Keystone State Reading Association

Lots of old friends at this meeting -- but not as many new faces. I have no hard numbers to back this up, but like many reading conferences lately, this one seemed smaller and more sparsely attended. Is it the economy? Is it that schools are too tied in knots over NCLB that there is no time for letting teachers go hear about new ideas? Is it because NCLB not only mandates what kinds of classroom materials teachers can use and curriculum specialists can buy but how professional development money is spent (must be on "scientifically" proven methods?) More and more teachers must pay their own ways to conferences in addition to paying for their own subs. That's rough in this tight economy.

In every spare minute, I'm chipping away at my new manuscript with Allan Wolf. This is going to be a fun one. At least I'm having a lot of fun working on it.

SNOW on the way home from PA -- real snow rounding the curbs and tree limbs and slushing up the streets. Amazing.

DIBELS

I thought this test was a joke when I first heard about it -- but it is far from funny. Dr. Goodman has approved this article for sharing -- seen here in part. Since the article's first publication, the investigation of the committee that sanctioned this test has concluded that those who were to profit directly from this test's sale to thousands of schools were in fact the very same people who approved its use.

Read an article from the Washington Post entitled "Billions for an Inside Game on Reading"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092901333.html

Read entire article by Ken Goodman http://sdkrashen.com/pipermail/krashen_sdkrashen.com/2006-January/000382.html

Exerpt from an article by Ken Goodman on DIBELS --

"There are many things wrong with DIBELS.

It turns reading into a set of abstract decontextualized tasks that can be measured in one minute. It makes little children race with a stop watch.

It values speed over thoughtful responses.

It takes over the curriculum leaving no time for science, social studies, writing, not to mention art music and play.

It ignores and even penalizes children for the knowledge and reading ability they may have already achieved.

Reading is ultimately the ability to make sense of print and no part of DIBELS tests that in any way. In DIBELS the whole is clearly the sum of the parts and comprehension will somehow emerge from the fragments being tested.

On top of that the sub-tests are poorly executed- the authors do badly what they say they are doing. Furthermore the testers must judge accuracy, mark a score sheet and watch a stop watch all at the same time. And, to be fair, testers must listen carefully to children who at this age often lack front teeth, have soft voices, and
speak a range of dialects as well languages other than English.

Consistency in scoring is highly unlikely among so many testers and each tester is likely to be inconsistent.

And lets add that DIBELS encourages cheating. There is a thin line between practicing the "skills" that are tested and being drilled on the actual test items, all of which are on-line to be downloaded.. With so much at stake why wouldn't there be cheating?

In summary DIBELS, The Perfect Literacy Test, is a mixed bag of silly little tests. If it weren't causing so much grief to children and teachers it would be laughable. It's hard to believe that it could have passed the review of professional committees state laws require for adoption of texts and tests . And in fact it has not passed such reviews. There is strong evidence of coercion from those with the power to approve funding of state NCLB proposals and blatant conflicts of interest for those who profit from the test and also have the power to force its use. A ongressional investigation is now underway into these conflicts of interest.

In training sessions for DIBELS, teachers are not permitted to raise questions and are made to feel that there is a scientific base to the test they lack the ompetence to understand. It is, after all, The Perfect Literacy Test."

Ken Goodman, Professor Emeritus
Language, Reading and Culture,

St. Thomas Aquinas Literacy Storytelling Festival

Stories are the bridge between who we are and who we used to be. Listening to the other presenter's stories, I'm drawn to cross those bridges with the teller, to put my trust in the teller's hand as he/she reminds me of who I once was, other crossings flashing by on fast forward.

I'm still stuck thinking of the tragedy in Lancaster. Of how the Amish community just said no to the media circus, to revenge and retaliation and what a contrast that is to the rest of the worldview. How can we build more of that attitude in our kids? Our collective memory bank is jammed with aftermarket stories of hatefulness and revenge from movies, videos and TV, the everyday drug of choice. The gridlock is so honking loud, it is hard to give ear to REAL stories, stories that most often hum with gentle compassion. I worry we are paying the price for this in our society, of the piles and piles of violent drama. Smarter people than I have done studies on this. But still we tune into murder and mayhem to (get this) relax.

