Credit Free

   

At the Rabbit Box this month

      About a year after graduating from college, I happened to see a list of credit-free classes being offered by the University of Buffalo. They were not free of cost, just free of credits or grades. But the cost was not too much, and I remember taking at least three of these classes over different semesters.

          One was French. Other kids in the class were taking this for credit and were taking it because it was required for their degrees. The teacher was doing the class because he had a PhD in Medieval French Literature, and teaching French 101 was the only employment he had found. It was all kinds of sad. But it was neither the classmates' nor the professor's fault that I myself did not care much for the French course – my heart just was no longer into studying and memorizing. What little bit I learned quickly fell out of my brain soon after the completion of the class.

          Another credit-free course that I took was cross-country skiing. It is okay to laugh at this in the same manner that my parents would snicker whenever I mentioned maybe doing something athletic. Since I grew up in the snow belt and seemed unlikely to be moving away anytime in the foreseeable future, I thought perhaps if I could participate in a winter sport maybe I would start to like the long cold season better. And this cross-country skiing course was actually being taught in a classroom! Bizarre, I know. Well, of course the first couple of classes were spent talking about equipment. After that, we were supposed to go give what we had learned a try – waiting for the snow, of course – and I guess we were supposed to report back with questions and observations.

         At this point in my life, I still didn't drive, so when it finally snowed, I asked my brother Clark if he would take me cross-country skiing. We went out one Sunday afternoon to a place that rented skis and had trails. I did not even get a half a mile when I must have hyperventilated (I do remember worrying and stressing over the fact that I would be out in the cold until I reached the end of the trail we had picked, which I think was only about 2 miles) – I blacked out, and I could feel my legs buckle beneath me. Clark had been a little bit ahead, but he circled back and then got help. I was able to stand up and see again almost immediately, but my speech was slurred and was not quite right again for the rest of the day. Clark took me home, and as you might imagine, I did not return to the class, and I have never tried to go cross-country skiing again. We still don't know what had happened to me that day – folks are usually too busy chiding me about the incident when I tell them about it to give what might have been the cause any real thought.

         The first of the credit-free classes from UB that I took is the one that has stuck with me the longest and was not only my favorite, but obviously is something that has always been near and dear to my heart. Clownology! When people hear that I have taken a clown class, they tell other people I went to clown school. But clown school is that college in Florida, and it is very intense. The course I took in Buffalo was no pressure and just fun.

          We learned and practiced white-face make-up and hobo clown make-up. We were made aware of the different dimensions of clowning – can you think of them all? There is juggling, mime, slapstick, unicycling, acting, magic, improv, musical instruments, balloon animals – and countless more - and we practiced everything we could think of.

          I never had an appreciation for slapstick humor before I had to practice it myself – I always thought it was just silly, something for cheap laughs – but now when there is slapstick in a movie or on stage, I study what I am seeing and I gaze in wonder.

          Of all the clown acts mentioned above, the only one I was halfway good at was balloon animals – but only if someone or something else blew up the balloons for me – otherwise it would take too long – no one is having fun if the clown is struggling to blow up the balloon before even beginning the arduous task of twisting and tying to make the giraffe or the bunny or whatever!

          And I am good at smiling. And I take very seriously the rule about not smoking or drinking alcohol or cussing while in clown make-up. Valuable skills!

          There was a group called Clown Alley in Buffalo – mason clowns who did gigs around town for free. And they worked with us in the class instilling in us the honor and pride that goes with being a clown.

          I belonged to the Buffalo Clown Alley for about a year after graduating from the clown class. It was mostly my lack of transportation that kept me from doing more - and then my lack of confidence amidst what I saw as greatness in the other clowns around me slowed me down to such a point that I stopped going out with them.

          One gig that I did do with the clown masons was a walk-around at the children's section of the Buffalo Zoo on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Dressed in full white-face, the clowns interacted with the families who came by. Some clowns did one-on-one magic, some did mime, some balloon animals – each would do what he or she was comfortable with which was usually his or her specialty.

          I mostly smiled and waved to the kids while the looks in their eyes, when they saw me, melted my heart. Of course, it was not me they were seeing but the clown.

          I discovered that day in the zoo, I could lose all my inhibitions inside the costume. Under the baggy clothes and the wig and the face paint – I was stripped of myself and free!

         And if that is what it takes to make you smile, I will gladly be that clown for you!

273 20150930 Credit-free

Makin' Macon

      This is our Makin' Macon story which took place in 1997, and many of the following paragraphs are from a write-up of the story from 2009.

       Macon is about an hour or so south of Atlanta by auto. It has a lot of history, I am sure. But Macon today is mostly known for being an exit off of Highway 75, a major north/south artery through Georgia. There is not much more to it than the usual exit-off-the-highway attractions - gas stations, fast food restaurants, and a few hotels; and if you want to avoid all that congestion, Macon even has a bypass.

        It was spring, and one of the girls' Odyssey of the Mind teams had advanced past the local level. The state competition was being held in Milledgeville that year. I was not familiar with Milledgeville or how to get there. Others who were also going advised that we drive south to Macon, take a room for the night, arise early the next morning and finish the drive east to Milledgeville. A hotel expense was not in the budget, but I decided it might be better than trying to do everything in one day.

       Mid-afternoon the day before the State Odyssey of the Mind competition, Sarah, Amanda, and I drove south on 75 to the Macon exit. Of the hotel selections there on the access road, we picked the Holiday Inn. We checked into a room and then asked what time the restaurant started serving dinner? We were surprised to hear that the hotel did not have a restaurant!

        In the same parking lot as the Holiday Inn was a building that looked very much like an eating establishment. Yes, the hotel clerk told us, but it was not a Holiday Inn restaurant.

Well, we were hungry, and this restaurant was right there, within walking distance, and I was in the mood for being waited on and sitting at a nice table. The fact that this particular place was not associated with the nearby Holiday Inn merely meant that it would probably be more expensive than I had anticipated, but we could look at the event as a treat, and later we could tell people about the dinner we had at a nice restaurant in Macon, Georgia.

         It was 5:30 in the evening. Amanda and Sarah and I walked into the Macon, Georgia Holiday Inn parking lot restaurant. Then we walked down two dark hallways. The end of the second hall opened to a small dimly lit foyer. Past the foyer was the dining room decorated like a wine cellar. My appetite was was shrinking as the imagined cost of dinner was expanding.

        There was little activity in the dining room, and from where we were standing, we could only see one table occupied. No one approached us for the longest time.

        There was an armoire in the foyer – a heavy, dark, sinister-looking piece of furniture.   The girls and I took turns making up lines to a spooky story about the armoire as we waited for the hostess.

         Finally a woman appeared and asked if we had reservations?

