pt at large

Life Friendly Gardens: Feed Them Love, Not Chemicals

Summer is still splashing around in Watertown. Several of the gardens listed in the Life Friendly Garden Tour last weekend happened to be within walking distance of my digs on Oliver Street. It's inspiring to see how many ways there are to create a garden, large or small, with familiar or unique plants, sculptures, outdoor furniture, or even objects cast away by others, that results in an aesthetically pleasing, even whimsical, space.

Don’t expect to see bags of Scott’s Turf Builder or spray bottles of Round Up on this tour. The Life Friendly Gardens Tour in Watertown today was a showcase of how to garden without using toxic chemicals (see sign at left surrounded by big red finger plants called Amaranthus).

The mini landscapes surrounding several of the 14 houses on the tour within walking distance of my house were impressive. I’m good at growing grass, a few hardy shrubs, and two beds of pachysandra, which, as you know, require the maintenance skills of a sodbuster.

Knowing and accepting my limitations around anything requiring green thumbery is an asset. No longer do I view creative landscaping and plants that appear to be ready for a photo shoot for HG TV with malaise and a sense of insufficient imagination, an utter lack of what George H.W. Bush labeled “the vision thing.”

A walk through these gardens has the same effect on me as it does on their creators. Sort of an earth bound “Tranquility Base.” One gardener calls her space an "urban patch of solace" after a long day’s work. Another calls hers a “healing garden, healing first of all for me, the gardener, who finds infinite renewal in its ever changing beauty through the seasons.”

Entrance to Sharon Bauer's "Healing Garden" at 62 Pearl Street, Watertown (click Life Friendly Gardens Tour above).

Gardeners, like artists of any stripe, enjoy showing their work to fellow gardeners or oooh and ahhhhh types like myself. Cutting in flowerbeds, adding rocks, stones, and outdoor sculpture, tiny hand constructed pools complete with goldfish, and finding the right plants that will flourish in your environment requires patience. Some of the gardens on the tour have been in process for years.

These folks share tips and information. There are no proprietary secrets in this group. They’re eager to give ideas to the neophytes and share cuttings or little starter pots with anyone who asks.

They’ve got Farmer’s Almanac mentalities and plant flowers that will bloom from spring to late fall. Never a dull month in their gardens.

One enthusiast on the tour lived in a large two family house that had been neatly divided into four compact condo units. Where you and I might use their shared, untended, shady back yard as an excuse to pave the whole thing and make a bigger driveway, this gardener saw as an opportunity. Armed with abundant enthusiasm and a vision of Versailles, she got the agreement of the other three owners to have at the bedraggled plot.

 The result is a shade garden (left) chock full of several kinds of hosta and shade loving flowers plus funky, colorful little garden sculptures plonked around the shady stuff - “an urban perennial shade garden,” she says.

The son of one homeowner made a small rock lined pool and filled it with koi (goldfish) and comets and topped it with lilies that Monet would have loved.

The same gardener, Sharon Bauer, printed a pamphlet for visitors. “Wild flowers flourish around the edges, providing food for humans and animals.  Milkweed attracts Monarch butterflies. Goldfinches flock to evening primrose seeds, mockingbirds to pokeweed berries. The pin cherry tree next to our driveway volunteered from a seed dropped by a bird, and now catbirds enjoy a feeding frenzy when the cherries are ripe. Bees love goldenrod.  Plantain heals bee stings. Motherwort, yarrow, red clover, nettle, chickweed, lady’s thumb and many other 'weeds' provide good medicine.”

Henry David Thoreau, legendary naturalist who lived in nearby Concord, MA, would have been right at home in this intersection of random acts of nature and conscious acts of gardener. Maybe this is what he was thinking about when he said,"Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads."

Homeowners like pt at large are shocked, perhaps enlightened, that many so-called 'weeds' can be part of a colorful little ecosystem in the same company with impatiens, nasturtiums, black-eyed susans and day lilies. All a true gardener needs is space.

Vines bearing Mucat grapes cover back porch

The Chemical Use Reduction and Education Task Force (CURE) that sponsored the tour is a project of the Watertown Citizens For Environmental Safety (WCES), which is committed to educating the public about the dangers and safe alternative solutions to chemical use in the house and garden.

Today was a tour de force that showed beauteous gardens can be created without the aid of pesticides. Imagination, patience, and a good work ethic will do it just fine.

Photos by Paul Tamburello

John's Tailoring: Thimble Tradition Thrives

Whether a mom and pop operation, a one-man/woman show, or a whole family, there’s something special about an owner operated business. Teeny little Watertown, weighing in at just 4.2 square miles and 32.000 people, is a hotbed of familial entrepreneurship.
This is the second installment in this series.

There are a few essentials to be stored in everyone’s contact list. You need a good plumber, a good electrician, and of course a good doctor. It may not be a life or death matter, but everyone occasionally needs a good tailor.

Nestled between several unassuming storefronts on a short block on Mount Auburn Street is John’s Tailoring. The small, pinkish neon “Alterations” sign that blinks in the front window is just enough to get your attention. In good weather, there’s a rack of clothing outside the door, enough of a hint so you notice the “John’s” sign over the door.

It registered enough so that when I tore a favorite but quite banged-up pair of shorts earlier this year, I brought them there with high hopes of getting them back for another season of yard work and painting.

The narrow space inside was a throwback to earlier era. Nothing fancy. Plainly painted and lit, it resembled the kind of unassuming watchmaker or tailor or small appliance repair place I visited as a kid.

Racks of women’s clothing line the walls all the way to the back of the store. The one nod to the 21st century is a small LCD TV mutely playing in the corner.

Toward the back stood a woman next to a sewing machine that looked strong enough to repair a tank tread. It’s festooned with a rainbow range of spools of thread. Pincushions seem to be everywhere.

The woman brushes back her short brown hair to inspect what I’ve brought in. “You will see where I fixed but it will do what you want,” she smiles reassuringly and hands me her card.

Here we have Ugur Eskici, owner of John’s Tailoring. Ugur’s road to Watertown is a classic immigrant story. Future father-in-law arrives in Watertown from Harput, Turkey and opens tailoring business. Son follows. Son returns to marry sweetheart in Turkey, brings her back to Watertown. All work in family business. Father dies. Tradition is carried on by family.

The original John of John’s Tailoring was Jan Eskici, Ugur's father-in-law, who operated a successful business on Pleasant Street for more than 25 years. His company specialized in stitching together pre-cut clothing supplied to them by Johnny Appleseed's (now known as Appleseed’s), a Beverly, MA company founded in 1946 that specialized in high quality women’s apparel.

