Can-Do Yankees...

Yup, the season that tests the strength of your muscles and spirit. We don't just look forward to our seasons, we earn them. Winter is the real test of how you brain works with less light, your relationships work in close quarters, your spirit works outside in bitter cold and your body works in snowy conditions. Learning to fly and fall on ice. Grabbing bumpers of cars to ride through the frozen slush. These are some of the things I remember loving so much.

I think the reason we Yankees idealize self-reliance, is that is how our forefathers survived and thrived. You endured the harsh winters, wallowed through mud-season, with the promise of spring and new possibilities.

Spring is a wonder to behold. The smells, sights unfolding, young critters, warm sunlight and cool breezes. Syrup season begins and the buckets dangle from the Maple trees as the winds grow warmer. I remember Mr. Olson, across the street, teaching the neighborhood kids how to tap trees. At the time he was just a nice neighbor with a sweet German Shepard, and a wife who made interesting plantings in the old watering trough in the center of town. Digital Equipment Corp wasn't on my childhood radar. Mr. Wang lived at the other end of our street, and his name didn't mean anything either.

Summers are hot and can be cold at night, too. Summers in New England can involve many layers of clothing over the course of one day. Perfect summers have low humidity, medium heat and high sun to cloud ratios. That is a rare summer in New England. Fog can ensnare you, humidity can make you feel you are walking through air made from sweat, sun can burn you and the water can tow you under. Yet we dance in the rain, sail in the fog, run in the sun and play in all kinds of water (rivers, streams, quarries, the ocean, ponds and waterfalls). Stealing a swim at a favorite skinny dipping spot during a full moon or by firefly light is also a grand summer adventure. Sailing by full moon, even better.

Fall is the most dramatic. Warm days, cool nights. Brilliant foliage, turning mountains into calico carpets rolled out for all to adore. Harvesting begins. The tree fruit and root vegetables are there most perfect to cook, drink and eat. Critters start to hibernate, migrate, and integrate with nature as the climate turns colder. Humans rake, aerate, cultivate and put to bed the land around their domiciles.

Winter comes. Blankets of white snow and rinks of black ice quiet the nature, critters and humans of New England. Now we're settling in for what could be a multi-day storm. Provisions in the kitchen, logs for the fire and my dog close at hand; I'm ready, at a moments notice to be self reliant for another few days and the remainder of the season.

Good night, You Can-Do Yankees, G'night!

Sonnet 11

Sonnet 11

February, commercially cruelest,
Chocolate kisses to replace ones lips,
Love and proposals declared as truest,
yet as transitory as cargo ships.
Red velvet hearts, black velvet ring boxes,
experience shows as valueless things.
The charming prince sets the bait and outfoxes
the trusting maiden by clipping her wings.
Until one day, when she awoke and spoke:
"Valentine, you're not mine, let's end this joke!"


~ KN 2/6/15

Nashawtuc and DeNormadie Hills

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/30/pilgrims-progress-3
http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/stewardship/histland/recon-reports/lincol-with-map.pdf

Nashawtuc Hill. If you read the above New Yorker article you'll get a sense of what it used to be and what it is now in regards to real estate and the newly landed gentry. What you won't read, although she alludes to it by mentioning that she biked and slid and skated and walked the environs of Nashawtuc Hill for twenty years, is that there is a full house lot width swatch of land that stretches from the top of the hill down to the Concord River. It is completely undeveloped and I believe it is entrusted to stay that way. I'm standing in the center of the parcel at the top of the hill in the above picture. 

I've been sledding on this hill since I was 7 or 8 years old, so almost twice as long as the New Yorker author. Mostly, in my youth, I came with my sister, two brothers, father and stepmom. Occasionally with the neighbor boys from Everett Street. It wasn't a very long walk with a sled and it was a very short drive. When we were young, I don't remember the locals making the ski and board jumps as steep as they do today.

There is something magical about a piece of land that remains untouched since childhood. Especially as the author mentions how many farm families and estate holders have sold off large parcels of Concord's central structure in my life time. My first love, the Town of Bolton, is practically twice the population of what is was when I lived there, due to the amount of construction and development of the land during the '80's-90's when 459 became the new 128: a digital corridor. In Lincoln, where my mother still lives there is one family that owns the best sledding hill in town.  DeNormandie's Hill. It has been the open to the public for sledding during my whole lifetime. I believe that it has a similar stewardship preservation agreement to that of Nashawtuc's. 

