Rockin' Jake blues band at John's Alley bar in Moscow, Idaho

Last night instead of winding down after 9 p.m., I put on a sweater and walked the four blocks to John's Alley bar to hear the Rockin' Jake blues band from New Orleans. The band wouldn't play till 10 p.m., so I walked another block to the One World Cafe coffeehouse and had a hot chocolate while I listened to 8 or 9 assorted musicians jam celtic music.

Near to 10 I walked back to John's Alley, paid the $3 cover charge, bought a $1.50 glass of the cheapest beer (Pabst) on tap, and lucked upon a chair and my own little table straight in front of the bandstand and not 20 feet away. The band was just as good as any Chicago blues band I've heard, live or recorded -- that is, Jake and his band of guitar player, bass player, and drummer, with Jake a blues harmonica virtuoso and occasionally singing a few lines, were world class. They brought to mind recordings by such as Junior Wells and Paul Butterfield.

John's Alley is a spacious place. About me young and young at heart folks were enjoying drinks and conversation, playing pool, playing ping-pong, and, between me and the band, dancing. Thankfully, there is no smoking in Moscow, Idaho bars, so the festive scene was quite pleasant. Regretfully I got too sleepy to stay longer than the first set.

Playground Duty

Yesterday I was a substitute at West Park Elementary School in Moscow, Idaho on playground duty from 10:15 a.m. to 2:05 p.m. The classes took turns having morning and afternoon 15 minute recesses and 30 minute lunch breaks.

I helped serve lunch, my task being to put 2 baby carrots, a piece of cucumber, and three pieces of orange on each tray as the children filed past. Some asked to not get the cucumber. A woman working in the lunch room handed out hamburgers between buns (with a slice of cheese optional) and brownies.

The area in which the children could play outside included a playground area with swings, a thing to climb about on, a winding slide, monkey bars, and so on; a tennis court without nets, a paved area maybe 20 feet wide along the side of the school building, and a huge grassy field. Another man, a substitute like me, supervised the playground and tennis court area while I supervised the blacktop and grassy field area. Our task was to observe the children at play and deal with any problems, such as squabbles, injuries, or whatever, and to hand out passes, mostly for going inside to the bathroom. Usually one or more teacher was also outside.

I was astounded and pleased by how well and creatively those 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade children regulated themselves--making up games to play, resolving differences, and solving problems. There were 2 plastic bins of basketballs, soccer balls, light plastic balls with holes in them, child-size and smurf footballs, jump ropes, etc.

In one recess there was a baseball game with a total of 2 players and in another there was a baseball game with no bases, leading to a squabble over whether a player was safe or out. (The bases were later found still in the building.) The kids made up rules to suit their situation, such as if the plastic ball gets pitched behind you and then you go over to where it sits on the ground and swing the plastic bat at it and miss, that's a strike.

I observed lots of ways to jump rope, including the backpack, jumping with 5 ropes at a time, jumping while dashing in a race, and many more. A long jump rope could also become the reins for horse(s) and driver.

Far out in the field kids rough-housed or just loitered.

Incident: At the end of one of the recesses, the bell rang, and the children on their own lined up single file to go back in the building, while children for the next recess came outside. But no teacher came for the children who had formed a queue, and those children waited patiently for minutes. I watched to see what would happen. Then the boy at the front of the line commenced yelling, "Follow me! Everyone follow me!" as he led the line forward, toward a door to the building. The line had just about reached the door when a teacher finally came out.

Incident: A boy came up to me and said, "Mrs. ... said I have to stay on the blacktop and can't go over there in the playground." "Why?" "Because I tied up ." "How many days can't you go in the playground?" "I don't know." "Let's go see what we can find out." The boy and I strolled over to where the other playground supervisor was chatting with a couple of teachers. I told them the boy's situation, and one of the teachers said that at least for that day and till his teacher said otherwise the boy was to stay on the blacktop (pavement?), out of the playground, and out of the field, and was not to go near . The boy and I wandered back. A girl approached him, talked with him briefly, and asked him to jump rope with her. She got him to hold one end of a long jump rope and another girl to hold the other end and for both to turn it while she jumped rope. The boy was clumsy and kept turning the rope in the wrong direction or too slowly or too whatever but finally after much patient coaching got it right, and the girl jumped the rope lots of times.

Incident: A boy came up to me and said that another boy had kicked his butt 3 times--had just come up to him and kicked him for no reason. We walked across the field to where the boy in question was playing with some other boys. I waved him over to me and said as a matter of fact instruction, "Don't kick other people." He said in a tone of one agreeing to an instruction, "OK." I asked the boy who got kicked, "OK?" He nodded, satisfied. I walked back to the blacktop while the two boys resumed playing, one joining a game of catch and the other rejoining his pals.

Such incidents were rare. Mostly the children happily and creatively played.

