Topic 182: First Impressions

Carol:

The Tricks Old Dogs Can Teach Us

On first impression, you might think Prescott is a sleepy little town full of old white-haired folks who drive too slow (or too fast) and spend their afternoons searching for the best early-bird dinners.  In reality Prescott is full of old white-haired folks –31% of the population is over 62 years old. But Prescott is anything but sleepy these days and people over 62 (of which I am one) have a lot to teach us about the quality of the “senior years.” In fact, a visit to two local organizations show just how energetic and varied the retirement community can be.

The first is the Rowle P. Simmons Community Center, home of the Adult Center, which   provides a wide range of activities and services for all adults but particularly meets the needs of a senior population for a gentle-on-the-wallet $50/year membership fee. Sure, you can sign up for the typical senior center activities such as bingo and bridge, but the Adult Center also houses the Veterans History Project (part of a national oral history initiative), provides one-on-one tutoring sessions for PC and Mac users, schedules numerous health and fitness classes—from gentle yoga to high-energy Zumba-- the Meals-on-Wheels program, and hosts political forums. And, the parking lot is always full. 

The second is the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute(OLLI)  on the campus of Yavapai College. The Bernard Osher Foundation, headquartered in San Francisco, provides funding for higher education and the arts, including OLLI programs at 118 college and university sites geared to older learners, who the Bernard Osher Foundation refers to as “seasoned adults.” A wide range of learning groups reflect the interests of OLLI members, who have a voice in choosing the curriculum and in facilitating the groups as volunteers.  In between a morning learning group discussing modern China or current events and an afternoon group studying Gilbert and Sullivan opera, OLLI participants gather in the college food court for lunch and talk, their own brand of non-digital social networking. OLLI members make a lot of noise, have a lot of fun, and epitomize the notion of “lifelong learning.” No grades, no required homework, but they show up for class, ask questions, engage in hearty discussion,  and let their facilitators know when they appreciate a topic—or not.

 So, what’s the message here for our daily theme readers who are at the other end of the demographic picture—under 62, not retired, not ready to get old (who is?). What can these “old dogs” teach you? Learn something new everyday, not because you have to but because you want to. Take a class. Don’t want the homework or stress of grades? Most cities have community education programs. Don’t have time? Turn off the TV. Don’t have the money? Many community education programs and activity centers such as the YMCA have sliding scale fees and offer scholarships.

My essay is on the short side today. That’s because I have to get ready for my OLLI class on mythology and human experience.  As a co-facilitator for the learning group, I have  research to do on trickster figures in world cultures, and the 25 participants in the class will have lots of questions.

Loki, the Nordic Trickster

Sources:

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Prescott.  

Prescott Adult Center.  

Megan:

A Second Chance to Make a First Impression

Yesterday my mother wrote about our trip to New Orleans, so today I think I will fill you in on my experience. We made this trip so that I could attend the American Library Association’s Annual conference. For a week, more than 20,000 librarians converged on the city. Everywhere you looked you could see determined and sensibly dressed women (and men!)  carrying red ALA tote bags, and checking schedules on their smart phones. I’m sure the city, which has a huge convention center, is used to large professional conferences, but New Orleans has a special appreciation for librarians.

The ALA plans its conference years in advance, and in 2006, the Annual (as it is known) was scheduled to be in New Orleans. After Katrina hit, the ALA debated moving the conference but ultimately decided to proceed as planned. I spoke with people who’d attended the Annual that year, which was the first conference to be held in New Orleans after the hurricane.  One librarian told me that most of the stores were closed, and whole city blocks stood empty. She said that the city had bussed people in to work in the restaurants and hotels. Another woman told me how she would sit in a café reading and would be approached again and again by locals asking for her magazines. At that point, almost a year after the storm, nothing but essential mail was being delivered by the post office.  “Some people didn’t want to come to the conference,” she said, “but I thought it was our duty to come and just spend as much money as we could.” At the opening ceremony this year, Mayor Mitch Landrieu personally thanked the ALA for all it had done to support the city.

I didn’t attend that conference in 2006 because I was in England getting ready to start working at the prison. Though I had followed the news closely when it happened, it was hard for me to imagine the level of destruction and devastation Katrina had wrought on the gulf. And I’d sort of assumed it had been rebuilt by now. Certainly that was my first impression of the city, from the downtown area where we stayed on the edge of the French Quarter. From the pictures my mother posted yesterday, there was little evidence of the storm. The beautiful houses in the garden district all had a freshly painted look to them –as did the buildings in the French quarter. Aside from the slightly “new” look on old buildings, everything looked perfect.

As part of the conference, I spent one day volunteering in a school library. It was downtown, just off Canal street and a group of us were bussed there from the conference center. The bus driver either misunderstood our destination or decided to deliberately take us the long way, but we wound up taking what the school director called “The Misery Tour.” The bus headed uptown, beyond where the street cars stopped and drove through a lower-income residential neighborhood. These homes, though smaller than the Garden District mansions, were still average sized older family homes, with porches and yards and playground sets. It would have looked like a nice place to live except that half of the homes stood vacant, boarded up and caved in. On many doors and walls it was still easy to read the spray-painted code used by rescue teams in the days following the storm: an X with the date the home was searched, and number of dead or living inhabitants. 

 

I understand why it was necessary to rebuild the tourist areas first. New Orleans relies on the convention center and the tourist industry to fuel its economy, which has also been harmed by last year’s oil spill. And everywhere I looked in that damaged neighborhood, I saw signs of construction – houses had been lifted onto cinder blocks or simply rebuilt high off the ground. While we were there, local news reported the final safeguard to prevent another breech of the levies had just been put in place. A lot has happened in five years, just not as much as I’d expected. The ALA Annual is not currently scheduled to return to New Orleans, but no doubt we’ll get back there eventually. I hope I will  see more houses like this:

Service Interruption #4

We are off to New Orleans! 

See you next week.

Topic 179: On Being Worth Knowing

Carol:

   

                Vocabulary Lessons

Things are worth knowing as well as people. 