Nashawtuc Hill in Concord and DeNormandie's Hill are magical places. Nashawtuc runs steeply and straight down with a long flat run off before you come to a road just this side of the river. DeNormandie's has a two-pronged wide top, that rolls and bumps down to a narrow passage between a grove of trees after which it flats out for an easy run off. Both are steep to climb back up, but both are worth the climb for the rides you earn with the effort. 

As a girl, I remember my legs turning blue, not from cold, but from the dye in my jeans soaking into my skin from the melting ice and snow. I remember frozen hair breaking off on the walks back home. I remember making up sledding games as teams and individuals that didn't involve any adult management or observations. I remember pausing at the top of both hills and looking at the views. In Concord there were many Grand Victorians to look at, and I, like the author, never set foot inside any of them (as a girl or now). The lent themselves to imagine the interior goings on of the families that lived there. Also like the author, I had imagined or read about the lives of all the Concord Center authors and visited their houses in homage. From the bottom of each hill, I can remember taking breaks to soak it all in. Generations of families trudging back up the hill or squealing down the hill on a Radio Flyer. The sound of the runners over a thick coating of ice. Watching the water birds out on the river ice. Once a dead deer on the ice that we wondered if a wild dog had killed. 

On DeNormedie's hilltop, there were wonderful views of trees, sky, houses in the distance. Occasional x-country skiers taking advantage of the towns trail system that has easements everywhere. The ballet of the sleds trying not to crash into each other as they launched from dueling departure spots. The wipeouts to avoid such crashes were almost as fun to take as a successful run. 
Toboggans were popular when we were kids. Racing them was popular, too. Now you don't see that much, if at all. Not sure why, exactly.

Now I bring my kids to these hills. We have plastic and inflatable sleds, not wood, metal or a combination of the two. Flying saucers of steel and Radio Flyers with metal blades no longer skitter down these hill. But there are snowboarders jumping, carving and shooshing down the slopes routinely. 

The sky, river, birds and wildlife still remain. The love of playing in the snow with family and friends of all ages still remains. The thrill of the wind, snow and speed still remains. We try to introduce new friends to the hills, as they are public and there for the sharing. Good wholesome fun in the winter.

February break will soon be upon us. With three feet of snow already on the ground and nearly two more expected in the next four days, the base for sledding, and x-country skiing for me, will be perfect. So as much as I love to grouse about raking and shoveling, I'm hoping we get a reprieve from the relentless snow storms during the vacation so that we can actually go out and enjoy it. 

Living large on very little. Experiences over stuff. That is what makes memories that last a lifetime. 

Good night, snow bunnies, snow monkeys and snow dogs, G'night!

Educators & Evaluators

Today we had a Department Meeting after school. The focus of this meeting was two fold.
1) Fine tuning of department DDM's (District-Determined Measures for Teacher Evaluations).
2) Looking at the department Mid-term grades, by grade level, and analyzing the results.

Now, both of these things have very little to do with improving our craft, creating curriculum for the students or accessing best practices from our colleagues. It has more to do with numbers. Numbers of students receiving grades that are failing or in need of improvement. Numbers that could, through some arbitrary formula say that we as teachers are failing or need improvement. We were directed to not put blame on any entity, but rather discuss possible reasons for the large amount of low grades.

See we as teachers know the numbers. We know that when we have classes of close to, or at, 30 students for 52 minutes that they are not all completely focused and on task for 52 minutes no matter how hard we try to engage and entertain while educating them.

We know that from that  class of close to 30 "regular" students 5 opted out of AP or Honors due to scheduling conflicts; a large number are perfectly placed but may have an IEP/504/other factors we must take into account; and some may have just FLEPed (which roughly means they have recently transitioned into a regular classroom from an ELL classroom).

We know that Honors classes have a similar numbers pattern to the above;  some highly motivated, self directed learners; some well behaved but not as motivated or skilled; and some who are trying to stretch academically (some will do so and others will not). We know the bell curve numbers the mid-terms should show, and that City Hall wants to see. But do we create those number or do we hold onto our integrity?

We know there are so many levels of classes, that it's hard to measure them on one scale, and yet we must (just like our students).

We know that our course catalog gives prerequisites for each course, and we are accountable for who, how and why we do or don't recommend students for their next years classes. We also know that parents can override our recommendations and we are left having to teach students that haven't met the prerequisites who are then sitting in our classrooms. Do we keep allowing this to happen with no say in the matter, yet our evaluations are based upon this fact?

