Campus Hawk

This morning as I drove onto campus, I saw a car stopped in the oncoming lane and something on the ground in front of it. The something had a strange shape, and from a distance I couldn't figure out what it was. As I got closer, however, I realized that it was a hawk standing in the same position as the one in this picture. With its wings out like that, I thought maybe it was hurt, but when I got as close as the photographer seems to have, I saw its prey—a small dark-colored bird—lying on the pavement beneath it. The hawk spread its wings that way, I guess, both to protect its kill and to prevent its escaping (if the bird were only stunned or playing possum).

The hawk and bird created one of the brutal scenes of nature, right there in the middle of campus.

Then I had another thought.

In the mechanical uproar of this modern world, I wondered if the hawk knew that just a couple of feet behind it, looming over it almost in the same way that it loomed over its kill, sat a bright blue PT Cruiser. If the car were to have a responsive gas pedal, a quick press and the vehicle might have hit the hawk in the same way that the hawk had hit the bird. The hawk might have been thinking, on some level, 'Mine! Mine! Mine!' What if the PT Cruiser—or its driver—were thinking the same thing?

Then I had another thought.

All of all the things I think are mine, even the life that I live and think is mine—What is the PT Cruiser looming over me with the capability to take it all away, take it maliciously or thoughtlessly?

Then the moment ended. As I drove by and looked down at the hawk, it flew away, seeming to disappear—with its kill—right before my eyes. And the PT Cruiser edged forward in its search for a parking space.

Prophecy

Here's an amazing couple of paragraphs written over 20 years ago. They appear in historian/theologian Martin Marty's book Friendship (in a chapter in which he's discussing freedom and its relation to friendship):

If the future of the world is to be as full of fanaticism and intolerance as it bids fair to be, the prophecy of historian Hugh Thomas could come true. In the next century, he writes, the great human divisions may follow religious lines, not national lines. Religious zealotry is particularly prone to extreme suspicion of the non-orthodox, and because of this it poses special dangers to champions of variety and reform. The 1980s have seen a promise of Thomas's prediction in the new fanaticisms of all religions: in Shi'ite Islam in Iran, among the Gush Emunim of Israel, the Soka Gakkai in Japan, and the new Fundamentalists of the United States. People are gathering into tribes, into separatenesses that can help them keep their place and ward off presumed or real threats from outsiders.

In times like these, tolerance becomes too weak an attitude to be of help. Being tolerant has come to mean being wishy-washy, having no deep commitments. Because of its shallowness, tolerance has gotten a bad name and picked up some enemies who like to play into the hands of the intolerant. Only those who are certain are truly religious, they say. Only fundamentalism and fanaticism count for faith in such a market. Fanaticism, however, can exact terrible penalties in a world too full of weaponry, too ready for terrorism, too tiptoed toward the brink of religio-racial-cultural-ethnic warfare on almost all continents. (53-54)

More on Sleep

Oddly enough, when the wife and I were away last weekend, I slept better, even though the bed wasn't nearly as comfortable as ours. Maybe it was being away from the job. Maybe it was being away from the responsibility of home and community. Maybe it was the wine I drank. I took with my my fan from home so that I would have my familiar white noise.

Other times on the road, when I couldn't take my fan, I've resorted to an Internet site I discovered one night in a motel somewhere.

http://www.iserenity.com/environments.htm

It has all kinds of white noises!

I suppose I could get up in the night and write instead of watching television or just sitting in the dark. Here's something Mozart said: "When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer — say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep — it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them." (By the way, today is his 252nd birthday--born in what is now Salzburg, Austria, in 1756.)

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

It's 4:08 a.m. as I write this. I've been awake on and off since the 2 a.m. hour.

The only real disappointment in my daily life is that I don't sleep well. I'll go to bed, usually between 10 and 11, sleep 2 or 3 hours and then wake up. Sometimes I'm able to go right back to sleep and stay asleep until the 6:00 alarm; more often I just doze the rest of the night.

