Category Archives: Random Thoughts

Ridding the World of Injustice

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The quote came from an unusual source. Let’s see if you recognize it.

“Fern was up at daybreak trying to rid the world of injustice.”

That’s right, my reader friends, it was in Charlotte’s Web. I was teaching a reading lesson to a small group, and that line just stood out. Injustice was a suggested vocabulary word, so we sought out the sentences containing the word, discussed the context, and made meaning.

“…to rid the world of injustice” – what a great phrase. Save the world before breakfast! Never fear, runts of the litters! Ferns of the world will intervene!

E.B. White isn’t the only author to abhor injustice. Remember Dr. Seuss?

“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful, 100 percent.” -Horton Hatches the Egg

I think I’ll make that my new catch phrase, my new slogan. Maybe I’m just a blogger, but if I get up early enough, I can do my part to rid the world of injustice.

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If I Had a Patron Saint

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‘Tis the season – the season for Friday Night Fish Fries, meatless meals and sacrifice. This is an encore from a few years ago. Do you have a patron saint, readers?

If I had a patron saint, it would be — that’s not easy to say. My desktop calendar often lists historical events and trivial facts, and the patron saints turn up now and then.

St. Timothy is the protector for those with intestinal ailments. My entire family could fall into that category more often than not.

St. Francis de Sales is the Patron Saint of authors, teachers, and (are you ready for this?) the deaf. Bloggers don’t have a Patron Saint – yet – so I’ll stick to Sales.

Given the current political climate in Wisconsin, the “divide and conquer” philosophy in the Governor’s mansion, I wondered (in my own liberal and ecumenical fashion) – could there be a patron saint of politicians? According to a less than scientific Internet search, I came up with St. Thomas More. Thomas studied law at Oxford and eventually became Lord Chancellor of England. Cool, eh? Sir Thomas More is also known as the patron saint of lawyers. In that vein, we should note that he was tried and convicted of treason and beheaded in July of 1535.

A more complicated search revealed that government workers, those falling victim to the present “Divide and Conquer” tactics, have a multitude of patron saints assigned to intercede on their behalf. Behalfs? Behalves? I was raised Presbyterian; I don’t know the grammar of a patron saint. St. Homobonus, he who looks out for business people, joins St. Thomas More again in a reference to taking care of government employees and civil service workers.

I find it interesting that good ole’ Thomas shares responsibility for both government employees and the politicians who ultimately oversee them. If we Wisconsin workers had to look for divine intervention, St. Thomas More might be too conflicted to help. He wouldn’t know whether to divide or unite, conquer or compromise. Would he carry a protest sign, join the overpass light brigade, or install metal detectors at the Capitol to keep the cowbells out? Would he sign a recall petition, contribute to a campaign, or sponsor a television commercial? And how would someone with these responsibilities ultimately vote?

With so many decisions to make, it’s no wonder Sir Thomas More lost his head.

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Creative Winter Problem Solving

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Setting: On a Monday early in winter, not so long ago

On that day, I headed out the door to find my minivan coated with a thin layer of frozen winter wonderland.

I reached for the snow brush we keep in the minivan most of the year. It wasn’t there.
I started the defrosters and searched again behind the seats. No luck. So I attacked the windows with my gloved hands, hoping that perhaps I could borrow a brush or scraper from another teacher as the rest of the staff left.
No luck there, either. My friend the reading teacher set her car to defrost and came over to ask if she could borrow my — “Oh, I see you don’t have a snow brush or ice scraper either. Good thing we both wore gloves today!”
While the defrosters blew warm air at the windows, I dug under the seats one more time and found….an old plastic air freshener shaped like an orange.
The plastic was soft enough not to scratch, but strong enough to hold up under my assault on the elements. I used it to scrape enough frozen precipitation off the windshield that I could run the wipers and get the rest. My colleague took it next, and we were ready to hit the streets.

In our school building we are nothing if not compassionate professionals. We pulled in together the next day. I waved my new snow brush at her, picked up my coffee (both purchased at a convenience store on the way to school) and stepped out of the car. She said good morning and handed me — my air freshener.
I think I’ll put this little item back under the seat in my minivan. You never know when it might come in handy. At the least, it’ll be good for a laugh. Someday.

