Politically Correct Fractions - 5th Grade Math Today

 

My daughter was frustrated doing her 5^th grade math homework. She had to add fractions with different denominators. She was confused for several days on this topic so I asked how her teacher showed her to solve them. She couldn’t say.  I asked if she used Least Common Denominators and she looked confused. 

 

My teaching methods are dated, true.  I am 45, have an undergraduate degree in mathematics, and taught Developmental Math, aka remedial math, for college students.  We consulted her student math handbook Investigations which has ten pages on fractions, two on addition.  This 114 page book is a supplement to her text, kept at home for reference.   Below you can see the five examples for adding fractions under the content title, Math Words and Ideas. 

 

 

Samantha used a shaded strip method, Renaldo used percent equivalents, and Tamira used a number line.  These are valid concepts to understanding, so we read on to the next page.

Deon used the clock model and Yumiko used the ever popular shaded strip method again. My daughter said they did examples like this in school. I turned the page, checked the Table of Contents. That’s it. Nothing on Least Common Denominators (LCD).   

No wonder there’s confusion. 

In addition to the variety of “ideas” suggested, there are a variety of students, both genders and multiple races: Asian, Hispanic, African American and white. 

We have politically correct fractions.

Inclusion is good, but what’s the lesson about?  Perhaps the focus should be how to add unlike fractions. 

Here’s the rub.  The method is not hard. 

This is my daughter’s Saxon Math Homeschool text from 4^th grade. It is not as colorful and there are no politically correct student names either, yet she learned to find a common denominator last year! Then summer came and went and public school math has replaced and erased any memory of it.  She does have ideas about shaded strips, clocks, and number lines.  These are a good place to develop conceptual understanding of fractions, but they are not a substitute for learning how to add unlike fractions. 

These examples remind me of an Investigations style gym class where the teacher discusses the benefits of running, types of running, and the mechanics of the stride.  At some point, the child must get out and RUN.   Are we surprised to learn the childhood obesity rate is one out of three?  Then again, the remedial mathematics rate in college is 40%.  This means 4 out of 10 students attending college are not ready and need developmental math instruction.  I know because I taught this class.  The 40% is only for math remediation by the way, the general remediation rate for college is 60%!  (National Center for Public Policy & Higher Education brief)  If you have concerns about  English today, check out my post on the amateur psychology which substitutes for literary analysis. (Literary Analysis or Amateur Psychology?)

I don’t mean to be cynical.  I consider myself open-minded, willing to try new concepts.  So when I attended the math parent meeting in October, I hoped to be enlightened.  The district math expert gave us a slide presentation.  She explained they were already doing everything for Common Core Standards and that memorizing math facts didn’t work for many kids, most kids I think she said.  For example, she said 8 plus 5 is a tough fact to remember.  So they had students add 8 to 2 to get 10 then add another 3 to get to 13.  She dismissed concerns and criticism with the sweep of her hand and the announcement that she’d been doing this ump-teen years and knows.    

Using Saxon math in homeschool, my children completed facts practice which they timed and graded every day, then recorded the results.  They improved.  At the beginning of the year, my daughter took 4 minutes and 30 seconds to complete 100 addition facts and got 99 correct.  At year’s end she got 100/100 correct in 1:44.  My son’s 64 multiplication facts took him 4:26 to complete 63 correctly.  At year’s end he completed them in 2:40, 64/64 correct.

Practice. Time on task.  There are studies and books on this topic now, the concept of deliberate practice and 10,000 hours.  We’re not asking for 10,000 hours, but we should demand competence. 

I disagree with the school math expert because I believe students can memorize as well as understand.  When I taught remedial math, it was shocking to learn how many of my college students didn’t know their basic math facts:  addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.   I had them tab their appendix for the fact charts and forbid calculator use.  These were college students who needed basic math skills and pre-algebra, grade school and middle school math!  I had 35 students per class and yes, there were some who should not have been in college.  The rest, the majority, could do it.  They had to practice. 

During my daughter’s math open house, the young teacher was giddy over the curriculum.  If and when students didn’t understand concepts she would spend time with them and she pointed to the back of the class.  There were a bunch of pillows on the floor where she would sit to review mistakes and problem areas.  In addition to a lot of bureaucratic stuff and Common Core slides, she pointed to the key areas of focus this year; on the wall in bright colors and bold letters were the words, READ, THINK, PERSEVERE.

I asked my daughter if she ever sat on the pillows with her teacher.  She said other students often did, but she only had to once.  When I asked what problems she had, she told me fractions. 

Reading, thinking, and persevering. Nice “words and ideas” but if you’re teaching my daughter math, maybe you can start by teaching her how to add unlike fractions. 