This is probably what affects my afternoons. From, say, 2 to 4:30, I find it almost impossible to read, as I keep dozing off. The only way I accomplish anything in the afternoon is to be busy in more than just my mind--working at the computer, for example, uses my mind, eyes and hands, and I can generally come up with projects that don't require a lot of slow deep thought or concentration.

I recently saw an editorial cartoon that depicted a line of baggy-eyed, bleary-eyed, slumping people at a water cooler, and the caption suggested that something like 2/3 of Americans don't get enough sleep. What is wrong with us?

Here's a story my Methodist minister uncle once told from the pulpit to illustrate a point. My grandfather (maternal) was a leader in his North Carolina mountain community. Papa was, apparently, often consulted about this or that issue related to farming. Sometimes in the early morning, one particular man would stand by the road in front of the house and wait for the first signs of awakening life to come from my Papa's house. Then he'd call out until my grandfather stepped outside to talk with him.

One night, Papa and my uncle were up at 2 a.m. for some reason--whether they'd arisen at that time or had yet to go to be, I don't know. Anyway, they decided to walk to this man's house and see just how early he got up. As they came to the place where they thought they'd take up a watch, they saw that the lights--possibly firelight--in the man's house were already on. So, they made up some pretense for knocking on the door to ask after the man. When this neighbor's wife answered the door, Papa asked if her husband was home. She said, "He was around here earlier this morning, but I don't know where he's got to just now." I guess that's the kind of schedule that comes from going to bed at sunset, not a story of difficult sleep like mine.

Well, the computer's clock now says 4:27, and the family cat, O'Ryan, is snoring beside my chair. I think I'll go back to bed and try to sleep a few more minutes before NPR's Morning Edition speaks to me from the bedside radio.

Why the Attention?

Seriously, why are these characters famous? I don't like to think of the notion of useless people, but . . .



She's been to rehab (more than once, I think.
She's going to work two days in a morgue and two days in an ER as part of her sentence for midemeanor drunken driving and cocaine charges.
She's spent 84 minutes in jail as part of her plea deal.




































I tried to come up with a guy to go along with the gals, but none came immediately to mind. Well, one came to mind. I mean, I know one reason why he's famous, but . . .

Dumbing Down America?

The Chair of the Department of English here at ETSU forwarded the following email that she received from one of her correspondents. Take a look through it. Is America dumber than it used to be? Or have we refocused education to make it more relevant to life? Or would knowing the things these 8th-graders knew make our experience of life richer and make us better able to relate to life and the world?

mac



Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete. Gives the saying "he only had an 8th grade education" a whole new meaning, doesn't it? Could any of us have passed the 8th grade in 1895? This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina , Kansas , USA. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina , KS , and reprinted by the Salina Journal.
________________________

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS, 1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph.
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of "lie," "play," and "run."
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6. What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
___________________________

Arithmetic (Time, 65 minutes)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per meter?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
_________________________

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865.
_________________________

Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, and syllabication.
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, sub vocal, diphthong, cognate letters, and lingual.
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.'
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi-, dis-, mis-, pre-, semi-, post-, non-, inter-, mono-, and sup-.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
_______________________

Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla , Yukon , St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.

Brothers

On a recent trip to the old homeplace in Walnut, North Carolina, I decided I needed to capture an image of the low ceiling in the room I grew up in. The top of my head is less than a tiptoe length below ceiling. Needless to say, very little jumping up and down with excitement or being hopping mad went on in this room after I became fullgrown (heightwise at least). The mattress and box springs and bedspread are new, but the frame and the location are the same.

From the late summer of 1968, when my family moved in with Mama Reeves, my grandmother, my three-years-older brother Jerry and I shared this room until he went off to college in the late summer of 1974. (Of course, when he came home for the weekends and holidays and summers, we still shared the room.) His twin bed was located in the corner of the room on the other side of the window seen to my left. Our corners clearly revealed the differences between us.