I think it’s worth knowing how to read cookbooks.I have lots of cookbooks, some of which I bought for their photographs or drawings-- like my cookbooks from Provence. I still have the first cookbook I ever owned, Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls (1957), which I  use once in a while because the recipes are uncomplicated and jargon-free. The vocabulary of cooking can be daunting, an extensive polyglot when we evolve from basic to gourmet, from child’s play to Childs’ play : Bechamel, Bernaise, Bordelaise, Hollandaise, Meuniere.  The serious cook learns how to move from “eggs in a frame” to “egg soufflé,” how to master the wrist movement for flipping, folding or whipping an egg.  And the master chef learns the difference between a dash of this and a soupcon of that, a pinch of this and a hint of that.

A Tort. In case you didn't know.

I think it’s worth knowing how to read music. I enjoy looking at a piece of music and being able to read it just like a book because it has its own vocabulary, tells its own story.  The composer not only shows us which sound to sing or play, but how quickly or slowly to play it, how long to hold the sound, and even what mood to express. The writer gives us less to work with although descriptive words like adjectives and adverbs help create the mood. I like looking at a piece of music and hearing it in my head, imagining my fingers picking out the notes on a piano.  I can tell by looking at the following piece of music by Chopin that I would butcher it if I didn’t practice a little bit at a time. Its speed “andantino” is a little faster than andante, which has “vigor or spirit.” The piece also has three sharps, which adds another layer of difficulty for me as my fingers are required to stretch ever so slightly up from the white to the black keys.

I also think it’s worth knowing how to read maps. I love maps, and my family teases me because I pour over maps and prefer  a wrinkled and torn paper roadmap to even the most soothing computer voice of a GPS.  Reading maps is like reading music. There is a vocabulary of sorts to map-reading, knowing what the thickness and color of a  line says about the condition of the road, whether or not its route is scenic or speedy, whether it bypasses a major city, etc. City maps are not only useful for navigating new places, but they  show a “mood” by how the streets are laid out (mathematical grids or whimsical snakes), how many parks and natural spaces are incorporated into the design of the city, where the public transportation lines go.

 

I guess I am passionate about all kinds of reading: the vocabulary, notations and abbreviations that translate the three-dimensional world of sound, sight and taste onto a flat page. I may not be a gourmet cook or a world-class musician, but I think it’s worth knowing that a torte differs from a cake in that it contains almost no flour, that I can find  my way from a cheap hotel on the outskirts of Vienna to the five-star Sacher Hotel to indulge in a piece of delectable chocolate Sachertort before I plan the shortest route to from the hotel in the first district to the third district  Konzerthaus  for an afternoon concert of Viennese waltzes.
 

Oh, yes. I absolutely believe it’s worth knowing another language. Vocabulary Lesson #1:

Source:
Sachertort: Simfan34. Sachertort, Café Sacher, Vienna. Wikipedia 
        

Megan:

Networking for (Insecure) Dummies

I suppose, on a social level,  most people consider themselves worth knowing. I certainly do. I’ve said before that it takes some effort to get to know me. As is probably the case with a lot of writers, I’m more confident on paper than I am in person. I find small talk with strangers excruciating. I’m trying to work on that because I hate being the person at the party alone in the corner or hovering around the one person I know. I don’t want to stand around with the other outsiders; I want to participate. As usual though, I’m starting slow. I made a joke with the barista at my regular coffee house. I comment on the weather with my softball teammates (most of whom I don’t know). By the end of the season, I might ask about their weekend.

But there’s another way to look at this topic, and that is being worth knowing career-wise. I’m talking about professional networking.

To aid in my job search, I have “liked” and subscribed to a number of advice columns and library list-servs. I followed the advice about “branding” myself and establishing a professional presence online. I joined relevant groups on LinkedIn and followed big names in the library profession on Twitter. I made business cards.

What I haven’t done is joined in the conversation. In the job seeking circles there are numerous threads and discussions about the effectiveness of personal branding etc. There are also a lot of complaints about the economy, library closures and long-term unemployment. I find these topics depressing and unhelpful. If I sit around participating in the whining circle, I start to remember that in addition to being unemployed,  I’m turning 30 in a few months, I live with my parents and I am single. The male version of this cliche would be playing video games in the basement. But I’m writing blog posts in the shed about how I have nothing to contribute.

This is all the more frustrating for me because I used to be worth knowing. The community of prison librarians in the UK is  small, but  active. When I worked at the prison, I was on the national committee. I was a person other people called for help, for advice, and for information. I helped plan and execute training days and annual conferences. Professionally, I had a lot of potential and I was ambitious and … I totally burned out. But that was because of the prison, not the job.

Anyway, next week I’m going to New Orleans for the ALA annual conference. I will be volunteering in a school library and attending a job fair. I will make jokes and talk about the weather. I will go armed with a fistful of resumes and business cards and if anyone follows the address to my website they’ll be directed here.

Um.  I may not have thought this through.

Topic 172: Female Orators

Carol:

“From Many, One”

When I hear the word “orator” I think of the old-time speechifiers who used  rich language, powerful intonations, and carefully orchestrated pauses to persuade and captivate. The first one I remember as a child was Illinois Republican Senator Everett Dirksen in the 1950. I didn’t agree with his politics generally, but I loved to hear him speak.
 

Oratorical skill is more than the use of voice; it is a command of language, and that I can appreciate whether demonstrated in a bass or soprano voice. Of course, a captivating voice and a good vocabulary don’t make up for lack of substance. Firstly, a great orator must have a strong message and a commitment to that message.
 

The first time I heard Texas Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan speak was in 1976 when she gave a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.  I didn’t know who she was at the time, but as she began her speech, I know I stopped my multi-tasking and drew closer to the television. I thought to myself, so this is what is meant by “a commanding voice.” I also remember thinking at the end of her speech that this was a woman whom I would support for the Presidency.  She invoked Thomas Jefferson at the beginning of the speech and ended with Abraham Lincoln, pretty powerful orators themselves, but this essay is about female orators, so I will quote her words from that speech:

a spirit of harmony will survive in America only if each of us remembers that we share a common destiny; if each of us remembers, when self-interest and bitterness seem to prevail, that we share a common destiny. (source: American Rhetoric. Top 100 Speeches)
 

I guess I wasn’t the only person awe-struck by Barbara Jordan’s power as an orator. University researchers who polled leading American scholars to compile the Top 100 American Speeches of the 20th century list Jordan’s 1976 speech at #5 and her 1974 statement on the articles of impeachment for Richard Nixon as #13. That list, by the way, includes a significant number of speeches by women of varying politics and eras: Eleanor Roosevelt, Ann Richards, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Margaret Sanger, Margaret Chase Smith.

