Snow Celebration for a Half-Century

January 29, 2010

Snow came to celebrate the anniversary of my 29th birthday!

2:00
Just at 4 inches of snow.
4:30
2.5 hours later we had topped 8 inches.

January 30 - After Snow Blow

It snowed heavily for at least 3 hours after the 4:30 reading, so this one can hardly be accurate.

Walking in the snow is good exercise.

Step into my woods!

Walking Park at Stewart Park.

Back home Lester laughs because I almost fell.

Inside my birthday flowers warm me from the inside out.

Can You Dumb That Down For Me?

I recently heard two statements that I find disturbing. Let me begin with a disclaimer that I have not researched the validity of either. I am responding on the basis that perception is truth (and sometimes it is).

A. Arkansas high school students are not meeting the minimum standards for math; thus we need to lower the minimum.
B. The Arkansas Challenge Scholarship has a disproportionate distribution to African American students because the ACT minimum is too high; thus we need to lower the minimum.

Obviously, I am paraphrasing, but this is the essence of the statements. The bottom line is Arkansas is being called upon to lower minimum standards because we are not performing on an acceptable level. Can you dumb that down for me?

College remediation is like a small stream in a dark cave that trickles along and eventually touches everything in the cave system. Students who need remediation in math, English, or reading have added expenses and a delayed graduation. Parents of these students are charged with finding additional funding. Colleges are charged with providing staff for leaning and tutoring centers, in addition to the extra educational needs for instructors who teach the remedial curriculum. Taxpayers finance a good portion of remedial instruction and required materials by funding grants and scholarships that students use to pay for education. Nearly everyone in the state is touched by the trickle down of college remediation in some manner.

The 2007 legislature created the Access to Success Task Force to address this and other problems in the Arkansas educational system. Their findings (based on the 2007-2008 academic year) on remediation are stunning. Nearly 40% of student enrollment in 4 year institutions of higher learning needed remediation (English 22.5%, Math 33%, Reading 21%). I read that number and sat with my mouth gaping as wide as I thought possible . . . until I read the next chart. Nearly 78% of student enrollment in 2 year institutions needed remediation (English 48%, Math 67%, Reading 42%).

Based on these numbers, it is fair to say high school students are graduating without basic skills in readin, ritin, and rithmatic. Sending a student to college without basic skills is paramount to sending him into that dark cave with a candle -- but no matches. Colleges are reacting by building learning centers and providing tutoring. Is that the answer, or does it provide a manner for institutions of higher ed to dumb it down? Obviously, a portion of the population believes that we should dumb down higher education because we hear these demands for lowering the minimum standards for entering and financing higher ed. However, some will argue that colleges should not provide remediation at all. Colleges do not receive funding that is based on or addresses the need for remediation in the classroom or learning centers.

The time when college is a privilege granted to students with exceptional academic skills and plentiful financial resources are gone. Anyone can go to college today. Thus we accept underprepared students and strive to catch them up. Instead, we need to narrow that gaping abyss between high school and college. This may mean changing the relationship between colleges and high schools. That might mean creating an office of outreach to work as a liaison between colleges and high schools. It might mean a reward or bonus system for teachers who take additional courses or workshops that enable them to better prepare students. It might mean bringing back Summer School for schools or students who fail to meet minimum standards.

I do no not pretend to know all of the nuts and bolts behind how the Arkansas educational system got into this situation or what we need to do to get out of it. I am merely an observer. Obviously, there is more to it than what we observe on the surface, but one thing has had a huge impact on the system. That is funding. High schools have to perform on the Benchmark exams to keep funding, so students are taught to take a test. Where is the critical thinking? The question is pointless if students do not know how to read or articulate critical thoughts. Can you dumb that down for me?

New college funding rewards graduation and retention numbers. Unfortunately, we need more funds to serve the underprepared students. Should we push these students through the higher ed system without caring about the quality of education they receive? Sometimes it seems like that is what the State wants us to do. Leave no child behind. Dumb it down. Get those numbers up. Do what it takes to make it look pretty on the surface.

And the consequence? We are graduating educators who do not know how to educate those high school students who will become college students who need remediation in order to get an education to educate others.



Unless Arkansas finds a way to infuse education with higher standards and provide the necessary services to meet those standards, we will always be have the image of an ignorant hillbilly. Wait . . . the hillbilly can do enough math to prosper selling shine.