I leave you with the words of Richard Mitchell, the famous, the infamous, and sadly the now deceased classics professor and “Underground Grammarian” who understood the problem with education better than anyone else. 

A colleague sent me a questionnaire. It was about my goals in teaching, and it asked me to assign values to a number of beautiful and inspiring goals. I was told that the goals were pretty widely shared by professors all around the country.

Many years earlier I had returned a similar questionnaire, because the man who sent it had promised, in writing, to "analize" my "input." That seemed appropriate, so I put it in. But he didn't do as he had promised, and I had lost all interest in questionnaires.

This one intrigued me, however, because it was lofty. It spoke of a basic appreciation of the liberal arts, a critical evaluation of society, emotional development, creative capacities, students' self-understanding, moral character, interpersonal relations and group participation, and general insight into the knowledge of a discipline. Unexceptionable goals, every one. Yet it seemed to me, on reflection, that they were none of my damned business. It seemed possible, even likely, that some of those things might flow from the study of language and literature, which is my damned business, but they also might not. Some very well-read people lack moral character and show no creative capacities at all, to say nothing of self-understanding or a basic appreciation of the liberal arts. So, instead of answering the questionnaire, I paid attention to its language; and I began by asking myself how "interpersonal relations" were different from "relations." Surely, I thought, our relations with domestic animals and edible plants were not at issue here; why specify them as "interpersonal"? And how else can we "participate" but in groups? I couldn't answer.  (Less Than Words Can Say, Richard Mitchell)

(Read the full essay here:  Less Than Words Can Say)

 

Amy Sedaris on Dogs and Humans

Friends have been supportive about the loss of our dog because many have been there themselves.  K sent along a quote which you might find insightful.

Sometimes losing a pet is more painful than losing a human, because in the case of a pet, you were not pretending to love it.   Amy Sedaris

 

She also shared a poem which "bids you beware of giving your heart to a dog."

 

The Power of the Dog
by Rudyard Kipling
There is sorrow enough in the natural way From men and women to fill our day; And when we are certain of sorrow in store, Why do we always arrange for more? Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear. Buy a pup and your money will buy Love unflinching that cannot lie— Perfect passion and worship fed By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head. Nevertheless it is hardly fair To risk your heart for a dog to tear. When the fourteen years which Nature permits Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits, And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs To lethal chambers or loaded guns, Then you will find—it’s your own affair— But … you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear. When the body that lived at your single will, With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!). When the spirit that answered your every mood Is gone—wherever it goes—for good, You will discover how much you care, And will give your heart to a dog to tear. We’ve sorrow enough in the natural way, When it comes to burying Christian clay. Our loves are not given, but only lent, At compound interest of cent per cent. Though it is not always the case, I believe, That the longer we’ve kept ’em, the more do we grieve: For, when debts are payable, right or wrong, A short-time loan is as bad as a long— So why in—Heaven (before we are there) Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

 

Number One Deterrent for Burglars or Anyone Else Visiting Your House

Ten years ago our lives changed.  A lot.  We don’t do things by halves in our family, so we moved into a new home, I gave birth to my third child, and if that was not enough, we bought the biggest, baddest dog we could find.  A third pet.  I’ll share more about that later.  First, you need some background information.

Florida was my husband’s last duty station in the Army and we moved into a gated community.  We found this appalling at first, because we always lived in open communities and wondered just how bad things had to be to put up gates.  But people like them because they provide security, a term I use loosely and one of ongoing debate.  The community guards were not armed and eventually given new job titles, Access Control.  So we joined the masses of well-to-do families and lived behind gates. 

Yet sometimes gates aren’t enough.

A few months after the baby was born, we left our house for the first time to see Yanni in concert an hour away.  Our sitter called on the way home afterwards, saying that police officers were patrolling our backyard and there were 14 police cars on our dead end street.  She heard propellers from above and said that a chopper was hovering over our house.  She was very worried about her car  (WHAT?$ really?) on the street and wanted to know what to do about it.  We asked her to check on the kids and the baby then told her to lock the doors and turn off the lights. Forget the car.  We had a 40 pound Australian shepherd which she locked in her crate.  We told her to let the dog roam the house because she would bark at any activity.  The officer informed our sitter to stay inside because a teenager armed with a rifle had left his house after an argument with his father and jumped the wall by the lake adjacent to our house. 

So much for gates.  That was one of the longest car rides of my life.

We got home and the sitter was rattled.  There were a couple squad cars outside and the gate guard said they moved on to another community where the teen was discovered the next day and taken into custody.  This was the third of several serious security breaches on my street.

