By Anna Bernard
I see myself as a child industriously, curiously, dismantling flowers. I'd find an aging rose that was already played out, opened too far, petals beginning to hang limply from their holding spots - and I'd pull the petals all the way off to study them and marvel at the softness, softer than anything I knew. I'd study the way the color sat so deep inside and couldn't be rubbed off. I tried. I experimented with paper and a pant's leg but it was in there to stay - crimson, blush and butter - securely sealed in the rose petal fabric. Which was what exactly? It held together well but also tore if you tugged enough - similar to a well made paper towel. The colors made me dream about lipstick purchases of the future and beaus, gifts, proms, and wedding bouquets and all the things that made women smile.
The tuft, the sad plucked tuft, was reduced to a bit of plant life with all the beauty gone.
I marvel that I was once an observant child with time on my hands and summer afternoons to explore the natural world of a surburban neighborhood and I wonder if current children have time and opportunity to learn by direct exploration. I wonder if I would still know how to take delight in close observation. My world now is text, books, newspaper, HD television, movies, photocopies and the internet. Now that I am so recently and abruptly retired, I want the time to observe again in a relaxed state and leave tasks in the dust - the soft, loamy pale milk and coffee colored dust of a trail in late September - the kind that coats your shoes or your bare feet with the Earth's affection.
Roses
Roses in a garden.
Of all the gifts I treasure from my students
nothing quite compares
with a slightly frumpy, thorny rose
wrapped in a wet paper towel,
then wrapped in foil.
"For you, Teacher."
I always feel special.
Roses in a garden
Make me think of hot summer days
sprinklers and bees
sprinkly pollen
flower guts.
Roses in a garden.
I used to pull the old ones apart
to examine the interior.
I pulled a few new ones apart
to discover the way the petals
folded together and
squashed themselves up tightly.
To be closed upon oneself
is an amazing thing to children
who can't remember
when they were wrapped up tightly
and folded over on themselves
in the womb...
Rose in a garden.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SAN JOSE?
I wrote this piece while I was in my teaching career. I wanted to show other teachers that they could travel for fun, fulfillment and to pay for their expenses. I wrote this article in 2000, but it is still a hot topic. I also title most of my pieces as songs. Watch for more and enjoy.
Are you interested in reimbursement for your vacations? Washington, D.C., San Jose, and London are a lot closer than they seem to be. Are you interested in a free summer vacation? Did you know that taking in the sights can actually pay you for your expenditures? You can become educated on what all of these and other cities can offer you. But, how can you make this a possibility? How can you make your vacations an educational expense? Read on and you’ll see how.
Money is what generally precludes many from taking the vacation of their dreams. Were you aware that every major company has a travel agency on call or has an employee who logs in and books flights for their employees? With the internet advances, most of us are able to access the web and plan our own trips with a click of a mouse. In addition, you can make money on their travel whether it is for business or personal in nature.
There are advertisements in the Los Angeles Times offering classes in SABRE or APOLLO travel computer systems. You could be trained in only a few short weeks to work in the travel industry. This summer you could take an investigative trip to a large city and begin the research. The next vacation should pay for itself. There are also discounted search engines for purchase such as YTB.
Did you know that you can have a great time when you travel to major cities; thereby you have the opportunity to report on the most historical sites? You could make your pictures and text into a travelogue and present it to your school. Who knows what can happen? Be an expert in your field! Just think; your summer vacations could pay for themselves!
Soon, you can arrange a head of time what city or country you are teaching about, and then go. It is fun to educate others while educating you. And “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” Now you will know!
By Roberta Mark Engel
Are you interested in reimbursement for your vacations? Washington, D.C., San Jose, and London are a lot closer than they seem to be. Are you interested in a free summer vacation? Did you know that taking in the sights can actually pay you for your expenditures? You can become educated on what all of these and other cities can offer you. But, how can you make this a possibility? How can you make your vacations an educational expense? Read on and you’ll see how.
Money is what generally precludes many from taking the vacation of their dreams. Were you aware that every major company has a travel agency on call or has an employee who logs in and books flights for their employees? With the internet advances, most of us are able to access the web and plan our own trips with a click of a mouse. In addition, you can make money on their travel whether it is for business or personal in nature.
There are advertisements in the Los Angeles Times offering classes in SABRE or APOLLO travel computer systems. You could be trained in only a few short weeks to work in the travel industry. This summer you could take an investigative trip to a large city and begin the research. The next vacation should pay for itself. There are also discounted search engines for purchase such as YTB.
