A Healing at Euclid Beach

Euclid Beach Park was an amusement park in Cleveland from 1895-1969

  The Collinwood area was unfamiliar to me when my daughter and I headed there to attend a concert at the Beachland Ballroom. I drove right past Waterloo Road and had to pull in somewhere to turn around. I looked up to see a very familiar sight and said, “Oh! We’re at Euclid Beach!”

   Seeing the Euclid Beach Gateway Arch prompted me to ask my dad to tell me more about his summers living in what was called Tent City at the park. I had heard so many stories about Euclid Beach throughout my life, but I never completely understood why my father, his sister and my grandparents had lived there from April to October for seven consecutive years in the 1930’s.

   “Did you really ride your bike down the Flying Turns after the park closed?” I thought maybe I had misheard this familiar story from my own childhood because it now seemed implausible.

   “No, I had a sled with wheels for that,” Dad answered, “I rode my bike down the Racing Coaster, but only once.”

   “How do you ride a bicycle down a roller coaster?”

   “On the wooden slats between the rails,” he replied as if that would be obvious to anyone.

   In 1933 when my dad was 10 years old, he contracted osteomyelitis, a inflammation of the leg bone caused by an infection. He almost died from the fever and was packed in ice while in a coma to bring the fever down.  Part of the bone was removed and he was bedridden for over a year of his boyhood.

   At that time my grandfather worked for City Ice and Fuel, located at Superior and Euclid, delivering huge blocks of ice. (Dad said that in the summer children would run after the truck picking up the chips of ice that fell off for a cold treat.)  After Dad’s hospitalization my grandmother went to work there also to help out financially, taking coal orders.

   My father’s lower lip trembled as he told me of a nurse who came to his home to take care of him while his parents worked. She was also a certified teacher, and although she was to be married soon, she delayed her wedding for five months so Dad could finish the school year at home. Years later he would graduate from Cleveland Heights High School only a half year behind his classmates because of her generosity.

   “I think I fell in love with her,” he said with tears filling his eyes.

   As Dad recovered the doctors told my grandparents that he needed as much exercise as possible. There were not many opportunities for sports on the busy side streets of Cleveland Heights in the 1930’s.  So they rented their house out to a professional golfer for the season and took up residence in a large tent on the grounds of Euclid Beach Park. The tents had electricity but no running water. There were communal water pumps, bathrooms and showers. My dad played baseball and tennis and roller-skated every day. He played kick-the-can and badminton with the other children. He swam at the pool and the beach on the shore of Lake Erie.

   When I was growing up, no matter what sport or game of skill was being played, everyone wanted to be on my dad’s team. He was good at everything, and considering these childhood years, I understand why. When he was eleven years old the man in charge of the Euclid Beach skee-ball gave Dad the job of retrieving the balls thrown out of the alleys. If he would crawl in the dirt and dust to get them he was allowed to throw for free.  When he was 15 he got the job of running the skee-ball alleys. He always claimed to be the reigning Northeast Ohio Skee-Ball champion because he won the title the last year the contest was held. It’s a long-running family joke.

   “Because of the osteomyelitis,” he said,  “I was behind in school and then I was deferred stateside in the Navy during World War II. If you had the disease they wouldn’t let you lead a battalion because they thought your leg would break. Now it would be different. They would know better now...”  My father never got over not being able to serve his country overseas during the war but we are all proud of the four years he served in the Navy.

   Of course, like so many Clevelanders, I have my own memories of Euclid Beach Park;

The custard and popcorn balls, being terrified of Laughing Sal, the old-fashioned calliope music filling the park. There were old-timers still working there that remembered my father.  My neighborhood has rented a Euclid Beach Rocket Car on the Fourth of July. As we fly down the side streets, I wonder if I’d ridden in the same car so many years ago as a child.

   My grandparents took my brother and I to our last visit to the park in 1969. By then it was run down and deserted. I remember feeling sad knowing what a special place it was to Dad.  Now I can take my grandchildren on the restored Euclid Beach Grand Carousel at the Western Reserve Historical Society—something my father didn’t live quite long enough to ride on again—passing away only weeks before it opened in November 2014 at age 91.

   I never imagined I would feel so connected to a place that no longer exists. Sadly, it lives in the memories of fewer and fewer Clevelanders as the years go by. It was a  place that brought joy to countless families. A place that helped heal my father. 

Facebook, My First Kiss and the Beatles

Are you on it? I'm starting to love this phenomenon. I have had dinner with three high school friends so far and we've renewed our friendships. It probably wouldn't have happened without Facebook. But just this morning I discovered something that I'm sure I never would have known if not for this social networking site.