Most people invest in locks and an alarm system.  But after one night of research and analysis, my husband decided to get a Belgian Malinois from GatorlandK9 (GatorlandK9). Our good friend and military police officer said dogs are the number one deterrent for criminals and if that’s not enough, Readers Digest interviewed convicted burglars who shared, “The two things I hate most:  loud dogs and nosy neighbors.”  ( Article )

Our new and improved security system was our dog Kaiser.  Named after my duty station in Kaiserslautern, Germany and his European heritage, his name Kaiser means emperor.  This is the breed of choice for many K9 police and military units.  His protective nature, speed, sense of smell, agility and hearing made him the ideal solution.  We thought so anyway.  The breeder who did this full-time screened us:  did we have experience with dogs, why a Malinois?  Then he told us not to neuter him; he would always take the dog back as long as he wasn’t neutered.  This was a working animal and he needed the edge.

Most people weren’t familiar with this breed but Kaiser became more popular when the public learned about his breed’s role on Seal Team 6 in 2011.

 

"When U.S. President Barack Obama went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky earlier for a highly publicized, but very private meeting with the commando team that killed Osama bin Laden, only one of the 81 members of the super-secret SEAL DevGru unit was identified by name: Cairo, the war dog. Cairo, like most canine members of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs, is a Belgian Malinois." ( http://navyseals.com/2163/the-dogs-of-the-navy-seals/ )

 

Our dog Kaiser was powerful, one of the largest at 100 pounds. His black face, size, speed and bark kept the mail woman, the UPS man, the FED EX man and every other person within a few hundred meters away.

 

He was more than we ever imagined.  As a working dog, he needed a job and things were often boring in our family.  I had him on an invisible fence but he ran the length of the front yard, terrorizing people and pets, so I set up a back yard enclosure where, like a lion on the Serengeti, he tracked golfers and their carts all day.  The up side was the golfers didn’t come into our yard anymore. 

 

The kids next door were intrigued and even more so when we told them not to go near him when we weren’t around.  So naturally they threw stuff at him and found his fence an easy way to antagonize him.   One day the older boy came by to drop off a package and Kaiser pulled him down before he could get off the property.  Another time, his brother stopped by the house and my children came running to tell me Kaiser had him down.  Indeed, the boy had curled into the tortoise position and Kaiser had his muzzle around his neck.  He didn’t bite though.    The boys no longer terrorized him but I was worried.   We told their parents we would take the dog back to the breeder.

 

Here’s the thing.  Their son wrote a note to us saying they all loved Kaiser and he was only doing his job, protecting us and the property, that he should not have bothered him.  Who was I to argue? 

 

As Kaiser grew into his huge paws, he could knock us over with his massive amount of muscle moving at awesome speed.  He was bred for obedience, protection, and tracking and we were consumed raising our family. This meant that as a high maintenance obedience dog with little oversight, he found his way into trouble. 

 

He shredded 7 basketballs, or was that 17? Baseballs, kickballs, toys – too many to mention.   He destroyed our flower beds, our plants, and postponed deliveries.  Delivery men knew the deal.  Kaiser guarded our home with an unparalleled ferocity and never once did I worry about criminal interest in our property.  We still can’t figure out how he killed those water moccasins in our back yard without getting bitten.

 

My husband said whenever he heard a noise or unfamiliar sound, especially in the night, he waited for Kaiser’s reaction.  His exceptional senses would alert us if something was wrong.  If he didn’t react, then we knew all was well.  Only once at night in the last decade did Kaiser begin growling and barking in an exceptional way.  Mark grabbed his ironwood cane, went downstairs, and looked outside.  On the front lawn, fifty feet away, two coyotes were walking in the snow. 

 

Kaiser didn’t like men either, in particular those unaccompanied, and one time a new pool contractor stopped by without checking in.  I heard a rumpus of human screaming, deep throated barks and growls, so I leapt to my feet.  One man had Kaiser at the end of his pool skimmer while the other backed out.  I have seen grown men, large men well over 6 feet, tremble, their eyes darting, looking for escape.    

 

Among the contractors and regulars, Kaiser was legend.  I know, I’ve listened to stories, witnessed encounters, looked at handwritten and typed notes.  The builder of my current home visited recently, some six years after we moved in.  He called to make sure I put Kaiser in the garage.   When he was leaving, he told me Kaiser stories that still had him laughing. 

 

My family was Kaiser’s pack and frequent visitors, especially the kids, learned that he was a sweet dog.  A noble dog. I told them not to tell anyone.  He was great security.  Every time I opened the door of my car, there was Kaiser.  When he came up to me, he would stand on my foot, the oaf.  When he wanted to know what we were doing, he stood by the porch door, but he also wanted in.  And like the emperor himself, he expected to get what he wanted.  He stood there, royally, not making a sound, waiting.