We know the numbers of our every shrinking department and the every growing school population. When I first entered LHS we had 22 English teachers in the Department. The freshman class this year is 550 students. We are now down to 17 and one of them is not teaching English classes you'd find in the catalog. We know our teachers are not being replaced and that we have to do more with less constantly. We know that some of us regularly have taught 5 sections of classes and as many as 145 students at a time, while others of us have taught 5 sections of classes and as few as 75 students a year. Do we insist that there is parity department wide, so that we are all teaching, carrying and grading an equal load?

We know that the DDM's test scores, of measuring what our students know at the beginning of the year and what they've learned by the end of the year, are being used to evaluate us, not the students. We know that we must make the test scores from fall to spring improve significantly.

So does that mean we teach to the test? Does that mean if there are too many students getting low grades on their midterms that we as teachers should be paid less. Do the numbers on a sheet of paper determine if any of us are worthy of keeping our classroom and position? We are told to hold high standards and to not yield, but we are also told to not let kids fail. I bend over backwards to stay after, allow for late work, and access to me electronically. Those numbers of hours are never measured by the administrators, nor are they are always fully utilized by the students. But shouldn't I keep offering to help? So that the students can rise and I can keep my integrity?

There are other numbers that we don't talk about. The numbers that assign blame outside of our walls.  That 40% of our students qualify for free lunch. That another 15+- qualify for reduced lunch. And those are just the students who filled out the paper work, I'm sure the number are higher on both fronts.

The staggering numbers of kids who move multiple times during the course of one year. The disproportionate  numbers of students who lose a close family to death, disease or drugs. The news worthy numbers of students that are homeless. The number of students living on their own. The number of students living in unsafe homes or homes with no heat.

The numbers of tests, licenses, course, training sessions, and continuous professional development requirements that we as teachers mandatorily must complete is overwhelming at times, even for the most efficient zen-master teacher. To add tests we have to create (a grammar exam),  to test our students, and then work on excel sheets to show the progress or lack thereof and have it directly reflect, through this once slice of  our annual volume of lessons whether we are good teachers or subpar is ludicrous. Forget about MCAS or the Common Core or PARC. I haven't even mentioned the 2-5 teacher observation evaluations that are performed mandatorily, too, by our headmasters and/or Principal. Do you think any other profession is evaluated and tested as much as a public school teacher? I don't!

I'm just trying to do the best I can in the classroom each day. But increasingly it seems that when I step outside of it, into a meeting where I'm supposed to gathering with peers, or supervisors, the work we do is about mandates and numbers and not about education. Where is the integrity? Who is to blame? It's all becoming data driven, and the headings in the column  of the excel sheets keep changing to reflect the academic politics of the moment.

I for one will start demanding that if we are accountable for teaching courses with prerequisites, that we have the power to enforce they are met, instead of having to teach two classes in one. Don't get me wrong; I've taught ELL, Inclusion, Regular and Honors. Love them all. Don't even mind the slinky classes where some kids get the material immediately and others take a while, sometimes a long while. But I do mind being evaluated by two snapshots taken in a slinky class. Or by having students who perform poorly on the mid-terms determine my career, especially as they most likely didn't earn a slot in my classroom from the start. That is where I draw the line. That is where I hold my integrity.

I believe teaching is a calling. One has to surf daily, and sometimes instantaneously, the highs and lows of the High School classroom. The students can be inspiring and exhausting depending on the dynamic of a million different variables. This is a challenge and a duty. To be of use, even when things sometimes feel hopeless. Yet, occasionally there are celebrations, inspirations and victories, too. But they have nothing to do with numbers and everything to do with timing and being prepared.

So tonight I say Good Night with a plan to try to build a bridge of parity for these evaluations. That we have equal numbers and equal work in the department. That since each course has prerequisites, that they must be met by the students if they are to be enrolled in my classroom. If those two, simple, factors are met, then I'll be completely fine with being evaluated with multiple snapshots by my headmaster and the biannual test scores of my students.


Good night, educators and evaluators, G'night!

Birds of a feather

Last night I mentioned To Kill a Mockingbird in my post in regards to a Lane Cake. Tonight I discovered that Miss Harper Lee is going to be publishing a new novel on 14 July 2015, exactly one day before my 53rd birthday! There will be 55 years between the first and second novels. My lifetime, pretty much!

I've read and re-read To Kill a Mockingbird at least once every decade since I first read it as a girl. I've taught it and read Charles Shield's biography, Mockingbird, in hardcover back in 2007. Now to discover that she's actually going to publish the novel Shield's mentioned in his book, Go Set a Watchman, is truly amazing.