One of my dearest childhood friends lost her father last night. In expressing my sadness I saw one of her other friends was the first boy who ever kissed me. I was probably in 7th grade. If I remember correctly we had a mostly telephone relationship because he didn't live very close. He was just a boy I met at a party and never heard from again. I requested his "friendship" and looked at his info page. Then I saw that we had two mutual friends. He is a cousin to my daughter's best friend and he apparently worked with my future daughter-in-law's sister.

That is just so random and weird to me. Mind you, it's been almost 40 years since that first kiss! I remember it was dark and there was a song playing over and over. If you ever visit my basement you will see a mural of The Beatles. You will notice the lyrics to "Let It Be" written above it. That was the song.

The Pile (A Ferri Tale)

With great optimism and hope the couple decided to combine their former lives into one new life and one house. The man and the woman packed up everything they had from their old loves and moved it into the new compromise house. Strangely, they both brought many boxes of manure with them, and every time one was brought into the new house is was promptly dumped in the center of the home - that area you must move through every day in living there.

After a short time the family noticed a putrid odor hanging in the air. It was difficult to have fun with the smell permeating every room of the house. They spent a lot of money on air fresheners, but nothing seemed to work. The children got angry and the adults were just annoyed. They really wanted to hang on to everything they brought with them.

Occasionally a discussion lasting through the night would cause one of them to take up a shovel, fill a box, and put it out in the trash. But most of the time everyone just stepped over the pile, getting some of it on their shoes and tracking it out of the house and into the car, leaving bits of it everywhere they went. Family and friends would often sniff the air and wonder what the foul smell was, but they were too polite to say anything.

On a particularly volatile night she fell smack into the pile, her tears wetting the dried up chunks, and the pieces that had stopped stinking started to smell again. The man usually avoided the pile altogether even when she pointed it out to him. This made her very angry.

She yelled, "I'm sick of your shit!"
He said, "It's mine and I'm keeping it."

As the years passed the pile diminished slightly. Sometimes they noticed the reduction of manure and were pleased, but sometimes old manure they thought they had dispossed of reappeared, and they were discouraged. It didn't smell quite as bad, but the stench was always present. They kind of got used to it.

After many years they saw something start to peek out from the pile. It looked clean and bright, but they were afraid to uncover it. The scent of something new hung in the air and sometimes even overpowered the bad smell. They looked at each other and smiled. What could it be? What could have lasted all these years under all that crap?

Finally, one day it surfaced. It smelled sweet and was well-preserved. It glowed from its place in the center of the pile. Apparently it had been there all the time, but neither of them had had the courage to dig down and uncover it. The dried up pieces of manure were easy to toss out and the sweet spot was revealed. It wasn't really a surprise. It was what they had started out with - a beautiful, unbreakable box of trust, respect, admiration - and true love. Then they remembered. They left the box in the central place where it could not be ignored. If it began to grow dim, or new manure rested on top of it, they swept it off, took out the trash, or flushed it down the toilet where it had always belonged anyway.

And the man and the woman never forgot how long it had taken them to uncover something beautiful that had been there all the time - and they knew it always would be.
The End.

Saving Lives

The Holocaust has been on my mind lately.
I wrote about the wonderful book "The Book Thief" on August 20th. Part of that story includes a family hiding a young Jewish man in their basement for two years in Nazi Germany. I read another book several months ago called "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay. It is partially told in present day as an American journalist living in Paris researches the little known round-up of Parisian Jews by French authorities in 1942. Thirteen thousand Jews were sent to death in Auchswitz from that incident. The story alternates with that of 10 year-old Sarah in 1942. I would recommend this book as well.

Then yesterday's paper had the story of Nicholas Winton, who saved 669 Jewish children 70 years ago by putting them on trains and sending them safely to foster homes on a hunch that Czechoslovakia would soon be invaded by the Nazis. He, of course, was correct.

Last week those children reunited with Winton, now 100 years old, in a London railway station to say thank you. It is estimated that 5000 people around the world owe Winton their lives - those children and their descendents. The kicker is that he never told anyone what he had done. Not even his wife for 40 years. She only found out in 1988 when she found correspondence referring to the prewar events.

This all reminded me of a favorite book I read as a young teen. It was called
"The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom.
Published in 1971 ten Boom recounted her Dutch family and the strong Christian faith that led them to help and hide as many Jewish families as they could. Someone asked Corrie to help hide his wife and when she agreed the entire family was arrested. (The hidden Jews remained safe). She and her sister Betsie ended up in Ravensbruck, a brutal workhouse for women. Corrie recounts her sister's unflagging faith and the risks she took sharing a secret Bible with the other prisoners. At one point Betsie thanks God even for the fleas and Corrie thinks her faith has gone too far. But later they discover that it was the fleas that kept the guards away and gave them the opportunity to share their Bible and their hope with the other women. Betsie died in the concentration camp, but Corrie lived on to tell their story.