My daughter’s friends visited last month and we introduced them to our dog.  The girls went to jump on the trampoline and forgot the cardinal rule:  to take your shoes off, yes, but to take them on the trampoline with you.  The smell of feet, the draw of the pack, and the excitement were just too much for him.  Kaiser bit through her boot heel.  We apologized.  Whether you liked dogs or you didn’t, there was no avoiding Kaiser.  He engaged with everyone and he engaged with life.  

 

 

9:10 am on a Wednesday, April 23, 2014

We put Kaiser down today.  The lymphoma advanced too far.  There’s not much to it; you take the dog to your vet and he gives a pink injection which sedates him, then overdoses him, stops his heart.  We held him as he took his last breath. 

Life is precious and short. 

Love each other.  Forgive.  Enjoy.

Kaiser, our protector, our companion, our beloved dog 

 

 

Sunday Aerial Banner: The Funeral is Cancelled

We were not alone on Clearwater Beach this Sunday.  The churches may have been full and Tampa columnist Steve Otto (Tampa Column) said he would attend Catholic Mass then Protestant church service, but there were as many locals hitting the silky white, 2.5 mile strip dubbed Florida's Best.  Sand, sea, and sun are divine gifts and it's where we chose to spend our last day on vacation.   My son pointed out the aerial banner from the volleyball court where we were playing.

We stopped in the middle of our game to read the plane's message, pulled across the sky in bold black letters, the sound of the engine turning heads.

THE FUNERAL IS CANCELLED ----  HE HAS RISEN!!!!

Whoops, cheers, laughter, high fives and a discernible uproar could be heard from the masses, the other courts, and our court with two Vietnamese brothers, a Spanish-speaking couple, as well as my family with its Buddhist,  Christian, and Jewish background.   It didn't matter who you were or what religion you practiced. 

We were here for the Easter holiday.  And we were happy to enjoy His day together. 

The Sibyl - Par Lagerkvist - Summary & Review

The Oracle of Delphi and the Divine in All of Us

The Swedish author Par Lagerkvist won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1951 and this story is worth your time;  it’s just 154 pages and readable in a day.   Some readers get upset because he combines Greek paganism and the bible in a fable, but the commonalities between the two characters and their beliefs make it compelling reading.  Their lives are determined by their interaction with the divine.  

The first part tells the story of the wandering Jew Ahasuerus who would not let Jesus lean on his house while he was carrying the cross to his death.   Jesus told Ahasuerus that he would never die, but wander the world in all eternity.    Feeling cursed and losing everything of importance in his life, he sought out the oracle at Delphi who was unable to help him.  Desperate, he went to the old Sibyl.

The Sibyl was once the high priestess of the Temple of Apollo, the Pythia or divine voice of the Delphic Oracle.  Her story makes up the bulk of the book.  She served the temple by giving herself up to God.  This shocking ritual occurred beneath the temple above a dark crevice in the earth where she experienced rapture, drug induced ecstasy, and divine possession among snakes, a goat, and the male priests.  She understood and remembered little from these episodes and her life was bereft of tenderness and compassion; she was a vessel to be filled by god and a tool for the male priests of the temple who interpreted and decoded her fits.   So it was no surprise what joy and happiness she experienced with a human lover.

Their love was their downfall.  He died and she became pregnant.  Exiled from the temple and stoned, she fled into the mountains to give birth to her son among the goats which provided safety, sustenance, and company.   Her son was mute, likely an idiot.  The timing of his birth did not make sense and over the years she realized that he was not the son of her human love.  But who or what was he?  After telling Ahasuerus her story, they noticed that the son was gone and followed his tracks to the mountain top where they saw only his clothing and sandals.  The footsteps diminished towards the summit and it was clear that he departed their world.  Was he a Goat god, a divine birth from her communion with god in the temple? 

In the last part of the fable, the wanderer begged for an answer to his curse and the Sibyl said that God was both good and evil, darkness and light, that this great mystery would remain a riddle, “To exist for us always. To trouble us always.”   She looked at his soul-less eyes and said:

“It’s plain you are not free, that you’re bound to him and that he doesn’t mean to let you go.  He is your destiny . . .  Perhaps one day he will bless you instead of cursing you.  I don’t know.  Perhaps one day you will let him lean his head against your house.”  (Sibyl, p.152)

Perhaps what Lagerkvist is saying, is there’s a divine in all of us:  that God is in the Pythia, the wandering Jew, and even the mute son.  His presence is rapturous and orgasmic as well as violent, tragic, and cursed.  That it is in these times when we are not ourselves, when we leave our every day existence that we are filled with God, or that HE is in us.  The Sibyl’s wisdom comes from her acceptance of this enigma, as the Pythia and as an old woman. 