What I didn’t know when I heard Barbara Jordan speak at that 1976 convention was that she had already been diagnosed 3 years earlier with multiple sclerosis. She hid it well, but in 1979 she retired from politics and became an academic who taught ethics at the University of Texas Austin.  I saw her speak again, 4 years before her death, at the 1992 Democratic Convention where she touched on many of the themes from 1976 that had made her a significant force in the Civil Rights movement,  equal rights for all Americans and a firm belief in national community and civility:
 

Our strength in this country is rooted in our diversity. Our history bears witness to that fact. "E Pluribus Unum" -- "from many, one". It was a good idea when it was founded, and it's a good idea today. From many, one. That still identifies us still identifies us. (Source: American Rhetoric.com)

A fundamental principle of good writing is the notion of “show not tell.” What better way to end this essay than to let Barbara Jordan speak for herself. (We aren't able to embed the video. Not sure why.)


Sources:
Barbara Charline Jordan.  Democratic National Convention Keynote Addresses American Rhetoric. Online Speech bank.
    1976 Speech 
    1992 Speech
Top 100 American Speeches of the 20th Century.

Megan:

In the prison library, I once got a written request for a "bok that teeches you how too do oritory." For this prisoner, speaking clearly and well was a skill he wanted to develop as he was appealing his conviction and representing himself. I found him a book on making speeches and reminded myself that intelligence is not always dependent on literacy although I did not have high hopes for the success of his case. This same prisoner also asked me for a list of every law book ever published, because he wanted to buy them all.

Anyway, I grew up performing in Christmas pageants and participating in the Liturgy of the Word at church, so public speaking was never really a problem for me.  I did it without thinking. As part of my final thesis requirement in college, I had to read some original writing in front of a large group of my peers and I got nervous for the first time I can remember.  The writing was personal and I thought I might start crying. It always annoyed me when other people got emotional while reading out loud and I was mortified. My voice shook and no one could hear me. 

In library school I had to do several group presentations, and in the Management class I was part of a group that imploded mid-semester due to personal conflicts, bad tempers and mental illness. Standing unprepared in front of the class with no one in the group willing to look at or speak to each other was probably the most awkward and embarrassing moment I’d ever experienced. I’d known it was going to happen though and warned the professor (and also checked that failing the presentation didn’t equal failing the class).

So, I suppose those experiences were in the back of my mind when, after I’d become a professional librarian, I was asked to introduce a speaker at a national conference. I wasn’t the speaker, mind you, I was only supposed to introduce him. I went to the chair of the committee and asked if I could switch tasks with someone else. The Chair interpreted my request as an admission of a full-fledged phobia, and not as the lazy-don’t-really-feel-like-it mumble that it was. His concern was so great that for the rest of the conference he kept passing me information about public-speaking courses and practical exercises in overcoming fears. I couldn’t correct him because I knew how unprofessional it was to back out of an assignment for any reason other than extreme terror.

He left the committee after that conference and by the time the next one rolled around no one remembered my “phobia” of public speaking. By that point I was more confident professionally anyway. I gave a series of lectures around the county on prison librarianship and, as long as the subject is libraries, I’m fine speaking in groups of any size. But put me in a social setting with people I don’t know, and I’m lucky if I can remember my own name.

Topic 138: My Taskmaster -- Duty

Carol:

Did You Hear The Joke About the Lawyer Who…

Duty is kind of an old-fashioned word. In our house, the word mostly revolves around The Law. I use capital letters here because my children and I have had ample opportunity to observe the legal system from all angles.  That exposure came from living with a husband and a father who has been an attorney for 37 years.
 

Most attorneys don’t make as much money as the high-profile celebrity lawyers whose cases hit the newspapers. Most attorneys don’t take the ethical short-cuts that are portrayed on weeknight crime shows.  And, most attorneys don’t have exciting cases worthy of a John Grisham novel. Most attorneys do put in long hours, generate loads of  paperwork, listen to complaints and anguish, and attend a lot of training seminars. They also accept other professional duties of which most people are quite unaware.
 

“Officer of the Court” is one part of the job. On several occasions I have been with my husband when he spotted someone on the highway or local roads who appeared impaired or just reckless. He called the Sheriff’s Department, identified himself and reported the location and description of the vehicle. Some people might say, “It’s none of my business,” or, they might make an anonymous phone call so as to avoid the hassle of being called as a witness.  I have also overheard phone conversations where my husband said, “No, I can’t do that. That would be lying, and I’m an Officer of the Court.”

“Civic Educator” is another part of the job. Attorneys visit schools to talk about the legal system, represent their profession at career days, or answer questions in civics and government classes about rights and responsibilities. They also provide guidance and assistance in student mock trials or Teen Court diversion programs. State bar associations promote community education resources through Speakers Bureaus that connect organizations with volunteer lawyers, the Arizona State Bar listing over 20 topics. Attorneys act as representatives of a legal system that works best when the public is educated—and educated early—about the democratic principles and legislative underpinnings of the legal process.
 

“Public Servant” is also in the job description, even for private attorneys. Sometimes this means adjusting fees or working “pro bono” for clients who can’t afford the usual cost of “justice for all.” Sometimes it means fielding questions to legal hotlines such as Arizona’s “Lawyers on Call” program, or sitting tables at Veterans Services events. Or it can mean participating in Law Day, a May 1 event that was proclaimed by President Eisenhower in 1958 to promote public awareness of not just the effect of the American legal system on our lives but how it operates. Last year the Yavapai County Bar Association and Community Legal Services honored  the occasion by providing a free, day-long legal clinic at the Prescott Public Library.
 

Our legal system operates around the hard work of every “Officer of the Court,” whether a lawyer, judge, court clerk, or legal assistant. It is a task-master not only to those who make their living in legal professions but also to the people this system serves. As American citizens-- whatever our political affiliation, income bracket, or educational background--we have duties as well. Democracy is a participatory system.
 