I teach in a different school now, but I still keep a snow brush and ice scraper in my current minivan. The odd orange air freshener didn’t survive the trade-in of the old one.

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If Jeopardy held a Governors’ Tournament

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Alex Trebek made my day. He mentioned having just finished the Teachers’ Tournament, and then he said that based on his observations, the country’s children are in good hands.

Consider the following. Instead of a Teachers’ Tournament, Alex Trebek would host a gathering of the great, er, the leaders of several states. I can see it now: Scott Walker, Chris Christie, and — well, who would you like in the third spot?

Alex: And the categories for the first round are — Roadblocks, Foreign Policy, Involuntary Quarantine, College Honor Codes, Scandals ending in -Gate, and Everything’s Better with Koch. Where should we start?

Walker: I’m going to punt on that one.

Christie: Wait, let me get my fleece. It has my name on it.

Alex: Gentlemen, a category, please.

Christie: Scandals ending in -gate for 200, Alex.

Alex: The first -gate named scandal started with a break-in at this hotel.

Walker: What is the Farm Bed and Breakfast gate?

Alex: No. I know Wisconsin is the Dairy state, but, um, no.

Christie:  Foreign Policy for 200, Alex.

Alex: Yes, Scott?

Walker: I just don’t think you talk about foreign policy while you’re on foreign soil.

Alex: We’re in Hollywod. Southern California.

Walker: Then we’ll go to College Honor Codes, whatever they are, for 400.

Readers, you get the idea. Today’s children are in good hands for now. But if the narrow and uber-conservative right get their way, none of will be in good hands. If we want representation of the people, by the people, and for the people to remain, it’ll take more than a game. Stay informed, and stay active.

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Is the Soup Organic?

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It was a simple question. I’d brought in my latest minestrone for Soup Day at the Office. I invited a couple of coworkers who didn’t normally partake. They were friends, colleagues, and of course they deserved a bowl of Daisy’ best!

And then it came up: the question. “Are all the ingredients organic?”

I had to say no. And of course, I had to start thinking. My soup offering was made from scratch. But organic? Let’s see.

Broth – mainly a beef broth from my freezer. No preservatives, just bones boiled with a few scraps of onion and maybe peppers, too. But organic? I doubt that the meat was organic, and the onion and peppers probably weren’t organic, either.

Minestrone is all about vegetables. It’s February. The peas and corn, out of my freezer, came from the farmers’ market. The handful of yellow beans were from my garden. A little tomato sauce – canned from fresh-grown tomatoes in my own backyard. And then – carrots, onion, a little celery, all from the grocery store, none organic.

In July or August, that soup would have a lot more organic to it. Maybe that’s my next move: grow more, preserve more, and start making a point of buying organic more often.

Now if only the snow would melt.

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Measles?

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I searched my archives for measles or immunizations, and the only related topic I found was flu. I get a flu shot every year. Amigo gets one every year. La Petite, now that she has medical coverage (Thanks, Mr. President!), gets her vaccine, too.

It’s not influenza that’s on people’s minds today. It’s an illness that was thought to be eradicated in the United States: measles.

I remember getting a mumps shot when my friend Julie had mumps. The vaccine was a new one; it wasn’t routine yet. It must have worked; no mumps for me. I remember getting a rubella vaccine when I was at the hospital after giving birth to La Petite. Routine blood tests showed I wasn’t immune, and I got the shot before going home. But measles? No memory of the illness or the shot.

People born before 1957 are considered immune because they were most likely exposed when they were young. I’m a 1960 baby boomer. Where does that leave me?

I did what a lot of baby boomers do: I emailed my mother.

According to Petunia, I may have had a mild case of measles when I was very young. She followed up by saying she remembered getting me a measles vaccine, but doesn’t have a written record.

So around and ’round and ’round I go. Do I need the shot? Nobody knows. While I dilly dally about getting a lab test to find out yea or nay, the city health department is setting up a vaccine clinic early one morning next week. I might just give in, get up, and go. It can’t hurt. Well, it could hurt… never mind.