By "differences" I don't mean disagreements. Jerry was the first grandchild/nephew born into the North Carolina branch of my mother's large family. My grandfather and uncles were thrilled with him. This is not to say that I went unnoticed when I came along second just three years later, but my life in the family was different. My brother was the little man, I and my cousin Joey (some 18 months younger than I) were the kids. Papa Reeves and the uncles, as I've heard it, would take Jerry--say, at four years old--along on trips and adventures that Joey and I, when we reached four, were too young for. That was okay for us, as we had each other. I think now of Jerry, the oldest, without much in the way of playmates in those early years. Still, with the attention from the older set of the family, he probably wasn't lonely--at least I hope he wasn't.

As I said, we were different, but this didn't lead to the fighting that a lot of brothers do. Although Jerry might recall things differently, I don't recall our having much to do with each other. We just sort of coexisted with very little argument. Our corners of our room revealed the real differences. The walls of Jerry's corner, as he got older, held two gun racks filled with rifles and shotguns. My walls were decorated with a blacklight ecology poster, somewhat like an American flag but with a peace sign where the stars should be. I also had a poster of a band or two--Chicago, I think, or maybe Jethro Tull. (My Tull phase, which I'm not yet completely out of, might have come later, after my brother was gone off to NC State.) When Jerry had his turn at the record player, I remember the room filling with the sounds of Merle Haggard (which I disliked then but love now). When it was my turn--the Jackson 5 and Rare Earth.

My brother has been on my mind lately. He was married recently, of course, which was a wonderful thing. So I've been thinking about that and hoping that all is going well with Cathy and him. And I've been hoping that our mom is able to enjoy her great happiness in spite of the fact that he won't be stopping by on his way home every night or at least blowing his horn as he drives past.

He's also been on my mind because of a recently discovered health concern. From what I've heard, he doesn't seem to be in immediate danger, but it's serious enough to give me pause and to put a prayer in my mind.

Let all be well in these strange and beautiful days.

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2 Songs

"Christmas Time" -- 'Tis the season . . . still!

"Somebody, Somewhere" -- by request.


Here's a tidbit from the Writer's Almanac for this date:

It's the birthday of writer William Scott, (books by this author) born in Janesville, Wisconsin (1914) author of The Plowhand (1957), Red Sunrise (1958), and the poetry collection On My Knees in the Field (1977), who wrote late at night after working all day on his small, 80-acre farm in southern Wisconsin.

I think that last bit suggests the level of commitment I need to dig deep and find if I really want to write.


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New Year's Day, 2008

A cold wind whips around the corners of the house and gives voice to the morning. The sky clouds and clears and clouds again, and snow is predicted for later this evening. Dismal headlines from the world at large prove that bad news knows no renewal in a New Year's Day. Here on my little postage stamp of earth only the weather seems unsettled and threatening, but I know that, like the weather, life for communities and individuals can change between one breath and the next. A jet can explode into a building. A father and husband can die without warning while fixing the vacuum cleaner at the church or while sleeping in what for all the world seems like just another November night. At some level, conscious or subconscious, we all live in fear and dread of such events.

Then again, a local team can win the championship, or a local family in need can find all its needs fulfilled by strangers. Hugs come from friends. A baby granddaughter smiles. A favorite song comes on the radio. A wonderful meal spreads across a table. The long winter night passes in safety and rest.

Even though the midnight hour through which we pass from one year to the next is a somewhat arbitrary human construction, it still gets me, still sends me reeling into reflections about this world and my life.

So, 2008 looms ahead of me. The questions that 2007 has raised--my own personal questions--might or might not be answered during the coming 12 months. I'll keep my eyes and ears and mind and soul open for whatever itimations God might have for me, intimations in whatever form--the clanging gong or still small voice. Of course, such openness requires a good bit of focus from me, which means that I need to control the distractions that always seem to be trying to loosen the valves of my attention (as Emily Dickinson might put it). I know what my distractions are, and I'm aware that they are, in fact, distractions, thorns in my flesh. The question is whether or not I'm ready or even able to remove them; help is available, but I have to be willing not only to ask for it but to accept it.

In the meantime, I'll write what I can. This blog helps tremendously. It scratches the itch, and I'm thankful for that. As this year progresses, I look forward to finding more time and focus to do both what I must and what I want.

To any and all who read this, Happy New Year's to you and yours, and may you do what you must and what you want and, what's more, I think, be who you must and who you want in the coming year.

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