This book made a big impact on me as a teenager, and now I find that many Holocaust stories continue to touch me. Many survivors of that time are in their 80's now. I think we should continue to listen and learn and be inspired by a time that most of us cannot even begin to imagine.

In a Child's Words

The sixth graders were given bound journals to write in this year. To most of the students I teach (learning disabled or cognitively disabled) writing is something very similar to torture. I would give them the journals and ask them to write something, but most days I heard I don't know what to write or they would just sit there. I explained that journals were personal thoughts and I locked them up every day and promised that no one would read them, and I didn't.

One of my favorite students this year was a boy I had in fifth grade last year. He had a severe reading disability but a lot of leadership potential and he was way ahead of others in terms of maturity. I could glance his way when the others were being obnoxious and he knew how I felt. I knew he did not get much attention at home. He was being raised by a grandmother and no one ever came to school for any reason in the two years I knew him.

Sadly, he left in the spring and moved away without any notice and I did not have a chance to say goodbye.

While cleaning out materials for the end of the year I saw his journal and decided to look at it. I knew there wouldn't be much written and some of it only a teacher of kids with learning disabilities could interpret. This is what he wrote. I've corrected the spelling so it can be understood:

Dear Diary
When I was 4 years old my dad had passed. I was upset. My mom was upset. He was gunned down. The man who killed him was in jail for one day. I'm still not the same from the day it happened to this day.

To be honest, there's not a lot of hope for this kid. From the stories I heard, no one pays any attention to where he is or what he does day or night. He had street-smarts way beyond his twelve years. With a murdered father, an elderly woman for a parent and a severe learning disability - what will happen to him? He is now in his fourth school in four years. He'll be tough because he'll have to survive. Last year I talked to him about using his potential to make good choices and stay out of trouble - but is there anyone else in his life to tell him that?

A Church Story - Part 2

Losing my church was like another divorce. Life would never be the same. My deepest disappointment was from knowing that my children were at the age when they would not blindly follow me to another church. Why would they risk another rejection in their lives? After all I had done to assure their Christian upbringing, now they would not even have a church home. I didn't know if my parents and I would end up at the same church either. I was disgusted with organized religion altogether after I witnessed the way doctrine could be skewed in the wrong direction anyway.

I cannot judge what degree of faith my children have or ever had. Maybe church was just a social place for them. Maybe they never experienced decision of faith as I had thought. Maybe that was my story - not theirs. But I feel as if I failed at my most important responsibility as a parent.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you.

Jeremiah 29:11-14

Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Proverbs 22:6

I cling to these verses and to stories from other parents - good, Christian, non-divorced parents that struggle with the same concerns. They tell me that my faith cannot be inherited by my children, but they must acquire one of their own. I cannot help but see the two most painful times of my life as contributing to my children not needing church any longer. Two upheavals that left only ashes of what once was a part of their lives. I could blame myself completely, but I know that God is bigger than my failures.

I'll never forget sitting in the car with my son in the church parking lot shortly before it closed. He felt bitter at all he had seen, and rightly so. I said, "God had nothing to do with what happened here. People made these decisions, not God. It's that free will part of being human that messes everything up."

How do I say to my children - this is what you really need in life - when they have witnessed my battles and failures? Why is it I need faith so badly, believe so strongly, defend it so vehemently? Because God proved himself to me long ago by living inside me, by being there in my darkest moments - the ones I created out of my own free choices. In this life on Earth there is little else we can count on but God - not even a church.

What I know for sure is that God will be there on any given day in their lives when they need Him and call on Him. And the happy ending is that my parents and I found a wonderful church in a community between our homes. My mother and I sit in the choir loft next to each other once again just as we did for so many years in our former church. An added bonus is the fact that over 30 members from my former church have made a decision to join my new church! So there are familiar faces everywhere. I know that this new church will welcome my children as well if they ever need it.

I have to add that my daughter and son are good people. They overcame a lot and had the integrity to put it behind them. We have a wonderful relationship and even as adults they continue to bring great joy to my life. So I cannot say that many of my prayers have not been answered. I see the answers every time I see them.