They Smile Back

We have all seen that movie where the wife sneaks some type of nearly undetectable poison into her husband’s food. They call her the Black Widow because she moves on to another hubby as soon as she gets her insurance check on the dear departed. It is the same old plot, time and time again.

I have not seen the variation where the Black Widow is actually a daughter, but that is what I feel like right now. Over the holidays I dug out the recipe for my mothers Old Timey Sour Dough bread. It is delicious, but it takes a couple of days to make. I took the first loaf to Daddy, and he loved it so much that I got busy and made another batch. There is very little that I can do to brighten Daddy’s day, but this seemed to do the trick. I made myself a little vow to take him bread every week.

Daddy is on a very restrictive diet, and potassium is his worst enemy. He has to watch it very carefully and never eat any of the good foods, like taters and naners, that are full of potassium. We talked about the ingredients before he ate any. I told him there is nothing here but flour and a few spices. A very little bit of sugar. It seemed safe enough to eat . . .

. . . UNTIL Daddy went to the doctor for a routine check-up. Blood tests exposed an extraordinary and dangerous amount of potassium. Thus, my father was prescribed a rather nasty medicine to take. Where could that have come from? He had been so very careful about what he ate.




It was the bread. Even though I am the one who made the starter and the bread, it never occurred to me that the potatoes in the starter contained enough potassium to kill my father. With every slice of bread, I poisoned my father. As soon as he finished one loaf, I was busy making another one. It goes without saying that I never meant to hurt my father. I love him. I adore him. My relationship with him is a close one, and I cannot imagine life without him. Still yet, without even thinking about it, I was hurting him.

Sadly, it is not unusual for us to hurt the people we love without realizing what we are doing. The truth is that we spend a lot more time trying not to hurt, offend, inconvenience Stranger on the Street than we do our own family. We live in this polite society where we plaster a smile on our faces, even when we are doing something unpleasant OR having someone treat us in an unpleasant manner. When we go home to the people we love, all the poisonous hurt and insults that have been suppressed all day comes to the surface and spews out like hot lava. Our loved ones cannot help but contracting some of the poison, and we do not even realize it is there.

The most obvious way that we hurt our loved ones is by mouth. When the counterfeit smile is gone, ugly words and a sharp tongue are unloosed. Nothing poisons our relationships with father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, and friend more than the words that slip out of our mouth. They cannot be taken back, and “I’m sorry” is only a Band-aid for a gaping wound.

There are other ways we hurt the ones we love. Time is our most precious relationship commodity. I regret all the ballgames I missed, so I could work overtime or take a nap before supper. Why did I tell the children to go watch TV when we could have been playing a game, taking a walk, cooking together? But they understood that I was too tired or had work to do. Right? That is what I thought at the time, but the reality is I was hurting them. I did not know it. I did not mean to. Still yet, I was poisoning my relationship with my children just as surely as I was poisoning my father with potassium.

The antidote is love. Devote more time to your loved ones. Say I love you more frequently. Spend Sunday afternoon playing a card game or monopoly or fishing together. If you can suppress those bad feelings and slap on a smile for a disagreeable stranger, you can do it for your family. Indeed, it is even easier because they smile back!

Grandma Got Run Over by a Wii Dear

When I was a child, we had one television and one telephone in the house. The television had three channels IF the wind was blowing just right. If you wanted to know what was happening in Memphis, instead of Little Rock, someone had to go outside and manually turn the antenna. Someone else had to stand at the door watching the screen and shout when the picture came in. Of course, a bit of fine tuning and colorful language was usually exchanged before the picture was clear enough to watch. We were rarely allowed on the telephone. It was a party line, and good neighbors did not tie up the line with chit chat. No computers. No video games.


We did have books to read. Back then a book was a lot of pages of paper bound together – about 4 inches wide and 6 inches long. Sometimes they had a paper cover with a nice picture, and sometimes they had a hard cover. They were much thicker than a Kindle and could be 300-400 pages long. The great thing about the old-fashioned books is they needed no batteries. No power source required.