“It was He who filled me, I felt it, I knew it.  ……  Is there anything more wonderful than sharing god’s delight in being alive.”  (Sibyl, p. 48)

“He has made me very unhappy.  But he has also allowed me to know a happiness passing all understanding.” ( Sibyl, p. 150)

   

Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev - Russian Ideology Then & Now

I like the insights literature provides about a country's ideologies and sense of self.   Turgenev published Fathers and Sons in1861 to the criticism of all, both the new order and the established. It became regarded as the first modern Russian novel and his most famous work because it was read widely in Russia and the west.  Compared to his long winded peers, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Fathers and Sons might be considered a masterpiece of Russian brevity.  Perhaps so, the Signet Classic is 244 pages.

If you've harbored a deep seated desire to read the great Russians, here's your start. It's easy to understand and the historical issues as well as the family and cultural concerns are as enduring as the work of his peers.  It takes time to get used to the Russian names but there are not many characters.  I substituted easy ones for the three names given or pet names Turgenev used.

My book is an especially delightful read.  Purchased at the Strand Book Store in New York City in the third floor Rare Book room, it's a limited edition with wood engravings. And get this, it set me back just thirty dollars.  When you consider the cost of a hard cover these days, you'll agree it's money well spent. (For those who love books and happen to be in NYC, the Strand is a must see, read more here  MyBookTroll - The Strand Book Store  )

Appropriately titled, the story is about two young men who come home from university to visit their fathers.  We learn about 19th century Russian society and the conflicting ideologies of nihilism, traditional Russian Orthodoxy, and the legacy of feudalism with its serfs and landowners, as they play out between the sons and their fathers.

Arkady Kirsanov just finished his studies at University of Petersburg and returned to his father's modest estate with his friend, Yevgeny Basarov who is a nihilist. Both subscribe to this radical philosophy which decries everything, challenges all authority except what science can offer.  As a medical student and son of an army physician, Basarov answers only to the realities of the tangible world.  He is the ideologue and zealot, Arkady the protege and admirer.  Confounded and offended by their caustic and personal affront to their lives and beliefs, Nikolai Kirsanov (Arkady's father) and his brother Pavel find they are separated by generational differences as well as the young men's revolutionary ideas.

Nihilism's a panacea for every ill, and you -- you are saviors and heroes. Very well. But why do you abuse other people, even other accusers like yourselves?  Aren't you just talking like all the rest?  (10.96)

To Pavel, Basarov's beliefs are distasteful and his habits and arrogance loathsome.  Waiting for an argument, he challenges that the nihilist abuse of everyone and everything is just as useless as other ideologues.  Pavel is the most vocal critic of the young men and his brother Nikolai is given to accept and empathize as parents are want to do.

Of note historically during this period, the most significant event of the century was the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, the same year Turgenev published this.  Here, Nikolai believes himself progressive if not realistic.

Well I have made a change there.  I decided not to keep any of the former house-serfs about the place, once they received their freedom; or at least not to entrust them with any jobs involving responsibility.  (3.37)

He's convinced he will receive his son's approval and sympathies when the result is just the opposite.  But there's more, so much more to this story.

We follow the sons on their journey to both their homes and into society. The sons' nihilism collapses in the face of love.  And love, like the generational differences between children and their parents, is transcendent of time and place.  Basarov's admiration for beauty in the physical sense gives way to something stronger when he meets Madame Anna Odintsova.

Basarov was a great devotee of women and of feminine beauty, but love in the ideal -- or, as he would have expressed it, the romantic -- sense he called tomfoolery, unpardonable imbecility.  (17.3)

And the ardor and passion Basarov finds unpardonable and such tomfoolery do indeed plague him, challenging his own ideology and nihilistic beliefs.  Because he realizes he had fallen deeply in love.  And Arkady must reconcile his own feelings of love though the outcomes of both vary vastly.

I leave this to the reader to discover.

Reading Turgenev is a good value in page count alone, especially given the lengthy tomes of the eminent Russian writers.  And the intimacies, difficulties, and love between parents and their children are palpable on the page, touching and relevant today as ever. The nihilists, espousing nothing rejecting all, sound increasingly familiar in the Occupy Wall Street movement.  As a bonus, the literature lover and student of history learn a fascinating and inside account of Russian turmoil in the family and in society, pre-revolution.

It's worth noting that Turgenev was a man of significant means.   Literary elites have been known to scoff at wealthy writers, but Turgenev did not need to answer to anyone, editor, or publisher; indeed he wrote to satisfy his own inclinations.  This proved disturbing to the bourgeoisie, the nobility, and everyone who could read, because they all read Fathers and Sons.  If the case had been otherwise, and Turgenev ideas were subject to scrutiny and review, it might never have been written.