When the building they rented was sold eight years ago, Jan and Ugur looked for a smaller place. “We saw the ‘For Rent’ sign, liked the location and the size, and here I am,” she said. It’s Ugur’s baby now, all on her own.

Women’s clothing, wedding dresses and prom dresses are a specialty but she’ll tackle anything she thinks she can do successfully.

Ugur is one of those people who knew exactly what they wanted to do when they grew up.  She didn’t have to go farther than down the stairs to find her role model. “Every day when I woke up, my mother was sewing for her customers. I learned everything from her. She was the best tailor!” she beams.

Perfectionist tendencies and an ingrained work ethic are paired in this family like a needle and thread. “I don’t want to do it and make bad job,” she says in her new second language, “Better than money for me, you know, I don’t want to do it and just like get the money and bad job, I want to try to do good job.” Don’t you wish everyone felt that much pride in their work?

A darker side of immigration is that it’s often prompted by persecution. Ugur is Armenian, as is her husband. Many of her forbears were wiped out in the Armenian Genocide. It wasn’t pretty. Scars must still linger. She lives somewhere safe now.

 “I want to stay my whole life in Watertown,“ she gushes. “ I love it here. I don’t want to go anywhere else, just here. The people are good quality and they tell their friends about me.”

Right on cue, in walks customer Laurie Kahn. The two exchange warm greetings.

“I needed some alterations done and my teenage daughter Anna said, ‘Mom, you’ve got to this place I found. The lady’s great there!’ Anna’s best friend found this place and she told my daughter about it,” the Watertown film-maker explains.

This is the kind of small business that puts the meat on the bones of a small town. People seek services that are professional in quality and personal in spirit. We spend enough time in big-box stores. We write enough checks to NStar and Comcast. We like paying for an artisan’s quality work or an owner operated diner and thinking that our money will help support someone’s family.

Money is important but what really makes Ugur Eskici tick is looking at the job she’s finished and realizing she’s just the kind of tailor she dreamed of becoming back in Harput around the same time she learned to walk.

Mr. Samsung, meet Mr. Maytag

“What the heck is that buzzing sound in there,” I thought to myself as I started pulling clothes from the washing machine. “And what's that under my work pants? That black thing...that's  bleeping.  It can’t be a cell phone. Cell phones don’t belong in washing machines.“

For a second, reality does not compute. Cell phones, as any idiot knows, don’t belong under water so it can’t be a cell phone. My mind refuses the data.  But it IS a cell phone. MY cell phone.

I kept staring, hoping that if I looked long enough, the vagrant phone would disappear. Or at least stop that low moaning bleeeeping.  Neither happened.

There are many ways to feel stupid. Emergency Room stupid, Relationship stupid, Road Rage stupid. And now Cell Phone stupid.

More embarrassingly stupid than your cell phone ringing while you're in the theater, or ringing in the crucial first three minutes of a blind date. Worse than misplacing your cell phone or leaving it under your napkin in the restaurant. You may sheepishly recover from such faux pas.

It is not possible to say to your cell phone, “Gee, sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you in the pocket of my work pants when I threw them into the Maytag,  I'll make it up to you.”

You just stand over the white porcelain tub staring at the poor bleating piece of technology that has become more important to you than your opposable thumb. How the hell could you have been so careless?

In addition to the indignity of having to spend a pile of dough to replace something you already own, are you going to admit why you need to purchase a new cell phone? You know that in time this is going to be an amusing story you can serve up, with the help of two glasses of Shiraz, at some chatty cocktail party believing it will trump all comers.

But at this very moment, staring at the bubbly glass eye of your phone, you feel as dumb as you've felt in a long time.

The Shining City on Oxygen

The Shining City and the Respirator.

The Shining City
by Conor McPherson
Directed by Robert Falls
BU Theatre - Mainstage, Huntington Avenue, Boston,MA
March 7 - April 6, 2008
Running time 1 hr 30 min, no intermission

We had terrific seats. First row, mezzanine. Smack in the center of the row.

Before curtain time, my companion tugged at my sleeve. “Look, aren’t they adorable. That’s the happilyeverafter relationship I want,” she said, The woman to her right was holding her elderly man’s hand, perhaps as she did the first time they’d witnessed a play together fifty years ago.

Lights dimmed, the house quieted to a religious silence. Lights came up for the first scene of “The Shining City”, a quiet tableau showing a therapist arranging his office before a patient’s visit.

Pffffttt…pfffftt.

What was that? A sound from my right, then stillness for several seconds. A buzzer rings in the therapist’s office. He scrambles to put away an item on his desk.
Pffffttt…pfffftt from our right again.

The patient arrives up the stairs in a comically nervous entry scene.
Pffffttt…pfffftt. Like clockwork every several seconds.

Good Jaysus. Could this be what I think it could be?
Pffffttt…pfffftt.

Omigod.
Yes.
It is.

The man three seats to my right was using an oxygen tank. Loud pfffttting oxygen. And assuming the man was not going to die somewhere in scene one, the pfffftting was going to last the entire play. A play, I might add, in which there were zillions of pregnant pauses as, remember, this is taking place for the most part in a therapist’s office. And, you guessed it. No intermissions. Ninety minutes.

Pffffttt…pfffftt.

My companion’s initial delight in ideal mature matrimonial bliss was disappearing faster than ice from the Arctic pack.

“We paid $70.00 apiece for THIS?” she whispered in dismay.

Pffffttt…pfffftt.

We’ve all had experience with coughers, candy wrapper crinklers, cell phone boors, digital watch beepers, and the occasional snorer. But an oxygen tank?

How do you politely turn to a playgoer and whisper, "Say, would you mind turning off your life support for an hour or so while I and the rest of the people in your audio range can enjoy the play without that disconcerting Pffffttt pffffttting every few seconds?"

Righteous indignation was colliding fiercely with my customary tendency toward compassion. Indignation was in the lead. This was not one of my shining moments.

About forty-five minutes into the play, at the third of the five scene changes in which the lights dim for actors to scurry about to change scenery, we abandoned ship.

We scooped up our belongings and headed to the $25.00 seats in the nosebleed section of the Huntington Theater. The high five we gave each other after this guerilla move may have appeared unseemly to other patrons but never mind. The stage from there was like looking into a dollhouse but, ahhhhhhh, no more Pffffttt…pfffftting.

So here we are at the crux of the matter in our age of PC and everyone has the right to do what they please as long as it does not break the law. Rights can be defined by law but where is responsibility defined?

The man certainly had a right to be seated for the play. Did he have an obligation to forewarn his seatmates of the sound his oxygen canister emitted? Were he or his wife so inured of its sound that they didn’t hear it? Should he have asked the theater to place him where the sound would not disconcert his neighbors? Did I have an obligation to approach the couple after the play and tell them why we moved away in the middle of it?