Having read the biography, I know that she actually wrote that novel first and Mockingbird second. As an agent, I know that many author's first works are a way of clearing their throats and sharpening their skills. The fact that the first book, Watchman,  includes that same characters to which Mockingbird would be the prequel is even more interesting.

To be able to read about Scout after she left home and see what she's like as she returns again, phenomenal.

I'm just an excited little girl, all over again, feeling the thrill of it being summer and the time of year I can read all the books I want to read just for me. This is a picture from one summer in July, with my sister. I know my brother Mike is going to be thrilled with this news, too. He's a Harper Lee and John Irving aficionado. We both bought the 40th Anniversary Edition of To Kill a Mockingbird for our niece Jazzmine one Christmas, and we'd both already inscribed them to her. It's the kind of book you want to share with the next generation, if they don't get it in school.

I was born the same year as the title film. Love it to pieces. More moral compass material from my childhood.

I'm rambling. Too much shoveling/raking. Not enough sleeping. Alton's post took a lot out of me last night. So tonight is a light, short and giddy post with one of my favorite pictures with my sister.

Good night, Mockingbirds and birds of a feather, G'night! xo

Me, Too: 2/2

Some people stay with you. Forever. Alton is one of those people for me. He was born in Huntsville, AL. Went to art school in Atlanta, GA. Showed paintings in NYC and Miami, FL. Then found himself moving to SF and becoming a High School Art Teacher in Piedmont, CA. He lived in Bernal Heights, the last ungentrified hill in the city, on Mirabel Street. I would become his neighbor and best friend for the last 5 years of his life.

Where to begin. I believe I already wrote about his partner, Roger. It was he that I first met. We both were gardeners and shared seeds over the fence. We'd have yard sales and parties together. Go out dancing down on this little club right at the bottom of the hill on Mission Street and afterwards to eat tamales or burritos, depending if it was an afternoon or evening danceathon. I don't remember the name of the club, but it was one of the few true latin dance clubs in the city. Don't know if it's still there. We'd also go the the club  and cafes in the Castro. When we'd get into raving conversations, in order not to interrupt each other or agree for emphasis, Alton would point from himself to me and back. When he really wanted to emphasize a point or make a mental book mark, he'd use two fingers as if to say same, here or me, too.

In the summers Roger's kids would come and stay for a month or so from Southern California. He'd been married to a woman, and had a son and daughter. Roger and Alton co-parented during the summer holiday and sometimes over school vacations. Alton loved being a Dad. He was great with his students and with his kids. Roger worked as an electrician, and had twice been struck by lightning. He was 1/4 American Indian, but I don't remember the tribe.

When Roger had the flu that just didn't quit, and made it so he couldn't work, we took him to SF General. Little did we know that he would only come home once more. They took all kinds of tests, and because I had been taking turns nursing Roger, as I worked from home while Alton had to go to the East Bay to teach, we all had to be tested for TB, because at first that was their best guess at a diagnosis.

It wasn't the flu or TB; it was AIDs. Alton found out within a very short span of time that his husband was dying of AIDS and that he, himself, was HIV+. The next two weeks in the AIDS ward of SF General were taxing. As I wrote earlier, I was the put in charge of everything, full power of attorney status. Dealing with Roger's relative and Alton's devastation. I can remember driving to and from the hospital (mostly to care for the dog and to check my phone machine for work messages). During those drives I remember watching the people walking on the sidewalks, crossing the streets, riding the buses and being envious of how routine and comfortable their lives continued.

This was not my first AIDs rodeo, but it would be the last one I managed. When Roger died, Alton and I were in the hospital room. Alton was rubbing Roger's cooling feet and telling him it was okay to let go. I was sitting beside Alton at the foot of Roger's bed. I believe Roger's family was not present, perhaps having left to get food or sleep. Alton and I hadn't much of either in days.

As Roger died, both Alton and I felt we saw his spirit leave his body and go out the window. We didn't tell each other at the time, but we looked in each other's eyes and then Alton did that thing he always did with me. He made two fingers, like a peace or victory sign, pointed to his chest, then mine, then at his eyes and back to my eyes with the same two fingers. No words were necessary. We would set the experience to words much later. Two fingers were all it took. Me, too.

After Roger died, we became as close as two people can be, without having sex. Emotionally, physically, spiritually and intellectually. I had a boyfriend, he lived with me, but I was closer to Alton. It would take me a few more months to realize that my boyfriend had a new girlfriend and that was why he was treating me like a roommate. Dear readers, so you see a pattern here?