We climbed trees. We swam in rice wells and creeks. We rode bikes and horses. I spent the majority of my summers in a tree with one of those 4”X6” block of pages bound together with a glue spine. Treats were whatever fruit was in season, usually right in the field or orchard with no washing. Every great once in a while, my brother and I were allowed to split a coke and a candy bar between us. Sometimes we got homemade ice cream, but you had to expend a lot of energy in churning it. I am certain that torturous exercise burned more calories than the ice cream provided! The majority of children were fit and happy. We learned through discovery, not computers.

We entertained ourselves.

Today’s child has to be entertained. They cannot ride in the car for 30 minutes without a DVD. Our cars come equipped with all the gadgets to entertain the child, which has become much more important than comfort for Mom and Dad. Some children still have bikes, but they hate to ride them because it takes 30 minutes to get strapped into the helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, shoulder pads, chest padding, and mouth guard.

Video games are the main form of entertainment for children today. They have televisions in their rooms equipped with video games and dvd players. They have cell phones with video games on them. They have computers with video games on them. Some of them are “educational games,” but where are these kids getting their exercise? They aren’t.

At least they weren’t. Now we have Wii. Wii Sport comes with bats and tennis rackets, so our children can get their exercise in front of the television! What a marvelous idea!

My grandson got a Wii with Wii Sports for his birthday. I am staying with him for a few days, and he is really getting his exercise. I tried to get him to go for a walk with me or ride his bike while I walked. No way! He wants to play with his Wii. Lucky for me, I still have a few of those 4”X6” books that I carry with me when I travel. I decided to curl up in a sunny spot and read while Christian got his exercise/entertainment. That was fine when he was bowling.

I was deeply engrossed in Silas House’s newest novel, Eli the Good, when the Wii Dear decided to play tennis. My daughter has a nice large living room, but tennis is a very active game. I thought I had been hit in the face with a virtual ball when the Wii Dear stepped backwards and popped me in the eye on his back swing. Who would have thought that a video game could be so dangerous?

The last time we got better technology, parents had to rush out and buy a new car with a dvd player and charging stations for PSP, cell phones, and other gaming devices. I foresee a booming real estate market as parents rush out of find houses with large dens or play rooms to accommodate their Wii Dear’s gaming needs.

I will finish my book when the swelling in my eye goes down a bit.

Song of Grasshopper

For Melissa

There is no sweeter music than the Song of Grasshopper. Only the female grasshopper sings this song. The male grasshoppers cannot sing it at all because they do not know the notes. The song is passed from mother to daughter throughout the generations. Should a grasshopper daughter lose her mother to some tragic force of nature before she learns the song, her eldest Auntie Grasshopper is responsible for taking the young daughter under her wing until she learns the song. Because grasshoppers have terrible body odor, it usually doesn’t take very long for the young orphan to learn the song because that is the only way she can escape the under wing odor of her Auntie.

It was most unfortunate for Gabriella Grasshopper when she lost her mother, Ginger, when she was but a few days old. Gabriella had many aunts, but none of them could remember for certain which one was the oldest. Truth be known, it was most likely that Auntie Godiva was the oldest, but she suffered from Grassenheimer Disease and was not in any shape to carry a young orphan under her wing.

The other aunts argued about who should be responsible for Gabriella. None of them really wanted her because they all wanted to hop around in the all-night gardens at the nearby college. All of the young handsome male grasshoppers lived in the campus dorms at Grassy State University. The aunts were hopping wild in those days and could not be bothered with young Gabriella while so many young men were strutting about their long spindly legs. For many years, Gabriella was tossed from one aunt to the next, but none of them could be bothered to take the young orphan under her wing. That is why Gabriella Grasshopper grew up without any supervision.

Gabriella was a true child of nature. She was left to hop about as it pleased her. For a long time she was content to stay in the flower gardens near Auntie Godiva’s house. A nice sprinkler went off and gave Gabriella and Auntie Godiva a delightfully refreshing shower in the late afternoons. Gabriella enjoyed hopping through the water as she tried to jump over the tiny rainbows that shone behind the waters. Sometimes Auntie Godiva joined Gabriella in her afternoon games, an act that made the neighbors hopping mad as it was not fitting for a lady of Auntie Godiva’s age to hop about like this. Most of the time, Auntie Godiva stayed in the shady shadows and left Gabriella to raise herself.