I am grateful for a life that interrupts the broadcasted purple stream of vengefulness with real stories and poems. The kid who said, the teacher who made a difference, the librarian who took time. These are the kinds of stories that coax me out of bed in the morning and tuck me in, turning off the TV, saying everything will be okay.

Thanks to Michael Shaw for inviting me to this beautiful place and giving me the time to remember the power of story.

Wattsburg Elementary , Erie PA

This is a happening place, students were active in a common area making little literacy bags to hold their books and their journals and pencils. NO DIBELS at this school, hooray! Toward the end of the day, at the beginning of a writing workshop with the second grade, one girl looked at me and said, "You look tired."
"I am sweetie, I guess I better put my lipstick on."
A second girl responded reassuringly, "You'll be okay if you comb your hair."
I've been laughing about it ever since.

Also, I received a fun poem from a second grade teacher, Stacey Mattocks -- no, she was NOT grading papers during the assembly (highly discouraged) -- she began shaping a poem (very much encouraged). Michael wanted to know where I was stashing the cash if it was true that I make her entire salary working a few days a month. I wish! I also sometimes wish for a retirement program and health insurance, but that's another story. Here's Stacey's poem, which I was honored and delighted to receive.

We had an author come to our school today.
I hit my knees and just had to pray --

Cuz I've sat through these dry, agonizing assemblies before.
I guess I'm prepared to endure one more.

Had to drag my class to the auditorium and find each child a seat --
Waiting for this Sara Holbrook whom we were supposed to meet.

She came out on stage with a microphone in hand,
To my surprise she wasn't even that stuffy, boring or bland.

Soon I felt a tiny giggle start to bubble within
Then a real live laugh, a few snorts and then a big grin.

Her enthusiasm for poetry was so inspiring,
I started to play with some words on a page and it wasn't even that tiring.

She probably only has to work a few days a month -- golly gee
To make my whole year's salary.

Now I'm convinced!! A poet I'll be . . .
No more lesson plans or paper correcting for me . . .

After all, I'm a Sara Holbrook want to be!!!

Watch out for me, I'll be signing books too,
After all, I found out today that poets are really cool.

by Stacey Mattocks
2nd grade teacher

Southeast IRA

Breakfast with Poets -- Brod Bagert and me. Many in the audience were more familiar with Brod than with me, so I did a little overview of how I got started writing and the theme of each of my books, along with a few exercises for writing across the curriculum. It was an exercise in speed talking to squeeze all that into 30 minutes. Then Brod entertained and showed why he is good at tricking kids into reading. Thanks to the teachers from Baton Rouge who drove me in the driving rain to the convention center! The audience was warm and generous. We then went on to chat with teachers and sign books. I was like a zombie by this point with 2 hours of restless sleep and Brod took me out to lunch to introduce me to rice and beans and Popeye chicken.

The area is still trying to find footing after Katrina. As Brod and I were in line at the chicken joint, he struck up a conversation with a local. In two sentences they determined that Brod was from New Orleans and the conversation became "where were you when the storm hit, how bad was it in Mobile, flooding or wind damage, how long were the waters up, were you on the eastern or western side of the swirl?" I could tell it was a well-practiced conversation of questions as the two survivors retold their stories to one another. I suspect this is an important part of healing, the telling and retelling. How many years will it take for the sharp edges to fall away? Most stories take on jokes after a year, but not this one. The tragedy is too heavy.

At the end of the day I was loaded into a teacher's car for the drive to the airport. In the front seat was Eloise Greenfield. Ms. Greenfield is like the Louis Armstrong of children's poetry, which is to say, she is an icon. Her work is played with enthusiasm in schools everywhere. Other poets "cover" her poems as models of how to do it right. Did I make dazzled or dazzling conversation with her? Did I tell her how much I loved her work and gush over her shoulder? No. The car was warm from the southern sun, was running on empty and immediately fell asleep in the back seat. All I can hope is that she has no idea who that sleeping poet, probably smelling faintly of fried chicken, was in the back seat. Arugh.