After the boyfriend moved out, I moved up one street and over one or two houses, on Montezuma. It was a grand one bedroom apartment with a private garden in back and a smashing view of the city to a call all my own. Going dancing and to cafe's with Alton continued. He returned to work and was HIV positive, but thankful asymptomatic. We run on the beaches on the weekends and wear out Kodiak, the dog, by playing fetch in the surf. Crissy Field was best for that, as the undertow at Ocean Beach was too unforgiving for dogs.

If I was having a bad day with a bad date or badly behaved writer, I'd come home to find a nice piece of art tied to my doorknob or a sweetly sung song on my answering machine. Somehow he knew, even though he didn't always know for sure. We were so connected that the two of us just knew. Me, too.

Left to his own devices, his apartment that had always been a constantly changing exhibit hall, became even more full of lights, paintings and collections of music. Sheet music, CDs, tapes, records. Paints; oils, water colors, pastels, charcoals, and such from FLAX. The hours spent cutting, shaping, painting gold and blue stars in all sort of sizes and colorful patterns was astounding. Inspiring, too.

The trinkets left on my doorknob, or tucked in a book I must read, were always tagged with his signature blue and gold. Tonight before writing this, I was trying desperately to find the copy of The Little Prince that he gave me. The reason being he inscribed it and I wanted to remember what he wrote (as I remember it was significant to us) and it had a bookmark he made: a cobalt blue star bead on a piece of cobalt blue thread. A talisman between us. Me, too.

Then Alton started to get sick. It wasn't AIDs. It wasn't one of the opportunistic diseases associated with AIDs. It was testicular cancer; a type that your DNA is set to trigger if you're predisposed, and he was. Alton had a rough childhood. His mother died young of cancer. His father molested him and his sister loved him, but never fully understood him. This all seemed like an ironic and sick joke. But it wasn't and once again, I was put in charge. Power of attorney over all health, financial and so on.

Fortunately, I was not the only one seduced by his deep story telling, quick wit, generous spirit, talent to spare and genuine good-egg-attude. He had many friends, colleagues and administrators who helped during his illness. When he would get sick or scared, he'd call and I'd walk down the hill and crawl into bed with him and Kodiak.

When we first got the diagnosis, he became anxious and depressed. I received more midnight calls around that time, as he hated to be alone. He wasn't supposed to drink, or stay up all night, or over due it tomcatting around in the wee hours in the Castro. This was a tall order for him, and me by extension.  Keeping him from drinking was darn near impossible. He added booze to everything, a lesson I learned early in our friendship.

One time Roger, Alton and I were having a yard sale. Being seasoned city folk, we knew that selling baked goods as well would stop the sidewalk traffic long enough to have them get curious about the other items for sale. Long story short: Alton made a Lane Cake. Now, if you've read To Kill a Mockingbird or other fine southern literature (Eudora Welty also comes to mind), you will have heard of a Lane Cake. Basically it's a multilayer cake and between the layers are cherries, and in the layers of cake is bourbon or whiskey, and then it's frosted with buttercream icing and, usually, coconut. Well, those two kept glancing at each other and making all kinds of talk while I first helped myself to one slice, and then as the afternoon when on, another. Glances were exchanged, but I didn't catch the drift. All I'll say is this, I don't remember walking home after that sale, how I got in bed, undressed or anything else.

With this illness, I made sure Alton went to California Pacific. His school, although he hadn't been able to work for months continued his medical and salary. The Principal really was a good hearted man and did right by Alton. I'd go and hold his hand while the did endoscopies and other indignities to him. I'll admit, I'm not squeamish, and as odd as it may sound, it was fascinating to see how the medical machinery worked. Later, Alton being a very visual and verbal man, I'd tell him inch by inch what I saw, so when the results would come back, he'd be able to understand the systemic process.
The cancer spread; to nodes, organs, and,finally, everywhere. He was given 6 months to live.

Somewhere in the midst of all this I met the man that would become my husband. Alton was very nervous about meeting him and Peter was very nervous about meeting Alton. The both knew how much this meeting meant to me. He couldn't attend our wedding in October '96, because he was too ill and poor. He hadn't worked in over a year, but still his principal worked with me on health insurance and salary issues.  I sometimes wonder now, if he'd lived long enough, what he'd think of my divorce. I think he'd know it was right and I think he might have even asked me to do it earlier, for my own and the children's sake.