My favorite quote: A girl, jumping by herself using a short jump rope, jumped 19 times before missing. Someone said, "You have 19 boyfriends." She replied, "I don't have 19 boyfriends. I only have 3 boyfriends."

Inside on the hallway wall just outside one of the classroom doors were posted sheets of paper with typed responses starting, "If I were the President..." As best I can recall, some examples were:
* I would give everyone enough food to live but not enough to dominate the world.
* I would tell everyone to eat healthy food and be nice.
* I would send out the army and the spies.
* I would make peace between the wars.
* I would attack if I was attacked and otherwise I wouldn't.
* I would go around the world making awesome speeches.
* I would invent a garbage picking up machine.
* I would make people eat healthy food and clean up the earth.
Healthy food and great speeches were frequently mentioned.

The day gave me much hope for the future.

There were lots of substitutes at the school yesterday because starting Monday is spring break week and some teachers and staffers started their break on Friday instead of Monday.

Had a UI College of Law Library job interview today

Today I was interviewed by the Head of Technical Services and by another librarian, a woman and a man, both nice, at the University of Idaho College of Law Library for a 10 hours per week filing clerk position. They've interviewed a lot of applicants -- two days of half hour interviews -- so the numerical odds are against my being the one hired for the job. I hope I am chosen. I am well qualified and have always liked and been good at doing such tasks as filing in order and double-checking for accuracy. I'd quickly familiarize myself with the particulars of handling law and government documents.

Walking each weekday to UI for a couple of hours of law library work would fit in well with my creative writing schedule and, added to my social security and whatever I can make as a writer, would help me to make ends meet. I'll find out the middle of next week if I'm hired.

One possible scenario for Kayle and me then might be that I would stay in Moscow through the summer and fall while Kayle is a volunteer in North Carolina at The Mountain Resort and Learning Center and then at John C. Campbell Folk School, before we settle in NM.

Time will tell what comes.

Comments Read to the UUCP Congregation on Sunday, 1-24-2010

In her sermon yesterday, Sunday, January 24, 2010, my wife Rev. Kayle Rice, minister of Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse, spoke to the congregation about her decision, effective as of late spring or early summer, to resign as their minister, to move out of state from here in Moscow [pronounced with a long o], Idaho, and, at least for awhile, to leave church ministry to follow a different, yet to be explored, path with heart which will involve spirituality, art, and, like MISS RUMPHIUS, doing something to make the world more beautiful. I was the Celebrant in yesterday's church service, which included my reading some prepared comments to the congregation. This is what I said:

I've liked Moscow, the Palouse region, and this church since Kayle and
I first visited here. Among the high points of my life was when this
congregation voted to call Kayle as your minister and welcomed her and
me into this building with a rousing rendition of "Enter, Rejoice and
Come in." I have often inwardly rejoiced to have the good fortune to
experience living here. My active participation in this church and in
the Moscow community has in part been an expression of that admiration
and appreciation of all that makes Moscow and the UUCP in so many ways
wonderful.

I had expected to—and would have been content to—live here for several
more years, or even until Kayle reaches retirement age. From the start
I have been conscious of the inevitability that our stay here—whether
for four, six, twelve, or however many years—would be temporary and
that my responsibility would be, when we did leave, to leave with all
of the projects in which I've been closely involved in good shape and
in good hands.

Well before summer comes I'd like to see several more pages added to
the website, such as Music and Young Adult; see the addition of
drop-down menus, and see one or two persons added to the Web Group, to take over text updating, photos uploading, and calendar updating. And
I'd like to see one or two persons added to the Library Group, to help
carry forward its project of having a well stocked, well organized,
and convenient to use church library. That project has come a long
ways, with more yet to do. In the past several years the
Communications Committee has progressed intermittently by fits and
starts and has often stalled. I'd like to see it soon have at least
three enthused members, one its leader, and I'd like to see the UUCP
logo finally in ubiquitous use. And I hope to see enthused
participation in the Social Action Committee increased even more.

Because they are vital to putting into practice our principles of
encouragement to spiritual growth and a free and responsible search
for truth and meaning, I'd like to see adult RE programs continue to
develop, including getting the new spirituality books discussion group
started.

And I'd like to see the projects in process that were mentioned by
Kayle brought to fruition.

I myself alone can do little to realize those intentions. I can have
no part in achieving some of them, aside from cheering, and my need to
focus on getting ready to move limits how much I can help achieve
others of them, but I will do my part as I am able, so that I can
leave knowing I did my best to leave the town and the church slightly
even better places than when they welcomed Kayle and me.

While I would be content to stay, I am content to leave, because I
know from experience that there are other wonderful towns and other
wonderful UU churches and that what we do here is part of a large and
deep movement. Kayle must do what her spirit says do, go where her
path leads. To live with her is my delight. Luckily for me, I can be a
writer anywhere.

My wish is that the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse will
continue to be a happening, vibrant church for many generations, a
beacon for the principles which we affirm.