One of these civic responsibilities is jury duty. I finally got called for jury duty about three years ago and made arrangements for a substitute teacher. I didn’t have a high expectation that I would actually be seated on a jury. After all, Prescott is still a fairly small town and my husband has been a defense attorney here for 25 years. Although the case eventually settled, I was chosen for the jury. I knew the judge, I knew the prosecutor, and I knew the defense attorney. There wasn’t a shark in the bunch.

Sources:
American Bar Association. Division for Public Education.  

State Bar of Arizona homepage.

Megan:

A Duty of Care

In the prison, all members of staff have what is called a “duty of care” towards the prisoners. It’s sort of a vague expression, but it basically covered the need to treat them humanely – to provide food and water and an hour’s exercise, access to showers and healthcare and information (via the Education department and Library).  It also extended to breaking up fights, identifying those at risk of self-harm and suicide, and isolating troublemakers and bullies.

My responsibility was to provide a library service comparable to the one used by the public, which included not just reading materials, but audio/visual resources, IT access and information on everything from prison rules to career training. UK prisoners are lucky that the government deemed quality library services managed by actual librarians a legal requirement, especially since there is currently some question about whether they have the same obligation (duty of care) to the public.

One of the first things I did after I started working in the prison was try to identify and eliminate any obstacles prisoners had in gaining access to the library. Some were fairly easy to fix – such as rearranging the schedule to make sure that the library times didn’t clash with the gym or their time on the yard. Occasionally it was pointed out to me that in real life, people have to make choices about how to spend their time, which is certainly true. But in real life, most people have access to a public library more than one hour a week. In prison , when almost every minute of unlocked time is designated for a certain purpose, there is really only ever one choice – to participate in the activity or not.  And that was the only choice I wanted them to have to make about the library.

This proved more difficult for prisoners who were not held on the main wings.  Separate library service was already provided to prisoners in segregation (solitary confinement), but prisoners  who were long term patients in the health care centre did not have the chance to attend the main library. Cambridgeshire Library Services had a system in place for visiting the smaller villages and providing for the housebound and disabled – called the Doorstep service.  When I was first hired, I went with the program facilitator to deliver books to a housebound couple in one of the southern villages. The facilitator had a file on each person, with their likes and interests and selected about 12 (large print) books to deliver personally to their homes. I remember being greeted by a couple in their 90’s, who were so excited to see us. The wife made us tea, while the husband showed me a letter they had received from the queen on their 70th anniversary. They were absolutely delighted with the service, especially because there was no way either of them could get to the public library in the next town.

In the prison, because it was my duty to provide a comparable service, I arranged a small mobile library service for the health care centre, including weekly visits by library staff to take requests and reference inquiries. There were never more than a couple guys in there at a time, but often they were injured or unable to leave their bed and they certainly appreciated the visits.

That’s the part I miss about working -- interacting with people who depend on the service, people who appreciated that public libraries provide more than just books, but also a companionable social element that improves their quality of life.

Topic 137: Intellectual Pioneers

Carol:

Curiosity Did Not Kill This Cat           

I love the inventiveness of the designers who can stylize the word “Google” to pay tribute to a special event or person. Thursday’s tribute showed  a science lab table set up with glass vials, a flame, even a coffee pot, and a maze of tubes configured to spell out G-O-O-G-L-E. Aha, it was Robert Bunsen’s 200th birthday.
 

Name  recognition.  We throw around  lots of names without having any idea what they signify. I haven’t been in a science lab for many years, but I recognize a Bunsen burner or a Petri dish. Just as I know what Apgar score, Morse Code, Richter Scale and Braille system refer to. Significant inventions, but what do we know about the inventors and scientists whose names have been branded into our memory banks?
 

I’m probably typical of many Americans who accumulate trivial “factoids” about popular culture and celebrities but can’t name a pioneer in mathematics, astrophysics, biochemistry, or macroeconomics. Well, maybe I can name somebody, a man whose creative and intellectual interests span so many fields that, according to Wikipedia, his books are found in 8 of the 10 major Dewey Decimal System categories, the man who made robotics famous, Isaac Asimov (1920-1992).
 

Rowena Morril's painting of Asimov.

I never really thought much about the science—or the scientist—behind my favorite science fiction: the Foundation Series, Nightfall, and the Robot Series.  Out of respect for the subject, I will head to the Isaac Asimov Homepage, a site that is short on glitz and long on substance. It  lists all of the books and essays this prolific author has written, including 1600 essays from science fiction magazines and other sources such as Science World, Chemical and Engineering News, The Humanist, and Space World. The topics touch on just about every “logy”: psycho, geo, zoo, bio.  According to homepage authors Seiler and Hatcher, Asimov’s genius  was not just in the breadth of his intellectual curiosity and his depth of knowledge but in his ability to explain complex information in a simple way.
 

In 1982, the 2nd  Revised Edition was published of Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. The book contains 1510 names, some of which would surprise no one (Newton, Kepler, Faraday) and a few who might seem out of place (Alexander Pope and William Wordsworth). In a 2009 review of the book, Robert Wilfred Franson comments: “Asimov's scope is the vast range of human science and technology. He seems equally at home in discussing theory and experiment and invention, medicine and chemistry and rocketry.” Just as Seiler and Hatcher noted, Franson emphasizes Asimov’s ability to make complex material accessible to a general audience.
 

Dr. Asimov collected numerous awards  over the years, including 14 honorary doctorates.  He has been recognized by such diverse groups as the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation, the American Heart Association, and of course the science fiction community.   An asteroid is named after him, and in 2009 a crater on Mars. Behind all the scientific accolades and writing accomplishments was a man with a personality, humanity and sense of humor: “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
 

It looks like I missed the Isaac Asimov Memorial Panel Debate at New York’s Hayden Planetarium again this year. The topic was “The Theory of Everything… Still Searching.” Quite an impressive group of credentials although, of course, I didn’t recognize any  of their names. They are mostly Physics professors working on string theory, superstring theory, loop quantum gravity, and the detection of dark matter. Asimov would have loved it.