With in that 6 months though something happened. Alton found a new love, too. Me, too. He was in a stabilized state and had energy enough to go out prowling. One night he came home with Daniel and he basically never left.

Now I've seen what love can do. The healing and spirit infusing it can do. My sister's love of her son, also gave her much more time on the planet with her appendix cancer than the doctors or medical community thought was possible. If you measure the organs, blood, nodes and so on, the results may say that the body can not function or continue with the amount of disease taxing the body. But when you throw love into the mix, well all bets are off. You see love and channel energy back into people and make impossible physical situations defy reason and results.

I became pregnant and Alton was ecstatic. After Roger died, he lost his children as well. This was an opportunity to be a doting uncle. He would rave rhapsodic with the details of the Puppet Theater he would build for our daughter. When we'd go for longer chemo and radiation stays at the hospital, he'd take his art installations with him and we'd set up his room. He'd ask about how my painting of her nursery was going in our apartment in Noe Valley (I'd moved one hill away, but still only a 20 minute walk in a pinch). I was stenciling sea and mythical creatures around the top of the walls figuring that is where a baby would look most in it's first year. Both he and Peter worried about me on a ladder, but I've painted, industrially for a living, so I shooed them away.

The last time I could fly before her birth was to New Mexico for Thanksgiving. Alton assured me he'd call if he needed me (this was 1997, no cellphones), and gave him my father's phone number in Santa Fe. No calls and I assumed that all was well in SF. I came home to a zillion messages blinking away on my answering machine. Alton, his best friend in Atlanta, Alton, his Dr., Alton, BFF and so on. He was in California Pacific and it didn't sound good.

I'd called his family once before when I thought he might be dying. Now before I cried wolf, I wanted to be sure where we stood. The phone tree of caretakers for Alton and Kodiak had been in play since the last decline. Daniel was there in an off and on fashion. He couldn't get off work for this as they were not legally spouses. Meals, dog walk and such were in place though, thank goodness.

When I go to California Pacific, I knew this was it. Alton and I had both grown up in alcoholic families and as our friendship grew, so did our codes. Not only the Me, too,  but other words that worked in sentences, but didn't mean what we were saying. Having had years to decide this actuality, we decided it should be simple and direct, as he would most likely be failing and in pain. The phrase was, "I'd like to go home now". Simple and sweet. To which I was to answer, "Me, too". Alton was a religious man at heart, so home for him in this context did double duty, as well.

I went straight out to the nurses station and asked for an AMA form. Now if you haven't had the exposure to hospitals that I've had, you may not know that an AMA form is how a person like me, a Power of Attorney person, can sign out my patient with an Against Medical Advice form. Basically he no longer wanted treatment. He wanted to go home to die.

I called everyone. They all came. I set up a hospice nurse and we had daily meetings about how to proceed with pain treatments. We set up shifts, as I was due to have  baby in 5-6 weeks. We didn't the duration of his decline, as he was always surprising us with his ability to rally. But this time was different. He insisted on a Christmas tree and made us get out his ornaments and beloved bubble lights. He wanted it set up in his bedroom. He started talking to angels that no one else could see.

On the evening he died, I sat infront of him, feeling huge, ungraceful, tired and bloated. He could sense all that and said I was beautiful and wanted me to have the butterfly painting (see earlier post) as I was it and it was me. He said he too felt not his beautiful self (none of the above pictures do his handsome self justice), bloated (the treatments had made him full of fluids) and ungraceful (weakness and drugs). Me, too with the fingers, back and forth. Me, too. But then he almost got mad at me when I was having a continuance of not feeling beautiful. He insisted that I was and put his hand on my belly and gave me a deep look in the eye with a mixture of love and pain.

He then told my sister, Leslie, and Peter that he wanted to go sit in front of his Christmas tree. He made sure that his sister and I were in the living room. And then he died.

We had a memorial service for him in the garden. The garden where I first met Roger, and then, Alton. Kodiak went to live with a neighbor and Alton's spirit came to live with me. Me, too.

Good Night, HaPpY BiRthdAy AlToN ~ love you & miss you, G'night.

(Photos: http://www.hhs1976.net and Piedmont School District from my collection)

My Football

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061978051/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

Yes, the New England Patriots just won the Super Bowl. And yes, as a person coming from a long line of New England Yankee stock, I'm happy they won. My grandfather, Gerald Harrison (if you google him, he's sometimes listed as "Jerry"), whom I don't remember as he died when I was a baby, was one of the original Red Sox sports announcers a hundred years ago and would have loved the curse being reversed in my lifetime. He was also an athlete, Boston L Street Brownie (legend has it he did many a polar bear plunge), and a sailor who raced. I think I have quite a bit of his fabric in my cloth.

