Ice Skates

Although I stop short of saying that I grew up poor, it is true that my family did not have money.  We had the essentials, and we kids presented ourselves at school as clean and decently dressed.  As a kid, I never wanted for anything.  Except maybe a pony, of course.  I was thinking about this today as I recalled that everyone I knew, including me, had ice skates.  And a sled.  We baby boomers were geared for winter.

So, I'm guessing that I got my last pair of ice skates when my feet had grown as much as they were going to grow, most likely, when I was twelve.  That would have been 1962.  And here are the skates that I use today:

Yes.  They are the same skates.  Not only that, those are the same wool skating socks.  Do the math:  these items are over fifty years old!  Yes, the black pompoms with jingle bells are that old, too.

Several years ago, I treated myself to a new pair of skates from L.L. Bean.  But I just couldn't get used to them.  I kept going back to the old skates.  It was nice to have an extra pair of skates on hand for my kids' friends who had never found a pair of skates under their Christmas trees.  (And I still have those L.L. Bean skates, if you want to visit me in wintertime.)

This morning, I woke up in Saratoga Springs to a temperature of minus five degrees.  By the time my hosts and I had finished eating breakfast, it was a balmy seven degrees.  Time to ice skate!  The pond just beyond their back yard had been cleared by Ruth, chef and baker extraordinaire (along with her many other talents).  A casual walk on a snowy path dropped us off on the frozen pond.  I laced up my antique skates and took to the ice.

I've always known that the first ten minutes of skating are the worst.  My ankles want to collapse.  But I also know that if I hang in there, the pain will subside, and I will skate better and better each time around the pond.  Despite the cold, that is exactly what happened.  We skated until my toes began screaming Frostbite!  Frostbite! and we retreated to the house.  I was happy with the exercise, in love with my very old but reliable ice skates.

Another Brick in the Wall

Of course, you all recognize that title from Pink Floyd's The Wall.  As someone whose career involved the teaching of English, I never liked the double negative in the song's signature line, We don't need no education.  Nevertheless, as a protest song against rigid schooling, it had my attention.

The Wall was issued in 1979.  As I remember, the late 70s were a pretty good time for education, at least in these parts.  Where education is today?  Not so good.  (At least, in my opinion.)

Today, I drove my visiting son up to Burlington, Vermont, so that he could reunite with some college buddies and do some skiing.  On the drive back, I stopped in Saratoga Springs for a visit with some dear friends.  I met George forty years ago when we were teaching in the same school district.  Ruth joined us a couple of years later.  During and after an absolutely lovely dinner, we talked a lot about the good old days when we were all members of the English Department, with George at the helm as department chair.  At the risk of sounding cliche, those were the good old days.  We were the ones who decided what we were going to teach, unlike today, when curricula is dictated by companies who reap profit from telling public schools what to do.  We took care of one another, we supported and inspired one another, we learned from one another.  And our students benefited from that homespun connectivity.  I happen to be friends with many of those former students on social media, and they seem to have turned out quite well, despite the lack of interference from bureaucracy during their education.

So what happened?  Why did things change so drastically?  I could offer some hypotheses, but they would be political, and I don't want to go there in this blog.  Urban Dictionary defines another brick in the wall this way:  An event that has caused you to become more alienated and distant with something.  Well, that seems to describe education these days, I think.

But I'm looking at another definition, an opposite definition.  I'm thinking of bricks labeled poetry, art, music, philosophy, literature, humanism, compassion, kindness, peace.  I'm laying out those bricks to form a foundation.  From there, students are free to create a life, not a wall.  It worked at one time; why can't it work now?

I will never be able to wrap my head around what has happened to education, but I will always be in love with the idea of educating:  laying a foundation of good things from which people can create and share and inspire.  If only it were still true.

Vision

Sam and I had eye exams today.  My eyes were dilated, and it's still hard to focus on this computer screen, so this post might be brief.  We both checked out well, which is always a relief.  I mean, who knows what could be found with all those optical machines and prisms and scalpels?  Okay, there weren't any scalpels, but a good vision exam can still be scary.

I got my first pair of glasses when I was in third grade.  It's no fun at all being a little kid and having to wear glasses.  Especially if you happen to be smart.  And to make matters worse, my glasses frames were a weird color pink.  I envied my best friend's glasses, which were blue.  (Those were pretty much the only choices then, blue or pink.)  By high school, I had brown frames, but having to wear glasses as a teenager proved to be even worse than wearing them as a child.  Making out with boys was beyond awkward.  Enough said.

