Six Pomegranate Seeds

I’m always excited by snowfall.  By the first of October I’m straining at the window like a little kid to see the first flake fall.  The science of snow is amazing to me, but watching it fall and cover the earth, changing the landscape, creating new designs in nature…that’s thrilling.  I tell people that I was born in a snowstorm on the first day of winter.  Actually, that’s true.  The result of that auspicious beginning, according to my story, is that I love snow; my favorite environment is 27° and snowing.  I’ve been out in all types of snowfall, from the soft, large flakes that look like pieces of cloud floating gently to earth, to the crystal “throwing stars” that seem when driven by 45 mph winds to slice with ease through an LLBean parka, wind-guard vest, wool sweater, flannel shirt, and both layers of thermal and polypropylene underwear.  If I’m ready for it, I like every extreme.

One of the reasons that I appreciate this miracle is that it doesn’t really happen very often.  We don’t get many white Christmases no matter how many times we sing the song.  I’ve been “in school” for 54 years, so snow days are precious to me and always seem as rare as white buffalo.  After so many years, it’s a toss-up whether I like snowy days because I enjoy being out in the elements, or that one of my favorite things is sitting by the fire with a cup of coffee and a good book while the snow falls outside my window.

Years ago I developed a love for Greek mythology.  Some of the explanations for why things occur as they do in Nature are pretty funny, some are too far-fetched even for myth, yet others strike a chord in me with their complexity and beauty of theme.  Naturally, I was drawn to the story of Demeter and her daughter Persephone.  These two are like the middle of a spider web with filaments of attachment to other stories going in all directions.  Central for me, of course, was Persephone’s kidnapping by Hades and Demeter’s resulting rage.  I think the myth explains more than why we have six months of winter.  That first cold spell described by the story must surely be an explanation for the Ice Age.  No one knows for sure why it started or why it ended.  Someone stealing my child would make me want to freeze the buds off the olive trees, too.

This year I’ve been thinking often of Demeter and Persephone and Hades and the gang as I’ve watched the snow pile up over and over since the first week of December.  The October storm was a surprise…the kind I like.  I thought of Demeter pining for Persephone.  Her only child was gone, dragged into the Underworld by the ruler of the dead.  Awful!

The three days of vacation before Christmas were quite welcome.  I could hear Zeus pleading with Demeter to thaw things out.  The whole world was frozen over.  Nothing was growing as the Earth Mother pined for her daughter.

Then came the three days at Christmas that kept us from getting together with the whole family.  Persephone was sitting there, ignoring Hades and refusing to eat.  We had so much turkey and dressing left over that I’d love to have shared it with her since our sons barely made it and my brothers and their wives were snowed in miles and miles away.

Then we got three days that kept us from ending first semester on time.  She was getting hungry; Demeter was listening to Zeus, but she still refused to budge.  What’s her problem?  She can go visit.  I’ve got work to do!

Then I think we had a couple more days that kept us from starting second semester on time.  Zeus brokered a deal and made his offer to Hades.  If Persephone had eaten anything, she had to stay in the Underworld.  Are you kidding?  She’s a goddess!  Why should she need to eat anything, let alone pomegranate seeds!

The combination of all those days off caused us to lose two planned vacation days and add 20 minutes to the school day.

All I could think by then was, SPIT OUT THE DAMNED SEEDS!!

I still like snow, but I’ve had enough for now.

Thanks Giving

Thanks.

What a small, inconsequential word.

“Thanks for…

…holding the door for me.”

…passing the butter.”

…the ride to school.”

…your help raking the leaves.”

…doing the dishes and taking out the trash.”

How about “Thanks for…

…creating the flu vaccine that will save my life.”

…putting out the fire that engulfed my home.”

…stopping the thief who stole from me.”

…fighting the enemies that are attacking our country.”

Thanks.

What a small, inconsequential word.  Not at all important.  Right.  Tell that to my mother.

No.  Please.  Tell my mother.  She’s the seventy-five years young lady at the nursing home.  The stroke victim who hasn’t been able to speak for the last seven years, or hold her great-grandsons or go to her youngest grandson’s wedding, or tell me that I have to say “Thank you” when someone does something for me, no matter how small and inconsequential.

Or tell my father who has sat by her side daily just to keep her company and bother the nurses and harass the doctors so that Mom has received special attention because he’s such a nuisance.  Why does he refuse to leave her side unless my brothers and I all but load him in the car and force him to go to dinner with us?  I think it’s his way of telling Mom “Thanks” for sixty years of marriage.  For thousands of the best meals.  For clean homes.  For three successful sons, three wonderful daughters-in-law, four terrific grandkids, two healthy great-grandsons.  For being the love of his life.

They’ve had quite a life.  We all have in the last 50-60 years.  Fortunately, we’ve lived here, in this country and in the Midwest where we take care of one another.  We work hard, sometimes at awful jobs (sometimes two or three at the same time), so we can one day do better or give our kids a better chance.  And we’ve helped others, too, because you never know when you lend a hand to others that they will one day be helping you up.