What I don't know, as worldly as he was with sports, is if he ever played, announced, or watched soccer matches. I've often wondered this, as it's one my interests that seemingly came out of nowhere. Just like American Football, no one in my family (and you may be getting a sense of the size and scope of it from these missives) watched or played soccer but me. None of my brothers played football or played soccer. My first stepfather watched football and I vaguely remember going to a Harvard vs Yale  game (he'd gone to Harvard's Medical School) with him. But no one but me watched or played soccer.

I remember as a girl watching Soccer Made in Germany on Saturdays. It was grainy and in black & white on PBS. The rest of the family would be out and about. I'd be glued to the television for an hour and study the highlights. If I remember correctly, it first appeared when I started High School, so '76-ish. Last I remember catching it was in '82, after I got off the boat (as I didn't live with a TV for a few years) and I believe it was how I first saw a World Cup match.

My first year of High School, I attended a large public school. I never was a part of the football culture, didn't have a clue about Friday night lights or cheerleading. Like I said, even with four brothers and three sisters, none of us had ever entered that world. To this day, we know very little about it.

The remaining three years, I attended a small private High School where they didn't have a football team. Students there looked up to the best musician, dancer, or artist. We did have a soccer team. JV and Varsity. Boys only. This was the 70's. No Title IX. However it was a liberal, progressive and student directed school. So a few of us soccer struck girls tried out for the team. Three of us were on JV and one of us on Varsity. It was heaven. We played against other prep schools all boy teams from Boston to 495. At the beginning of the first season, the boys didn't know what to make of us. By the end, we females got extra cleats to the ankles as penance for not being taken seriously, to their detriment, at the start. Since prep schools were full of international students, some of the kid were playing with screw-in metal cleats. Blood was drawn. Two of the Italian brothers on our team I now read about in the papers. Not for soccer, but for their pasta company, and how they've gone from "worst to first on gay rights". The Barilla Brothers. There were many families with international ties and famous last names. At the time, some I recognized from books or museums. Many more of us were there because it's the only place we fit. But that is another story for another time. I graduated in 1980, kept up with my running and watching matches as I could find them.

When I lived in St. Croix, I'd see great pick-up matches. Guys at work, during lunch breaks, just kicking a ball around, or weekends in the streets or outskirts of town after work. Balls would be made of cloth, found items, or a found school yard ball. Occasionally it would be a regulation ball. These men and boys were the same guys I worked with and who would turn old brake shoes from cars into musical instruments for their Reggae and Ska bands. Goal posts could be a door way, alley entrance, set of trees,  or a set of paper bags with stones in the bottom. Nothing fancy, but always fun.

While I was in college in Maine, twice I saved up money to go to Europe for a large chunk of the summer. One summer I spent a month in London and another summer 6 weeks on the Continent.
London has it's own soccer culture. And England has the Premier League. What ever neighborhood or city center you're born into seemed to be your club for life. If you dared move and declare a new allegiance, well that just wasn't done. 9th Circle of Hell for folks who did that. Again, pick up games galore. Hide Park and Notting Hill were my two favorites. I seem to remember many West Indians in Notting Hill and loved the humor and grace of their playing. Hide Park was a bit more uptight and fierce. The following summer, while my friend and I were in Italy, we spent several days in Rome. We'd walked the for hours in the city and found ourselves in a small piazza on the edge of town. All the stores where closing and the owners where dragging tables, chairs, radios, television and piles of food out into the piazza. We were invited to sit and attend this neighborhood party. Now for the life of me I can't tell you if it was a Lazio or Roma crowd, but that was the match that was being played. It is one of the oldest rivalries in Rome. That afternoon, to see an entire neighborhood close it's shops, come to the streets, eat, shout, and dance about, was heaven. These are my people, I thought. I will spend a year of my life in Rome before I die, I thought. I still do!

By the mid-80's I lived in New York City and played in a Publishing Softball league, the diamonds around the city were often near clearings or fields that were multi-use. Men from all over the world would gather, particularly in Central Park, to play pick up games. Four trash cans would become goal posts the teams would be skins vs shirts. After my game was done, I'd often linger and watch them play. African languages, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, British English, and many more languages depending on the night. I loved watching the style and grace of the Italians and West Africans, in particular. I could speak to these men about their favorite players and watch them practice their heroes favorite moves. Even if our first language wasn't a common one, our soccer language (names, numbers, clubs, dates, tournaments) bridged the gap.

1990's in San Francisco had a very lively soccer culture, too. More of an organized league culture than a pick up culture. Funny, I would have thought it'd be the opposite. I dated a Dun and Bradstreet boy who played in the adult league. I'd watch him and went to Golden Gate Park to watch other matches, too. North Beach was a good place to view international matches with passionate strangers. This is right at the cusp of cable and the internet, the radio and tv were still king.

In the mid 90's I married a Dutchman. Oranje ruled. I have the kloppen, lion, and vuvuzela to show for it. One of our first dates, after our daughter was born and we left her with my family, was a drive up to a sports bar to watch the World Cup. Again in 1998, reliable internet (dial up?!) in rural Maine was not an option. I enjoyed watching Premiere League and European football with him, and also his father. Watching Ajax, an Amsterdam club, while at the family home in a southern Holland island town, was fun and relaxing. Again, a common language that could bridge family tensions or turmoil.

In the 2000's we moved back East. Then soccer became a thing I'd hoped my kids would want to learn. However, the suburban way of teaching and learning soccer as a youth, has none of the fun, family and fantasy of the pick up games, legends or neighborhoods I'd experienced.

It was competitive, controlling and bizarre. Conversely, everyone received a trophy on every team at the end of each season. It was bipolar. A killjoy for my boy (as my girl had no, none whatsoever, interest in ball sports). By the age of 8 they felt too old to compete with their peers. Crushing on all counts. I never tried out for a team or practiced any skill drills until High School. As a family, though, we'd watch soccer matches. Oranje, USA, Man U and such. We'd go to Breakers and Revolution matches.

In the mid-2000's the above book was published and I highly recommend it. In fact, I use it as choice read for students who love soccer and don't love reading. It's complex, intricate and deeply referenced. The kids love it. It works especially well with ELL students. It's challenging, even for English as a first language readers, but the love of soccer keeps them reading. There are 64 languages under my High School's roof, and there are not many books I've found that hold the staying power of Foer's How Soccer Explains the World.

In 2010 we were in Holland for during the World Cup, as it was being played in South Africa. The whole of Holland was Orange; banners, flags, lions, oversized sunglasses, Heineken hats with drinking straws AND built in noise makers! The whole country was watching every match at all times. Many promotions were given and we succumbed to them all. Holland lost to Spain in the final.

In 2012 in Ecuador I learned about the different city teams in Quito from the bus driver and open market vendors. I bought a scarf from the driver's favorite Quito team and from the Ecuadorian National team. When they played in the World Cup last summer, as I have a few student's from there, I wore it during the match.

By 2014, driving my Oranje Honda Fit, it felt like a slap in the face. I'd bought it in 2011, as a source of one of our few remaining bonds; soccer and children. The USA progressed far in the Cup and Holland did okay. Germany won against Brazil in Brazil. Another slap in the face.

In November, 2014, I was in Paris. I wanted to attend the Paris St. Germain vs Marseilles match, biggest rivalry in France thus my desire to see in in the flesh and in famous stadium: Palace of the Princes. However I was thwarted by my instructor; he warned me off. He said the skin head faction was too tough to navigate without a knowing guide and just plain unsafe. I wrote about this in one of my first posts (Paris & Pens). In January.....well you know what happened in Paris......

Now, I'm tired. I've only touched the surface of how soccer explains a slice of me that some of you have be subjected to over the years. You see, it is like music to me. A universal language. One that works in every country I've landed. So when the Patriot players say, "We're World Champions", it makes me shake my head. It is only in America that this game is even a sport. Soccer is the real world wide sport. It's championship comes once every four years.

I didn't refer to the book much. But you should read it. This is a brief excerpt of Franklin Foer's Introduction:

" This book has three parts. The first tries to explain the failure of globalization  to erode ancient hatreds in the game's great rivalries. It is the hooligan-heavy section of the book. The second part uses soccer to address economics; the consequences of migration, the persistence of corruption and the rise of powerful new oligarchs like Silvio Berlusconi, the president of Italy and the AC Milan club. Finally, the book uses soccer to defend the virtues of old-fashioned nationalism - a way to blunt the return of tribalism."

See, my kind of guy, writing about my kind of concerns, in a language I understand deeply.

So, Good Night, Foot Ball lovers and Footballers, G'night.