Hindsight is always 20/20. I wish I had talked it out with them after the play. I don’t wish that they shut themselves off from culture or the community that produces it but engaging them about my experience of being jolted from the flow of the play by the sound of the oxygen tank while sitting next to them could have opened some avenues of solution.

I hope to be going to plays for years to come and lord knows what kind of medical gadgets I might need to do that. When I walk away from a performance, I want people to look at me with admiration for staying connected with the world, not wishing I’d stayed at home with a noisy machine that allows me to live.

Boys to men

In the back of your mind, you wonder what’s going to become of them. How will they fit in, what paths will they take, and what part of their experience of you having been their fourth grade teacher will they bring along for the ride. You take as an article of faith you’re having an impact on their lives. That’s why you go to work every day.
Once you get your game going, you realize the more you put into the job, the more reward you get from it. Navigating your students through the concreteness of long division, giving them a framework to grapple with moral ambiguities in themes of books you choose for them to read, and helping them cope with arguments on the playground or fallings out between friends, you’re laying the groundwork for the Jeffersonian ideal.  Informed citizens and human beings who can imagine walking in someone else’s shoes.

1989 - Jimmy looks over my shoulder. Ronald's dad (in yellow) with Ronald to his right, at a before school "breakfast" to show off student's Autobiography Project.

So when I got an email from Jimmy McCarthy’s mom that he was recently named assistant coach for the Northeastern University’s Men’s Basketball team  and had gotten engaged to a young teacher in a nearby town, that was good news. It got even better when she added that he’d love to have me come to one of his team’s home games.
(http://www.gonu.com/mbasketball/mccarthy.shtml)

On January 9, 2008, there I was, watching Coach McCarthy, pencil tucked behind his ear, taking notes and encouraging the young squad, when a young man with short dreds and an enormous smile sidled his way down the row, sat in the seat beside me and wrapped me up in a bear hug.

Ronald Carroll, Jimmy’s pal from my class of 1989, was in the house. Jimmy had called him that afternoon and there he was, a five foot nine bundle of energy. Jimmy and Ronald were genuine people persons as ten year olds. They’re young men now and they still know how to light up a room.

Jimmy has spent the last five years coaching at Williams College and Yale University. This is his first year at Northeastern University. Ronald works with at risk youth in the Roxbury site of The Boys Club of Boston. Married for three years, he and his wife are expecting a daughter in June. Ronald recalled conversations - small acts of trust, faith, and encouragement - between us during his fourth grade year with me. When a young man looks you straight in the eye and says, “You are one of the reasons I’ve turned out to be the man I’ve become today”- that’s a moment you treasure, savor and allow to roam free range in your memory for a long time.

The brief reunion with Jimmy and Ronald after the game revealed the zeal they have for their jobs. I sense their faith that they, too, feel they’re having an impact on young people’s lives. It wouldn’t hurt if twenty of thirty years from now one of their former charges shows up out of the blue to give them a big hug - and tell them how much they mattered.

Defining moments

When politicians resort to citing the dictionary to explain why their statements veer significantly from fact, you know they are in deep doo doo.

Bill Clinton’s explanation of his 1998 relationship with Monica Lewinsky comes to mind:

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the--if he--if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not--that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."

You’d roll your eyes if your teenage son came up with that one.

Now comes Mitt Romney in 2007 applying damage control to a nationally televised speech in which he claimed he ‘saw’ his father Governor George Romney march with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"If you look at the literature, if you look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of in the sense I've described," Romney told reporters in Iowa. "It's a figure of speech and very familiar, and it's very common. And I saw my dad march with Martin Luther King. I did not see it with my own eyes, but I saw him in the sense of being aware of his participation in that great effort."

I see, Mitt. Really.

Outed while watching innings

A recent ad in Boston Globe featuring a full- page color crowd shot at Fenway Park reads: “Ray is 36 years old, works in health care, takes the commuter rail from Natick, and is a life long Red Sox fan.”

Imposed over the photo, with a tiny arrow pointing to a head in the crowd, a caption reads - ”Can  you  find him? We can.”

“Boston.com has over 2 million registered users just like Ray. We can put your ad in front of groups defined by age, gender, occupation, location and much more. We can also contextualize your  ad placement to match  pre-defined content when available, like sport events. So you can talk directly to the people that are most valuable to you."

Geez, guys, how did you know that?

“How do we do it? We know Boston, and Boston loves us…our 4 million unique visitors every month stay an average of 19 minutes each.”

“To advertise now or for more information, visit www.boston.com/weknowboston, or call Sean McDonnell at 617-929-7034.”

Ahem, Sean, what am I to make of the side banner ads that pop up today as I surf Boston.com - the ones advertising 'Weight Watchers', 'Watch Free Sexy Webcam Girls', 'Put Your message on M & Ms',  and 'Connect now with Blackberry''?

Am I sweet toothed, testosterone fueled, weight obsessed, connectivity-driven, white, semi retired, male living in a suburb less than ten miles from downtown Boston?

A few keystrokes to the Boston.com Member Center reveal that I did indeed sign up ages ago. Of the ten fields required, I filled in zip, gender and email address accurately and the rest creatively. My date of birth is listed as 1900 so it’s great to discover that my appetites will be vigorous for some time to come and I’ll be able to IM my girlfriends to hook up in the geriatric home when I'm 107. And send my nurses M & Ms imprinted with salacious anagrams.

Thanks, Sean.

Rising from the ashes

The air was still redolent with the smell of charred wood and melted plastic. It had been two days since Osprey Sea Kayak at the Head of Westport was torched at the end of June.

The entire inventory of fifty-two kayaks had been incinerated, melted or disfigured. Spring had arrived. There were paddling classes to teach, kayak programs contracted well into the summer, and the rental season was just underway. And no kayaks.

You couldn’t smell it but the atmosphere was also charged with incredulity, shock, and distress. That’s precisely when nineteen-year-old Osprey Sea Kayak guide Isabel Mattia started creating sparks of her own.

“Two days after the fire, Isabel marched up to me and said, ‘We’ve got to do something to recover. And I’ll take care of it.’” Sam Ladd said Sunday afternoon as she watched more than 200 people stream into the green and white tent pitched near their store at the Head of Westport.

“After the fire, tons of Sam and Carl’s friends kept coming into the store and saying, ‘What can we do to help?’ That’s the effect the Ladds have had on people around here, ” Ms  Mattia said. 