A Church Story - Part 1

I attended a Methodist church in my childhood and participated in all the opportunities one would expect: Sunday school, vacation bible school, children's choir. The church and its youth program became central to my teenage years. One of the ministers and his wife were musicians and they spent all their free time leading us in musical endeavors. On weekends we traveled to evangelize other youth. Then, to include the adults, they wrote an entire musical and whole families traveled and performed together. My mom, brother, sister and I all sang and danced and my dad was the business manager. They were glorious years that none of us will ever forget.

Each experience grew my faith and love for God. Music was a way to share that and my church was home in every sense of the word. I married and had two children and my greatest hope was for them to have the same meaningful experiences in the same church. As children they learned about God in the same classrooms and sanctuary where their parents were married and they were baptised. At home we read Bible stories, had birthday parties for Jesus and discussed the true meaning of Christian holidays. They had fun at the same Methodist summer camp that I had loved so well. They sang in some musical events and participated in the weekly youth group meetings. My dream had come true - three generations of my family in the same church every Sunday morning. A beautiful and rare thing. Both of my children were on their way to a life of faith just as I had hoped and prayed. You can give your children many things in this life, but I always believed that a grounded faith was the most precious gift you could give them. Something that will last into eternity. As a Christian parent I took that role very seriously.

Then the teenage years happened. I was, and still am, proud of the unique and uncompromising individuals my children are, but as you might expect, they rebelled when their father and I divorced. My daughter clung tightly to her church friends. My son - not so much. As they expressed their individuality they sensed rejection by some of the adult youth leaders. The clothes and hair styles that are so important to self-expression at that age were criticized. My life unexpectedly falling apart and then the comforts of church vanishing changed everything. I watched the dream disintegrate before my eyes.

Not only did my personal crisis change their lives, but then the church literally left us! Some of the newer members were put in leadership roles and it was decided that the present site of the church was inadequate. I unwittingly became a leader against the move. My church was the cornerstone of the community in its location and historic presence there for 150 years. Petitions were signed, television reporters came, dozens of painful meetings were attended and after a long battle, we lost. The church was divided in two. Friendships were ended and relationships damaged. I did not lose faith in God, but I certainly did in organized religion. It had turned on me and I could barely conceive of the impact on my family. I could never have dreamed that the one place that I had counted on my whole life would close down and move to another community. I felt like a tumbleweed with no direction or purpose, and I think that's the way my teenage children felt too.

To be continued. . . .

COEXIST XIX - Forgiveness

This is part of a report from ABC news on February 6, 2009

Man Asks Entire Town for Forgiveness for Racism

Nearly half a century ago, in a very different America, Elwin Wilson and John Lewis met under a veil of violence and race-inspired hate.
Wilson, a young, white Southern man, attacked Lewis, a freedom rider for Martin Luther King, in the "white" waiting room of a South Carolina bus station.
The men had not seen each other again until Tuesday when, with "Good Morning America's" help, Wilson approached Lewis again - this time offering an apology and a chance to relieve a burden he's carried for more than four decades.
"I'm so sorry about what happened back then," Wilson said breathlessly.
"It's OK. I forgive you," Lewis responded before a long-awaited hug.
For Lewis, who in the intervening years became a US representative from Georgia, the apology was an unexpected symbol of the change in time and hearts.
The outburst Wilson said, was just part of a life of hate he led for years.
"I had a black baby doll in the house, and I had a little rope, and I tied it to a limb and let it hang there," he said. Wilson went back to a diner where he threw eggs. He went all around town, apologizing to anyone he may have wronged. Pretty soon, he found out that one of the men he wanted to apologize to was a US representative.
"I never thought this would happen," Lewis told GMA, "It says something about the power of love, of grace, the power of the people being able to say,'I'm sorry' and move on. And I deeply appreciate it. It's very meaningful for me."

On the President's Day I am thinking Abe would be proud too.

My Two Lives

The cedar chest sat in the dusty back corner of the crawl space for many years. Nothing in particular brought it to my mind, but after all this time it was unburied, pulled out and set in the light of an eastern window to breathe again. I lovingly wiped off the cobwebs and dust and opened the heavy tapestry-like lid.

One by one I unwrapped the 1996 newspaper from each item. That was the year I left my first life and started my second one. Commemorative glassware from long-ago proms, a family photograph of a now partially intact family, Grandma's figurines, remnants of my multiple craft attempts - needlepoint, cross-stitch, decoupage, my painted wooden plaques. I wound up a music box and it played "My Favorite Things " as I uncovered engraved baby plates for my daughter and my son, and other small mementos I'd made and that had hung in their bedrooms for so long.

I sat in the midst of crumpled newspaper and piles of my old life and wept, overwhelmed at trying to reconcile my two lives with each other. I wept at having no one with which to share these memories. These items, that are without monetary value, I had put away literally and figuratively for far too long.