Did you know that you can have a great time when you travel to major cities; thereby you have the opportunity to report on the most historical sites? You could make your pictures and text into a travelogue and present it to your school. Who knows what can happen? Be an expert in your field! Just think; your summer vacations could pay for themselves!
Soon, you can arrange a head of time what city or country you are teaching about, and then go. It is fun to educate others while educating you. And “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” Now you will know!
By Roberta Mark Engel
Saturday, April 11, 2009
August Amber
By Rita Murstein Wohl
It was August and people were sweating from the Monongahela to the Ohio River, along the great and the little Miami Rivers. The mighty Missouri was no place to cool down and the Mississippi was giving the South a chance to live up to its reputation as defined in books by Tennessee Williams and the rest of the great writers.
The steam from the Ohio River rolled up the state all the way to Lake Erie. Cleveland, the coldest city in Ohio, was suffering. Glasses with Mint Juleps, Tom Collins, and homemade lemonade were clinking all over the country. The kids couldn't stay in their clothesline tents. It was too hot to roll weed cigarettes. The dogs were heaving their breaths and drooling white foam. Everyone was back from the YMCA camp, Girl Scout sleep outs or a week in Canada with their families.
We were lolling around and totally lacking in energy. The elm tree offered the only respite around. We cooled off under the hose which we later used for drinking. We were lying around trying to figure out how they made opium from poppies. Mr. Hensler, the principal, had beautiful ones in his garden and we knew he wouldn't do that. We speculated about boiling them or drying them. But which part? That would be our next project but right now we could barely move.
The cicadas were singing like mad and butterflies were all over the gardens. In cooler times, given enough boredom, we would try to catch them with our nets from the dime store. I only know one person who ever caught one and he squashed it in a book because that's what scientists did. I had a lot of respect for him.
We were showing off some of our summer trophies. A broken antique vase from a trash pile, on old pipe, a shiny new knife, an aggie, and a clear yellow stone. We loved to go through trash piles and find fantastic stuff, and when we tired of our trophies, we would dump them back in the trash pile.
I remember the vase. It had a white base enhanced by a scenic painting. Its body was entwined with loops and scrolls of raised china. It still had its spout but was very broken. The new knife of course was the favorite. It spelled power and wealth. The only other prestigious item was the set of pearled handled guns that Lila had. The aggie was passed around for all to lovingly hold.
And then there was the clear yellow stone. Interesting, but what was it? The bottom of a beer bottle? Part of an old medicine bottle? Just as we were looking at it, two yellow butterflies fluttered right under our noses. Everyone rubbed their noses, fell backwards, and screamed. At last, there was some action today.
We laughed and grabbed the hose for relief. That is , everyone except Eunie. She just sat there thoughtfully. She told us that when the twin butterflies touched us, the yellow stone that she was holding got very hot. When that happened, a shadow grew inside of it.
Everyone wanted to see it. It wasn't passed around. It was grabbed around. Eunie polished it on her shorts and then cupped it to see if it had an inner light. No such luck.
Richard said his mom had a string of beads just that color. Tim said his mom had some too and she got them at Brown's Department Store on Main Street. Maybe it was a rare yellow diamond. Little Sugie said it looked like tree sap she had seem in a display at school. Lila said she had a set of Book of Knowledge in the house. As much as we had an aversion to books in the summer, most of us followed her into the house.
The house was always clean and not too hot. Wilda was babysitting today. She was so nice and pretty with lovely blonde ringlets around her face. She offered us water from the spigot but not ice. We had a ice box, not a refrigerator, and we had to save ice until the iceman came.
Wilda helped us look up yellow and then stone and then yellow stone. Somehow, Wilda got us to Amber. Wow. Sugie was right. It was tree sap encasing bugs from thousands of years ago. But this wasn't a bug - this was a shadow. What did that mean? If you opened the stone would the bug come out? Would it come out alive? If we opened the stone , what would come out? Should we dare? Wilda gave us a bowl of fruit and we went back under the elm tree.
We gravely pondered the immediate future. What was in the plum pit? Had anyone ever opened an apple seed? What about a peach pit or a cherry seed? What were we really doing when we spit watermelon seeds?
We knew these were seeds but what was inside them? Little trees? Small plants? Little fruits? Well this situation was asking for it. We picked out the seeds, opened them, and everything was gunk. How could God open a peach pit and we couldn't? Everything had something in it. Nothing had a shadow.The mystery was still there.