Sources:
Franson, Robert Wilfred.  Review.
Johns Hopkins University. Bio of Edward Seiler.  
Isaac Asimov Home Page.
Isaac Asimov Biography. Wikipedia.
Rowena Morrill  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isaac_Asimov_on_Throne.png

Megan:

So, this is one of those topics that gets Mom all excited because it means research. When I moaned about it, she suggested I write about the president of the college I went to because she was the first female president of a college west of the Mississippi. I find that difficult to believe because the school, first a seminary then a college,  is 158 years old, and has always been west of the Mississippi. Also, it has always been a woman’s college except for two weeks in 1990, which resulted in the college needing a new president.  Anyway, I know there was a female president before this one. But I’m not going to prove it because I’m not in the mood for research right now.

I was talking to my Dad on the way home tonight about how I completely forgot to mention this website in the interview I had last week – didn’t conceal it on purpose, but actually forgot to mention how I’m spending half my days. And he said that if they find it (and they will) they’ll probably want to hire my mom instead because her essays are researched and mine are silly. And I was like, thanks a lot jerk. But I didn’t actually say that, because I don’t speak that way to my father.

Look. I like this project. I didn’t think we’d make it this long, but I’m glad we’re still doing it. But this is not a job for me. I write this stuff mostly to be funny, or at least entertaining. Occasionally a topic really interests me and then I do the research, but not everything excites my curiosity. If this were my job, it would be different. I’d be answering questions, or hopefully, helping people learn how to answer their own questions. But I’m only willing to put a certain amount of time into these essays – like a maximum of an hour – because I have a lot of research and reading to do that is unrelated.

Getting my master’s degree and starting out my career in England has handicapped me. I am not saying I am unqualified to work in this country because that is absolutely not true. But librarianship is practical career and it involves a lot of different skills, most of which are honed on the job. So, while I don’t have a job, I’m spending a lot of time trying to figure out the American way – the American vocabulary, the American resources. I’ve taken classes since I got back, and spent a lot of time reading professional literature.  I’m not trying to hint that I am an intellectual pioneer, self-training for the job I eventually hope to land. I wouldn’t be getting anywhere at all without the wealth of information and advice available to unemployed librarians concerned with keeping their skills up-to-date. There are a lot of us, working while unemployed. This website is the thing I do when I’m either reflecting on it, or I want a break from it.

Especially when I realize that the thing that would help me the most, I haven’t done. I should be volunteering in a library. But I really thought that at any moment I might find a job and I didn’t want to let anyone down by suddenly quitting. Which was not a concern I had when starting this project – although it is now.

Anyway, another reason writing this essay isn’t like a job: I’m actually writing this in the middle of the night, in the middle of my bed, wearing the nightgown I tried to dress Milo in earlier today. I wish I had been able to video him running up the stairs while the little dress slid further down with each step. By the time he reached the top, it was just hanging off his tail. You probably had to be there.  

Milo wishes he wasn't there.

PS: Mills College is named after its founders, Cyrus and Susan Mills. Susan became as president of the college in 1890 and served for 19 years.  I knew this already. I’m guessing what my mom actually meant to say was that Mills was the first women’s college established west of the Rockies, and is the second oldest women’s college still in existence.

PPS: Mom has clarified to say that she meant Aureilia Henry Reinhardt (Mills President 1916 – 1943) was the first female president.  But as we’ve already established, that is wrong too.

www.mills.edu

Topic 133: Dream Adventures

Carol:

Our House is a Very, Very Fine House

I’m not by nature an adrenaline junkie—that’s the term, right? I don’t go for those X-sports like bungie jumping from the Brooklyn Bridge or flying on a zip cord through the canopy of a Brazilian rainforest.  Once Marc signed up for an X-Treme Day Tour in Costa Rica; he came back to the hotel exhilarated but stinking from his soak in a volcanic mud bath. I had opted to stay behind and read Bel Canto on the hotel balcony.  When I imagine a dream adventure, it is almost always about traveling somewhere distant, isolated and beautiful where I can have Un-ventures .
 
After my year of study abroad in France, I would often dream about returning someday to rent a little apartment overlooking the Cote D’Azur, maybe in Antibes.  I had seen a woman there once, standing on the small balcony of just such a place, enjoying the breeze on her face and watching the people below stroll along the stone promenade above the rocky shore. The image of her white shirt and sun-tanned face next to the faded turquoise shutters of the balcony door is still vivid in my mind after 40 years. I wanted to be that woman…in that place. I still do.

The Antibes Dream

 My imagination adjusted to the reality of getting married, having a job and moving to southern California. I started dreaming about having a cabin somewhere in Mexico.  I was a fan of Jack Smith’s columns in the LA Times, and he would often write about his ongoing, frustrating but comical experiences building a little beach house in Baja California.  He eventually turned it into God and Mr. Gomez, a 1974 book that Marc gave me as a gift, signed by the author after a lengthy wait. Jack Smith’s detailed catalogue of mishaps and delays did not deflate my dream of my own little beach casita with turquoise shutters.
 

When we actually traveled to Baja California in 1986, on several occasions we pulled our old motorhome into isolated beaches along the Sea of Cortez The only other signs of life were  the sand crab trails leading down to the water and  the sound of lowing cattle behind a sand dune. Just watching the fish jump out of the water and listening to the waves was enough to make me feel content. 
 
After years of 10 years of living within easy distance of the Pacific Ocean, we moved inland to the Arizona high desert.  We bought a small plane and started taking trips down to the Bahia San Carlos on the opposite side of the Sea of Cortez. Although we found an affordable hotel with its own protected beach, I still dreamed about having our own tiny little house away from the tourist areas where the condos were bunched together and noisy.  I took a little peek at the real estate ads this morning. Apparently, the Mexican government designated  the Sea of Cortez and the “Mayan Riveria”  to become  “the axis on which the country’s tourist development would hinge… and will consolidate the Sea of Cortez as a world-class tourist destination” (Source: Mi Casa-Su Casa Realty Group). So much for my dream of a little retirement casita in Mexico.
 

The Mexico Dream

I haven’t totally given up on the idea of my dream adventure.  With my husband inching towards retirement, building our own little get-away home sounds even more appealing. And, I have found the perfect place already.  A small house, durable materials, low-maintenance yard, privacy wall. Now if we can just find exactly the right piece of property, nothing large mind you.