Cleveland Christmas Memories

In the first half of the twentieth century Cleveland was a well established major city, endowed with the cultural arts thanks to people with names like Rockefeller. Christmas was a magical time. I grew up in a village in the eastern suburbs about 20 miles from the city, but it seemed like another world. In the city I saw people with different skin color than mine for the first time. The gaseous fumes from buses was foreign to me. My mother and I would venture downtown on the "rapid transit" and visit my great-aunt Irene who worked at The May Company, which later became Kaufman's and now Macy's. Sadly, all the downtown department stores are now gone. Back then the store windows would display elaborate Christmas scenes with moving figures. At The May Company I remember being relegated to a children's playroom so my mom could shop.

Higbee's was another department store. Established in 1929, it became Dillard's in 1992. Higbee's was a store with wooden escalators and revolving doors. It had a well-loved restaurant called The Silver Grille. It was THE place to see Santa. At Twigbee's, children could do their own shopping. But the best thing was to see Mr. Jingaling! Mr. Jingaling was a Cleveland Christmas institution for 25 years. His real name was Earl Keyes, which is ironic because Mr. Jingaling was the keeper of Santa's keys. Not only could you visit him on Halle's seventh floor (the other big store), but you could receive a coveted cardboard key. I still have one stashed in a trunk somewhere. Mr. Jingaling would come on the local TV station every evening during the season, so he was a celebrity.

I still remember his song -

Mr. Jingaling, how you tingaling

Keeper of the keys

On Halle's seventh floor

We'll be looking for

You to turn the key.

We still saw him occasionally until his death in 2000. Once I saw him in a store and practically had a conniption. My children were with me, but were completely unimpressed by the weird looking dude.

If you watch "The Christmas Story" this season you will see Higbee's prominently featured in the movie. Part of the movie was filmed on Public Square in Cleveland and you can go to see "The Christmas Story" house which is now a public attraction in an area called Tremont. (I was hoping to report first-hand, but I haven't made it there yet.) There was a "Christmas Story"convention in town a few weeks ago and 4000 people traipsed through the house to see the leg lamp.

From 1909 to 1968 there was another large store called Sterling Lindner. Every year it would put up a Christmas tree that was purported to be the largest in the nation. Another must-see. Other attractions from childhood included the lighting display on Public Square and at Nela Park (the GE plant). My dad made sure we had an annual trek in the station wagon to see all the lights.

These are a big part of my Christmas memories and I know they are to others my age as well. The magic existed because there weren't a lot of special things the rest of the year. My childhood was somewhat prosaic and normal, so an animated store window was something special. Making an effort to go all the way downtown to see the one and only Santa was so believable. Meeting Santa's helper in person - priceless!

I don't want to sound like an old fart, but I wonder what is special to children now? They don't have to wait in anticipation all year to see Rudolph or Frosty - they own them on DVD. Animations and special effects are a part of their everyday lives. Maybe - I hope - there are magical experiences to replace the ones we had. I know nothing stays the same - but sometimes I wish it would.

The Chapel Bridge Souvenir

Five years ago I was fortunate enough to go with my church choir on a singing tour through parts of Europe. We visited and sang our way through Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and a bit of Liechtenstein and France. It was a dream come true for me. I had yearned to see Austria ever since I was ten years old after seeing The Sound of Music for the first time. Salzburg was more beautiful than you can imagine. Throughout the trip I had my heart set on finding one special souvenir - specifically something for Christmas. I thought there would be numerous Christmas stores in every city. You know how you always see the German wooden ornaments and candle holders? Well, either they were not there or I missed every one of them. About half way through the trip I began to panic. I had not seen one single Christmas ornament! (It was July, but it was Europe. We want our souvenirs) We spent a free day in Lucerne, Switzerland. It was a rainy day. My daughter was with me on the trip and we really wanted to shop. We crossed the Chapel Bridge (see above) and there was a tiny little Christmas shop on the bridge. We continued through the city and then, after an exhausting and sopping wet search I decided at the last minute to run back through the rain and get the Christmas candle/nativity set you see here. I'm glad I did and I love it. I had expected to find a terrific deal but it wasn't any cheaper than those I'd seen at a specialty store here in Cleveland. But the biggest disappointment was to find out that my special decoration from far away Europe came from a shop called Joe's Souvenir's!

The Power in Us All

A couple weeks ago a parent came into my room and spoke to me in a very disrespectful and insulting tone of voice. She was angry and would not let me speak. I spend every school day helping her daughter, yet I was being spoken to as the enemy. It was very upsetting, of course, even though this woman is known to have done this many times to other teachers. The following week we met as a team with her. There were five professionals, all people who knew and had worked with her daughter. She continued her onslaught of disrespectful tone and language. It left all of us red-faced and flustered, and probably ruined the day for most of us.