As a teenager, Gabriella grew a wild leg and passed through a rebellious period. She grew tired of nibbling on the bountiful crab grass and started munching marigolds, which were only supposed to be consumed on Saturday with the sweet dew of fresh Miracle Gro. Gabriella had not learned that treats should be consumed in moderation. One day Gabriella noticed that her back legs were a bit larger than the other grasshopper girls her age. Auntie Godiva warned Gabriella that she would become overweight if she continued to over-indulge in the marigolds. She thought a little extra hopping about would prevent weight gain. Besides, she had heard that you would not gain any weight at all if you drank from the muddy ditch 3 times a day. She was to learn better.

One day a gang of grasshopper gals asked Gabriella to spend the day with them, and she was delighted to join them! The girl grasshopper gang took Gabriella to the corn fields. Auntie Godiva had sheltered Gabriella from the wicked ways of grasshoppers who frequent the corn fields. The girls of the grasshopper gang soon convinced Gabriella to nibble on the corn. She had never been high before and fell off the ear of corn into the hollow of the corn stalk after just one kernel. After only 2 visits, Gabriella Grasshopper was hooked on corn. She enjoyed the delicious high of the delicate kernels. After she ate herself high, Gabriella napped in the folds of the leaves until the big irrigation machine drenched her with sobering water. Then she went home to gorge herself on marigolds.

One day Gabriella paused over her reflection in the goldfish pond, and she could not believe what she saw. “When did I gain all this weight,” Gabriella asked. “How could this be?” For the first time in her life, Gabriella experienced depression. She knew just want to do for such a low feeling. Off to the corn fields she went. After that she ate marigolds until she fell asleep in the marigold bed. Very slowly Gabriella got into a terrible habit of eating at odd times and for comfort. She grew larger and larger until it took a great effort for her to get up the stalk to gorge herself on the corn that brought her a temporary bliss. Eventually, Gabriella became so overweight that she had to drag her huge back legs behind her. She lost her hop. She became known as Gabriella the Grouch because she was mean to everyone around her.

One day Gabriella heard a low scratchy voice from the side of the row as she slowly made her way to the corn field, dragging her heavy legs behind her. It was the voice of a huge spider. “Hey there, Hoppin Hunny! Come on over here. Old Fat Arachnid has something for you .” Gabriella had never seen such a creature as Fat Arachnid, and she was fascinated with him. He motioned for her to come back behind the corn rows with him. With an excited trepidation, Gabriella started his way.

Suddenly, from out of no where, jumped a ethereally tall and thin lady grasshopper. Gabriella had seen photographs of the all woman Grassazon tribe of grasshoppers before, but she thought they were long endstink. She was in shock to see this valiant warrior here in the corn rows. The tall grasshopper warrior jumped right between Gabriella and Fat Arachnid.

“What DO YOU think you are doing?” the tall one asked Gabriella.
“Not that it is any of YOUR business, she is going for a walk with me,” Fat Arachnid interrupted as he dangled a plump kernel of corn before the two grasshoppers.

Gabriella made an effort to jump past the Grassazon warrior, but she could not move as quickly as she used to. She could not get around. The warrior kicked Fat Arachnid backwards with the swift action of her back leg, and he was knocked unconscious for several hours.

The Grassazon warrior gave Gabriella a stern look and said, “I was a friend of your mother, Gabriella. We learned to sing together and were inseparable until Ginger’s unforeseen and untimely death.”

“SO?” challenged Gabriella.

“ I am here because your Aunt Godiva called with the Song of the Grasshopper. She told me that no one has ever taken you under the wing, and I am here to fix that problem. First, though, you must lose some weight. Your back legs are much to big to fit up under my wing.”

Gabriella started to back away from the Grassazon warrior. She needed corn.

“My name is Gay Gisella Grasshopper. Most people call me Gisella, but Ginger always called me Gay. She said I brought happiness to her life. It is time for me to do the same for you my dear. Come away from the corn with me.”

Gabriella was overcome by the maternal kindness of this stranger and agreed to go with her. Gay Gisella took Gabriella to a cool place under the shadow of a large rock. She showed Gabriella photographs of Ginger when Ginger was a young girl, peeking from beneath the wing of her own mother. She also had photographs of Ginger singing the Song of the Grasshopper.