 

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Almost an encore

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The cold weather and snow storms got me thinking about spring. Of course I thought about planting. Doesn’t everybody?

I had some help preparing the garden plot last year. Here’s one of my helpers with her pink shovel, a shovel that belonged to La Petite when she was about this size.

Have shovel, will travel!

Have shovel, will travel!

We put her in charge of uprooting the dandelions and feeding some of them to Buttercup. Bunny was very happy.

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Random Truths

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Actual words of wisdom and words of lesser wisdom heard and seen in my world:

“You never know how bumpy a road is until you drive on it when you have to pee.”

Work related memo (not mine!) – “The meeting is cancelled. We are sorry for any incontinence this might have caused.”

Actual experience: the office supply store doesn’t stock bookmarks. Nope, not the old fashioned kind that goes in an old fashioned book. I had to go to a school supply store and search through the cutesie ones until I found something suitable for my fifth and sixth graders – something colorful, but not childish.

Meanwhile, I’ll reread Charlotte’s Web to make sure I’m ready to teach it. Bring on the tissue box!

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Trivia! And tradition!

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An encore post from 2010 – really? It’s 2015 now, and the Trivia contest is celebrating its 50th anniversary. I’m listening to Alumni Hour, an hour full of throwback questions and Contest History. Amigo and Chuck are down at the station answering phone. Enjoy the story of this wild and woolly tradition!

Long ago, when I was a teenager, and great woolly mammoths roamed the high school campus, I listened to a radio trivia contest one weekend a year. I enjoyed the crazy music that ranged from bad to worse, the mock advertisements for ridiculous and irreverent products, and of course, the trivial questions. (Who were the fairies in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty? Flora, Fauna, and Meriweather. Come on, ask me a hard one.)

Then I joined a Trivia team. This was still in the prehistoric times; rotary dial phones! We’d use the tip of a pen to dial the numbers so that our fingers wouldn’t get blistered. Really. Books, encyclopedias, and almanacs were our main sources for information that we didn’t already possess in our ever-evolving brains. (The hotel in Psycho? Bates Motel, of course. And Janet Leigh hid the money in a folded up newspaper.)

I played for this team until I transferred schools and began attending classes on the very campus that hosted the contest. By then the phones were push-button types, and the woolly mammoths had moved to less populated areas Up North, but our main information sources were still print books. (Winnie the Pooh lived in the Hundred Acre Wood under what name? Sanders.)

Fast forward several years, through contributions to a few more trivia teams, a marriage, and two kids. We now hosted a team in our home. It was a smaller team, not a top three finisher, but we held our own. Proudly, we invited people to share our home with the bunnies and the books and the new technology: cordless phones and Internet access. We still used a radio boom box, a white board for keeping track of team scores, and a spiral notebook for writing down questions. The woolly mammoths had retreated toward Canada in search of glaciers. (In the movie The Blues Brothers, what is the license plate number of the Bluesmobile? BDR529)

Telephones and radio have changed, but the Trivia contest continues. The radio has gone Internet only, which has actually expanded the contest to people in faraway locations that might still have woolly mammoths. Chuck and I no longer compete for the worthless prizes (the prizes have to be as trivial as the questions), but Amigo plays on his own. He listens to the Internet broadcast, searches for answers online, calls them in on the cordless phone or borrows my cell when the cordless’ batteries go dead. He and Chuck take a shift at the radio station answering phones to take people’s answers — each team that plays finds a way to make a contribution like this to keep the contest running smoothly. (What was the original name of the Popsicle? The Epperson Ice Pop, or the Epsicle)

Trivia (it needs no other qualifying details; all other contests pale in comparison) is a crazy and fun weekend with no equal. Some people take off for warmer climates in January; we’ve always stocked up on knowledge, coffee, hot cocoa, and phones. It keeps us warm. (When Frank Zappa was in ninth grade, he won a Fire Prevention poster contest. What did his poster say? “No picnic. Why? No woods. Prevent forest fires.”)

I still kind of miss the mammoths.

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