There is a quote by the renown child psychologist, Haim Ginott that I always keep on my bulletin board at work. As you read it replace "child" and "teacher" with person, and "in the classroom" with anywhere I go, and think about the fact that we all have the power to lift up or destroy someone's day.

"I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my personal approach that creates the climate. It's my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable of joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized."

Umoja

(I don't know about you but I feel completely fed up with this country's politics and problems right now. We are so self-involved and so dependent on so many things to live the way we live. I wrote this poem several years ago after reading a newpaper article about Umoja. Today it reminds me that there is a world of people out there making their own way, struggling with issues and injustices we've never dreamed of.)


Sitting cross-legged on a sisal mat,
thatched roof and the equator sun above,
Rebecca holds the 13 year-old girl's hand
You don't have to marry that old man
even if he is my brother.
Rebecca goes house to house
You don't have to have sex with a man
that beats you, exposes you to HIV,
a husband with other wives.

Shamed by rape and then abandoned
Rebecca's women grow a circle of mud
and dung huts in parched and barren grassland
and call it Umoja, in Swahili, unity.

A sanctuary for Sarah's little girl body
from bearing a child that would have shredded
her insides, causing her to leak, to smell,
to be shunned into a beggar's existence.

No men live in Umoja,
a haven for Mary from circumcision,
mutilated genitals that would have forever
brought pain and denied pleasure.

In Umoja children go to school for the first time,
women work in the cultural center
inviting tourists into the beauty of Kenya,
selling red and white Samburu beaded necklaces.

Rebecca ignores spiteful men setting up
their own village, spying, failing to imitate
Umoja's success but hiring the men to haul firewood
as women change the rhythm, the power of a village.

Rebecca throws back her brown cloud of hair,
laughs at stone throwing and death threats
as she boards a plane to a world conference on
gender impowerment an ocean away.
If you remain silent
no one thinks you have anything to say.

Carnival

A weird thing happened to me while in NYC. My daughter and I were at the Gershwin Theater waiting for Wicked to start. It is apparently quite an historic theater with memorabilia displayed and many, many photographs of all the actors that have performed there over the years. Across the second floor lobby I spotted something familiar - I said (out loud) - "There's Horrible Henry!" My daughter followed me, having no idea what I was talking about. There, in a glass case were four worn-out puppets. So what?

During my senior year in high school I had the starring role in the musical Carnival. I played a waif named Lili who wanders into a carnival and befriends the people there. A puppet show was central to the plot and there were four puppets - Horrible Henry, Renardo, Marguerite and Carrot Top. I loved working with the puppets so much that after the show closed my father asked the director if he could buy Horrible Henry for me. He couldn't because they were rented. The fact that he wanted to do that is special to me because people just didn't buy things much back then like they do now.

Anyway, here in the glass case were the original puppets. They had been owned by Jerry Orbach - who worked the puppets and did all the voices. You may know the late Orbach if you've ever seen "Law and Order" on TV. The only famous song from "Carnival" was Love Makes the World Go Round. The original Lili was Anna Maria Albergetti and it was later made into a movie called "Lili" with Leslie Caron.

It was kind of surreal to see those puppets after so many ( and I mean many) years, and strange that they, of all things, would be displayed. There wasn't that much memorabilia! Don't be too impressed though, because "Carnival" was the beginning and the end of my acting career. The photos show me and the puppets then -and now at the Gershwin Theater.

No Test Left Behind

So it's Ohio Achievement Test week. Hooray! What we teachers have worked for all year. I'm sure you've heard a lot of horrible things about the No Child Left Behind Act - and they're all true. It's based on a one-size-fits-all approach to learning and assessment. Too bad all children aren't the same size. If a school is struggling because say, many of their children are transient and have attended 5-7 different schools by the time they're in fifth grade - or say the school is too poor to provide resources for all the neglected, abused and foster children that attend there - or say the school can't control how many pregnant teenagers took drugs while pregnant and their children are riddled with all sorts of disorders and learning and behavior problems - say - so what? Does NCLB help a struggling school? No - it punishes - it takes away funding and has the power to "reorganize" the school or shut it down. Billions of dollars go to illegal immigrants and the war - but there doesn't seem to be enough money for American education. Demands are put on schools with minimal funds to achieve them. Surveys have shown that more than half of teachers claim to spend more than 50% of the school year on testing. We have no choice. Learning and discovery are no longer important - only test results. I administer these tests and there are reading selections that even I can't relate to, but we expect urban, suburban and rural children to all understand them in the same way.