“You know, Gabriella, your mother was very excited the day she laid your egg. She tried for several years to lay an egg, and you were a dream come true to her. Ginger spent many hours planning out your grassette and dreaming about taking you under her wing. I’m sorry you never knew her.”

Gabriella softly cried. “It is too late for me to learn the Song of Grasshopper now. Why did this happen to me?”

“Shoosh now,” crooned Gay Gisella. “We cannot question the Grass God. There is a reason for everything. “ Gay Gisella gently wiped Gabriella’s tears away. “I should have come to you a long time ago, Gabriella. I did not come because it was not my place to step in. Your aunts should have taken you under the wing. Auntie Godiva did what she could, but she is not able to take you under the wing. I cannot undo what is done, but I can take you under the wing now.”

“No you can’t! My back legs are too big now,” sniffled Gabriella.

“This is true my dear. However, this is not a problem that cannot be fixed. You just need a good diet and extra exercise. We will have you hopping again in no time.”

“Oh no. I cannot do it. I love corn and marigolds. I cannot give them up. It is TOO HARD!” Gabriella was already looking back towards the corn patch.

“Oh yes you CAN do it, Little Missy,” Gay Gisella said sternly. “And did you even hear anyone say you cannot have corn or marigolds? You can have them. You just need a plan. My own mother was a grassitition, so I can help with this.”

For 3 months, Gabriella had a breakfast of 1 dandelion bud with a little milkweed. She had another dandelion with milkweed and a nice cup of honeysuckle nectar. The fiber and protein filled breakfast and lunch satisfied Gabriella most days, and that allowed her to have a scrumptious dinner of corn and crabgrass. Every Saturday she was allowed to munch marigolds after her exercise.

After 2 weeks, Gabriella was making small and not so painful hops again.

After 2 months, Gabriella was hop hop hopping around the block.

At the end of the 4th month, Gabriella had lost enough weight to fit under Gay Gisella’s wing. The comfort from winged nurturing was something that Gabriella had longed for all of her life. Gay Gisella the Grassazon Warrior taught the orphan the Song of Grasshopper.

Two short years later, the graceful Gabriella Grasshopper won the Entertainer of the Grass Award for her heart-wrenching performance of Song of Grasshopper. Gabriella sang the song in memory of her mother and dedicated it to Gay Gisella.

The next day Gabriella took Gay Gisella aside and explained that they were about to embark on the slow process of whittling the excess crabgrass from Gay Gisella’s back legs. This was an enormous task for an old grasshopper like Gay Gisella, but Gabriella knew she could make losing weight fun for her friend.

This happy story, my grasshopper friends, end with a hug and large love.

The Soon To Be Slim End

Blessed With Bad Hair

I always start feeling sorry for myself about this time in the summer. I did not get to do half the things that I wanted to, and the summer is gone. I spent too much time doing “whatever” that I don’t even remember, and now I have to catch up all that work that I should have been doing in June. My hair has gotten so long that it just hangs limp and looks dirty, even when it is barely dry from washing, and hangs in my eyes, and the only time I had to get it cut, they were closed. It looks like I might have to start school with a bad haircut, and what will my students think? I haven’t even had a chance to visit with Daddy since Sunday. Now I don’t even have time to schedule sleep because there is too much for me to do before school starts on Monday, so I just stay up and feel sorry for myself.

Let’s add to that a summer cold. A really rotten summer cold with a sore throat. It has been 4-5 years since I have had a cold. I am certain that colds avoid me because I am such a horrid person to be around when I get one. I want to crawl into bed and have someone take care of me. Now I go and get one when taking off work is not even an option. If you can’t take off work and stay in bed, no one can possibly respect the intensity of your illness. We are much too busy at work for me to call in sick, so I just go in and feel even more sorry for myself.

Let’s add another layer to the madness and paint the office. I have never had a problem with paint before, but I did today. I could not breathe. I broke out in a rash. I got high as a kite. I am fairly certain I suffered depression as I came down off the high, and that made me REALLY feel sorry for myself. I haven’t talked to Daddy this week. I need a hair cut. I need sleep. I need 4 more hours to work every day. I need to slam that phone across the room if it rings one more time. Yes, I feel sorry for myself.