Within six short weeks, Ms. Mattia channeled the goodwill expressed by the Ladds’ friends and supporters into the August 12th  “Re-float the Osprey” fund raiser. With so much energy behind the idea, creating the fund raiser was like paddling downstream with the wind and tide at her back,

The Ladds met Isabel Mattia two years ago at an outdoor program they taught at Milton Academy when Ms. Mattia was a senior. Impressed by her spunk, Sam Ladd invited the Westport teenager to work at Osprey Sea Kayak for the summer.

‘Sam and Carl are like family to me. Sam treats me like a kid sister. They took me under their wings, trained me, and supported my learning. They helped me become the youngest kayak guide in the United States certified by the American Canoe Association last year when I turned 18,” Ms. Mattia said.

With the help of her mother and father and the Ladds’ friends, Mattia organized a Smoke and Pickles dinner, a raffle, live music by Zuma, and a silent auction. Items for the raffle and auction were donated by dozens of local artists, artisans, and businesses. Much of the Smoke and Pickles labor and food costs was donated.

“Tonight’s proceeds will help buy a new fleet of boats. Half of our current inventory is on loan from family, friends, and industry sources,” Sam Ladd said.

“Sam and Carl have brought an environmental consciousness to the Head of Westport. They make converts of many people who’ve never been here or kayaked before,” Ms. Mattia’s mother Rosanne Somerson said.

Her mother’s comment reminded Ms. Mattia of a story that reflects her fondness for the Ladds.

“Two years ago, a very overweight young man came into the store and half jokingly said 'I’ll bet you don’t have a kayak for me.' Without skipping a beat, Carl said ‘Well I think we can get you on the water,’ and he did," Ms. Mattia said, still slightly  in awe of the interchange.

"The next year the same fellow, much thinner, came back but no one recognized him until introduced himself.  He said that the way Carl nonchalantly took up the challenge to get him on the water motivated him to lose weight."

With stories like that, is it any wonder “Re-float the Osprey” was such a success?

Ms. Mattia enters Brown University this September. It’s a cinch that she won’t have to look far to find summer employment for the next few summers.

Tragedy to triumph: Dianne B. Snyder Tennis Complex, Westport, MA

July 7, 2007

Five years in the making, the Dianne B. Snyder Tennis Complex was officially opened at dusk last Saturday. Dianne perished on AA Flight 11 on September 11, 2001. She was a tennis lover and often took her husband John to Westport Middle School's crumbling tennis courts and "give him a pretty good whomping," John said.

Four smooth, resurfaced green courts and new nets transformed the crumbling tennis courts at Westport Middle School. The crowning achievement - the eight tall poles which brightly illuminate the courts from end to end.

John Snyder presented Westport electrician Paul Burke with a plaque acknowledging the many hours Burke spent designing and installing the electric components housed the box in the background.

Leland Snyder, John Snyder, Dianne’s sister Elizabeth Bullis-Wiese of Fairfield, CT and Dianne’s mother Marilyn Bullis of Madison, CT enjoy a moment after the ribbon cutting ceremony.

45th annual Westport Quaker Meeting Used Book Fair

Book lovers from near and far thronged to the 45th annual Westport Quaker Meeting Used Book Fair on Saturday July 14 in search of their annual book fix. Judging by the number of cartons and shopping bags being hauled away from  938 Main Road by noon, they got it.
Volunteers spent all year sorting, categorizing and pricing the donated hardcover and paperbacks that were piled on tables under  two yellow striped tents. The mountain of  20,000 books will remain on sale for the next two weeks, until it will more resemble a mole hill.

Harry Potter Bash at Partners' Village Store

Harry Potter fans of all ages flew in to Partner Village Store in Westport on Saturday morning to celebrate the highly anticipated arrival of the seventh book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.”

Under tents outside the store, kids engaged in several Potter themed activities, including “Fishing in the Dragon’s Lair” and “Potion Making.”

Costumed Harry Potter fans line up for awards

Jack Campbell makes a potion, assisted by Abigail and Phoebe Hayes, who’ve read each of the previous six books several times. Jack’s mom Jennifer of Westport Point, and Abigail and Phoebe’s dad of Little Compton look on.

First hay, Westport, MA

A field of hay swept into windrows is an iconic image that connects Westport with its agricultural past. The dry final week of June has been ideal for taking in the first mowing and a busy week for Jim Wood of Adamsville Road. After the mow, Wood’s tractor pulled a teddering machine through the field to fluff up the hay and hasten drying. Here he drags a hay-rake through the field making orderly windrows of hay.  A few hours later, Mr. Wood’s hay-baler compacted several hundred bales which were loaded into a barn for the cattle’s winter feed for a Drift Road farmer.

Memorial Day, May 28, 2007, Westport, Massachusetts

Nothing in the worid like a parade in small town America. For a precious hour or two, citizens leave the headlines at home and bring a folding chair to the side of the road on Main Street, USA, to honor the people - war veterans, national guard, firemen, police, - who enforce the rule of law and protect us from natural and man made disasters.

The men in the uniforms might be our fathers, uncles, brothers, or neighbors. They served in WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, and the Gulf Wars. They may be losing the battle to fit into their old uniforms but they’ve won our respect by fighting for us. No matter where you stand on the political divide, it brings a lump to your throat every time a color guard passes and bystanders quietly doff their hats, salute, or place right hands over their hearts.

And when there’s a snappy marching band playing  “Stars and Stripes Forever” and other John Philips Souza tunes, we shed, for a few precious moments, the labels of Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, and simply embrace being American.

In the half mile from the Town Hall to Beech Grove Cemetery and then back, a small town like Westport, Massachusetts, takes a giant time out as some sort of benign patriotic fairy dust settles over the parade route. Bystanders appreciatively applaud the small knots of police, fire, war vets- even politicians - who pass along in loose formation.

Everyone perks up when the band launches into a jubilant brass, drums and cymbals marching tune. “That music stiffened up our old backs, “ said a grateful Korean War vet.

The folding chair brigades, some of whom have sat in the same spot for generations, holler in delighted recognition when they see their young, in the uniforms of cub and boy scouts, brownie and girl scouts, who are the caboose of this parade,

Smiling into the crowd when they hear family calling their names, kids bob and weave along, kept in some semblance of order by patient and bemused Scout Masters and Mothers. In a generation or two, the veterans in the forefront will have made their last march into the cemetery. The chatty little kids taking up the rear today will be up in front wearing the uniforms of their elders.

One hopes that the campaigns that they will have waged involved filling sandbags for hurricane abatement rather than trying to avoid IEDs in some country half a world away.

Boston Design Center

While roaming through the halls of the Boston Design Center I felt as if I'd mistakenly wandered into Donald Trump’s living room and might be politely but firmly be asked to leave. Every showroom and window display oozes luxury. It’s a parallel universe of home décor.