Yesterday was the reading portion of the test. (By the way each of the 4 subtests each take an entire morning) One of my students was visibly upset when she came into my room. She wouldn't look at the test and began crying. (We're on a time schedule of course.) I tried to talk to her but she didn't want to talk to anyone. She just kept crying and I could tell it wasn't about the test. This little girl has had a great year, but last year went through a horrible trauma. About two months ago her aunt and uncle were shot by their son- the uncle died, the aunt is still hospitalized. So here I stand trying to tell her how important this damn test is. Then I stopped. She wanted to take it. For awhile her tears fell on the test booklet, but then somehow she continued and did fine. The experience just reminded me how UNIMPORTANT tests are to children compared to what's going on in their real lives.

No Child Left Behind certainly has a good intention behind it because, in fact, no child should be left behind whether they are poor, minority, disabled, immigrant or anything else. But I think the act assumes that teachers are at fault. The act is really testing us to see if we're doing our jobs. I'm sure there are bad, uncaring teachers, but I've worked with dozens of teachers over my career and maybe 1% of them were what I would call bad. Yet, we are blamed for everything. In today's Plain Dealer some moron wrote "The first intelligent action is that the states and cities must stop rewarding the teachers and administrators with endless raises for producing an endless stream of functional illiterates with no hirable skills or training. Until this action is taken we will continuously fall behind all other industrial nations."(States and cities don't pay us - that's negotiated with the school board.)

So we're supposed to work all day with difficult children, under difficult working conditions and the pressure of test scores - earn our Master's degrees and work for free?

Sir, the problem goes way beyond what teachers are humanly capable of in a six hour school day.

Can improvements be made? Sure, but ample personnel for all that a school needs to tackle every day takes money. Keeping up with technology and the way children learn in 2008 takes a whole heap of money.

Who's making money? The school testing and testing service industry is now an estimated $2.3 billion a year enterprise, with just five big companies controlling 90% of the statewide testing revenue. Give that money and the money wasted on school vouchers that goes to charter schools run by businessmen back to the public schools and let us do the job we are yearning to do. See, we really get a kick out of seeing children learn and grow - that's why we became teachers in the first place.

Proud to be an American

Yesterday I had the honor of witnessing eighty people become American citizens. My school's fifth grade classes were able to have a tour of the Federal Court House and witness a naturalization ceremony because the judge is the grandfather of one of our students. Another one of our students saw his mother become a citizen as well. I found myself really holding back tears at the realization of what they were doing. All of the prospective citizens stand, hold up their hand, an oath is read and they say "I do." That's it - although I know there is much preparation ahead of time. The judge then explained why he disliked the oath because it had archaic words in it such as abjure. He made them all stand as he read an oath that he wrote and they said I do again. Some of them looked confused, but I appreciated his convictions. He gave a speech on why we pay taxes and how important their vote is. Then he asked them to never forget their homeland and their heritage and to share it with their children and grandchildren. He felt strongly about this because his own painful Russian Jewish family history had not been spoken of and he did not know where his people came from. I thought that was a beautiful sentiment as well.

Before all of that they students had two scared straight lectures primarily about drugs. They met with a federal marshall and one student was handcuffed and shackled for effect. The marshall emphasized how not fun it was to be in prison. We actually saw the prison and one orange-suited man in shackles being led from a cell in the elevator to his permanant cell a few yards away. Many of the student questions were about people escaping -but all they heard was - no one escapes here.

We sat in the judges court room and heard another lecture on the danger of drug involvement. This judge says he now convicts people to life in prison for multiple drug convictions. We saw the judges chambers - about the same square footage as my entire house - and his view of Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River. If that was my office I'd spend all day staring out the window I'm sure.

The Federal Court House in Cleveland is only a few years old and a spectacular place to visit. The bus ride with 50 fifth graders was pure hell - but it was worth it.

Back in the Day

A blogging buddy posted a small tirade about how things have changed since she was a child. It is a story we're all accustomed to hearing in our childhood from our elders, but then somewhat shocking when we're old enough to start speaking on it ourselves. It is actually quite frightening how fast things change the older you get. I, for one, NEVER thought I would rush home to spend time on a computer! (Like right now). I don't think I want to list all the ways the world has changed since I was a child - that would be kinda depressing - but here is a small news item that caught my eye this morning from Waycross, Georgia. It says more than enough.