We loved mysteries. We love to solve them. Nothing was safe from our speculation. We noticed the comings and goings of everyone. Houses of mourning attracted the most attention. They all seemed to have a strange aroma. We decided that some people were murdered, but that's another story.
We speculated what would happen if we opened the yellow stone. Richard, who was older and liked to scare us, described the unleashing of a black cloud of evil. We would all die in our beds if we were good or be strangled if we were bad. Howie, a devout Catholic, whom I dearly loved, said we would die of pestilence. Not to be outdone, Annie, the group Protestant, said it would be the time of the Apocalypse.
After screaming at each other, jumping up, and raising our hands, we decided to open the stone. Tommy ran home and got a hammer and we began. Each one took their turn. We would hammer, cover our faces, and scream. We ended up with a glistening pile of amber.
Our dads were walking home, the big kids were riding their bikes home for dinner, and the moms were calling their kids. Reluctantly, we peeled off from the circle.
If only I could learn so much in a day today. Now it's your turn to figure out how the shadow existed.
It was August and people were sweating from the Monongahela to the Ohio River, along the great and the little Miami Rivers. The mighty Missouri was no place to cool down and the Mississippi was giving the South a chance to live up to its reputation as defined in books by Tennessee Williams and the rest of the great writers.
The steam from the Ohio River rolled up the state all the way to Lake Erie. Cleveland, the coldest city in Ohio, was suffering. Glasses with Mint Juleps, Tom Collins, and homemade lemonade were clinking all over the country. The kids couldn't stay in their clothesline tents. It was too hot to roll weed cigarettes. The dogs were heaving their breaths and drooling white foam. Everyone was back from the YMCA camp, Girl Scout sleep outs or a week in Canada with their families.
We were lolling around and totally lacking in energy. The elm tree offered the only respite around. We cooled off under the hose which we later used for drinking. We were lying around trying to figure out how they made opium from poppies. Mr. Hensler, the principal, had beautiful ones in his garden and we knew he wouldn't do that. We speculated about boiling them or drying them. But which part? That would be our next project but right now we could barely move.
The cicadas were singing like mad and butterflies were all over the gardens. In cooler times, given enough boredom, we would try to catch them with our nets from the dime store. I only know one person who ever caught one and he squashed it in a book because that's what scientists did. I had a lot of respect for him.
We were showing off some of our summer trophies. A broken antique vase from a trash pile, on old pipe, a shiny new knife, an aggie, and a clear yellow stone. We loved to go through trash piles and find fantastic stuff, and when we tired of our trophies, we would dump them back in the trash pile.
I remember the vase. It had a white base enhanced by a scenic painting. Its body was entwined with loops and scrolls of raised china. It still had its spout but was very broken. The new knife of course was the favorite. It spelled power and wealth. The only other prestigious item was the set of pearled handled guns that Lila had. The aggie was passed around for all to lovingly hold.
And then there was the clear yellow stone. Interesting, but what was it? The bottom of a beer bottle? Part of an old medicine bottle? Just as we were looking at it, two yellow butterflies fluttered right under our noses. Everyone rubbed their noses, fell backwards, and screamed. At last, there was some action today.
We laughed and grabbed the hose for relief. That is , everyone except Eunie. She just sat there thoughtfully. She told us that when the twin butterflies touched us, the yellow stone that she was holding got very hot. When that happened, a shadow grew inside of it.
Everyone wanted to see it. It wasn't passed around. It was grabbed around. Eunie polished it on her shorts and then cupped it to see if it had an inner light. No such luck.
Richard said his mom had a string of beads just that color. Tim said his mom had some too and she got them at Brown's Department Store on Main Street. Maybe it was a rare yellow diamond. Little Sugie said it looked like tree sap she had seem in a display at school. Lila said she had a set of Book of Knowledge in the house. As much as we had an aversion to books in the summer, most of us followed her into the house.
The house was always clean and not too hot. Wilda was babysitting today. She was so nice and pretty with lovely blonde ringlets around her face. She offered us water from the spigot but not ice. We had a ice box, not a refrigerator, and we had to save ice until the iceman came.
Wilda helped us look up yellow and then stone and then yellow stone. Somehow, Wilda got us to Amber. Wow. Sugie was right. It was tree sap encasing bugs from thousands of years ago. But this wasn't a bug - this was a shadow. What did that mean? If you opened the stone would the bug come out? Would it come out alive? If we opened the stone , what would come out? Should we dare? Wilda gave us a bowl of fruit and we went back under the elm tree.