The hard wiring of any poor soul with pedestrian taste or finite financial means begins to melt in the face of such opulence. Comparisons can be odious. I speculate how I will feel when I return to my modest abode and survey the décor, which, until this moment in time, I complacently thought was a light year from the Salvation Army furniture in my graduate school days and represented the achievement of a man with a relatively refined sense of taste.

Not.

Unique shapes and sizes of lamps, lampshades, and light fixtures sprout everywhere. Bureaus, sculptures, coffee tables, mirrors, objets d’art, etegiers, fabric, and rugs are exquisitely arranged and haughtily priced.

I spot the price tag on the comfy armchair I’ve slumped into to absorb the Louis XIV-ness of the showroom. The “Hydrangea cream armchair with chateau finish” is priced at $2438. That surpasses the cost of every stick of furniture in my living room. The total retail cost of all the items in the spacious Grand Rapids Furniture Company must rival the national debt of certain small countries.

How do people afford this stuff? I leave the second floor in a mild state of sticker shock.

More of same on the 3rd level plus a good helping of antiques. And several bathroom showcases like the one named “Urban Archaeology” that elevate lavatory experiences to a level a sybarite swoons over. Slabs of marble, granite, glass, tile, and stainless steel utterly seduce the senses. I can see myself living languorously in the loo for about a week. Friends and food just a cell call away.

By the time I’ve surveyed the 4th and 5th floors I’m exhausted. And spent tens of thousands of dollars in my head on bamboo flooring, marble and stainless bathrooms, elegant sconces and table lamps, plush Persian rugs, walnut and mahogany tables, and accessories I never knew I needed.

What makes a house a home?  How about the sun streaming in the windows and a collection of furnishings that feels as comfortable as an old flannel shirt. That’s what I’ll find when I turn the key into the old homestead later this afternoon. And be grateful for its whisper, “You’re home…”

Photos:
http://www.bostondesign.com/

New Age Camp Followers

In bygone days, one breed of camp followers trafficked in death. These civilians scoured blood soaked battlefields after a fight and scavenged what they could from the dead - boots, coats, belts - whatever they thought they could sell.

Photo from AP news file

Today, our polar ice cap is dying. Modern day camp followers, nations seeking oil, fish, diamonds, and time saving shipping routes, stalk the Arctic to claim land becoming uncovered as the melt proceeds.

The entire ecosystem from polar bears to the native Inuit people will suffer as the global warning spreads. But business interests, I don’t think so.  According to a recent AP story, the US Geological Survey estimates the Arctic has up to 25% of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves.

Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and the United States seek to profit, ironically in the hunt to produce more of the substances that are killing the planet.

Twenty years ago, Norway’s Hand Island was a little-known speck of rock in the middle of nowhere.

Today, Canada and Denmark circle it with warships. Who will win control of the island isn’t important in the long run. What difference will it make in a hundred years when we’re all sprouting water wings?

In bygone days, one breed of camp followers trafficked in death. These civilians scoured blood soaked battlefields after a fight and scavenged what they could from the dead - boots, coats, belts - whatever they thought they could sell.

Photo from AP news file

Today, our polar ice cap is dying. Modern day camp followers, nations seeking oil, fish, diamonds, and time saving shipping routes, stalk the Arctic to claim land becoming uncovered as the melt proceeds.

The entire ecosystem from polar bears to the native Inuit people will suffer as the global warning spreads. But business interests, I don’t think so.  According to a recent AP story, the US Geological Survey estimates the Arctic has up to 25% of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves.

Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and the United States seek to profit, ironically in the hunt to produce more of the substances that are killing the planet.

Twenty years ago, Norway’s Hand Island was a little-known speck of rock in the middle of nowhere.

Today, Canada and Denmark circle it with warships. Who will win control of the island isn’t important in the long run. What difference will it make in a hundred years when we’re all sprouting water wings?

Day One

Today. two days after Labor Day, used to mark my annual rebirth as a teacher, the first day of the school year. With it dawned my first chance to meet a new cast of characters - my new fourth graders and their parents. The year would be an opportunity for me to refine teaching techniques and methods, to train student teachers, and to set in motion my own little plan to make the world a better place. Raising the tide in the little known ocean called “4T” intended to lift all the little boats upon it and affect all the ports they’d call upon.

In my second year of retirement, here’s a commemorative re-issue of an essay I wrote in September, 2000. The essay was published in the Brookline TAB and recorded to air on WBUR-FM.
++++++++++

They are mine. They arrive in all sizes, shapes, colors, temperaments, and dispositions. And in these first tentative minutes of the new school year, something happens between me, a veteran elementary school teacher, and the children who will become my new charges, my new fourth graders.

It makes me think of the process called imprinting in which certain birds, after pecking their way out of their shells, assign the first living thing they see the role of parent and care-taker, the force that will rear them and then send them off into the big world. For me, these first minutes launch the process in reverse. At first sight, I'm the one bonding with my young students, taking them under my wing to nurture them, lead them, and create a unique community with them. Total commitment.

They are mine. Their excitement ripples to the classroom walls and returns to wash over us again. How will it turn out this year, for friendships, for accomplishments in this grade which they’ve heard features probing questions, longer books, and lots more writing. And in fact it's the same with me. I, too, am hopeful and excited about how it will turn out for us.

They are mine. When I assemble them in our first class meeting, I am at once looking at who they are now and who they will be in June. I know our destination, and I know that we must map the route and build the road there together. On the way, the lessons I teach will have as much to do with how to live life as with the fourth grade curriculum, and be useful to them beyond the horizon of this June. They’ll have me with them only that far. After that, they will have only my compass. They’ll fly away on their own.

They are mine. And here’s the irony. In fact, there are several fourth grades in our school. As I walk by those other classes of ten-year-olds, they pale in comparison with mine! My own students always seem to have more personality, to be more creative, more energetic, more sociable ... yes, more lovable. I’ve been challenged at times to do it but I can find something to love about every single one of my students. The irony is that if on this first day, one of those other classes of children had pecked their way out of their summer shell and into my care, I would have forged the same connection with them! A blind but potent force of nature is at work here.

They are mine. They will win me over with their accomplishments, delight me with their bravery as they take on the challenges I set before them, and they will warm me with the pride they feel as they experience their own growth..

They are mine, yes, ... and I am theirs.

Zinadine Zidane, A world class loser

He was wrong, plain and simple. He flagrantly violated the rules by head butting his adversary. But Zinadine Zidane had an excuse, a reason. Did this make him less wrong? Most of the world seems to think it does.

This incident in the 2006 World Cup soccer match is an example of "enabling"* on a global scale.