I leave you with a quote.  Given the propensity for self loathing, perhaps more for the Russian gentry than the peasantry, there is undoubtedly a sense of condescension and conceit when Basarov says this, as he is native Russian.  He sees himself differently than his countrymen.  It is an arresting viewpoint to consider:  the arrogance coupled with self loathing that can result in such aggression, both then and now, especially in light of recent events with President Vladimir Putin and Crimea.

The only good thing about a Russian is the poor opinion he has of himself. (9.46)

Going Postal -- Miss Trunchbull and the Chokey

I had forty five minutes at lunchtime and thought I would mail my tax checks.  It’s April, so maybe that was my first mistake. My town post office moved onto Main Street and there’s no parking unless you want to circle the block, park at the cemetery, or jog in.  So I thought I’d have better luck in the city.

The post office was a lovely brick building with old fashioned mailboxes and a mural on the wall.  I opened the door and found myself at the end of the line.  It was 11:50 and I counted twelve people ahead of me.  I sashayed left so as not to block the door. It took fifteen minutes to get here and I was not turning back.

There were several post office windows but only one open.  I looked at my watch, wondering what would be preferable: a tooth extraction, a Zumba class, a Calculus final.  I began a game of mental tennis to test my patience. It had been only five minutes, and that wasn’t unreasonable, but I pay for this service and should expect more, especially given the checks in my hands payable to the treasury.  I told myself to settle down and do the math.  The first woman finished in 3 minutes, so I’d be up in 33 more minutes.

33 more minutes!

But wait.   A man two spots ahead dropped out. Dressed in office attire, here was someone with priorities.  He left and came back to ask the driver of the gray Toyota to move.  I didn’t think to double-park.  Heads turned, eyes followed him, a collective bleating rose from the sheep, us that is.

It was 12:01.  I heard laughter and talk behind the wall from other workers, not the one at the window.  What business would ever survive this kind of customer treatment?   I listened but couldn’t decipher the words, imagining something along these lines, “Gee, Wanda, it’s tax season and lunch time, did I tell you that joke?  Why don’t we go out for lunch, get our nails done?  Race you to the corner 7-11 for a Slurpee?”

HELLO.  WE’RE WAITING HERE.

More people snaked behind me, stretching towards the back wall mural, past the door.  It felt hot.  My pulse raced, the kind of sinking sensation you get when you spend your morning at the Department of Motor Vehicles.  Who does anything with the government unless you have to?

Anyway.

The clerk at the open window moved with glacial speed, her moves and expressions so choreographed, it was hard to tell she was human.   She had this way of looking over her glasses at the customer that made you put your feet together, tuck in your chin, check your nails.  Surely you did something wrong, though you weren’t sure what.

A tall man in blue oxford, pressed pants, and glasses stepped to the window with letters in hand. The clerk barked at him, handed him green forms and pointed to the back of the line.  He bowed his head and scurried to the table.

WHAT?!!?  Sent to the end of the line for not having his certified slips completed?  The written portion is for the customer and doesn't have to be filled out.  I thought about the headmistress in Road Dahl’s Matilda, the hammer-throwing Olympian, Mrs. Trunchbull. An ogre on good days, she loathed children and lived to throw them in the Chokey, a dark narrow cupboard with protruding nails and sharp glass.

Miss Trunchbull from Roald Dahl's Matilda

Miracles divine!  It’s 12:09!  A worker opened the second window.

I looked at the man in the Chokey at the end of the line.  He hovered at the counter, wincing, looking for a break, maybe an invitation back to the window.  We avoided his eyes.  I inched forward, desperate to find slips, 33 minutes I could bear, but I WOULD NOT go to the Chokey.  I would shout at the clerk for them first, between customers.

Around the next wall I saw them.  Phew.

A middle-aged woman called me to the window at 12:16.  I said hello and she looked at me, waiting.  I handed her my two letters with certified slips.  What could go wrong now?

I hadn't given it much thought, but earlier I slit open one of my envelopes and re-taped it along the top.  The clerk held it in her hand, tracing the scotch tape with her finger.

Look lady, I thought, I gave up my lunch break, waited 26 minutes in line, filled out my slips though there weren't any at the desk, all this to send an exorbitant sum of money to the state to pay for this government neglect and abuse.  Any profitable business would apologize for the wait, call for help, open another window and thank the patrons who pay their salary. Not to mention the only reason I came was to certify my hard earned dollars make it into government coffers because the USPS is not responsible for lost mail unless I pay extra to certify its delivery. The irony is not lost on this citizen.