We gravely pondered the immediate future. What was in the plum pit? Had anyone ever opened an apple seed? What about a peach pit or a cherry seed? What were we really doing when we spit watermelon seeds?
We knew these were seeds but what was inside them? Little trees? Small plants? Little fruits? Well this situation was asking for it. We picked out the seeds, opened them, and everything was gunk. How could God open a peach pit and we couldn't? Everything had something in it. Nothing had a shadow.The mystery was still there.
We loved mysteries. We love to solve them. Nothing was safe from our speculation. We noticed the comings and goings of everyone. Houses of mourning attracted the most attention. They all seemed to have a strange aroma. We decided that some people were murdered, but that's another story.
We speculated what would happen if we opened the yellow stone. Richard, who was older and liked to scare us, described the unleashing of a black cloud of evil. We would all die in our beds if we were good or be strangled if we were bad. Howie, a devout Catholic, whom I dearly loved, said we would die of pestilence. Not to be outdone, Annie, the group Protestant, said it would be the time of the Apocalypse.
After screaming at each other, jumping up, and raising our hands, we decided to open the stone. Tommy ran home and got a hammer and we began. Each one took their turn. We would hammer, cover our faces, and scream. We ended up with a glistening pile of amber.
Our dads were walking home, the big kids were riding their bikes home for dinner, and the moms were calling their kids. Reluctantly, we peeled off from the circle.
If only I could learn so much in a day today. Now it's your turn to figure out how the shadow existed.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
To Be A Child
By Gary Bernard
To be a child is to explore, is to ponder, is to experiment, is to enjoy.
One day in May of 1955, I found a packet of zinnia seeds while I was exploring inside our garage. I sat down on a cardboard box filled with LIFE magazines and looked at the pictures on the front of the packet. It was full of wonderful red and yellow zinnias. I turned the packet and read the instructions.It said to plant two or three seeds two or three inches into the ground, cover it, water, and let them grow.
It was Thursday afternoon and it was beginning to get dark. I put the packet down in a place I would find it the next day and went into the house to eat my mother's Thursday dinner:macaroni and cheese. That night, lying in my bed, listening to the crickets, maybe a million of them, I planned my zinnia garden.
Friday, when I got home from school, I went into the garage to reread my packet of zinnias. It was then I decided to plant the zinnias next to the garage between our house and our neighbor's, Mr. Celosi. That way, nobody could bother me and my zinnias.
Saturday, I woke up early, dug my trenches and planted my seeds precisely as I was instructed, and then I watered my garden and went off to play.
Sunday, there were no flowers. Not even anything peeking out of the ground. I talked to my mother with great concern. She told me to be patient and keep watering. Patience was not one of my virtues. The first plant life in my garden were weeds. And then more weeds. But after a week of toil, my zinnias began to grow. And they were beautiful and they were big, so big that my heart opened up and my soul - my eight year old soul, just sat back in an old rocking chair and sighed and rocked and sighed again.
To be a child is to explore, is to ponder, is to experiment, is to enjoy.
One day in May of 1955, I found a packet of zinnia seeds while I was exploring inside our garage. I sat down on a cardboard box filled with LIFE magazines and looked at the pictures on the front of the packet. It was full of wonderful red and yellow zinnias. I turned the packet and read the instructions.It said to plant two or three seeds two or three inches into the ground, cover it, water, and let them grow.
It was Thursday afternoon and it was beginning to get dark. I put the packet down in a place I would find it the next day and went into the house to eat my mother's Thursday dinner:macaroni and cheese. That night, lying in my bed, listening to the crickets, maybe a million of them, I planned my zinnia garden.
Friday, when I got home from school, I went into the garage to reread my packet of zinnias. It was then I decided to plant the zinnias next to the garage between our house and our neighbor's, Mr. Celosi. That way, nobody could bother me and my zinnias.
Saturday, I woke up early, dug my trenches and planted my seeds precisely as I was instructed, and then I watered my garden and went off to play.
Sunday, there were no flowers. Not even anything peeking out of the ground. I talked to my mother with great concern. She told me to be patient and keep watering. Patience was not one of my virtues. The first plant life in my garden were weeds. And then more weeds. But after a week of toil, my zinnias began to grow. And they were beautiful and they were big, so big that my heart opened up and my soul - my eight year old soul, just sat back in an old rocking chair and sighed and rocked and sighed again.
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