Circling for a landing

This post is for all the people who have ever said: You get to travel, that must be so much fun!

Monday I left Cleveland for Mobile via Houston at 9:30 AM EST a little late -- 30 minute delay. Big deal. But we went into a holding pattern due to storms, and we circled until we needed gas (about 2 in the afternoon) which we took on in New Orleans. Back in the air, we circled Houston and wandered south for a while, finally putting down at 4:30 Central time (5:30 EST) after having been in the air 8 hours for a 2 hour flight. The Houston airport looked like a disaster relief station with travelers sleeping all over the floor. Due to pure luck, I had called and gotten my flight changed to the only uncancelled remaining flight to Mobile. At 7:30 PM they loaded us onto the plane where we sat idling on the runway for two more hours, finally landing in Mobile at 11:45. After I finished filing my missing luggage report, I went to look for a cab at 12:30. Cabs stop running in Mobile at midnight, so the airport security cop called and awakened a cabbie (filipina with a y'all southern drawl) who took me and four other weary travelers to our different hotels. Well, first she took me to an all night Walmart so I could buy some clothes and toiletries for my 7AM breakfast speech, arriving at my hotel at 3AM. By 3:30 I was in bed, wake up call set for 5:30AM.

I didn't want to mix this account with my VERY positive experience at Southeast IRA, so I am making separate entries. Road warriors all have travel nightmare stories and frankly get tired of telling them and hearing them. I'd put this one in my top 10, but not frightening or at any time dangerous (like stupidly driving through the night, which I have done a couple of times). Still, it was nice to return home on Tuesday without a hitch.

Freedom of Dress

Last night on Bill Mauer, he said that he didn’t think he should have to talk to women who were wearing a burqa, it is so fourteenth century and basically they are doing it only because men want them to. First of all, he meant abaya (black with headscarf) not a burqa (blue, total cover). Does he not talk to nuns who wear habits because it is so previous century? How about Amish, Mormon or Orthodox Jewish women who cover their hair? Some sects of Muslim women wear artistic silk scarves that frame their faces beautifully. Does he find that offensive, too?

Maybe he shouldn’t talk to women who have bare midriffs and wear navel rings and push up bras – they look like belly dancers (how fourteenth century is that?). Let's face it, they only do it to please men. God knows, no woman ever put on a push up bra for comfort or convenience.

Is “freedom” then defined as being free to please men however we want to? And if we don't please them with our dress, they won't talk to us? Yish.

I don't care if Mauer really felt that way or if he was trying to provoke a response from his hostile panel. Whichever. Shame on him for such a prejudicial remark.

OELMA

I admire librarians for their self-motivation. Often working solo, they quietly keep the shelves current and in order so that the rest of us can paw through the stacks and then they put it all back together again. At the annual meeting of the Ohio school librarians I ran into an old friend, Kay Wise. She was a teaching librarian for enough years to retire, then she went back to another school library and finally retired for a second time. And there she was at the meeting, attending sessions and learning what's new. Now, that's self-motivation.

I need a little self motivation. Maybe if I hang out with enough librarians it'll rub off.

Great meeting. Friday the 13th turned out to be not so bad afterall. Well, my books didn't arrive at the meeting, which was sad. Snowed on the way down to Columbus, though. Brrrrr.

Lancaster, PA

The day was sunny and 80 degrees, the smell of cut grass. At precisely 10:45AM, one week from the tragic shooting at the small Amish school in that town, the principal at the modern high school came on the loudspeaker to remind us to pause in remembrance. It was so impressive how the Amish community came together to support the family of the shooter, a milkman, a quiet family man, who apparently lost his mind. In so doing, they gave us all a lesson in anti-anger. So often it seems as if we live in an enraged society. It's as if there is no such thing as "mildly annoyed" any more, everyone is screaming mad. And as any movie or TV watcher knows, there is only one legitimate response to preserving one's dignity when screaming mad -- Die Hard-AK 47-viedo-game-blood-splatter-road-rage vengefulness.