What incentive does the post office or any government agency have to help us?  It only means more work for them.  More customers, more work, same pay.

She held a letter in each hand now.  So what could I do?  rant about the insolence of office and tell her how to do her job better?  suggest a good customer service program?  tell her it's ONLY tape?

In the ten seconds this emotional tennis played out, I did the only thing I could do.

I said, “You don’t have any of these do you?” distracting her from the tape and pointing at the light house stamps.  “My girls collect them.”

Baaaaaah goes the sheep.

“No.  Ran out of those a while ago.”   She noticed the Ray Charles stamp I used on both envelopes.   I don't send cool stamps to the government but my husband took the postage roll of flags.  Thank goodness.  This gave me credibility; maybe I was part of the sisterhood.  On the stamp, Ray Charles has on glasses and is laughing in true form, mouth wide open, head rolling.  Did I detect a smile on the clerk’s lips?

She spoke then.  "Did you want the winter flower stamps?  They’re nice.”  I let out a breath.  Sure.  I bought two packs.

My watch read 12:22.  I left the window, checked the line, eyeing those poor buggers still in the Chokey.

The Chokey

Going Home, Aging Parents

A house tells you so much about a life. 

I’ve never visited Binghamton and my husband’s childhood home when his mother wasn’t there.   It was strangely quiet without her dogs and though the cats were still in the house, they stayed hidden the whole weekend.  They know something’s amiss.

Framed prints and antique pictures hang on her walls, a dancing girl, a fiddler and his lover, a woman with a white dress, sprawled out along a sofa.  The banjo clock upstairs did not keep time any better than the banjo clock downstairs; they both stopped long ago.  Two guitars stood neatly on the left side of the living room and two violins on the right.  Beth’s music book is open on her stand to Tilpenny’s Jig, a kitchen chair propped in front, like she’d be back in a jiffy.

My kids put linens on the bunk beds upstairs and saw three more guitars in the closet while I played on the Young Chang in the basement, her latest musical foray.  The rack on the floor had music books we gave her, a dozen or more piano method books. 

I scanned her shelves and noticed many of the books we read, she and I:  Girl with the Pearl Earring, Shipping News, Unbroken.  A Marine Corps manual sat on the end table with a paper clipping about her grandson.  The Roscoe Diner calendar on the wall was open to March with appointments: her tax preparer, Merry Maids, music gigs.   Mail was stacked neatly on the table.  The porcelain tea thermos I gave her stood by the stove and my husband found the Black Monkey tea in the cupboard, both Christmas gifts, both unused.

The home looked good, clean, updated.  A split level house built in the 60s, she is the original owner and her three boys were born and raised there.  She said she will live there until they take her out. 

Beth left her home on March 5 with a fractured tailbone.  It was her birthday. She has since broken her hip, underwent surgery, and continues to fight breast cancer, diagnosed at stage four in 2009.  She’s gone through it all: chemo, radiation, hair loss, and during this trial, she cared for her husband who was diagnosed with cancer until his passing in 2011.    

My husband and his brother have been driving “home” to visit and care for their mother, still hospitalized, hopeful for an ultimate recovery.  It’s been a month.  I brought my children to spend time with their grandmother this weekend. 

When I entered the room, I was pleased to see her awake.   Tubes, lights, catheter, bags – she leaned to the side of her bed, perhaps to alleviate the pain from her hip surgery.  Her face was scratched, her arm was mottled purple from the blood tests, her limbs swollen; how changed she was in a few months.  She spent Christmas with us.

The kids told her stories, shared photos, even danced a treble jig to music she liked.   She smiled and said a few words now and then.  My husband tried to get her to eat, but she doesn’t eat.  She drinks fluids, so he kept her cup full.  After sitting with her awhile, I recognized the twitch of her nose, mannerisms, and the occasional comment.  The nurse came by and said how beautiful her family was and how well behaved the children are.  Beth responded in kind, that as her grandchildren, “They dang well better be.” A slight smile on her lips.  I asked what she liked to eat at the Roscoe Diner since we pass by it on the way back. Without a pause she said, “Rice pudding.”

She needed rest so we left in between visits.  My husband took us on a tour of his town, schools, playing fields, businesses, and restaurants.  Binghamton was once home to Singer-Link and IBM and in its heyday the population topped 80,000 people.  Today there are 47,000 and the place looks empty, sad, and gray.  Buildings are boarded up, neighborhoods in decline, and the oppressive taxes in New York have caused an exodus of business, jobs, and people.  The town hopes to stimulate the economy with business incentives and the possibility of an energy industry because of the gas rich rock formation, the Marcellus Shale.  The WSJ discusses the town in its article, Dreams of Binghamton.  http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324493704578428722071904996.