The Retirement Reality

  
Sources:
Image of Antibes Bord de Mer
Image of Bahia San Carlos. Ocean View Realty.

Megan:

In my more dramatic moments, I tell people that the reason I quit the job in the prison was because I felt like the evil was seeping into me.
 

I had that idea – that the “evil was seeping in” -- a few different times while I worked there – and it sort of became an excuse in my mind for some of the ways I found to cope with the stress. Anyone who has worked in that sort of environment – high stress and dangerous – whether it is a prison, or the military, or juvenile detention, or law enforcement – there comes a point where you think the only people who understand are the people you work with. And the only way to cope with too much stress, too much danger, is to act too much in other ways – too much drinking, too much exercise (never my problem) too much anger, too much sleep. 

I mentioned to one of my library officers about my fear, but she was offended by the idea. “If you feel this way after 3 years, what does that mean for me? I’ve been here 10.” And there were others who had been there for 20 or 30 years, had spent the majority of their lives in prison, on purpose, doing a job that no one appreciates and no one understands.

But, unlike me,  they had lives outside of work, spouses and interests unrelated. In social situations, they were used to lying about their jobs  -- claiming to be an electrician, or the accurate but vague “civil servant.”   I could say, “I’m a librarian.” But I had the feeling that there was an unspoken just in there – I’m JUST a librarian. So, I always followed it with the qualifier, “at the prison” because it was novel, because it was interesting, and because I felt like I was owed some sort of recognition for working in such a miserable environment.

But what I didn’t mention was that it was my dream job. That because my supervisors didn’t have the same clearances that I did, they rarely came into the prison. That I was on my own, in charge by myself, isolated yes, but this was MY LIBRARY and to this day, the idea that I have been replaced grates on me. By the end, I was so ready to leave, so exhausted and used up and sick of it all. But even now, nearly 10 months later, I still have dreams about MY LIBRARY --  the way I did when I began working there.

A couple times in the past few weeks I have a thought – it’s the end of the financial year, I hope they remember to…  don’t forget the… what are the stats like? Has attendence increased or decreased? Is it inappropriate to ask that them to send me a copy of the end of year report? I’m unemployed now, but despite the "evil," I did some good there – made quantifiable, justifiable progress. I want to know if it held up. I want to know how it’s going. And sometimes, even though I wake up in Arizona, with Milo curled into my back, I still have a moment while still half asleep and I’m planning the day – planning what needs to be done in MY LIBRARY .

Topic 94: An Apology for Bores

Carol:

   An Apology for Schmucks

Dear Family:
 

I have been distracted from my daily theme responsibilities, what with Christmas preparations, having family home for the holidays,  taking the California trip, acting as tour guide for my Canadian visitors, and… yada-yada-yada. Some might call my routine boring, but I like knowing where I will be on Monday through Friday at 7:15 a.m. (walking the dog) and Monday through Friday at 9:15 a.m. (writing the daily theme).
 
Writing takes concentration and quiet, which I have not had. My work has suffered, the typos left unattended and my standards slackened. I am beginning to sound like a bore, worse yet a bore who can’t  spell. Not so today. I am back from (walking the dog), all is quiet, and I have 2 hours to devote to my writing. I am setting a new standard,  no banal or boring attempts to address the topics.  I am a writer, not a hack.
 

First, I do want to remind you that the word “essay” comes from the French,  meaning” to attempt.” And, an apology by definition  is more than an “I’m sorry.” It is also an argument, a logically-constructed  defense of a position. The professors who assigned topic #94 to their Ivy League students in the 1920’s expected these future politicians, tycoons, and academics to apply formal philosophical principles to the debate of any topic, no matter how seemingly inane.  In fact, the challenge would be to elevate the banal by the skillful use of vocabulary, logic, and appropriate humor. One might even  write an “An Apology for Boring Topics,”  arguing that anyone can write an interesting essay about a unique or challenging topic but it takes extraordinary skill to “essayer” an essay about something boring: hairpins, dogs, bank accounts.

Dear family, you may be wondering at this point why I have addressed topic #94 specifically to the people who know me best when there must be at least 8 people outside the family and our college roommates who regularly read “The Daily Theme.” Well, I’m just going to come out and say it. I don’t want to write an apology for bores today, I want to write a confessional.  I apologize.  I am supremely, contritely sorry for having myself become the biggest bore you know.
 

I intended to write a carefully researched essay on the world’s most famous bores, or a clever comparison of the delightful 1998 French film The Dinner Game-- as the French called it Le Diner de Cons-- and the 2010 American yawner Dinner for Schmucks. But,  as my brain is wont to do when I take the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc. 7:15 a.m. walk with the dog, I realized  in mid-stride at 7:20 a.m. that the only person I know who would  be invited to a diner de cons or  dinner for schmucks is… ME.

I hope that my zeal for language,  literature,  movies and books has been equally interesting and entertaining for my family and friends. In retrospect, I realize that my passionate enthusiasm for learning can be overbearing and, yes, overboring.   I have begun to intuit that my latest passion, three years of intensive family history and genealogical research, has stretched your patience to its limits. I seem to punctuate all of my dinner-table revelations with “I know you get tired of hearing about this, but…” or “Can I just tell you one more thing I learned today about…”
 

So, family and friends, I have used today’s essay not to craft an apology for bores but to profess an apology from a bore. After all these years of carefully explaining the nuances of language, the importance of, nay the beauty of, linguistic precision, I hope that you appreciate the difference between the two.
                    Your humble wife, mother, sister, and friend
                                                       C. H.  

 

Megan:

I don’t think I know any boring people. Sometimes I am bored by what interests other people, but that’s not the same thing. I don’t hold it against them. It bothers me when people don’t get to the point fast enough—when they are more concerned with accuracy than telling a good story:

“Six years ago… or was it 5? Bush’s first term it was, so that must make it… Junior was still in college so …” That makes me crazy. I’d rather tell a good story and sacrifice any semblance of accuracy. I believe the technical term for this habit is exaggeration.