         When I said no, the hostess explained that there would be about a two hour wait.

         But just in case that was not enough to get rid of us, the woman leaned her head back so she could look down her nose at us as she spoke, “And you do not meet the dress code for the restaurant!”

        Oh my gosh! We were kicked out of a restaurant in Macon, Georgia because, oh my goodness, we were not dressed properly?! In Macon?

       “Come on Girls – I had promised you Beanie Baby Happy Meals from McDonalds on this trip; let's go,” and as Sarah and Amanda and I bid the armoire goodbye and started back down the dark, dark hallway – the hostess returned her head to its normally upright position.

        Beanie Babies and a story to tell about the dinner we did have and the dinner we did not have one night in Macon.

        There are easier ways to get to Milledgeville, Georgia – the best way is to get up early in the morning, drive 20 east and then 441 south – it is a beautiful ride to a very lovely place. And one can bypass Macon altogether.

272 20150929 Makin' Macon

Francesca

        Spanish I my junior year started off with each of us picking a name that we would be called while in class. Denise does not convert to Spanish, so I picked Francesca which the teacher, Mrs. Tavkar, pronounced Francheska. It was lovely.

          While memorizing was my trick for getting good grades, memorizing lists of vocabulary words was not my idea of a good time. Outlines that flow from one point to another – those were much easier to memorize, and they tended to stay in my brain for a long time after the exams. But individual Spanish words? They would quickly fall out of my head, sometimes even before the tests.

          In spite of this, Spanish class was fun. There were different kids in this class, Mary and Marjorie were new to the school that year; there were some students who were sophomores; and there were juniors who I had not known before since most of my other classes were with the same kids I had mingled with since seventh grade. It was fun. Mary and Marjorie were especially a lot of laughs. I remember Marjorie picked Carmen for her name in class – I thought that was really quirky.

          One of the sophomores, a cute guy, picked Francesco for his Spanish name. He seemed oblivious to the fact that there was a Francesca in the class – but of course, I was thinking could this be fate? One night at a high school dance, how and why I was at a high school dance is beyond my recollection, but obviously there was one I went to, certainly not a dressy thing like homecoming or prom, and I remember this happening – there were some people dancing, and I of course was standing off to the side when I saw my classmate Francesco walking by with a couple of his friends. We made eye contact, and I don't know if he recognized me from Spanish class or if he would have done this anyway, but he said, “Hi,” and continued walking off with his friends. There was alcohol on his breath.

          So Francesco faded out of my life, but other things are more permanent – I found this note signed by Marjorie in my yearbook when looking through it this morning:

                 You never taught me how to do verbal problems in math

                 or how to play tennis in gym or my nouns in Spanish – 

                 Denise you are a failure - Margie”71”

          What a hoot!

271 20150928 Francesca

Si Senor (with accent over the i and tilde over the n)

         At the end of ninth grade I signed up for both Latin II and Spanish I to take my sophomore year of high school.

           This prompted a summons to the guidance counselor's office.

            Mr. Wilson was my counselor all through junior high, which included ninth grade. The only time I had ever talked to him before this end-of-ninth-grade meeting was in seventh grade when he came to our English class to introduce himself and explain what he did at the school. At the end of the class, when the kids were leaving the room, Mr. Wilson stopped me and asked, “Are you related to Bernard Des Soye?” That was my Uncle Bernie, one of my Dad's older brothers. He was also my godfather. I knew his name was really Bernard, but I pronounced it Ber nard with the accent on the nard, but Mr. Wilson said it Ber nerd with the accent on the Ber and the second syllable like nerd. It sounded so funny. But I said yes he was my uncle, and Mr. Wilson said he had gone to school with Bernard in South Bufffalo.

            That was the extent of my interaction with my junior high guidance counselor until that final month of ninth grade almost three years later.

           When I got to his office that spring day of ninth grade, Mr. Wilson said he was concerned about my overdoing it sophomore year. It was unusual for someone to take more than one foreign language at a time. He worried that the classes could bring my average down if I was spreading my study time too thin – and that could hurt my chances for college. He strongly advised that I drop either the Latin or the Spanish and replace it with a study hall so there would be time for me to work on the other, difficult, classes I would be taking.

           I despised study halls.

          But I decided to follow Mr. Wilson's advice because he was the big person, and maybe he knew what he was talking about. I dropped Spanish and kept Latin II.

          At the end of tenth grade, I signed up for both Latin III and Spanish I to take my junior year of high school. There was no concern expressed over my choice by whoever my new guidance counselor was. 

         The grades from Spanish I and Latin III brought my class average up.

270 20150927 Si Senor (with accent over the i tilde over the n)

The Alma Warning

       One day when I was about ten years old, Mom was going to get her hair cut, and I opted to go with her to get my bangs trimmed. The lady Mom was using at the time lived down Back Creek Road and worked out of her finished basement. After a phone call to Kay, I guess to confirm the appointment or to ask if it was all right to bring me along, Mom hung up and then said that she had to talk to me about something.

          Kay had told her that Alma was there getting her hair done, and Alma would be there through Mom's entire appointment. Alma must have been getting her hair set and dried, and that takes a while. So it was important to both Mom and Kay that I be prepared for Alma.

          Mom said, “There will be a woman at Kay's salon. She is an alcoholic. You will not act like anything is strange at all – even if she says stuff to you that does not make sense. Alma will have a drink with her. You will not make any faces or gestures or comments to indicate that you have noticed she is an alcoholic.”

          Alma was married to Frank, and together they owned and ran the tavern across the street from the law office where Mom worked. It was the same tavern that was the site of the famed typhoid well from the century before – and even though Frank and Alma were old, the typhoid incident was long before their ownership of the bar. I was never in the tavern – before or since. I assumed they did not sell food or my family would have frequented it once in a while – but I could be in error about this. Nor had I ever met either Alma or Frank before that day. I did know their names however, but only as the people who ran the bar – it had not crossed my ears before that either of them had a drinking problem – Mom and Dad never talked about it that I know of.

          But Alma was an alcoholic, and I was about to meet her and I was to have perfect manners in front of her.

         When we got to Kay's, Alma was sitting in one of the chairs. She had rollers in her hair, and in one hand Alma softly shook a glass that tinkled the ice in her orangy-looking drink. She smiled at me and made small talk that was not too strange.

          And I managed to behave myself in spite of the fact that Kay cut my bangs way too short.

269 20150926 The Alma Warning

Barbed Wire and Snow

ye ole chicken coop

          One of the extra buildings my parents owned along with the house on Zimmerman was a chicken coop. It was small, painted white, one wall had windows, and the floor inside was pine wood – beautiful. Cleaned up, and perhaps with the addition of some insulation – the coop would have made a fine guest room or office.