I began an exercise in subterfuge, breaking my glasses in many different ways, thinking that eventually, my parents would tire of replacing them and allow me to get contact lenses.  That didn't happen until I was 17, and there was a caveat.  I could get contact lenses only if I agreed to enter the local beauty contest.  Trust me, I was no beauty queen, but I would do anything to be rid of the hated glasses.  My acquiescence proved to be too easy.  My parents also held the procurement of my driving permit over my head.  Again, I agreed to the humiliation of parading myself in front of the judges.  And I was wearing contact lenses when I did.  And the next day, I got my permit.

And then 35 years of the painful experience of getting dust or dirt or sand in my eyes ensued.  By the time I was 50, I would come home from work and tear the horrid lenses out of my eyes and rub them to death.  At 51, I gathered all my courage and got Lasik surgery.

Like a successful hemorrhoidectomy, Lasik surgery is nothing short of a miracle.  It's been 13 years of 20/20 vision.

I can see clearly now sang Johnny Nash, Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley.  (Love that song.)  Vision is a wonderful thing.  I am in love with my 20/20 rating.  And I am hopeful that I have vision that pertains to something beyond the performance of my eyes.

Cash

How much cash do you have in your wallet?  If you're one of my kids, the answer is "None."  Increasingly, cash is becoming a relic of the past.  Debit and credit cards have replaced the greenbacks.  I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.  I suppose it's a little of both.

I was 34 before I could get a credit card.  And that was only because I was added to my 27-year-old husband's credit card account.  I'd had a full-time job since I was 22, no debt, and no criminal history.  So why was I unable to get a credit card on my own?  Sexism, pure and simple.  Nonetheless, I have maintained that same credit card account since 1984, and it is the only one I own.  And then last week, someone used it to go on a few cab rides in NYC and eat a couple of Happy Meals at Ronnie D's.  Today is Day #6 of the 5 - 7 day window for my new card to arrive in the mail.  Netflix has already put a hold on my viewing until they receive payment.  That is just one of the many ways I have been inconvenienced by this little act of evil.  No West Wing for me tonight.

Without thinking, I stopped at the liquor store today to pick up a birthday present for a friend.  (And one for me, even though it's not my birthday.)  I was in line to check out when I realized that I do not have a credit card.  But I also realized that I had cash in my wallet.

Cash.  Real money.  And this is something else I realized:  when I handed the cashier my two $20 bills, I was acutely aware that I'd just spent some money.  When I hand a cashier my credit card, it doesn't register.  It never registers until I get the monthly bill.  And then it's How the hell did THAT happen?

I am expecting my new credit card tomorrow.  If I doesn't come, I will be off to Vermont the next morning minus the convenience of a credit card.  I'm not even sure how one pays for gas without one.  Will my EZ-Pass still work?  Or did they, like Netflix, put a hold on my account?  Will I have enough cash for gas, food, incidentals?

I do have a debit card.  I guess I need to remember how to use it.  But just to be safe, I will stuff my wallet with some good old cash.  Gotta love the dead presidents.  (That's slang for paper currency.  Yeah, I just learned that, too.)

Sewing

I forgot that I like to sew.  I'm not very good at it.  Like many of my pursuits, I'm half-assed about it, but it doesn't matter.  What's important is that I do these things.  Creative endeavors keep me sane.

My grandmother taught me how to sew when I was very young.  Nanny was an accomplished seamstress, and as the story goes, she was known as a fashion plate when she worked in New York City almost a century ago.  She was very proud of that label, and so was I.  Nanny lived in an apartment in the basement of our house, and I spent more time there with her than I did upstairs.  Until I outgrew dolls, we devoted a lot of time to sewing doll clothes, first for my Ginny doll, then my Bubble Cut Barbie.  Even Ken got some hand-sewn Hawaiian shirts before I put my dolls away and started pursuing real boys.  (I still have these dolls and their wardrobes.)

It was standard, back in my school days, for boys to take Shop in 7th and 8th grade while the girls took Home Ec.  Nobody questioned this obviously sexist mandate.  I have vivid memories of visiting the little department store on Main Street to purchase Simplicity patterns, yards of fabric, and notions, which was another word for thread, buttons, zippers and the like.  Once past the apron project, we were allowed to sew whatever we desired.  I tackled a fitted "jumper" in mint green.  It had darts, a zipper, and other complications, but I persevered.  Although I was only in 7th grade, I won the Home Ec. Award at that year's 8th grade graduation.  I was a protege!

And then, of course, my attention was diverted from sewing to boys.  (I must have thought that you can't have both.)