Third graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job, police said Tuesday. The plot involving as many as nine boys and girld at Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, police said. School officials alerted police Friday after a pupil tipped off a teacher. Police said the students apparently planned to knock the teacher unconscious, bind her with the handcuffs and tape and then stab her. It wasn't clear whether they planned to kill her. They were apparently mad because the teacher scolded one of them. Two of the students were arrested on juvenile charges and a third arrest was expected.

That's more than enough change for me, how about you?

Fortuity

Today - just an ordinary Tuesday - or so I thought. After lunchtime the fifth graders were to go to the Middle School for some sort of assembly. I didn't know what it was about and I had no good excuse not to go - so I went along. (It's right next door). On the aging and forlorn auditorium stage were a set of drums, a Hammond B3, and guitar - hmmmm interesting. We sat for awhile trying to keep kids in their seats and calm. Then someone comes out to introduce Brian Auger. Brian Auger? The name is quite familiar. He's arguably a legendary rock and jazz keyboard artist, best known in the 60's and 70's for playing with groups like Led Zeppelin and his own group Oblivion Express. He comes out and speaks to the kids in a kindly British accent, introduces his son on the drums (his name is Karma) and his daughter, Savannah as the vocalist, and a bass player too. They play a couple really incredible songs. The student sitting next to me kept covering his ears and yelling " its' too loud!" and the Middle School kids were extremely rude, but I enjoyed every minute of it. But the coolest part to me, was that you can be at work on an ordinary Tuesday and find yourself at a mini-concert with a rock legend. I love life's little surprises.

(We're not sure why he was there, but he had gigs at a local jazz club, Nighttown and I heard his agent is from the area.)

Oh, to be in Kindergarten

The other day I got to be the visiting author in the kindergarten class at the school where I work. It was definitely the highlight of my day. I am used to the jaded attitudes of evil and hormonal fifth graders. Their teacher, my friend Lynne, instructed them only to ask questions and not make comments (or tell long 6 year-old stories).They had obviously been well-trained in this - but you could just see their little mouths poised to tell you what was on their minds. I showed them my book Flying Over Midnight, and they really liked the pretty cover. I told them that my Mom painted it and they had lots of questions about that. One little boy asked what she used to paint it and I told him it was watercolors. He said very knowingly, "I thought it was watercolors."

I got reprimanded by another when I didn't use his name to call on him "I told you my name is Loki!" (Sorr-ry!)

Then the question I was afraid of - what is your book about? We-e-e-l-l-l - it's a grown-up book about a woman who is a mom and she plays the piano. Luckily that threw them off track and all of a sudden I heard from everyone who played the piano or knew someone who played the piano. Whew!

Then I got questions like - how did you make the words? How did I make the words? You mean how did I think of them? I used my imagination. No, how did you make them? You mean did I type them on a computer? No! I thought you would use a pen! Oh.

After we discussed using our imaginations and how writers have to practice, practice, practice, and how even grown-ups make mistakes and have to fix them - their teacher asked me if I could talk about editing. (In kindergarten???) Yes, because the kindergarteners are learning how to EDIT their work! Then I got to see some of their writing and I promised to come back and make comments on any future work they wanted to show me.

At the end of our session Lynne asked me to tell them my dog-got-sprayed-by-a-skunk-story from earlier in the week. And even though they weren't allowed to tell me stories - right at the end a little boy scooted up to me and whispered all in one breath I had a dog and he ate some paint off the chair and we took him to the doctor and he died and then he went to dog heaven.

Amen.

Pee-Eeww!

Why am I posting on my blog at 1:00 in the afternoon? I went to work today but I had to come back home at lunchtime because I smelled so bad! Let me explain - I did take a shower and put on deoderant and everything - but just as I was about to leave for work I let my little dog Stella in the house from potty-time and she'd been sprayed by a skunk! Her first time. I shoved her back outside, but too late - the house was fogged with the fragrance of Pepe Le Peuw. I tried washing her out on the deck - in the middle of a thunderstorm (one of the few things I'm afraid of). It seemed like she only got it in the nose, so I lathered her up with vinegar and water,(tomato juice seemed too messy for my rush) stripped off my clothes and started the wash, got dressed again and got to work only 30 minutes late. I thought I'd really pulled it off until I realized that I stunk! My hair and my hands in particular. I tried to make the best of it, but my friend Kim said she could smell it just walking past my room. My students kept putting their sweatshirts over their noses all morning - so I decided to end the torture. In hopes of a miracle cure I perused the Internet and read that your nose experiences "olfactory fatigue" and you cannot smell it yourself after a little while. (I could smell it but it was a lot worse than I thought.) Maybe that's why you can't smell your own bad breath. The vinegar helped my skin, but I think Stella's in for a few more baths.