismissed on time; she and Angela were held over for the award ceremony and promotion to the next competition level, in March.

The team demonstrated for the judges that brown rice has an average of 4 parts per billion of arsenic, white rice 6 ppb and tap water an average of 2 ppb. Again from the abstract, “It is possible, however, that the researchers went wrong in there (sic) experiment by adding unknown variables, reading the data wrong, or simply making human mistakes as they worked. So, while these results are helpful, a person must take into account the likelihood of human mistakes being present, and the data being wrong.”

Now we’ll see when the wheels fall off. “At least,” Emily said, “we’re out of test strips!” Their project featured an on the spot demonstration of test strips and arsenic in water. “Except we used well water from our house, and it had much more arsenic than the rice or Angela’s water. But don’t worry, Grandma. It’s still safe!”

Relentless winter

Only three weeks ago the Polar Inversion struck.

Children from the Mississippi to the Atlantic had no school.

These children, like most, had been off two weeks for winter break

And were bored to potholders by two more days.

It ended, they went back to school.

Toby was grateful.

He has certain duties,

Like watching for children to come home. 

Winter has not improved these last three weeks.

If it's zero in the morning they walk to the bus stop.

That way they will have uphill both ways stories to tell the next generation.

If it's below zero, Uncle Tom throws them in a vehicle to go and wait for the bus.

Temperatures the coming week are going even lower; the school has already notified us they may close Tuesday.

The forecast is minus ten at bus time.

At this moment we are under a Level I Winter Storm Warning.

That means, "We told you to stay off the roads".

This is my north facing bedroom window. 

Weather seldom affects it.

It stays open all summer, even through severe rain storms.

It's quite a snow event today; my window screen is caked with driven snow.

It's fifteen feet to the ground from the deck, and prudent to remove the snow's weight.

It's wonderful to have children to move it.

While you're booted and gloved up, might as well get the feeders filled.

Watching her come across the yard,

A line from an old hymn came to mind.

"Bringing in the sheaves. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves"

I doubt the birds rejoice when the refilled sheaves are returned.

Our wonderful flying pigs expect them.

Watching cardinals, blue jays, self important little juncos, sparrows, tufted titmouse, woodpeckers, finches among the bare oak branches makes me smile.

As does the janitorial staff on clean up, the squirrels and the doves gleaning fallen seeds.

Supervisors, both of filling the feeders

And of watching the birds, out the windows.

I need to go to work today, get ready for the bi-annual audit that begins next Tuesday.

But, although I like audits (I do!), I'm not about to inch my car up our hill and back down in the valley. And back home.

I'll go tomorrow.

Today I'll continue the saga of Hamilton's glasses.

The optometrist had no frames to fit the lens. 

My optometrist of twenty five years thought she might be able to cobble the frame together with superglue.

It turned out, now the lens is quite out, it will never go back. 

This lens is bigger than the frame. Its pressure eventually overcame the frame.

Too boot, the other lens is smaller than the frame and was glued in.

This could have been a separate rant, but it's just a post script.

A sad note about the power of insurance companies to take my son-in-law's premiums,

Offer me very, very few options for using the insurance

And costing me literally hundreds and hundreds of dollars to rectify the errors and shortcomings of the providers.

This is not the result of the ACA. This insurance existed before the ACA; made reform such as the ACA necessary, and continues to accumulate the industry's wealth one premium at a time.

The optometrist read the lens, but cannot make new lenses without a prescription or an ophthalmologist's sign off. She could not slip a note through to my ophthalmologist yesterday, due to his patient load.

When I see him Monday for my own follow up, I'll see if duplicate lenses are a go.

Since Hamilton is not yet 18 the optometrist could put the order through on their "juvenile scale" and deliver the new pair for around two hundred dollars, not three. 

I am so grateful to have a job.

I love school

All settled in for another evening's work.

Carpooling

Emily and Hamilton are in marching band.  Laura, the little trumpeter, will be there in three years.  My future is before my eyes, and clear as light. 

After band camp, before school began, Emily and Hamilton had six to nine p.m. marching band practice twice a week.  School is in session, they practice one night a week.  And play at the game on Friday night.  And do a fundraiser or a band show on weekends.  I see two Saturdays of my September calendar already marked Band.

One of those first band practices in August I pulled left out of my street onto the road and started on the twelve mile trip to the high school.  The band director demands everyone seated, instrument checked, warmed up, ten minutes before six.  The four hundred youngsters move quickly enough, I’m sure; nevertheless, it is the equivalent of moving a small battalion.  Compound that with twelve miles of going home traffic, and parents from our end of town are on the road about five fifteen.

I fell into line that August night, behind a nice BMW sports utility vehicle and we were on the way.  Slowly.  I could read the ubiquitous white oval bumper sticker on the BMW.  Loud is Good. The motto of their marching band.

“Emily! Hamilton! That’s a band car AHEAD of us!”  No place for it to have come from except the next street south, the new housing development in the greedy city down the road.  We could see a head in the passenger seat, and as we rounded the first corner Emily made out it was a boy’s head.

They spent the rest of the trip eliminating all the boys they know on their school bus until they settled on the really quiet one whose name they did not know, with the chatty little brother named Liam.  Frankly I was disappointed in Emily, who knows EVERYONE.

I rudely stuck to that car like glue, through traffic lights and left hand turns.  No one was coming between us.  I know how fast parents drop off kids at the curb and leave.  There was no possibility I could sprint an extra car length to that car.  Before my crew had opened their doors I slammed the car into park and was out mine.  The band mom in the BMW didn’t have a chance.

“Hello.  I live one street north of you.  Are you interested in carpooling?”

She found a scrap of paper and scribbled her name and phone number.  I told her my name and said I would call her next day.

It’s a partnership made in heaven.  I take them.  She brings them home.  She’s a skippy young mother who also teaches school in another district.  Getting her son there on time would be a problem.  I’m an old grandma who does not care to drive at night.  I can see this relationship not ending until Liam and Laura graduate.

The rock remains

I had opportunity to go by my first school this week, Forest Hill elementary, so I took my camera.  I wanted to see if the rock was still there.

This is the school I went to.  Built in 1926, with art deco embellishments on the building that recognized the Indian trail portaging between the Cuyahoga and Tuscaroras Rivers. 

The City of Akron was able to pass a massive bond issue for the purpose of rebuilding many old Akron schools, Forest Hill among them.  In my childhood my school was on the front half of a city block, the play area on the back half.

The new school was built on the back half of the property, where the rock resided.   This is the new school.   I understand some of the art deco is featured inside the building.

The rock remains.  In my day it was closer to the intersection at the corner of the streets; we could squeeze through the fence at the corner to have a go at the rock during the summer time, too.  We spent hours with a small stone and a tin can, chipping gold off the rock.

The school still faces the same direction; the rock remains behind the school.  Now the half a city block playground in front is entirely surrounded by high mesh fencing, with one gate into the parking lot and the main access through the school proper. 

We walked around the school on the city sidewalks to reach the stone.  Hamilton and Emily were on my original errand, so they were treated to grandma’s elementary school before they reached home.  As I walked along I realized the concrete pad bordering the sidewalk was the pad for the playground fence, once.  There were post holes, filled in with dirt, I guess, all along the pad.

There were names traced in formerly fresh concrete in several of the pads and we could make out most of them.  Here we have Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro and Andrea.  I wonder if Joseph/Fidel was in love with Andrea, or if she were a partner in crime.  May be the later; she didn’t use her last name. Such graffiti was way after my time; no one knew Fidel Castro’s name when I went to Forest Hill.  Even the sixth grade boys weren’t brave enough to write in wet concrete in the 1940’s.

The old trees remain.  They aren’t on the playground; no one plays under them these days.  But, like the rock, they remain.

Grade inflation

Many years ago I went back to school to become an accountant and earn more money. I needed to feed two children, keep them housed and clothed.  Mastering a profession seemed sensible, so I went back to the halls of ivy.  Actually, a beautiful little undergraduate college, Lake Erie College in Painesville. 

This was in the late seventies, I was in my mid thirties and an anomaly.   I convinced the administration to give me a degree based only on taking core courses.  I already had undergraduate and graduate degrees in English and didn’t have time to sit their requirements too! Toward June, after I had completed the accounting requirements I received a cap and gown order form in the mail.  I wrote back to mail me the degree and the dean was so surprised he called me.  I explained I’d been through the ceremony before and couldn’t see taking a day off work.  “Oh,” he said, and mailed it.

I took evening classes, summer classes, weekend classes, and this yielded an interesting assortment of teachers.  Summer professors especially might be from other schools, taking on a part time assignment. I remember a macro economics prof as if it were yesterday.

Very short, very stocky, from Boston.  He looked like a fisherman.  He dressed like a fisherman.  Dark khaki pants, a motley blue fisherman style pullover sweater, a rib knit stocking cap he never took off, heavy boots.  In my mind’s eye I associate a red bandana with him, too; pocket or neck, I don’t remember.  There were no “r’s” in his words and he compensated with attitude.  Instead of the usual desk chair at the front of the room he sat on a high stool beside the desk and lectured.

His was a six week summer course and he immediately assigned an essay to be completed and turned in at the end as our final grade.  He gave some general requirements; I knew exactly what I would write about and started my research.  The year was 1977, the country was suffering a gasoline crisis due to the Arab oil embargo.    Conserving and recycling already were hot subjects and I thought it was time to put one of my pet ideas on paper.

The idea was people should be able to ride bicycles safely, to work, to shop, for recreation.  I wanted bicycle roads built using abandoned rail ways, and extended into city centers.  I located rail lines that could be used. I calculated oil savings that would put OPEC right out of business, in addition to making us a healthy nation.  It was a very good paper and I was quite proud of it.

The dour little professor returned our papers the last night of class.  Mine was on top and had a very large C+ scrawled across the front page in red ink.  He held it high for all the room to see.  He went on, “Grade inflation is epidemic in American colleges and universities.  I am taking a stand against it.  In any college, including Boston University, where I teach, this paper would be graded A+.  Twenty years ago this paper would have received a C for average.  I am very generous in giving it a C+.” 

He walked about putting papers on desks.  Each subsequent grade was lower than mine.  The bastard.

Where I cribbed the cartoon