But I was always grateful that I had a basic understanding of how to sew.  I wonder if it is a lost art these days?  My kids, both girls and boy, were introduced to sewing in middle school, but I think those programs are gone now, as technology has taken over the non-academic time.

Sam, visiting here for a brief time, asked me to sew some patches on a backpack and repair a rip in his ski jacket, so I got out my needle and thread.  And then I remembered about sewing.  I'm on my third project now, a desk chair cushion in recycled plum fabric.  I feel like a caricature of myself, sitting in front of the fire, sewing.  I am somewhat redeemed by the fact that I am listening to Spoon and Cracker and Modest Mouse while sewing.

It's nice to fall in love with simple things.

Snow Day

For most of my life, I looked forward to snow days.  No, that's not true.  I prayed for snow days, I begged for snow days, I tried to will snow days to happen through mental telepathy.  I stopped short of wearing my pajamas inside out, though I'm not sure why.  I no longer have any reason to wish for snow days, but old habits die hard.

When I awoke this morning and did not hear Kathy (who is living here temporarily) in the kitchen packing her lunch, I figured it must be a snow day.  Or more accurately, an ice day.  (Just to be clear, Kathy, a special education teacher, does not wish for snow days.  She would prefer to have the school year end as early in the summer as possible.)  As I soon discovered, navigating outside was purely treacherous, and there was no way to avoid closing the schools.

My venture down to the road to retrieve the morning newspapers was quite a trip.  I recognized immediately that there was no way I could use the paved walk or even set foot in the driveway, so I trudged down the hilly front lawn, jumped over the ditch to the sanded road, and pulled the one paper out of the box.  The other paper resided where it is always tossed, in the middle of the driveway.  I tried several times to place a steady foot on the black ice, only to withdraw it immediately, knowing that another step would put me on my butt.  What to do?  I jumped the ditch again and took a few steps up the snowy grass alongside the driveway, then reached my open umbrella out to the paper and pulled it in.  Another two leaps over the ditch and I was on my way back up the front lawn to the house.

Thus began the snow day.  Turn the heat up, turn the music on, put the chowder in the crockpot, pour a cup of coffee.  It was nice to eat breakfast with Kathy, and extra nice later on in the day when my son (who is still on West Coast time) ventured into the kitchen for his breakfast/lunch.  We are warm, we are nourished, we are busy with our different busyness.  In a couple of hours, we will sit in front of the fire with bowls of corn chowder, tortilla chips, and dark beers.  It's a snow day.

I think of those who live in warmer climates, those who have no idea what a snow day is all about.  I suppose they have hurricane days or tsunami days or tornado days which may or may not be comparable.  As much as I have always loved the unique composition of a snow day, I might be ready to leave them behind, all the more reason to enjoy them while I can.  And to fall in love with one or two more.

Coconut

My father served in the Philippines during World War II.  He didn't talk much about it.  My sister and I knew there was a photo album of pictures from his time there, but we were forbidden to look at it.  So of course we did.  I remember bare-breasted women and some dead bodies.  I cannot verify if my recollection of the dead bodies is real or imaginary, because some years after my father's death, my mother destroyed the photo album.

I don't think the naked women and cadavers bothered me as much as the fact that coconut was not allowed in our house.  Whether it was an exaggeration or not, I don't know, but my father said he had to live on coconut while in the Philippines, and he never wanted to look at it, let alone eat it, again.  So he forbid my mother to buy it.

Meanwhile, everyone else was baking cakes in the shapes of bunnies and Christmas trees and jack-o-lanterns and decorating them with frosting and Baker's Coconut.  I helped bake and ate a lot of cake at my best friend's house next door.  And is it any surprise that my favorite candy bar was Peter Paul Almond Joy or Mounds?

I was never much for sweet drinks, but Pina Coladas spoke to me.  I loved the smell of suntan lotion.  Cadbury Creme Eggs could melt me.  Coconut Shrimp was a meal, not an appetizer.  Shampoos, soaps, and body washes that had the word coconut on the label ended up in my shopping cart.  In my cart today is unsweetened almond-coconut milk.  And there's a reason I always want to travel to the Caribbean.  Okay, the reason is reggae music, but they have coconuts there, too.

You remember Margaret of the Christmas cookie fame?  This morning, she asked if she could stop by to drop something off.  Of course.  She arrived with a small foil-wrapped plate and said, "Open it!  Open it!"  Her excitement tipped me off, and I knew before I lifted that foil what was waiting for me.

Coconut cake!  Margaret, baker extraordinaire, makes the best coconut cake ever!  Today is her husband's birthday.  She had some leftover batter and made a little cake . . . for ME!

Eat your coconut heart out while I fall in love: