So, I thought I'd put up a blog

and everybody and theirbrother would be commenting back to me. I know, and if you know me, that I'm impatient by nature. Today I think I'll write about what I would have done with my life if I hadn't done what I am doing. Whew, what a sentence! So here would be the top five other things I would have done with my life if I hadn't become a college professor:
1) lawyer -- cool clothes, hang out with criminals, and other criminals who call themselves lawyers.
2) restaurant owner -- long hours, personal satisfaction of seeing people enjoy the food I've prepared.
3) ad agency owner -- use my overactive imagination, maybe sing jingles, take advantage of my knowledge of rhetoric and use it for evil.
4) bookstore owner -- nice one, not like the nasty guy in Provincetown I just encountered, more a Will Peterson type (for those of you in Pocatello), get to hook up people with books and make fun of people's poor book choices.
5) pastry chef -- work for a nice restaurant owned by somebody else. Get to delight in other people's delights and get fat as hell.
So, how about you? What would you do if you weren't doing what you're doing?

My This I Believe Essay

So Today I'm posting the essay I wrote for This I Believe on NPR. It's on their website, but they didn't take it for reading on air. I suppose I could use the fancy podcasting equipment I got from work and youse could all hear it, but it's doubtful that anybody really wants to hear the sound of my voice, especially if you took a class from me (haha).

The Joy of Overhearing

My parents are getting old; even by our new techno-medically induced standards, at ninety-seven and eighty-eight, they’re really getting old. They still live in the same suburban New Jersey home where I grew up. I’m four hours away in central New York, that rust belt of broken down towns and tenuous local economies. Sometimes I worry about my parents a lot; always I worry at least a little. I worry about everything from dishonest plumbers to slippery front steps and basement stairs. But somehow they keep going. When serious medical concerns come and go, they continue to prop each other up. My parents met when my mother was invited to my father’s sister’s wedding next door to where she lived in the Bronx. My father was home on leave from the Philippines, and when he returned to duty they corresponded in letters now neatly bundled in the attic. They had three kids right away, left the city for New Jersey and years later had another child, me. I grew up in the 70s, before the Garden State came into its own, when we were still ashamed to be New Jerseyians. In high school it was always a source of discontent; the sameness, the same lack of identity in every north Jersey town wore me out. So I left and went to the West and worked on my superior attitude. I rhapsodized about the openness, the big blue sky, later the feeling I got from raising my kids in such a safe place. My family put up with running commentary about Jersey’s dirty air and overcrowding when I came for visits. But by the time I finished graduate school I was ready to leave the rural West; accompanying the big sky was a rampant conservatism that I just couldn’t even understand. So there I was at 42 years old, running away to home in a way, but things had changed. I am now the middle aged child of really old parents, not the overindulged much younger one. Sitting on my parents’ couch I overheard my father say something that I know I’ll always keep with me, as sappy and nostalgic as that might sound. As he bade my mother goodnight, he said “goodnight my dear; dream only of me.” With those words, I, the interloper on the couch, was reminded that there really is so much more to life that what we see on the surface as we rush every day from one important thing to another: as we fill our lives with the trappings of success. I believe sometimes it’s the things we overhear that have the greatest impact on us. I think when we’re reminded inadvertently that people love each other profoundly we gain access to something important we can remember when we worry or become disgruntled in this time of fear. I believe that right now in history it’s more important than ever to overhear because we might be thrilled and inspired with what our ears pick up.

Peace Out

Yesterday we did our Sunday peace vigil on the Clinton Village Square www.villageofclinton.com as usual, but it was anything but usual. We (three or four of us from the Mohawk Valley Peace Coalition) stand for an hour and hold up signs that say things like "Honk for Peace" and various versions of end the war. One of my fellow peaceniks, who is about 83 years old, has been doing this just about every Sunday since the war began; that's a lot of Sundays in all kinds of central New York weather. And boy do we get some weather!

Yesterday was different though. A friend was showing his visitors from Holland around the village, and his (the friend's) three children were very interested in what we were doing. They stood with us for awhile and held signs and asked for people to honk and honked themselves. It brought a different kind of energy to the vigil, and it made me wonder if these Dutch kids would think about the experience later on. I wonder what they'll think about these women standing by the side of the village green trying to make a -- what, difference? Trying to make ourselves feel like we're doing something? Well, whatever, we've all gotta do something.

I, like many other crackhead liberals (I can't help it I was raised that way!) am wary and weary and want the election to be now and done and over. And btw I want the right guy to win because the wrong guy will take us all to hell in a handbasket (as the Idahoans say).

Off the soapbox Murphy! Life in other ways is better than it's been for years, even if being middle class in New York means being close to poor in New York in many ways. Even the Rust Belt area where I live is stunningly beautiful in summer, trees and flowers, more trees and more trees.

I'm working on two poems, one a poem of place. That can be pretty tricky (which is code for such poems can suck). But what the hell I've lived in, been to some amazing places that created and/or contributed to some truly lovely people who I'm lucky to have in my life.

I'll close with a question for anybody who takes a look at this blog. Whether I know you or not, what are the things about the place you live that you love? Here are five of mine:
1) ice cream stands that open in the summer and are sometimes mobbed with happy people eating ice cream
2) the smell after rain in central New York -- not as cool as sagebrush in Idaho, but an organic sort of chlorine smell that sounds not-so-cool, but is intoxicating
3) cheap Italian restaurants that are everywhere in the Utica, NY area (www.cityofutica.com), even though the the pizza can be sketchy to a Jersey girl
4) the Village of Clinton's odd mix of Hamilton college "royalty" and people like my neighbors, who are just regular, nice people
5) and this one will be a surprise to Daryl -- living in a place that's small enough to run into students I've taught in places like Target, local restaurants, etc. I'll add working at a school small enough to allow teachers like me to form friendships with former students (you know who you are).

That's just five and I've got plenty more, but I'd like to hear from youse guys. Whatcha got?
Happy Monday to us.

Keep On Blogging in the Free World

Imagine a world without blogs! Actually, it's pretty easy for me since I just started blogging today. So let's see, what's new with me? Well, vacation's over (Cape Cod rocks!) and it's back to reality and work tomorrow. But not today! Today is screwing around and a peace vigil at 4:00. I think that's enough for now. I'll have to ease in to baring my soul.