If there is ever a case that would justify really becoming "screaming mad," it would be gunshots to the heads of innocent young girls. But the Amish don't watch that much TV and vengefulness is not the Amish way. Surely they must have felt some anger along with their grief, but they willed their faith and their sense of reason to prevail. In so doing, they shut down the media circus and took care of one another, comforting the spiritually and physically wounded instead of losing themselves in angry screaming and revenge.

As a result, no talking head on cable was suggesting that all milkmen get arrested and locked up at Gitmo without charges. No one invaded the milkman's home and shot his wife and kids in revenge. There were no bombs dropped on his neighbors because of their religious affiliations. The community came together to lay to rest the dead and then razed the building. But no more lives were ruined, compounding the tragedy.

There were some calls for increased school safety, but as a frequenter of many schools, I will say that I get buzzed in through expensive security all the time. Why? Because I don't look threatening, I suppose. I was at one school in Western PA once where there had been a shooting just prior to my visit. When I asked about the plywood-for-windows decorating theme, the teacher told me the story of a man entering the building and shooting wildly and missing everyone (thankfully).

"But you have such modern, sophisticated security systems here," I said.
"Oh, yes," she agreed. "But it was the secretary's husband. We knew him, so we let him in."

And, except for the case of the tragedy of the Chetchnian rebels, the fact is the shooters are always known to the victims. Had there been a security system at that little one room school, I'm certain they would have let the shooter in. He was their milkman.

What is the proper response to the actions of madmen? Raze the site, start fresh, and comfort one another as human beings. Yes, check out the security systems, but realize all the locks and buzzers in the world can't always protect us from insanity. Hope lies in our sense of community, for in that we find support to begin each new day knowing that the world, it's weather and inhabitants, is for the most part ungovernable.

And take a lesson from the old ways of the Amish -- a little less media, a little more faith, a lot less vengeful anger and more forgiveness does not add up to weakness -- it is strength and true dignity.

Voda

My word for the day. On pretty much of a whim, Michael and I just booked a trip to Croatia in December. We will be visiting Steven and Kathy Smith, artist/poet friends of ours who sold everything and moved to Europe. We are more friends in spirit than friends who got together frequently, but you can't help catching their spirit of adventure. Check out their blog http://www.walkingthinice.com/. Anyway, other poets have lent them a house in Pula, Croatia for three months and we are traveling to visit for a few days. On the shelf is a Croatian dictionary from a trip we had to cancel at the time of the Iraq invasion. I am going to try and learn a few words of Croatian and my first is "voda." Means "water." I'm thinking about putting little signs up around the house as I have seen in classrooms to help kids associate words with images.

I'm also in the process of breaking in a new computer. It's like making a new acquaintance -- I have to tell it everything, from my favorite fonts to my mother's maiden name. I have to feed the history of my life in poems into the databank and hang all my family photos in the picture gallery. And at this point in life, when I've been over all these stories so many times, you would think that I wouldn't forget things, but I do and I have and I keep going back to the old computer to yank the fillings to imbed in the cavities of this new voracious monster.

So, when we go overseas to meet up with Kathy and Steven we will do so in a home with no phone, no high speed connection, no television. Very little information pre-installed. We will be navigating the new software of friendship and have to (be blessed to?) create each day from scratch, no pre-designed templates.

It will be good to leave the machines behind, I'm thinking. Yes, it will be good. Dobar. Tomorrow's word.

Unschooling

I'm at the Cleveland Public Library, it is the color of cold, wet steel outside. Ample windows are letting in only a dusky light and the whole place has the ambiance of a tomb. I'm researching (well, really, I'm off task, but I CAME here to research) a new book on performance learning. It is the perfect day to do library research, it's too dank and depressing to do about anything else unless one is a bird discussing travel plans. Browsing the shelves I found (could it be?) The Idiot's Guide to Homeschooling. right next to Homeschooling for Dummies.