French president Chirac praised Zidane after the match, calling the French captain, "a virtuoso, a genius of world football." Then he said, “What is certain is that, for a man like Zidane — a man balanced in all respects — to have this type of reaction, there had to be something.”

Well, Mr. Chirac, there was something that caused North African immigrants to nearly tear France apart a few months ago. How did you react when they head butted and torched the neighborhoods outside Paris? Were they any less guilty of insurrection because "there had to be something”?

The civilized world is built on the premise that even though there may be something that mightily aggravates us, individuals don't take the law into their own hands and commit mayhem when things don't go their way. When they're brought to justice, we hope, if not expect, that they express regret about their actions.

Zidane had a chance to reclaim his iconic status as genius of world football by expressing regret over his head butting an opponent. He could have said that even though he had reason to behave like a berserker, and gave into it, that he wanted to apologize to the men, women, and children who held him up as a role model. He could have reclaimed a part of the mantle of glory that was his to enjoy as he retires from a fabled career.

He did apologize for his behavior to the children of France but said he did not regret his inexcusable behavior because he had a reason for it. How small, how egocentric. How sad for the game, the country, and those children who deserve valiant behavior to accompany valiant effort. The man doesn't know how to use his head on or off the soccer field.

* allowing and encouraging an individual to develop patterns of irresponsible behavior

Gay Talese: Dressed for Success

Gay Talese
Impressions of the man, the myth, the legend as he’s interviewed at the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA
May 15, 2006

A wet blanket described by some as a “hundred year rain” had covered New England for ten days. The promise of a famous author making a local appearance was a ray of sunshine.

There, in his tailored light gray suit, burgundy handkerchief jutting like a crocus from the pocket, vest, pale yellow cravat, black shoes tied with red laces, pale taupe knee length stockings exposing no flesh as he sat on the Brattle Theater stage with interviewer Robert H. Giles, curator of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism, was Gay Talese.

As far as Talese seemed to be concerned, Giles was another accessory to his outfit, an accessory who lobbed questions that the author measured and swung into with the grace of a DiMaggio. Talese was the show.

Some of the packed assembly had read all the man’s work; others, like me, had not but wanted some insight into an author who writes books destined to bask on bestseller lists for months at a time.

You can find background information about Gay Talese on any search engine. The man inhabiting the hand-stitched suit is far more elusive. As complete as his answers were, Talese seemed to be embodying his professional habit of remaining detached - an objectivity he said he learned while working for the New York Times editor A.M. Rosenthal, whose mantra was, “Get the facts, tell the truth, let the story go where it goes.”

As the interview progressed, it was clear that this was a tamped-down Talese. No chance he’d loosen the knot on that silk cravat and become confessional. I was going to have to follow Rosenthal’s advice myself - listen for the facts and find out where the author’s story was going.

Talese’s attire seemed like a suit of armor. Sitting regally erect, legs crossed, elegant long fingered hands draped over his knee, he could have been posing for a portrait. He often recast questions asked him to suit the way he wanted to respond. Was he composed or coiled?

Talese takes years to write his stories. He may have been the only writer in the world who asked the question, “What ever happened to the one woman out of five on the Chinese soccer team who missed a goal in the 1999 Women’s World Cup championship shoot-out, allowing the USA to win? I must meet this woman.” Then spent five months in China finding the story, undaunted that he didn’t speak the language, had no clue how to find the woman (remember how large China is?) or even have a solid prospect for selling the story. Typical of Talese, this isn’t a profile of one person. By the time he finished, he wanted to meet the woman’s mother, and her grandmother, “to get a view of China from pre Mao, to China after 1949, to post Mao - from bound feet to cleats!”  Assuming you watched live or reruns of that 1999 soccer contest, is that what was on your mind when you watched the dramatic shootout?

His non-fiction, journalistic style, steeped in research and verifiable facts, paints a huge canvas with a very small brush. Tom Wolfe dubbed it “the New Journalism”. Talese bristles at the term. There’s nothing new about having your feet on the ground and sniffing out the story, he says. It’s old-fashioned hard work.

Book lovers and writers came to hear nuggets from the author. They heard stories, yes, but nothing revealing what makes him tick. He spoke a few sentences about his wife, a few about his Sicilian immigrant parents. He answered stories about how he goes about his business with surgical precision, sphinx-like detachment. Intensity was present in force.  Passion was absent. Talese managed the interview like one would imagine Frank Sinatra, another enigmatic Italian he wrote about, might have done. On his terms.

His methods? By talking to secondary characters, people who’ve been on the margins of the story, Talese consumes details, fills note cards, types his notes every night, and lets the story come to him. His guiding principle: what’s the story inside these stories?

Sensing he needed to throw some crumbs to admirers interested in “how”, Talese said in specific words what he’d been saying through stories for the previous 45 minutes: “Don’t be smothered by your knowledge, Your artistic ambition is to write in story form, like fiction, but write verifiably accurate reality. You want a large cast of characters tell you about time and place then you want to capture time and place in words, embed it in fact.”

“It takes months of patience, persistence, perseverance, and then very careful writing. It’s hard work and I don’t use a tape recorder.”

In response to a question in the Q and A, he threw a whole loaf to the faithful. “After all my legwork and research, I begin to organize. I review all the daily notes from the journals I’ve been making for the story and summarize them. I pin the summaries to a large Styrofoam board and make a storyboard. To me, it becomes a visual medium. I see the story like a filmmaker. I write scenically. I write like a choreographer.”

Nothing explains this better than his 1966 Esquire magazine story “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.” Sinatra’s handlers never let the writer interview him because Sinatra had a cold. Undeterred, Talese hung out in Sinatra’s hot spots. He watched, asked questions, and listened. He talked up valets, third trombone players, minor actors in movies Sinatra starred in, and others on the margins of singer’s life. Then he gorgeously nailed the sense of time and place of Sinatra’s “almost operatic” life. The piece launched a trend that became known as “the New Journalism.”

By the time you’re finished reading it, you can smell the cigarette smoke on Sinatra’s tailored suits, hear the ice tinkling in his high ball glass, feel the astonishing power he wielded over men and women, and through Talese’s nuanced observations, sense a fragility in the man who had it all. I know this because when I returned home, I found an online copy of “Frank Sinatra has a cold” and stayed up till midnight reading it. Summary: Incandescent. Intense. Influential. New journalism, old journalism, who knows. This non-fiction was riveting.

If I had to guess, I’d say his ability to create intensely vivid stories from the information he digs up creates a doppelganger effect, casting some of the power of the subject of the writing upon the writer himself.