            We got chickens.

            Bantams. They were all hens except for one rooster. My understanding was that the rooster was there to stimulate the egg production with his ladies. A chicken-wire enclosure was attached to the window side of the coop so the birds could go outside. From what I recall there were no critters that ever tried to get at the chickens. The man who bought our old house on Heinrich Road took the plentiful chicken droppings to fertilize his garden.

          And that rooster crowed all day long.

          The eggs were collected and eaten. I do not recall there being a difference in taste between these eggs and the ones purchased at the store.

          Our intention was to not let the eggs hatch, but one Easter Sunday – a batch of peeps were born. They were so cute! Of the hatchlings, there was one new male.

          He and his dad crowed all day long.

          One winter's day, with snow piled up everywhere, but the chickens doing just fine on their nests in the coop, my brothers decided after school to ride their bikes to the store that sold chicken feed because the birds were almost out of food. Clark and Eric were younger than driving age at that time, and my parents were both at work. The feed store was a couple of miles away down Back Creek Road – a road that was never very busy so the traffic would be minimal for their bikes, but the plow activity would also be minimal. Bicycles are never a good idea in the winter anyway, but on a snow- covered street? Next to impossible.

Clark, bike, coop pre-chickens

          Except Clark and Eric had an idea. They had heard of snow tires that people in our area would put on cars in the wintertime for better traction in the snow and ice. And they had also heard that chains on tires help for traction too. So, was there something that could be put on bicycle tires to help grip the snow?

          They loosely wrapped barbed wire around their front and back tires.

          And it actually worked!

          For a little while.

         Then one of the tires went flat, and my brothers walked back home.

         Even though I was there at the time of this incident, I did not know about it until years later. Just like me to miss the modern day Orville and Wilbur right there in my midst!

268 20150925 Barbed Wire and Snow

Lady Sunbeam

   

     One Christmas season when I was very young I'm thinking perhaps four or five, my Dad took me shopping with him. At some point during the excursion he bought an electric razor for my Mom! It was going to be a Christmas gift.

           The next night after dinner I was at the kitchen sink drying dishes while my mother washed. In my life up to that point, I had watched a lot of television – and it seemed to me that the object of Christmas, based on all the situation comedies I had seen, was to find out before December 25^th where the presents were hidden, and if possible, see what was in them!

          So I thought I would be helping Mom immensely if I told her about the present Dad had gotten her!

          “I saw what Dad bought you for Christmas last night!”

          “Good.”

          “It's a...”

          “Stop! Don't tell me what it is – I want to be surprised on Christmas morning!”

          She was calm when she said it – maternal.

          And that one statement negated years of television themes, and it instilled in me a lifetime philosophy of delayed gratification.

          I can trace it all back to that moment.

         When I first wrote up this story back in 2009 when Sarah and John were in England, Mom received an email copy of it too and told me she still had the electric razor!

          Next thing I knew, Mom gave me the razor – a Lady Sunbeam, in its original case, and the case was in the Christmas box that it had come in! What a sweet and altogether goofy gesture. I keep coming upon the box here in my cluttered computer room, and now I'm thinking, if I take a picture of the shaver as a memento to go along with this story, perhaps I can then maybe not keep the actual Lady Sunbeam any longer? It's vintage late 50's – original box – any takers?

267 20150924 Lady Sunbeam

A 12-Step Program for That

      The moment it happened is as clear to me as ever. Okay, I do not know the exact day, but it was January of 1999. I was on my way to a dentist appointment, a new dentist whose office, it turned out, was kind of scary, and I don't think she is in business anymore, but that is a whole different story.

         On that morning, in the car, my finger kept punching between the two oldies stations on the radio. There was 97 with Randy and Spiff in the mornings – they played stuff from the fifties and sixties – and about 50% of the time, the music was okay - but someone once accused the station of having only 97 songs, and I think that was the absolute truth – I could probably name all ninety-seven of them! Randy or Spiff would say, “Coming up after the commercial, Peter, Paul, and Mary!” and I would think, “Maybe it will be Puff the Magic Dragon” but invariably, invariably, the song would be I Dig Rock and Roll Music which is okay maybe once a year, but not as the only Peter, Paul, and Mary offering of the entire station. I would listen as I drove until an obnoxious song came on – and then press the buttons to change to a different station.

          Sometimes I could get the other oldies station – Lake 102 or was it 103? And there did seem to be more than 97 songs – but it didn't always come in clearly – so that would get frustrating. Of all the other frequencies, I did not care for the contemporary stuff, classic rock was not classic enough, and NPR is okay, it was my third and default button – but I like to sing when I drive, especially alone, and a steady stream of NPR was just not my cup of tea.

          So that morning in January of 1999 while driving to the dentist, I was fed up with the songs playing on both 97 and Lake 102. I moved the dial just a little,  and the song that was playing on this just off of Lake 102 station  amused me – turns out it was Lee Ann Womack's I'll Think of a Reason Later – about why she hates her former boyfriend's fiance. The station was KICKS 101.5 - playing country!  I had always made fun of country music before that day – but I stayed for the next song, and the next. About a month later, I was hooked.

          In April of that year, I got my first country cassette – The Dixie Chicks' Wide Open Spaces; then Alan Jackson Under the Influence and Garth Brooks' double cassette of his greatest hits. And the collection accumulated over the next few years – I do not have a favorite country artist or country song – I have many many of them – and a ton of respect for them and that then evolved into a love of those who came before.

          Sarah and Amanda were patient with me and my journey into country music. Well, they had little choice, being a captive audience in the car and needing to get from here to there with me as their driver. And I think you could get them to admit there were puns and clever lines and humor that they appreciated and made them realize how I got lured in.

         The girls might also admit that the first time they heard Toby Keith sing the chorus to I Wanna Talk About Me – they burst out laughing in the back seat of the car!

          And then there was the day while driving, that all three of us were singing, as if our hearts were breaking right in two, with Jamie O'Neal on the radio - “There is no Arizona!”

         That was such a great moment.

         All this is not to say that the girls were not worried about my new taste in music. They did question it. In fact, I believe it was Amanda who I heard say one day that she was doing some research to see if there was a 12 step program to get people like me off of country music!

         Cute.

         She could write a gut-wrenching country song with that line!

266 20150923 A 12-Step Program for That

Et Cum Spiritu Tuo

          Dad once said, probably more than once now that I think about it, that I got my crazy political ideas from listening to my peers instead of thinking on my own, which is to be interpreted as – I should have the same opinions as Dad had. And of course I took offense at that.

         The one particularly crazy political idea of mine that Dad did not care for was my opposition to the death penalty.

         Thou shalt not kill.

         The source of that notion is none other than this group called the Catholic Church whose mass Dad took me to every Sunday when I was a kid! And while I have always had the world of respect for whoever was/is Pope at the time, and they do seem to be getting better and better, it would be a stretch to call any of them my peers – if anything, one would have to say it was Dad who instilled in me the thou shalt not kill edict with his example every Sunday of going to Church. If I wasn't going to get thou shalt not kill out of all that, then what would I get?

         Thou shalt not kill – it really could be that simple.

265 20150922 et cum spiritu tuo

Pax Vobiscum

Mike was there!

         Today is the International Day of Peace!

            Happy Peace Day!

           There's a chance peace/will come/in your life/please buy one – a line from Melanie.

           In January of 2007 Mike did some research to find a group from Atlanta that organized peace marches/anti war protests. And he not only found one, but they were going by bus that very month to Washington D.C.! He booked us each a seat, and we were on our way.

with my Dennis Kucinich sign

          The bus rode all night from Atlanta to the outskirts of DC. It was morning when we purchased subway tickets and emerged at the mall. There were thousands of us there from all over the country; exact numbers cannot be estimated because both sides, pro and con, tend to exaggerate high and low respectively. We had permits to march to the Capitol Building – we were not allowed on the steps, but only to walk past the Capitol on the street; we were allowed noise with our chants of what do we want?/no more war/when do we want it?/now!!

to the Capitol!

          People of all ages, religions, races. People all getting along – especially when we were gathering on the mall and resting on the park benches together – maybe what the world needs is more park benches! The posters and paper mache politicians on sticks were awesome – and some were kind of shocking.

         It was a sunny brisk January day – could not have been more perfect!

can we talk?

         The only negative personal experience was from a group on the side of the road which was pro-war – they had a sign to the effect that the dirty hippies should go home! Dirty hippies? Nowadays hippie is synonymous with free-love, drug culture, flower power, peace-niks – I thought the unwashed description had been left back in the sixties. But here it was on a sign – as if to say the unwashed don't have rights! Well, too bad – we're still here and in your face!!

          After the march, our group went back to the bus and rode again through the night – and we were back in Atlanta the next morning.

let there be peace on earth

          It is hard to believe that the trip was eight years ago already – the war in Iraq is kindof over, but there is still too much going on, like Afghanistan – so much money being spent on defense that could be used for education – education leads to problem solving and problem solving feeds the world and tactfully deals with religious zealots. And yes, this is most likely too simplistic to actually be true, but,

          if there's a chance, peace will come, in my life, I'll buy one.

 

264 20150921 Pax Vobiscum

The Red Clown Hat

red clown hat today

       Mike started working at MAS in the summer of 2003. I had not met him before – but we had talked on the phone a couple of times over the years when he was a client and was asking the status of samples he had sent to us. When Mike drove into the parking lot that first morning, I was gawking out the window just to see what he looked like.

        He was taller than I had imagined.

        One day at work a few months later, I was chatting with another co-worker when I saw   Mike walking down the hall. His shoulders were sloped and his head was down. I suddenly was miffed at always seeing him look like that. I excused myself from the conversation and moved into Mike's path – he was still quite a ways down the hall. I stood there until he almost ran into me. Then Mike stopped and lifted his eyes to see what the obstacle was. I said, “Is there something in particular that is making you so miserable today, or were you born that way and you are just always miserable?”

         Mike said, “Both.”

        “Well, tomorrow, I am going to wear my red clown hat, and you are going to smile.” I stepped aside and Mike's head and shoulders drooped again as he continued down the hall.

        The next morning I was in my closet picking out something to wear to work. Suddenly I remembered the clown hat – I was just being glib when I had said I would wear it. But then I told myself that if I could find the red clown hat in 1 minute or less, I would don it for work that day. The red clown hat was where it always was - on the top shelf of the closet on the case that stores my clown make-up.

        People at the lab asked me why I was wearing the goofy hat. Everyone except Mike – he was not there! He was on a consulting job somewhere. I explained that I was tired of Mike being such a downer - he needed to snap out of it!

        Later that afternoon, Mike showed up at the lab. I went to his office door and softly said, “I'm wearing my red clown hat today.” He tried real hard to give me a smile.

        It was a few months after that Mike started asking me out. I thought he was kidding, so it was easy to just say no thanks. But then one Sunday I had worked all day at the lab. I left at 6:30pm. And for some reason, Mike showed up at the lab after that. He saw the sign-in sheet – saw that I had been there before him. The next morning there was a handwritten note on my keyboard – it said something to the effect that 12 hours of work on a Sunday is not much fun – maybe we could do dinner and a show sometime?

lifted from facebook this month, of course

        Again, I thought he was just kidding, just being nice. But as the morning wore on, I began to think maybe I should say yes. I'm such a sucker for a hand-written note! Mike was out of the lab most of the day on a consulting job, but late that afternoon, he called me – he had been nervous all day waiting for me to answer! Oh my gosh!

        Today is the 11^th anniversary of the morning I found that note on my keyboard. The red clown hat really had nothing to do with our getting together, but since this is the self-proclaimed Month of the Clown, and the same month of that hand-written request for a date – I can make that connection.

         And be all smiles about tomorrow!!

263 20150920  Red Clown Hat

What's Blowing in the Wind?

Sarah getting ready for the first talent show, with Amanda

          When Sarah was in first grade she was in Bethesda Elementary's talent show dressed as a clown in full white-face make-up. She did a ballet to Tom Chapin's song Don't Make Me Go To School Today which has the same tune as Swan Lake. She was a hit! The crowd loved her.

          So when it was time the next year for the talent show, everyone at school was expecting Sarah to be a clown again. But Goobs told me she did not want the white-face anymore – it was too hot and uncomfortable. Then I suggested a hobo clown – hobos require a charcoal make-up which is much cooler. She said she would try it.

The Hobo Clown 1992

          Next, Sarah needed something for the hobo to do at the talent show.

          We had a tape that we listened to all the time by Peter, Paul, and Mary. The first time Sarah heard the tape and Bob Dylan's song Blowin' in the Wind came on, she asked quite earnestly afterward, “Mom? What is blowing in the wind?”

          I suggested she keep listening.

          For the talent show, the hobo with a hobo bag on a stick over her shoulder listened to Blowin' in the Wind and gestured along with the nine questions the song asks – she walked down the road, pointed to the dove and cowered from the cannon balls; the hobo watched the mountain crumble, strained to break free, and turned her head; she looked to the sky, cupped her ear to hear; and shook her fist at the too many deaths and then continued on down the road as the song subsided to its end.

          The crowd loved her again!

          A few days later I asked, “Well, Sarah, now that you've studied the song a bit more, tell me, do you now know what is blowing in the wind?”

          Her soft voice responded, “Yes Mom, the answers.”

262 20150919 What's Blowing in the Wind

Chicken Town

       When I got to the phrase cow town while writing my previous post, The Basement Tapes began playing in my head – Bob Dylan and the Band. More specifically, the tune I was hearing was my favorite Dylan song Lo and Behold which contains the line this is chicken town. Then a vision of ferris wheels and hanging my head in shame came into view. I made a note to write about Lo and Behold, but I would not have forgotten, because the song has played all day.

        The Collins Hill Library opened near the high school around the turn of the century, and the girls and I would go there often. When I discovered the music collection at the library, I began to check out CD's. Mostly old rock stuff I had remembered from the early 70's but had not heard in a long time – American History by America, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Bread; and it was there I discovered the Basement Tapes.

        Back then, my car CD player worked, and we put in The Basement Tapes – we rocked and bopped along, mostly me. Suddenly Million Dollar Bash came on – we got quiet and listened – then this line came on took my potatoes down to be mashed/finally made it over to the million dollar bash – and the back seat of the car erupted in laughter! The girls were so tickled with the silliness of the lyric! What did it mean? Why was it there? Obviously bash rhymes with mash – that's why it's there; but was he implying that this million dollar bash was so trite that it required someone to bring the potatoes to mash? Or was the real message here that some folks can get away with most anything, including rhyming million dollar bash with potatoes to mash and having their fans love it?

       While Sarah and Amanda enjoyed Million Dollar Bash, I liked best the song Lo and Behold on the Basement Tapes. You know the feel good philosophy that gets spouted about from time to time – try to find something positive to say about each day – may be even write it down for affirmation? Well, I tried to find something that would make me say to myself lo and behold every day. And often I would include a lo and behold or two in the letters I wrote. So when I heard the Basement Tapes for the first time and Lo and Behold came on – my lo and behold now had a tune – lo and behold lo and behold looking for my lo and behold – Dylan was looking for his lo and behold too!

        And the rest of the song? There's the imagery of the circus and a hobo doing the singing – more things near and dear to my heart. But I never got what the song was about. Googling it finally today – one explanation makes perfect sense – these are basement tapes – the players were just jamming words, tunes – sometimes repeating the way they had done the song before, sometimes improvising, or making it better, or forgetting and substituting. The songs don't have to have meaning. There is suggestion that parts of the melody and lyrics are homage to the old American tunes and players and instruments – Perhaps this is why certain images go through my brain when I hear the song. And all of that is why the Lo and Behold makes me happy.

        I'm Not There is a movie depicting Bob Dylan as six different characters. I knew it would be full of Dylan tunes, but I didn't dare hope that Lo and Behold would be in it – then the circus came on the screen, and the song played, and it was oh so delightful – I didn't need to look any farther for my lo and behold that day!

       Perhaps if I had been familiar with the song Lo and Behold years earlier, then when the guy sitting next to me on the Number 12 bus that day complained that Buffalo was a cow town, I could have turned to him and said, “What's it to ya Moby Dick? This is chicken town!”

261 20150918 Chicken Town

Riders on the Bus Go Yak Yak Yak

      Getting on the Number 12 bus one afternoon to come home, there was only one seat available that I could see – about halfway back. There was a man's coat draped over the seat and the guy sitting next to it was intently reading a book and had a scowl on his face.

        Now as you might imagine, contrary to my clown aspirations, I was always very self -conscious on the bus – just wanted to sit down and be out of the way. Standing was not a problem if all the seats were occupied, but I would be very conspicuous if I let someone's coat sit in a seat while I stood in the aisle.

       “Excuse me? May I sit here?”

       The man pretended not to hear.

       For a moment I contemplated standing instead of sitting because if I pursued it, the man was very likely to say “NO!” and then I would be conspicuous for sure.

       Weighing both options, I tried again, “Excuse me? Do you mind if I sit here?”

       An utterance of disgust came forth from the man, and he jerked his coat off the seat so I could sit down.

       “Thank you.”

       The bus went along its route. I was hoping the guy would get off soon so I could stop worrying about him being mad at me.

       Then an even louder utterance of disgust came out of the man! And he looked over at me.

       “What?” I asked.

       “This is such a Cow Town!”

       “What's wrong?”

       “The noise! Listen to the noise! People are talking to each other!”

       “What should they be doing?”

       “I come from New York City – nobody talks on the subways or the buses there!”

       “Well that's because they don't know each other – too many people there to run into the same ones every day on the ride home.”

       “Exactly! This is a Cow Town!”

       “These folks catch the same bus home every day; after a while they get to know each other; and they obviously enjoy sharing their day. I think that's better than what you are describing in New York City!” And I felt a twinge of envy – if I got in the habit of riding the bus home at the same time everyday – I'd get to know some people too, and I could share my day; but I'm too much of a loner. What a terrible clown!

       “You are not supposed to talk to people on public transportation.”

       “Well, it appears you are talking to me!”

        We continued chatting until the bus came to his stop. I don't remember what all we talked about, probably because I was not so much listening as I was enjoying the irony of the man complaining on the bus about people who talked on the bus.

        Maybe a little bit of Cow Town rubbed off on him.

260 20150917 Riders on the Bus go Yak Yak Yak

Hooked and Laddered

       There was an Easter Sunday I decided to work at the lab – this was before I was married, and I'm sure there was some family get-together I probably attended later in the day. The buses would have been running on a holiday schedule which means that they were few and far between – so I was on a bus well before 6am that morning.

         As we rode along I could hear the conversation of two women who were sitting together – actually they were boisterous and laughing! From what I could gather, they were maids who worked at a hotel on Main Street. I thought about how I chose to go to work on Easter Sunday, but these women had to work. And yet they were happy and making the most of it. So why did I, when I knew very well I was doing something constructive with the day and had the choice to do it or not do it – why did I feel so gloomy? I did not envy their jobs – that's really hard stuff – but I did want to be as happy as the two women on their way to do maid's work on an Easter Sunday seemed to be. 

        Sometimes it is tough to realize that happy is a choice too.

        One afternoon I was on a bus coming home when the noise of a fire engine could be heard. Looking around, we saw that the fire truck was heading in our direction, coming right down the street toward us. It was a hook and ladder fire truck with the ladder part seemingly extra long and with a mind of its own. There was someone sitting at the very end of the ladder section in a seat, and the ladder was almost perpendicular to the truck, meaning that the ladder was on our side of the street and appeared to be about to crash into the windshield of the bus! I was sitting up front that day in the seats that face each other. I was across from the bus driver – with a view right out the windshield. The guy in the seat on the ladder and I made eye contact!

toy version of what I saw that day

        Then, at what had to have been the very last second, whoever had control over the ladder, either the driver of the truck, or it seemed more likely it was the guy on the ladder, swerved the ladder back into the same lane as the fire truck, and they continued on down the street.

        I doubted my senses at that point – the experience seemed too unreal. Then I looked around at the other passengers on the bus. One woman across the aisle from me started laughing! She said, “Honey, I didn't think you could get any whiter than you already are – but you just did!” and she laughed some more. I couldn't even smile back at her – must have been in shock. Now I can laugh, but only at the comment – I still don't know what the heck that fire truck was doing!

259 20150916 Hooked and Laddered

Wheels on the Bus Go 'Round

       Another time I was sitting on the Number 12 bus, and I noticed that three high school girls were staring at me from across the aisle. We were in the back of the bus at the portion where the seats face each other.

         High school kids on the bus made me nervous. Adults on the bus were going to work or coming home – they worried about time – getting to work on time, would the bus be on time, getting home at a decent time – they, like me, were just wanting to get to where they were going. Smaller kids on the bus were with their parents – so for the most part they behaved. But the high school kids? They had time. And when there is time, one sometimes looks for mischief.

         So the girls staring at me had me anxious. I did not want to engage them in conversation – who knows what they were up to? But after a while, one of them said, “Excuse me, there is a spider coming down the pole and about to land on your shoulder!”

         I looked at the girls, and their faces had genuine fear! Then I looked in the direction of the spider – and sure enough one was coming down the pole. It was not of some gigantic monstrous size but merely appeared to be a spider like you might find in your house – I smiled at the girls and told them it was okay – I was going to let the spider live. They were not too sure that was wise. I was just relieved that delivering the warning about the eight legged critter was all that they wanted of me,  my being more afraid of the high school girls than they were of the spider!

        Another time a girl who looked to be still in her teens got on the bus and was standing because all the seats were taken. She was about seven months pregnant and looked uncomfortable. Several people stood up to offer her a seat. But the girl gave a smile, shook her head no, and said that standing was more bearable than sitting at that particular moment!

         I can still remember her smile.

258 20150915 Wheels on the Bus Go Round

Winter and The Number 12 Bus

       In my first-day-of-college post, my grandmother had emphasized that I was to only ride the Number 13 bus to get to school. But when I got my job at Roswell Park which was a little further down Main Street toward downtown Buffalo than Canisius was, and I moved into my first apartment just across Eggert Road from my grandmother's place, it made more sense for me to take the number 12 bus route.

        The bus was my form of transportation to and from work for five years, and there were a few adventures that I can remember after all this time. There was the day of a huge snowstorm during the day – traffic was terrible from the moment the snow started. When I got on the bus to go home, we moved very slowly up Main Street, which should have been more passable than the side roads we would soon be turning down. At one point the bus driver threw up his hands and yelled, “No one is willing to give anyone else a break!” That made me sad – I like to think that blizzards bring out the best in Buffalonian behavior – but I guess it was not the case on that particular day.

        In another snow and bus story – our first Christmas season together, the ex-hubs and I got on the Number 12 bus which took us to Main Street, and then we transferred to the Number 5 bus that went north to the suburbs and the Eastern Hills Mall. We spent the day shopping for gifts and then bought an artificial Christmas tree. We were smart enough to not get a tree that would be too big to take home on a bus – but we did not consider the buses being so crowded that there would be standing room only – and we with this four foot box of artificial tree taking up lots of aisle space! The first bus, the Number 5, was uncomfortable enough – but then we waited in a sketchy stretch of Main Street in the cold and dark on a Saturday night for the Number 12 to come along, and when it finally did there were people standing on the bus all the way to the door!

        I thought the bus driver was going to refuse to let us on – but the people standing squeezed together even more than they already were, and the other people at the bus stop got on, and then we and the tree smushed in – the box stood on the bottom step by the door.

        I was sure my marriage was over – what kind of weirdo did not drive a car and put her husband through such things? He did not look too upset, however, and soon the bus emptied out enough so we could sit down and get the tree more out of the way. Once the tree was home, how it got there became more a humorous bus story rather than a the wife is just plain weird story.

        Golly, more memories are flowing in, so I'll break the number 12 bus into a couple more posts. Since this one is mostly about the bus in winter, I will add here that even when there were blizzards so bad that schools and businesses closed, it was rare when the buses did not run. And yet, as you might guess from Buffalo's reputation – we did experience, during our time at the apartment at least two storms which were huge enough to bring even the buses to a standstill! And you gotta believe, that's a lotta snow.

257 20150914 Winter and the Number 12 Bus

Hades No!

       Latin III my junior year of high school was more of the same from Latin II – more Roman and Greek mythology, more subjunctive, more crossing the Rubicon to Germany and England.

       At some point during this school year, Miss Collins announced a toga party! This was going to be in the evening at school. So of course it was going to be very tame. We would dress in togas and have food and drink of the gods! The room would be decorated – I don't remember if we were going for a forum look or the Senate or perhaps just anything Roman.

       I did not know how to wrap a toga. So I asked my mother for help. She was such a great seamstress and also creative – I thought a toga would be so easy for her. Instead Mom began to stress – she needed a pattern. Today I guess it would be so simple to just google “toga pattern” - actually, I just did, and ebay has Simplicity toga patterns! But Mom went to her drawer full of patterns from past projects hoping something toga-like would jump out at her.

        Couldn't she just do it free-hand, I asked? Mom began to stress more – she needed a pattern. Finally she settled upon a bathrobe pattern. Oh my gosh how totally lame was that? A bathrobe to a toga party!

        Yes, I wore the newly hand-sewn bathrobe to a high school toga party. I should have been grateful, and as Mom's Mom used to say, “It's warm.”

         For decorations at the party, Miss Collins asked if I could draw my flowers on posters? Back then, in the midst of the hippie era – flower power – and everything, I would put a little daisy after my name on all my homework and tests – this was in every class. 

         But a freehand daisy on a great big poster? No! I needed a stencil, some thing I could trace – like a pattern!

        I discovered that a compass – the kind you used in math class to make arcs and circles – would make six perfect daisy petals around a point. I started putting my perfect daisies on a poster while Miss Collins was trying to discourage me. She said that my signature daisies were easier. And now I realize that what she really meant was that she preferred the freehand daisies – they went along with the flower power spirit.

        The compass flowers, I guess went well with the bathrobe toga.

        Another poster I made, and one I was so proud of – and it is the first thing I think of even today when someone mentions toga party – was my war protest poster. Along with the hippie era and flower power, those days were the time of the Viet Nam War – and protests across the land and the media were becoming bigger, louder, more dangerous every day.   One of the popular expressions of the anti-draft movement was Hell No! We Won't Go!