I'm not against homeschooling, not at all. But it might not be the best course of action for idiots (do ya think?). First they define "unschooling," which is taking a stand against dry texts. Next the guide recommends filling the home with books. Let the kid fix his own breakfast. Viola, the kid just had an hour in home ec. Then the kid can spend the morning playing with Legos, a lesson in engineering.

Okay, these truly are books for dummies. No joke. And pretty effective, I might guess, at unschooling youth, if anyone were so idiotic as to attempt to put them into practice.

Beware of grandmothers with glue sticks

Quote from writer/educator Donald Graves: "Too much of my life is spent in routine activities: get up, shave, dress, stagger down for my cup of coffee, write, eat, write some more, pile up my correspondence and teaching necessities in my canvas LLBean bag, drive unseeing to work, wonder about where I might be lucky enough to find a parking spot, walk into the office to check phone calls and correspondence . . . If someone were to ask me to write about my day at this point I would be forced to say, "There hasn't been anything new to it yet, no whys, just a kind of survival, like wading through a marsh. Sometimes I have a whole day like that, or a string of days with the edges of living knocked off. If someone were to suggest that I write about those days, I might have two reactions: nothing happened so why bother or it was too painful to revisit: "I'd just as soon forget it."

Donald Graves Discover your own literacy, The Reading/Writing Teacher's CompanionHeinemann)

Boy, ain't that the truth. Some days are so annoying they can block you up for an entire week! Take last Tuesday (please) when I checked into my flight with my lip gloss NOT in a plastic bag.
"But it is here in my hand, you can see it."
"Has to be in a plastic bag."
Some traveling Good Samaritan donated a plastic bag to my efforts to get through security, but I had to go out and around and through security a second time, lip gloss secure in a handibag. Only this time the vigilant screener found a glue stick in my rolling briefcase that she had missed the first time, thereby subjecting me to a wanding and total swipe down of all my goods for traces of explosives.

In fact all traces of explosives were inside of me at that point and about to detinate, but I held the fireworks securly behind pursed lips. I was about to miss my flight having been tagged guilty of suspicious activity.

Be it known here, Cleveland Hopkins Airport has a zero tolerance policy for grandmothers carrying glue sticks.

Now, don't you feel safer?

More from Graves: "But literate people don't want to forget anything; pain, sadness, joy, anger. They want to tell stories about these experiences to themselves and to friends, to write about them in a diary, a journal, or a short essay. Writing allows us to look at an experience from two angles: at the moment it occurs and and the moment we write about it."

Yeah. Well. Maybe. But just thinking about it now, three days still tweaks my latent explosive tendencies. However, now that I have told the story, maybe maybe I'll be able to see it from a different angle.

Disesteem

Here's the sentence: "She was a woman to admire and to desire, but the message in her eye and her bearing was unmistakable: offend or disesteem her at your peril." I'm still reading Shantaram, written by Aussie Gregory David Roberts -- it's nine hundred pages and I'm not traveling with long stretches on airplanes and waiting areas to read. In fact, I think this is the longest stretch I have had in my writing career without travel. Ah, yes, travel. The part of the writing life that Annie Dilliard skipped over in her book. The part that for many of us keeps our computers and cars updated and our dogs in kibble. Well, anyway, I've been home and home means that the laundry calls out to me and the sun and the sidewalk, not to mention the dogs who are as I write this pulling at my chair leg and rolling around like animals, desperate to sniff their way around the block on the end of a leash. But, extra time on my hands also means that while I don't have as much time to read without interruption, I do have more time to contemplate what I'm reading, even to think about select words, like disesteem.