I really don’t need to know more about what makes Gay Talese tick. I do want to read more of his “operas”, ones about publishing industry (The Kingdom and The Power), the rise and fall of a crime family (Honor thy Father), the changing sex lives of Americans (Thy Neighbor’s Wife), and the building of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (The Bridge). And I’m going to reread “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” about once a month.

The man is the center of a giant vortex of style and substance. Judging by this interview, I would not want to get in his way when he’s on the hunt.

To read Frank Sinatra Has a Cold:
Click this link, disregard the signin, click OK
http://www.dalekeiger.com/wp-content/FrankSinatraHasaCold.pdf

Broad Comedy: I've known this broad since...

Broad Comedy: An all female sketch comedy show with music, song, and dance
Created and written by Katie Goodman
Written and directed by Katie Goodman and Soren Kisiel
Stuart Street Playhouse, 200 Stuart Street, Boston, MA
Saturdays, 8 PM

Every so often, the leggy actress singing and dancing on stage morphed into a little kid in overalls practicing a skit she’d half imagined and half written with her fourth grade friends. A nine year old girl in thirty seven year old body or a thirty seven year old woman in the body of a nine year old? It’s not often a spectator has those dueling visions in his head as he watches a talented, sexy actress strut her stuff onstage. But OshKosh B’gosh to spandex, there was my former student Katie Goodman singing, dancing, and acting in front of a packed house at the Stuart Street Theater in Boston last Saturday.

I sat the fourth row as Katie wowed the house with her smart writing and directing talent. Katie’s been doing plays since grade school. Made’em up herself, took part in school plays, and wasn’t above creating drama in her social life just to keep things interesting. Were the comic sketches between married women on the park bench extensions of the pre-adolescent dialogues she had with her friends or antagonists on the playground?

Broad Comedy is a good old-fashioned cabaret style revue featuring five other talented actresses who were some other fourth grade teacher’s former students. Parts of our lives, sides of ourselves we may not even be in touch with, live in the minds and memories of others. George W. Bush (the target of some of Katie’s pointed political broadsides), 50 Cent, and Yo Yo Ma all have places in the memory banks of their former teachers. We remember them as children, see who they’ve become, and wonder about the maze of roads taken that propelled them to the present.

For that matter, how have the rest of us arrived at our current stations in life? Unless you’re a strict adherent of predestination, pt at large guesses it was forced marches through college, graduate or trade schools, or the universally famous School of Hard Knocks. Robert Frost would have a field day with our map of Roads Not Taken. Choices made by action or default. Opportunities taken or rejected. And the kick of it is that most of us are still works in progress.

We make choices every day - and I’m not talking about cabernet vs. pinot noir. Say something to the parent of the kid who’s using a Fenway Park voice in the coffee shop you’re sitting at for your afternoon “cuppa”, tell a business associate that a racist joke makes you uncomfortable, acknowledge a sticky problem with a significant other?

We’ve all grown up but I wonder how much we’ve changed since we’ve been in fourth grade. Katie harnessed her talent with the desire to entertain and make a point, and a difference. There’s a part of Katie the girl that’s still emerging as Katie the writer. When the Bard said, “All the world’s a stage,” he didn’t specify the size or capacity of the venue. Our own kitchens will suffice. If we’re lucky, our lives are extended engagements. And it’s probably helpful to keep in touch with the kid inside all of us.

I had all I could do to restrain myself from proudly shouting, “Hey, Katie’s my former student!” and wishing for some of her stardust to rub off on my gray tweed sport coat.

I know that when Katie said, “I’m so honored that you came to see the show,” the words were right from her heart. As I talk with her after the performance, I wonder if in her eyes I morph into an enthusiastic young man with burnished brown hair who liked to take his class to the museum, show them how to make clay float, and write cinquaines.

Nearly thirty years ago, I created some of my own stardust by being a knowledgeable, supportive, and occasionally entertaining teacher for Katie. Neither of us is done with dispensing or gathering stardust.
+++
+++
To read what the critics have to say

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2006/03/03/all_female_show_satirizes_with_a_broad_point_of_view/

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2006/03/22/with_song_and_satire_the_fun_is_infectious/

http://www.boston.com/ae/events/articles/2006/03/08/broad_comedy/

“Civil War and Images - 140 years - Have We Forgotten?”

“Civil War and Images - 140 years - Have We Forgotten?”.
Newton History Museum exhibit at Newton Town Hall
1000 Commonwealth Avenue, Newton, MA
November 9, 2005

In honor of the 140th anniversary of the end of the American Civil War, the Newton History Museum installed a one corridor exhibit in Newton Town Hall at 1000 Commonwealth Avenue entitled “Civil War and Images - 140 years - Have We Forgotten?”.

One look at the four chromolithographs on display prompts the answer. Yes, we’ve forgotten. America has always seemed to be about the here and now. If anything, we look more to the future than to the past. Our civil was an event worthy of legend and myth. Aside from the Gettysburg Address, what do we remember about it? This small exhibit illustrates the immense scale of that war, fought on our soil, waged with staggering losses and stunning heroism.

Over 600,000 men died in our civil war, tens of thousands of them in single epic battles. The four prints on display depict three ground battles, the Battle of Gettysburg, July 3, 1863; the Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862; the Assault on Fort Hill, July 25, 1863; and one battle at sea, the Kearsarge and the Alabama, June 19, 1864, in which the confederate ship Alabama was sunk off the coast of Cherbourg, France.

Little Round Top on a cold winter day.  Photo Courtesy of Mark Voss.

Even in this era of threats of mass destruction, it’s hard to comprehend the level of carnage suggested by the three land battles. The scene at Fort Hill is close combat, with the whites of soldier’s eyes rolling with fear or blood lust as they grapple on a steep parapet. The scenes of Gettysburg and Antietam are panoramic yet filled with telling detail; columns advancing on each other, rolling hills, officers on horseback with sabers drawn, farmhouses suggesting rural life incongruously adjacent to carts dragging cannons, and individual soldiers marching, firing, falling, running, dying. A haze of burned gunpowder hung like a shroud over the battle lines, which were barely hundreds of yards apart. The observer still wonders how men would voluntarily march into a hail of hot lead and cannon fire, seeing comrades around them shredded and bloody, hearing the screams of the dying, the high pitched whine of hot lead cutting through the air around them. Did they think they would be spared? Was there some kind of patriotic hysteria that blotted out the specter of certain death? Finally, can any man ponder these paintings and not ask the question, what would I have done in their place?

These prints are four of eighteen produced in a portfolio called Prang’s War Pictures in 1887 and 1888, and considered the best civil war prints ever made. They were carefully researched and detailed. The text that accompanies them were based on eye witness accounts. They were mass produced at affordable prices and were bought by thousands of Americans.