        So my poster said, Hades No! We Won't Go!

        Miss Collins and Mom liked the poster. Sarah and Amanda liked the story of the poster.

        For such an innocuous, non-Animal House, party – this high school toga party story has yielded an interesting snapshot of the times – and a wince-making realization of a certain similarity between mother and daughter.

256 20150913 Hades No!

Salvete Discipuli

     “Salvete Discipuli” - this was the greeting we received every morning at the start of Latin I class – it means “good health Students” - and we responded “Et tu Magistra, salve!” which is “and you, Teacher, good health!” I forgot this when writing the post about Latin I and then remembered when reflecting on Latin II and III.

        Miss Collins was my teacher for high school Latin. She was not very tall and we loved to tease her – thus there was barely control of the class. And Miss Collins did not teach in a way that I was used to – she spent a lot of time telling the mythology stories – not only the ones about the Trojan War and all its players – Helen, Paris, Agamemnon, Cassandra, Electra, but also the story of Atalanta and the Golden Apples, about Medusa, Romulus and Remus, Medea, the underworld.

       The stories were so plentiful that I worried we were not learning enough Latin – and the Latin II final exam was a state regents test – we would have to learn as much as the rest of the New York State Latin II students. There would be the battles of Julius Caesar on the final, but not the mythology.

       Somehow, though, we did learn – and again, what I myself learned was a whole lot of English – the passive and active tenses, subjunctive - all news to me! – I started writing in English, sentences that began with the word lest. I memorized how to spell colonel and lieutenant because it was easier when doing translations of Julius Caesar to just write the words correctly than worry about looking them up in the dictionary afterward each time for spelling.

        Miss Collins said she would buy dinner for anyone who got above a 90% on the regents final! She believed in us even when I was not so sure.

       The next September, at the beginning of Latin III, four or five of us went to an Italian restaurant in downtown Buffalo, and Miss Collins treated us to dinner – I can't remember the name of the place now – but it was lovely.

        Lest I seem like an ingrate after all this time, I would like to now state unequivocally that I am indebted to Miss Collins for the stories, the new English skills and the old Latin.

        Et tu Magistra, salve!

255 20150912 Salvete Discipuli

That Forgiveness Part

     Here is another story about the young man mentioned in yesterday's post – a college classmate that I dated (briefly). We were hanging around the biology library one evening - there might have been one or two other classmates there during the course of our discussion. And we started talking about our mutual Catholic upbringings.

     So of course, the topic of confession came up – and we each took turns relating our confession stories. And after a while I said, “What I especially hated was having to go into the confessional, and the first thing I had to do was say how long it had been since my last confession? And it was always a long long time, so I'd get a lecture from the Priest about that!”

     My friend responded, “oh, my mother always told us to say it had been a month since our last confession.”

     And I laughed. Well, I laughed because he had said something funny.

     But he just looked at me and wondered why I was laughing?

     Then I realized he was being serious – and I was in a dilemma – should I tell him why that was funny and as a result end up insulting his mother, or should I just let it go?

     Finally I calmly explained the contradiction of going to confession to list all your sins and the first thing you do in there is tell a lie about how long it has been since your last confession?

     I guess this is just another case of my taking confession a whole lot more seriously (and unrealistically?) than my peers at the time. I don't go to confession anymore – that is, I do not go to a place in a church behind a door with a screen and a human being to hear me.          But I confess my sins all the time, and every day I am consciously trying to do better than the day before. Truth be told, though, it's the forgiveness aspect of confession that seems to get left behind.

254 20150911That Forgiveness Part

There's a Hair on my Soap!

        You know when you want to tell someone about an article that you read in the New Yorker, and you start by saying, “There was a long article in the New Yorker recently....” ? After a while you realize that you always say long article, and the truth is all the articles in the New Yorker are long – so the adjective is redundant. (And this is not to complain about the New Yorker articles – I love them. But I do confess that I did not renew my subscription this year because the price went up to $99 which is beyond my budget, sigh.)

          So I was about to start this blog post with the phrase “there was a guy I dated briefly in college,” but then I realized dated briefly was redundant – anyone I went out with in college was only for a brief time. So

          There was a guy I dated in college – he and I actually had a lot in common. We were both goofy, all the time telling jokes, one-upping each other's comments for laughs – but this happened only when we had an audience – people in class or lab or a rathskeller. When it was just the two of us, we actually found each other kind of boring. And that is sad.

          But I do remember most of the funny stuff.

          Every time I am in the shower nowadays, I am reminded of a story of his – how is that for a legacy? Back in the early seventies, most houses still only had one bathroom. So this meant that the same tub was used for every shower or bath each person in the family took.             Not at all unusual.

          I don't know what brought the subject up, but one day this young man said that there were bars of soap piling up in the soap dish part of the shower at his house. Members of his family were opening up new soap rather than using what was already in the shower.

         Why were they doing that?

         Well, if the bar of soap already in the shower had a hair on it – the new person entering the shower assumed it was a pubic hair – and probably not that person's pubic hair and that person did not want to use soap which had someone else's pubic hair on it. So that family member would bring a fresh bar of soap into the shower, and it would get used by subsequent shower-takers in the family until such time a hair stayed on that bar of soap which prompted a new new bar to be introduced to the shower.

          And that is how several bars of soap could end up in the shower at one time – each having on it one hair of presumed pubic origin from someone other than the current shower-taker.

         If someone were to remove the hairs in an effort to get the soap used up, the soap still sat there because everyone would know the reason it was there was because a hair had been stuck on it sometime in the near past.

         Who wants to use soap that once touched another person's pubes?

         My friend thought this was amusing. He might have even experimented with this phenomenon – perhaps he was the one who rinsed the hairs off to see if the soap would get used after that. He may have stuck the hairs on the soap just to find out how quickly a new bar was unwrapped – was it the very next person to take a shower? Was it the same family member every time getting the new bar of soap?

         Come to think of it when putting this memory to page, this is more of a theory than actual fact – we don't know if it was hair or something else that caused the soap to accumulate in the shower – but it sure is a good story!

         When I step into the shower these days, I am reminded of this anecdote of the soap and the alleged pubic hairs. And I marvel at how different everything is now. Today most homes have two or three bathrooms with shower facilities. Everyone in the family no longer uses the same shower, and thus, that takes all the mystery away from who left what where and why.

         Perhaps, just for the sake of scientific curiosity, I should put a hair on the soap in the guest bathroom, and leave a generous supply of new wrapped bars of soap within comfortable reach, and see what happens?

253 20150910 There's a Hair in my Soap!