Not the same as disrespect. Not a loss of esteem, low esteem or lack of esteem. I love a good word choice! I was writing to someone a couple weeks ago and she used the word wretched in an email. This is a word more familiar than disesteem, but not really common in usage anymore. I decided that week I was in love with the word wretched. I don't feel wretched nor is my life wretched, I just like the word. Disesteem is more rare, its existence too wretched to earn a space in spell check, although it does own its own place in the dictionary. (Then again, how can anyone trust a spell check that wants to replace Annie Dilliard with Dullard.)

Choosing words is like shopping at the grocery. When you are in a hurry, you just run in and grab what you have always bought and race to the checkout line. But when you have extra time, you can read the packages, check the new products section, and taste the samples. Words like wretched and disesteem don't hang out with the hamburger, they are in the gourmet section of the dictionary. The area that takes some time to prepare, to present, and ultimately, to savor.

'Course the writer of this book was incarcerated during its writing, so presumably he had some time on his hands to shop for just the right word to describe this woman pulled from the shelf of his memory in his fictionalized autobiography (aren't all of our autobiographies, even the unpublished recollections, fictionalized? Really? Although it was responsible of him to make note). Incarceration of an adventurer may well be why the book is 900 pages and rich with detailed observations, painting a panoramic picture of India that no reader could possibly view with disesteem.

Under the cover of darkness

I swear, they do it at night. I'm not sure who THEY are, but for sure THEY don't want to be confronted by those of us enjoying our fall walks, watching the leaves take on attitude before they dry and take flight and listening to the birds discussing travel plans. Those of us who are scuttling between sun spots in sweatshirts do NOT want to be reminded of what is coming by THEM. But sure enough, right about the time the Christmas decorations show up at Drug Mart (about now) up go the posts.

People who live in the south or as I did for many innocent years, outside of the infamous northern Ohio snowbelt, (it could be worse, it could be Buffalo) don't know about these metal warning flags. These are the four foot metal bars that THEY attach to the fire hydrants so that the things can be found in the deep snow. These posts are associates of wind chill factors and lake effect snow. Like undercover spies, they invade the neighborhood. Of course the locals recognize them immediately and know that the rest of the crew is amassing over the hill like an invading brigade, sending us into a flurry of yard, gutter, and window preparations.

Last weekend, I noticed the subtle intrusion, which is always the way it is. You never see these defiant little posts being installed, just one day, the posts are well. . . posted, putting us all on notice.

An inner alarm trumpets, "Life is temporal. Fall is fleeting. Winter's coming." Bony little know-it-alls.

No wonder THEY do this under the cover of darkness, whoever THEY are.

To the woman in the blue dress

To the woman in the blue dress walking in front of the empty strip center store on Route 20 who did not tie back her auburn hair letting it fly behind her like a lacy cape -- to the woman who led with her chin and whose smile was reflected in the way she swung her canvas bag timed perfectly with each stride -- to the woman who chose to defy the gray sky with a dress the color the sky could if it were Greece or Italy or some place besides Cleveland -- to the woman in the hip grazing, long blue dress with stars bursting from the cotton, in the dress that was slit to the knee but no further -- to the woman with crinkles in the corners of her eyes who did not require footnotes, who gave today's potential a slight-handed, encouraging nudge without even looking -- to the woman in the blue dress -- thank you.

My hood

My Hood

The neighbors in my hood had a celebratory potluck tonight. The developer, whose family in the past has performed surgery on this old village with the delicacy of a bulldozer, burying the old grist mill to put up a Kinko's and erecting stripmalls with spreading lawns of asphalt from one end of town to the other, has compromised on our old school site.

On the ballot in November will be a zoning change -- not to the 10 units per acre he was proposing (code R-10) but to a new zoning designation, OV for Old Village, that will put restraints on him and help preserve what little is left of the old village (Kinkos not withstanding). He will have to play nice, not put in dense housing and preserve the integrity of the local architecture.

This was a major victory for grass roots organization and neighborhood solidarity. So tonight we celebrated with fried chicken, salads in our finest tupperware and fudge brownies. Modern neighborhoods are populated with commuters who try not to run into one another in the street rather than stopping to chat. We were no different -- but we are now.