The symbolism is not lost: the town’s decline, our parents’ decline.  Going back to our childhood home, we find a place frozen in time, old photo albums, the broken back gate, fallen down treehouses, the community ball field, the local pond. 

But sometimes, if you’re lucky and paying attention, you might just stumble on a gem beneath the dust and dilapidation.

My husband drove the route from his old school to his high school gridiron, passing through a sketchy street of homes, commenting on places like his old bakery along the way.  As we turned the corner and followed Seminary Avenue, I recognized the road ahead.  The public tennis courts on the right had been redone, blue surface, white lines, new fence.  There were seven courts in all that I counted but I noticed a large placard on the side, two of them.  No, four of them.  Driving past, I saw the caricature of a man’s face and above it my husband’s last name.  I read it twice before I realized. 


It was his father’s name. 

We stopped the truck.  Memorialized on a board and larger than life, was his dad’s portrait next to three of his good friends.  A brass plaque was attached to the fence which also had his father’s name in raised letters. 

The sun was shining on the way back to our house through the Catskills and fly fishermen waded knee deep in the river.  We stopped by the Roscoe Diner and had Beth’s rice pudding.

 

 



 

White Wolf Black Wolf, A Cherokee Folktale

Here’s a folktale that had a lasting and profound influence on a close friend. It’s also one I shared with my children.

 

A group of Cherokee children gathered around their grandfather, filled with excitement and curiosity. That day there had been a tumultuous conflict between two adults and their grandfather was called upon to mediate. The children were eager to hear what their grandfather had to say about it.

One of the children asked a question that puzzled him, “Grandfather, why do people fight?”

“Well,” the old man replied, “we all have two wolves inside us, you see. They live in our chest. These two wolves are constantly fighting each other.” By this time, the children’s eyes had grown as big and bright as the moon.

“In our chests too, grandfather?” asked a second child.

“And in your chest too?” asked a third.

Grandfather nodded, “Yes, in my chest too.” He continued, “There is a white wolf and a black wolf. The black wolf is filled with fear, anger, envy, jealousy, greed, and arrogance. The white wolf is filled with peace, love, hope, courage, humility, compassion, and faith. They battle constantly.”

Then he stopped.

The child who asked the initial question couldn’t handle the tension any longer. “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee replied, “The one that we feed.”

This folk tale reveals a truth about society today.

Consider the popular shows:  Breaking Bad, Dexter, Sopranos, Arrested Development, Housewives, Mad Men, the Kardashians, Dance Moms, and Cathouse.  We enjoy a steady diet of serial killing, drug deals, organized crime, prostitution and the most sordid, lewd conduct in “reality TV” and then wonder why the prisons are full.  Oh, but there’s a show for that too, Orange is the New Black, Stepford girl does time and tells all. 

There’s nothing new with fascination over the lewd and the lascivious.   Aristotle defined tragedy and its appeal, ultimately its cathartic result, the arousing and purging of emotions through dramatic effect; so when the audience left the theater they would feel cleansed and pure.  And perhaps there’s a happiness derived from another’s misfortune, that our life by comparison is better.  The Germans call this Schadenfreude.  But the steady digestion of such depravity has more effects than the purging of emotions.

There are limitless choices for content and programming today, from traditional print media and books to  cable, Hulu, Netflix, and all manner of social media.  My teen’s school library consists of an expansive carpeted area with group seating and a smattering of books along the walls.   It’s a media center.  Content hits us all day, every day, almost everywhere.  We have some control over this diet but not always.

I stopped by to pick up a food order with my children last year and we had to wait at the tables.  The television was on and I didn’t give it much thought until the children asked what the actors were doing.  I watched it closely then told the kids it was silliness and moved to the waiting area.  A man was involved with a raccoon in an act of sodomy.  The show was 1000 Ways to Die and I checked to confirm the episode.  You may pick your programming but there’s no avoiding it; popular culture feeds the black wolf. 

My youngest child read the Little House books and was surprised to learn a whole series of TV shows existed.  So we borrowed a season from the public library and the librarian had to go into the basement archives.  Michael Landon, a heart throb at the time, stars as Pa Ingalls and we watched a few shows together.  They were entertaining, presenting real life problems from the bully at the schoolhouse to issues with frail and aging grandparents.  I remembered them from my childhood, along with shows like Gilligan’s Island, the Brady Bunch, and Star Trek.  

How far we’ve come. 

I’m not sure what the solution is, if there is one.  The Cherokee folk tale reminds me of the adage, “You are what you eat.”

I love candy, dessert, and occasional BBC binging, but I’m going to the library to get the next season of Little House.   Then again, I can probably find it on Netflix.