Anyway, I had a prisoner who worked for me who told the longest winded stories ever and it was a real chore not to completely zone out. Sometimes he would tell the entire plot of a TV show, and it would take longer to listen to him than to watch it live. I could always tell when he was gearing up for a long one when he would lean against the counter, take off his glasses and run his fingers through his cropped short hair.
    “Well, Megan, did you uh happen to catch last night’s episode of True Blood on BBC One?
    “No Joe. I don’t have a TV.”
    “Oh that’s right you told me that before. Don’t know why I can’t remember. But you are familiar with the show?”
    “Yes.” This is the fatal mistake.

We always let him talk though because he didn’t fit well into the prison. He was older than most of the other inmates, but only recently been convicted. His wife had killed herself and his children did not visit him, and in an alcoholic black-out he beat to death his 87 year old neighbor who had refused to loan him money.

I once overheard him discussing his crime with the other orderlies who worked in the library – the only time he didn’t go into detail. “I can’t remember doing it, but the evidence was there. It must have been me.”

Most of the time people get bored because they do not understand the details, and the topic does not inspire their imagination. Sometimes the language gets in the way; the jargon can be distracting. I don’t understand the language of geneology, which is why its sometimes hard for me to get excited about 9th great-grandfathers. I’m never sure how related we are. In England, I didn’t have a TV so I was never able to participate in the daily recaps of popular shows with my colleagues. Instead, we found other things to talk about, like books and movies, and the prisoners we served.

Sometimes its hard for me to talk about my job, because librarianship does not seem like an interesting occupation. For many incarcerated people, prison is their first experience with libraries. That’s why it was so important to be friendly and welcoming and professional.  Most people’s opinions on librarianship have been shaped by their experience as a patron, and whether or not the staff were helpful. In many libraries, it is often impossible to distinguish the librarians from the assistants,and from the pages and volunteers;  a library is judged by the quality of its customer service as much as its resources. This makes sense, but it limits the general public’s awareness of the variety of duties and the skills required to perform them. Mention a cataloging problem to anyone but a librarian and it’s like hitting a snooze button. I try to get around this problem by reeling my audience in with a prison anecdote and then I hit them with the library.

Sorry.

Topic 87: On Holding One's Tongue

Carol:

Bite Your Tongue

David Brooks

I wanted take the easy way out today, invoking the right to hold my (writing) tongue. I’m tired from the drive home and still haven’t put away the Christmas decorations. But, I read an op-ed piece in this morning’s New York Times by David Brooks that changed my mind. I like reading Brooks because (1) he writes from a different political perspective than mine and (2) he writes with civility, thoughtfulness, and elegance.

One of my favorite ways to start the semester was by handing out a David Brooks essay for discussion. Students in our central Arizona (mostly Red) community  would often leap to the conclusion that Brooks is a liberal (Blue) journalist because his column comes from the New York Times. Before we started talking about the content of his article, I would ask what students knew about the author. That’s when the assumptions about his politics came out, that’s when I showed them how to research the author’s credentials, and that’s when they found out in fact that Brooks writes from a Conservative perspective. The ensuing discussions about the biases we all have was always lively and thoughtful.

Even though I would color myself Blue, very Blue, I would not paint Brooks Red. That’s because I trust him to be true to his value system, to thoughtfully evaluate based on multiple perspectives, and to avoid knee-jerk ideological responses. He adheres to the notion of “the loyal opposition” where people can agree to disagree without taking an “us vs. them” stance.

So, his essay “Tree of Failure” is in some ways a response to President Obama’s speech in Tucson and its emphasis on civility, but he moves on to talk about failure, ignorance, and the growth process of constructive criticism and feedback:
         You may write a mediocre column or make a mediocre speech or propose
         a mediocre piece of legislation, but others argue with you, correct you
         and introduce elements you never thought of. Each of these efforts may
         also be flawed, but together, if the system is working well, they move things
         gradually forward (source: NY Times Op-Ed Jan 14, 2011 page A23)

Brooks uses words like civility, modesty and sensibility, which I find genuinely comforting in a world where it seems like conversations escalate all too quickly into arguments and shouting matches.

So, what does all this have to do with holding one’s tongue.  Maybe, it’s more about curbing one’s tongue. Not an expression we hear so much anymore. I know that when I’m writing, what I really want to say comes at the end of a process not the beginning. What I started out thinking gets transformed as I take a wrong direction and rein myself back in or edit for conciseness and simplicity. What I blurt out on the page, or blurt out in a conversation, is rarely my best thinking. If I don’t hold my tongue, what comes out can be sarcasm at someone else’s expense or reactive rather than constructive. When I’m writing, I can take the time to reshape those first blundered words on the page, tone down the emotion, but what comes out of my mouth cannot be re-called so easily. 

It’s just as important to know when to stop talking as when to start. I’m done.


Source:

Brooks, David. “The Tree of Failure.” New York Times 14 Jan 2011. A23.
 

Megan:

I worry about Intellectual Property Theft

This is going to be a fun topic. I associate holding one's tongue with keeping something secret. What examples can I give of keeping a secret without failing to keep the secret? We have a lot of family reading these essays, and the biggest secrets and dramas often happen within families.  To avoid any potential for hurt feelings,  what I’m going to do is tell you about something without telling you what the something is, that way the conundrum can be revealed without giving away the bank. You’ll see what I mean.

The conference I attended in San Diego ended last Sunday, and then I stayed with Kelly (as I‘ve mentioned). During that time I came up with 3 truly brilliant ideas – ideas that will make money and contribute to the information profession. I’m serious. These ideas will be revolutionary. But I need to do some research. The ideas are so great they might already have been invented. If they have, then too bad, but I will purchase one from whoever did the inventing because now that I’ve thought about it, these new things are going to be absolutely indispensible. And if my great ideas haven’t already been invented, then I am going to need to find a partner because I do not have the technical skills to create the prototypes. It is also possible that my great ideas are impractical or impossible to create in real life.

 I may have seen The Social Network a few times too many. I have relationships with people who have the skills to construct my great ideas, who might make excellent business partners, but what if they turn out to be the worst business partners in the world? It’s not a good idea to mix money with friendship. But we could be the next great partnership, like all the other great partnerships everyone could get rich and contribute to the profession at the same time. Or something like that. I am conflicted.  I just don’t want to be the person who’s sits around bitter and telling everyone that I was actually the inventor of “The Greatest Library Related iPhone App ever” (TM).