What a gift that developer gave us, really. He may have taken away the playground, but he gave us more of a neighborhood.

Techno Trauma

My phone stopped taking a charge. I know this feeling, understand it in my core. When the sun is perky and I am too comfortable under the comforter. When no amount of caffeine starts my engine. The time I fell asleep at the only professional football game I ever attended, crowds around me calling for blood. The times I've dragged my feet in the face of deadlines. Filed extensions. Just said, no to hysteria. Failed to take the charge. So understandable on a human level -- so absolutely intolerable in a machine. How dare that Motorola turn it's back on me!

So, I did what every good electronics consumer does, I tossed the old and bought new. Not the same model, the new improved model with windows, excel and 2 gigs of memory. Keep in mind that my first computer had a mere 4 megabytes of ram. Then I upgraded to 8, 16, skipped 32 and went straight to 64 because the computer salesman told me that was all I'd ever need. Wonder where he is now and if his beard ever came in?

I now have a phone that is more powerful than what NASA used to launch the first man into space. I have synchronized my life into this little machine. But like the columnist (Anna Quinlen?) who once commented that she was afraid if they put the whole of world knowledge on an IPod, she would be sure to lose it in her purse, I am not certain I am competent or capable to handle this thing, let alone make a phone call with it.

Also awaiting the arrival of my new computer. Stay tuned, I hear it has dual exhausts. I probably won't know how to drive that thing either. Sigh.

"the smell of hope -- the opposite of hate"

I've been feeling depressed lately about the state of the world. News articles and television conspiring to remind us daily about the vulnerabilities of mother earth and all her minions -- human, fish, reptile and fowl. From polar bears to tropical frogs to children in Afghanistan and green space in Ohio, it seems so much and many are in a persistent state of peril.

Yesterday I spent at the Lake County Farm Park with my daughter Katie and her children Stephie (5) and Scotty (almost 3). There is something about small hands reaching out to pet the knees and necks of the unbridled kindness of workhorses -- an act of mutual trust -- that seems hopeful. Like the walk through the corn maze, each stalk holding but one or two ears, reaching with pride to heights of nine feet. Young kids nursing from their mothers and sheep dogs that can control their universe with a look, no technology required. So much of what we have we do not need and so much of what the world needs they do not have. To go to the farm park is like looking the word "balance" up in the dictionary. Just for a reminder.

Started a new book yesterday, a recommendation from my dear friend Bonnie Campbell Hill. Shantaram. On page 4, the author Gregory David Roberts observes when exiting the airport in Bombay, that it smells of "the sweet smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love." That phrase has followed me everywhere since I read it.

And that line followed me to the farm park where I caught a whiff of what Roberts was talking about. And (gratefully) it has followed me back home.

"way back when, in '67"

Name that song. If you can name Steely Dan, you were probably alive and musically aware in the 70s, as was most of the audience at the outdoor concert last night. Gray ponytails and speading foundations filled the lawn at Blossom. The temperature was in freefall, but Hurricane Ernesto's leftovers didn't reach the Northcoast until this AM. I think if someone had taken the loudspeaker and asked everyone wearing denim to leave, there would have been 8 people left. So much for us free thinking boomers.

It is bizarre for me to think that 1967 is as far back for kids today as the roaring twenties was for me as a kid. Has the world changed that much in 40 years? Musically, yes. Rap was invented replacing soul train. But I don't remember as the Beach Boys were rocking and the Beatles were on the upswing, before the Stones qualified for AARP covers, anyone still listening to Al Jolson. The modern world has so many more options, and every year we drag more cultural baggage to pass to the next generation, who can't wait to drop it and step up to the running board on the next SUV. But more remains each year, celebrated by the oldies but goodies.

Except blue jeans. This movement has real staying power. I wonder what people wore before we all dressed alike? I guess I need to talk to someone who can still remember -- when? The forties?