Then the phone rang one more time. It was one of my students. Rather it was a young lady who was scheduled to be one of my students beginning Monday. That makes her one of mine, just like my own child. Call her Jane, for the sake of privacy. Jane was calling from Le Bonheur Hospital in Memphis. She had been transferred around the University 3 times before she found my card and called me. Jane won’t be here next week because her 2 year old son is in critical condition. He was in a car accident on 351 last Monday. Jane’s mother and 20 year old brother were killed in that accident, and her son is in critical condition.

The rest of the afternoon I was mad at myself and mad at the world, I guess. How can life be so unfair? Why does this child, who is raising a child, have to suffer this horrific loss just as she is trying to put her life on the right track? What purpose could possibly be served in a 2 year old in ICU . . . critical condition? How does a young woman mourn her mother and brother while she sits by her child praying for his life.

I thank God that my appearance is my worst problem today. Tomorrow I shall rejoice in my rash, baggy eyes, and bad haircut because I am blessed that these are the problems God gave me for today.

Alien Invasion: Convincing the World

You know how the sky looks right at the end of summer when the heated haze has cleared? The blues and whites are crisp and clear. They are well defined and no longer blend together the way potatoes and gravy do when you have squished too much food on your plate. I love watching the sky when it looks like that.

That’s the kind of day it was. The air was as crisp as the colors of the sky. I walked through a town that looked like it came right out of the past. All the houses were white, and they were all 2 or 3 stories. The front porches were wide and long. I stopped in front of a house that had 2 rocking chairs and several ferns arranged on the neatly swept front porch. It looked like a picture postcard. The life of the house, though, was around back where there was another porch. This one was screened. It wasn’t as neat as the front porch. The glider was covered with an old worn quilt and 4 discarded throw pillows. It looked mighty comfortable to me. A small basket of apples sat perched on one of the wooden steps to the back porch. A larger basket was full of potatoes . Each side of the screen door was decorated with strings of fresh onions and garlic hanging out to dry. A large pile of purple hull pea hulls was right beside the steps. The gentle wind teased the dried and hardened hulls and threatened to blow them all over the back yard, which was decorated with bikes and trikes, as well as ball bats and other remnants of childhood.

The houses seemed to belong to another time, but the people living there were familiar. I saw friends, family, and a few acquaintances from work. Beyond the happy chirping of birds, I could hear children laughing as they played around the corner. It was a happy day. A lazy happy day.

Then I saw something strange in the sky. It looked like a train of hot air balloons. Very odd balloons, though. A covered wagon and team took the lead. A castle brought up the rear. The balloons in the middle looked like an apple tree and a boat. I told you it was strange!

It looked like the balloons were going to land, so I cut out running in that direction. They were descending over a freshly cut rice field just outside of town. I stood watching them in awe as they slowly came closer and closer. Can you believe no one else was around? Where were all the people? Surely someone besides me had seen this curiosity in the sky! No one else was about, though. I was all alone, but it never occurred to me that I should be frightened.

Until they landed.

It turns out that they were not hot air balloons at all. They were alien spacecraft. The doors to the castle opened first. Out stepped Dorothy and Toto. I wanted to rush towards her in excitement, but something was not right. Dorothy’s face had no emotion, and her eyes were dull - like a robot She was quickly followed by another Dorothy and Toto. And then another. Soon there must have been 50 of them standing in the field, facing the town.

The Scarecrow stepped down from the driver’s seat of the covered wagon and team. Immediately after Scarecrow joined the first Dorothy, many more robot-like Scarecrows disembarked from the back of the covered wagon. Dorothy, Toto, and Scarecrow were soon joined by Tinmen jumping from the apple tree and Cowardly Lions climbing out of the boat. As soon as the group assembled in teams of 5 (Dorothy, Toto, Scarecrow, Tinman, and Cowardly Lion), they began a slow march towards town. All of them had emotionless faces and dull blank eyes. They advanced with a slow methodic pace.

I don’t know how I knew it, but I knew they were evil. I knew they were coming to kill us all, and I knew it would not be painless. I ran back to town harder than I have ever run in my life. My legs were shaking. My chest ached with every single breath. My throat burned from screaming.

Now let me ask you, how easy do you think it is to convince folks that the town is being invaded by aliens from the Land of OZ?

I wish they would come loosen these straps. My arms are aching.

I never have any visitors . . .