I think I’ve already figured out what I’m going to do. I’ll do some research, sketch out the instructional designs, and objectives and find out if they would work. Then I will approach my friends with contracts and confidentiality and non-competition clauses.  Worst case scenario, I have to take classes and learn to do the coding and data base construction myself. It will take longer but I should learn how to do it anyway.

So, I would say the conference was a success. I remember after the prison library conferences, I would always return to work so excited and full of ideas, and over time the place would wear down my enthusiasm, but I always got the most ideas after spending time with colleagues.  Eventually I may reveal the great ideas, after  I've determined if they are viable. I once came up with a plan to raise children using only sock puppets and I told everyone about it before I'd fully thought it through. Big mistake.

Topic 86: Color Antipathies

Carol:

Seeing Red

The men are pumped up for the battle, fueled by the sounds of the crowds gathering at a safe distance from the anticipated fray. Not everyone is on the side of the Patriots. Murmurs from the opposition provide an undercurrent of tension as these brave men charge onto the battlefield, blood and victory on their minds. They quickly move into formation, raise their heads and eye the opposition glaring at them from across the field, nostrils steaming in the January cold. One last word from their General: “Take no prisoners!”

So will begin the battle next Sunday as Quarterback “General” Tom Brady leads the New England Patriots against their rival New York Jets for the AFL championship.  There would have been better literary symmetry if the New England Patriots were matched against “Red Coats,” the Arizona Cardinals. But, the Cards already lost their bid for an NFL championship slot. The Patriots against the Red Coats..

Colors. Antipathy is a pretty strong word, a fist-shaking kind of word, so that’s what led me to think about uniforms and battle lines, and team allegiance. Seems like the only uniforms that create so much passion these days are sports teams, and the only military uniforms that distinguish themselves by color are paraded on dress occasions and exchanged for grays, greens and brown camouflage in real battle.

Not so when the Red Coats were the enemies of the original New England Patriots and their bright scarlet uniforms stood out against the backdrop of the countryside battlefields. The term “Red Coat” wasn’t actually used at the time of the American Revolution, and the early patriots  referred to them as The British, or simply “the enemy.” In a letter written in June, 1775 young Private Peter Brown describes for  to his mother  the Battle of Bunker Hill:

       When the Arrows of death flew thick around me, I was preserv’d while others were suffer’d to fall a prey to our Cruel enemies . . .altho’ we have lost four of our company & several taken captive by the enemy of America, I was not suffer’d to be touch’d. (source:Massachusetts Historical Society: Bunker Hill Exhibit)

Nowhere in his eloquent letter does Peter Brown mention “the enemy” by the color of its uniform.

Author Kenneth Roberts recreates the events of June 17, 1775 in his book Oliver Wiswell, which looks at the American Revolution from the viewpoint of the Loyalists who were considered traitors to the American cause. Roberts’ main character has fled to Boston and views the  Battle from the window of a house across the bay from Bunker Hill. After the first volley of guns and cannons,Oliver Wiswell watches the British troops fall, and then reform:

      The scarlet shadow stayed where it was, but the moving scarlet figures went
       swiftly down the hill to the bottom; and there, like scarlet quicksilver, they
       gathered in blobs that expanded, contracted, swirled, thinned and gradually
      flowed again into scarlet lines that lay along the center of the little valley.
      (Roberts p 95)

The “scarlet shadow” he describes is the tangled mass of British bodies felled in the first round of gun volleys. And, of course, we can’t help but think of that other red, the color of blood. Again, nowhere in Roberts’ fictional saga of the Revolutionary War do we hear the term “Red Coats.” According to Wikipedia, the most common epithet for the British soldiers at the time in Boston was “lobsters.”

So, where did it come from, that derisive term we so associate with American history? Apparently, it didn’t come into common usage until the 1880’s when it had became popular among the British themselves. And, Britain was not the only country to use the color red for its military uniform. Apparently, the only country to have antipathy for the “Red Coat” is that rascally upstart offspring of Mother Country, Great Britain—the United States.   

Go, Patriots!    

Sources:
  Peter Brown letter
  Roberts, Kenneth. Oliver Wiswell. New York: Doubleday, 1940. page 5

Megan:

Color(ful Vocabulary) Antipathies

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of colors that I dislike so much that I avoid them, but even neon colors (which I extremely dislike) look all right in certain contexts – like Las Vegas (which I also dislike). So I googled this title, and aside from being proud that this website was number three on the listed results, I was surprised to discover this expression has racial and sociological connotations. So Kelly suggested this could seg nicely into a comment on the recent Huck Finn scandal over the replacement of certain words in a new edition intended for children.

We were driving to a grocery store yesterday when my phone beeped with an incoming email and when I checked I saw that it was my daily update from the ALA’s discussion group on LinkedIn. “The Librarians,” I said, turning to Kelly, “are Angry!”
 

Censorship, which is what this revision is being called, is one of several issues librarians are ethically bound to have an opinion on (another is Privacy).  However, a well-reasoned argument on either side of this issue is difficult to achieve when the forum restricts character length (as in Twitter, which is where some of this conversation is taking place), and people react from a hardwired emotional place. And actually, this emotional reaction is what the publishers of the new edition are trying to avoid from young students of color.

From the censorship angle, I just have this to say: we are not being called to burn all former editions of Huck Finn. No one is trying to erase the original text – this new edition everyone is so fired up about is not even the first abridged version to censor the racist lingo. See here a Junior Classics edition published 12 years ago.  I am no fan of censorship in any situation, and if and when I have children, I will make sure they read the original version once they have reached an appropriate age. But like me, they also will never be able to understand the genuine devastation and outrage provoked by that word.

In the course of our discussion, Kelly and I realized that as two highly educated, middle-class, white women our ability to rationally discuss the context and literary value of the n-word was exactly the sort of ‘white privilege’ we heard Black scholars rail against in college. We do not have emotional reactions to this term because we have NO IDEA what it’s like to be systematically oppressed and subjugated (no matter what we might claim when our feminist hats are on) and to claim a place in a discussion of the appropriate use of the N-word is arrogant and disrespectful.