Get Well Message

        There was a time when I was in college when a male business acquaintance of Mom's was in the hospital for hemorrhoid surgery.

          We went to the mall so Mom could get a card for him.

          “You know,” she said, “it is not that easy buying a get well card for someone having this kind of procedure – words on the card could take on a double meaning! And we have to be tactful about this.”

         So what was the tactful get well card Mom purchased for her friend in the hospital recovering from hemorrhoid surgery?

      Scuttlebutt has it you are in the hospital!

          I had never heard the word scuttlebutt before – apparently it means rumor or gossip – and of course, it could have a whole different interpretation for a hemorrhoid patient.

          Not quite what Mom had set out to purchase, but one does not turn away from perfect!

          To this day, when I look for a get well card or want to email a get well message – all that goes through my head is scuttlebutt has it....

       Scuttlebutt, the gift that keeps on giving!

252 20150909 Get Well Message

First Day of College

       

senior year, proof of age

      September 8, 1971 was my first day of college! I was so excited. The school I had picked was Canisius College, a Jesuit institute of higher learning located on Main Street in Buffalo, New York. If you follow college basketball at all, you may have heard of it.

        But I did not play basketball. There were other reasons why I chose Canisius.

        It was a small school with a good reputation for educating its students.

        It had a respected science curriculum – and I was going to be a biology major.

        It was local, so I would be able to commute to and from every day rather than having the expense of the dorms and the food plans.

        And, in 1971, the ratio of boys to girls at Canisius was 3 to 1!

        Oh yes, I was very excited to get to my first day of college!

        Home was 20 miles away, and I did not drive, but my grandmother lived on the outskirts of the city, and the buses ran nearby. My grandmother very generously offered to let me live with her while I went to college. She lived upstairs of a duplex owned by her son, my uncle, who lived in the downstairs of the duplex with his wife, my aunt. And my aunt worked for the bus company in the offices downtown – so for the four years that I went to college, my aunt kept me completely supplied with free bus tokens! 

        Everything had fallen into place perfectly for me to attend the college of my choice.

        A few days before my first day of college, my grandmother began to stress about my lack of experience with public transportation. She worried that I might get on the wrong bus and/or not know which stop to get off at. There were two bus lines that ran near her house – the number 12 and the number 13. I was never ever ever to get on the number 12 – it came out too far south on Main Street, too far for me to walk to the college, and too dangerous.

        I was only ever to get on the number 13 bus – it would go down Kensington Avenue and then turn left on Main Street – the second bus stop on Main was Canisius College.

        And oh my gosh, to get back to my grandmother's at the end of the day? Well there were any number of buses that went up Main Street, but only the number 13 would return me to her place. If I were to get on the wrong bus, well I might never get back again! The wrong bus incident of kindergarten was back to haunt me, and another generation was warning me of never seeing home again!

        My grandmother's stress levels grew as the days got closer to September 8^th so much so that she finally decided she was just going to have to ride the bus with me that first day!

        And Folks, that is how my grandmother got to be seated next to me on the number 13 bus – on my first day of college!

        I tried to tell myself how cute the whole scene was – my grandmother riding the bus with me on my first day of college, but nice was overridden by my complete feeling of mortification – jeepers! my grandmother was riding the bus with me on my first day of college!

        As the bus moved, my grandmother chatted away, pointing out different landmarks for me to remember so I would know when to get off the bus when coming home. But I was not listening. I was too busy looking at the other people on the bus, worrying that other college kids were witnessing the spectacle of my grandmother riding the bus with me.

        I did not see other college-type kids on the bus – it turns out there were very few classmates who took public transportation. And you would think I might have relaxed a little after that, except a new wave of mortification swept over me – what if my grandmother got off the bus with me and helped me find my first class on my first day of college? Oh my gosh!

        The bus got to the end of Kensington Avenue and turned left onto Main Street. It made one stop and then began to roll again. My grandmother told me to pull the cord to signal the bus driver that I needed to get off at the next stop.

        I pulled the cord and stood up. I looked over at my grandmother, and to my infinite relief, she was till sitting. She said she was going to ride the bus all the way downtown and do some shopping. She said that she would see me at home that afternoon. And then she smiled and told me to have a good day.

        I got off the bus ashamed of all the terrible emotions I was having about my grandmother. But I also felt something else. Freedom!

        Ah! Okay, the first day of college could begin at that moment – not the minute I woke up that morning, but it could be from when I got off the bus. Yes!

         I crossed the street, and then I was on campus. In front of me was a one hundred year old building called Old Main. My first class on my first day of college was going to be in Old Main – a required, core-curriculum, freshman class called Introduction to Religion. I took another look at my schedule to get the room number. And then I set my first foot into Old Main!

         I got to the classroom and sat down at a desk. I moved my hand over the top of the desk and said to myself, “my first desk in my first class on my first day of college!”

        Other students were coming into the room. They did not all look like freshmen, but what did I know? A tall, attractive looking-like-an-upperclassman young man came in, and he sat down at the desk next to mine! We made eye contact, he smiled at me, and then he said, “Do you think you are going to like this speech class?”

        My mouth opened, and my mouth said, “yeah, that's a good one! I wouldn't be caught dead in a speech class!”

        Once my mouth was done talking, my brain knew what had happened. And the good looking guy next to me who was smiling knew what had happened. He motioned for me to give him my schedule. And I did. And when he returned it to me, he told me which way to turn down the hall to get to my Intro to Religion class!

        As I slunk with haste out of the speech class, lest I be called upon to give a speech, I wallowed in my total humiliation of being embarrassed just minutes earlier by my grandmother not having enough faith in me to think I could ride the bus by myself, and yet the moment I was finally on my own, I could not even get to the correct classroom by myself!

       When I got to the correct room, there were already quite a few other kids present. They all looked like freshmen.

       I sat down at a desk and moved my hand along the top of it, but it was not the same. I told myself that my first day of college could begin at that moment.

        Sure there were already two false starts to the day, but that moment could be my real first start to my first day of college.

        And so it was.

        Four years later, I had managed to learn a few things.

1975 College Graduation Day with Mom and Dad

        I had managed to learn enough for the Jesuits to give me a diploma that said Bachelor of Arts Biology.

        I had managed to learn that even with a ratio of three boys to every girl I myself was not going to find the man of my dreams at Canisius College.

        I managed to learn that as I go down life's road, there were and would continue to be many buses missed, and even a few wrong buses ridden and I would be able to handle them all.

        And thanks to my grandmother's example, I managed to learn that as I go down life's road, the love and support of family and friends are riding right there at my side. And even though my Loved Ones can't always keep me from being ditzy, they are always ready with a smile and the wish for me to have a good day!

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