Not Nameless

Yesterday my wife Rev. Kayle Rice talked at Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse about the "black empowerment controversy" in the Unitarian Universalist Association in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Click here and here for the history of the controversy.

Yesterday's UUCP service was in honor of Martin Luther King Day weekend, and the readings remembered and honored the life and work for social justice of MLK. One of the readings said something about while the name of Dr. King is remembered by many, there were tens of thousands of nameless persons active in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

True, and there were many who were and are not nameless, whose names are in history books and memoirs. Unitarian Universalists should know and remember their names and tell their stories to the next generation. For a partial list, click here.

Teaching is not my forte or calling

Yesterday and today I substitute taught sophomore English in Moscow, Idaho High School, which is a block from Kayle's and my apartment. The regular teacher, S.H., took sick Sunday night, and the woman who phones substitutes woke me with a call yesterday morning about 7:15 and asked if I could be at the high school between 7:45 and 8:00. I said yes, and I was.

The last time I taught school was when I substituted 2nd-6th grade classes in the spring of 1967 and 7th grade in the fall of 1967 in Chicago, before I moved to Canada, a war resister.

Needing to supplement my meager Social Security retirement income, recently I applied to Moscow School District to be a substitute teacher, office worker, kitchen helper, or whatever. The human resources woman at the district office said that, since I am not a certified teacher, my college degrees only qualify me to substitute teach on an emergency basis, such as when I was called early yesterday morning to substitute for S.H., who had gotten sick in the night.

Going into her classroom, I could see at a glance that she is an interesting person and superb teacher. The many books lying casually about the room had authors of such caliber as Plato and Camus. A lesson on the blackboard (or rather dry erase white board) was on literary, mythical, and Biblical allusions. On a bulletin board were clippings on contemporary social conditions.

Very luckily for me, also in the room was her husband, who introduced himself and mentioned that he is a retired university English professor. He had come to bring me a lesson plan that S. H. had written by hand in between being sick to her stomach. He was also there to mark-up student essays for a Martin Luther King Day local contest. That kept him present all morning, and thanks to his calm reassurances and example, I soon learned to trust the students to largely regulate themselves.

I had moments of doubt both days, as when a boy zipped about the room on a Razor scooter, or when a couple of boys started practicing their wrestling, or a girl asked to go next door to a multimedia room to practice her poetry recital and instead showed her friends a video she's made (and made impressively well), or when some kids at a table supposedly rehearsing their poetry recitals shot rubber bands at each other and pencil stabbed plastic cups into shreds, or when I asked one girl to go on an errands and three insisted on going, and so on. The scootering boy soon set his scooter aside and sat at his desk; the wrestling boys soon were walking about dramatically practicing their memorized poems; the girls watching a video were soon back to practicing their poetry reciting, the boys and girls shooting rubber bands and shredding plastic cups, having for the moment had enough of poetry, soon on their own had gotten out vocabulary cards. Both days I rarely felt a need to step in, and when I did, a mild suggestion was enough to keep the creative ruckus from getting too loud or wild.

In "The Second Coming" Yeats wrote, "Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...." That's how it seemed at times in the classroom, and it was gratifying each time yet again I muddled through and yet again the students proved their developing reliability and maturity.

The main project yesterday was getting essays and art work done and submitted to the MLK Day contests, and those students who got done with that practiced for an upcoming poetry recital. I later heard from contest judges that the quantity and the quality of MLK Day contest entries was greater than ever this year. Today's project was more poetry reciting practice, with some advancing from small group practice to reciting to the whole class, with a prompter. All who took a turn gave it their best effort, and the quality of many recitations and of many of the feedback comments was outstanding.

The upshot for me of the experience is that I learned again, as back in 1967, that teaching is not my forte or my calling. I can get through a school day still standing and with sufficient positive results to give me satisfaction. But school teaching is work best done with whole-hearted dedication. Done well, it takes its own kinds of creativity and talents. I can muddle through but don't have the aptitude to do better. I don't speak clearly, don't have confidence, am not assertive, have a poor memory, am not an institution person, have little stamina, and so on. The deciding factor for me is that my calling and forte is in work with words--as a writer, editor, proofreader, bookman, and such. My job a few years ago as a parttime restaurant dishwasher fit my needs well, because the routine work gave my subconscious a chance to work on my writing projects. Teaching leaves me drained of mental and physical energy and in no shape to write.

I have not decided whether to limit my substitute teaching to a maximum two days in a week or to take my name off of the substitute teaching list altogether. I do know that teaching won't be a major part of my work life.

My admiration for both S. H. and her students is immense. They are in a Moscow High School tradition of excellence.

Crossing Another Threshold As A Writer

I feel good about crossing another threshold as a writer, that of having a book length work accepted by a paying publisher. I'm optimistically hopeful all will go well in the manuscript to published work process. Then time will tell if the public likes the work as much as my family, friends, and colleagues.