Yes.  I say thanks every chance I get.

I give thanks.  It’s a small gift, but not in the least inconsequential.

I hope you take the time, too.  And thanks for reading this.

Labor...a Midwesterner's Saga

Labor Day weekend has been good.  Busy, but fun.  The fact that it’s Labor Day and helping my younger son move today got me to thinking about work.  My students often ask me about all the jobs I’ve had.  They like to hear my stories about the different things I’ve done.  One of them told me a couple of years ago that I needed to make a list.  Here goes:

My first job—getting paid by someone other than a relative—was teaching private swimming lessons.  I was eleven.  My first student was four years old, I think.  That same summer I started mowing yards.  Dad let me use his mower in trade for mowing our yard.  I probably had half a dozen yards that summer.  Usually I was paid for the individual yards, but sometimes worked by the hour.  The most I think I ever made for mowing that year was about $2.00.  I got fifty cents for a half hour swimming lesson.

I spent several years at the pool in Rock Port.  I taught private lessons and eventually Red Cross.  I was a lifeguard from the time I was twelve.  Eventually I was the head guard and in charge of maintenance.

During high school I put up hay for years, even after I was married and had kids.  I enjoyed it, actually.  Sure there were barns that were beastly hot and dusty, but sunny days and good friends (and traditional farm food!) made the days fun most of the time.  I had a schoolmate who lived on a farm, of course.  His parents were friends of my parents.  I worked for his dad off and on: moved cattle (on horseback—I always wanted to be a cowboy!), milked cows, cared for horses, mucked stalls, walked beans, detassled corn, raked, baled, and put up hay.  Of course, living in the Midwest, I traded mowing for shoveling snow in the winter.  I was probably twelve when I started that, too.  One summer we had a thunderstorm that dropped thirteen inches of rain in about two hours.  I was at the movies and we couldn’t get out of the theatre for a while because the water was two feet up the doors and ten rows of seats high inside.  The next day I helped clean houses.  I've also worked cleaning up after tornadoes.  What a mess they leave behind.  Not many boys in small towns escaped work in a grocery store.  I carried groceries, stocked shelves, mopped the aisles for sixty-five cents and hour.  When I was promoted to butcher's apprentice, I hit the big time!  I got a raise to $1.10 an hour and learned to make hamburger, cut meat, and be nice to the customers.  It was one of the best jobs I had during high school.

When I started college, I was only eight miles from home.  I was running projectors for the local movie theatre.  That was a great job!  Then I worked maintenance and housekeeping at the college and for one year worked in the kitchen at the cafeteria.  Before I graduated, I also was part of campus security.

After my freshman year, my roommate and I went to Boulder.  I worked as a day laborer, showing up at the employment service to get any work I could.  I moved office furniture for Mayflower at the National Bureau of Standards.  Pulled weeds in someone’s garden.  Moved refrigerators and stoves into new apartments.  Shoveled wet sand into a hopper with concrete to spray on a huge water tank (try doing that for eight hours a day when you’re more than a mile above sea level!).  It was a great five weeks.  Later that summer I was staying with my cousin and we got jobs helping to set up carnival rides at the Harrison County (Missouri) fair.  I was a carney!

After I graduated from college, I waited to start my full-time teaching career while my wife tried to finish school.  I drove a truck for Kitchen Klatter products—south Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa.  Then I sold advertising for a local newspaper for a while.  Worked at a service station—pumped gas, changed oil, fixed tires.  For nine months I ran a bowling alley and did substitute teaching.  The summer before I got my first full-time teaching job, I worked on a construction crew.  We were building a grain elevator.  I tied steel, shoveled sand (again), and did odd jobs.  When we started pouring concrete, during the day I counted cement trucks and hired night crew and at night was part of the night crew—moving concrete or running a vibrator to get the bubbles out.  We worked for something like eighty hours before a lightening storm and downpour forced us to quit.  We were only 100 feet in the air with another thirty to go.

Since I started full-time teaching in 1973, I haven’t done much else.  Some hay work or bean walking when I was younger.  I’ve taught high school English most of the time, but I spent thirteen years teaching teachers at UNL, Peru State, and Midland Lutheran College.  I taught freshman composition one year at Iowa State.  One year I taught a night class in composition for Iowa Western Community College.  At one point I was the Midwest Regional director for the National Council of Teachers of English.

One of my best friends and I helped our Optimist Club put on a three-day bicycle stage race fundraiser for several years.  In order to save some money, we qualified as Category One officials for the United States Cycling Federation.  We worked three or four other races each year for three or four years.

When my sons were part of our community swim team, I was the coach one summer.  I learned why parents are the worst part of coaching.

I got paid for writing a piece about the author Julian Thompson for a book about literature for young adults.

No wonder I’m tired.

I tell these stories to students to encourage them to stay in school.  I'm glad I did.