All the images in this hallway once hung in Grand Army of the Republic Post #62 in Newton. Within a few years of the time the Grand Army of the Republic was established by veterans of the Union army and navy in 1866, there were 104 GAR Posts in Massachusetts. Nearly every town in the commonwealth must have sent farmers and lawyers to the battlefield and never seen them again. If there were 600,000 men killed, imagine the number of casualties, the physically and emotionally wounded men who wandered back to their homes.

By 1890, when the GAR reached its zenith, there were 400,000 members. For those who believe that lobbyists are a recent political blight, think of the GAR members’ voting power. Their cause sought to be give aid to widows and orphans of the civil war and fought for increases in pensions for veterans who suffered disabilities while serving. The GAR succeeded in the adoption of Memorial Day, which first honored comrades who perished in the civil war. The organization dwindled in number and influence as the twentieth century advanced. The last civil war veteran died in 1956.

We don’t need a coffee table book to remind us of the horrors of war. The media barrages us with images and stories daily. Soldiers don’t die by the tens of thousands today but we’re updated after each loss of life minutes after it’s been snuffed. We can almost feel their bodies hit the ground. Ironically, the violence we see in our so called entertainment industry has numbed us from the plasma of death. The scenes of combat in Iraq seem strangely antiseptic, another reality show in our midst. But it’s brutal and very real. Like the civil war, the current war will have repercussions for years to come. Some we can anticipate, others will come out of the blue. The writer at large wonders if our descendants in another 140 years will have forgotten this war, too.

The modest display, formerly housed in the hall of the Grand Army of the Republic Charles Ward Post #62, may be viewed at Newton Town Hall until December 31.

For more information, see www.newtonhistorymuseum.org

Newbury Street sizzle

One of the coolest things to do on a griddle hot August afternoon is stroll down the length of Newbury Street. The shops, galleries, eateries, and realty offices are the backdrop for the real show, the potpourie of people winding their way up and down the eight blocks from Arlington Street to Massachusetts Avenue. A world-class canapé of a city is on display for the observant man at large.

Photo: FreeFoto.com

So what if the slice of life thereon has been rinsed to conceal the most destitute from sight. There’s still a big enough wedge of the city’s real people and the people who’ve come to tour it to make it an ecumenical viewing experience.

Want to see tatoos and piercings on various body parts? Get a whiff of Chanel as the little black dress with fashionable pumps breezes by? Hear languages from the Asian and South American continents overlaying those from the South of Boston? Watch traffic crawl up the street with virtually no impatient honking because the drivers are intent on praying for a parking spot or rubbernecking at the attractions winding their way down the sidewalks? See a posse of homeboys/girls gossiping on a stoop on the shade side of the street? Bump into backpacks from Eddie Bauer and handbags from Vuitton? Observe families with maps and digital cameras in hand looking for all the world like the human version of McCloskey’s famous “Make way for Ducklings” as they parade single file up the narrow sidewalk? This is the place.

ptatlarge suspects that most of the walkers have come for the visceral experience of being on this street, Newbury Street, the Boston equivalent of Rodeo Drive, where you just might glimpse a celebrity or at least breathe the same air they do, window shop the same upscale boutiques they do. Like a “leaner” in horseshoes, proximity to the prize counts.

pt won’t begin to rhapsodize about cleavage, turns of the calf, and the glorious variety of female sashaying and areas of flesh exposed to the sun, The bombardment of prurient thoughts is deliciously overwhelming, and, confined to his pubescent imagination, will not get him arrested. But it will tempt him to be a part of the scene some sun splashed afternoon in the near future. A passerby just might take him for someone of import.

Gastronomical aside: lunch at 29 Newbury
Duck frittata with roasted red peppers, red onions, broccoli, topped with goat cheese, priced at $12. Exquisite.

Valentine’s Day shopping at Victoria’s Secret

Valentine’s Day shopping at Victoria’s Secret
February 13, 2005

OK, men, ptatlarge knows that upon passing a showcase window in front of a Victoria’s Secret store your brisk pace slows to a reflective stroll as if you were Socrates walking the streets of Athens in search of an honest man. Your instinct is to stop in your tracks and simply gawk at the pouty lipped, long limbed models showing acres of flesh covered with centimeters of silk.

It takes a certain courage to enter this store, full of black, pink, and red accessories that we, with any luck at all, would enjoy seeing draped or wrapped around the bodies of our significant others. So it came to pass that with trepidation, motivation, and undeniable prurient interest, ptatlarge recently veered into the portals of this naughty franchise in search of a Valentine’s Day present for his sweetie.

Having just returned from this velvety venue, ptatlarge offers manly advice. Take on the exploratory demeanor you customarily display in hardware stores. Even though we men usually know exactly what we want in a hardware store, we love walking the aisles and finding new gadgets and tools. We pick up said items, look them over, often talk to a salesman about the merits of the merchandise, and file the data away for a time when said item will come in handy. So tip number one, make believe you’re in Home Depot.

Managing eye contact is essential. Employ brief, casual glances toward the clientele, and be ready to smile. If you come across a woman in the bra department, under no circumstances should you look at the size of bra she’s handling, then glance at her breasts and start doing mental calculations.Tip number two, do not stare, stay focused on your mission.

In my case, the mission was to find thong panties, an undergarment favored by my honey. In my naive way, I thought I’d find a counter on which these dainties would be displayed, find a cute one in size medium, and casually say ‘wrap ‘em up’. Imagine my alarm to learn from the sales girl that there were three rooms full of thong displays. Upon deliberation, I found this a delightful challenge. I offer this primer to my male readers: there are low rise bikini thongs, low rise V string pantie thongs, stretch low rise cotton thongs, string bikini thongs, seamless stretch brief bikinis, hip hugger thongs, cotton bikinis, high leg briefs, angel panty thongs, and something called sexy little things. Through what I thought was skillful questioning and close observation, I’d learned that my valentine wore a size medium. I had not in my wildest dreams considered the prospect that size was only the tip of the style and fabric iceberg. Therefore, tip number three, do thorough research before you shop.

Just as in hardware stores, there are employees who know much more than you do about the merchandise. When a sales girl asks you if you are finding what you want, admit ignorance or at least your sense of being beleaguered by how such a teensy piece of material has so completely overwhelmed your capacity to make decisions. These young ladies are accustomed to seeing men sheepishly strolling the aisles, attempting to look worldly and invisible at the same time. Tip number four, exercise humility and agree to be helped.

Decision time. This is the part where blind luck and good judgment intersect. Based on everything you know about your sweetheart’s tastes and the input gained about color, fabric, and style from your friendly, bemused sales consultant, make your selection.

If your choices haven't hit the bull’s eye with the accuracy of Cupid’s bow, arrange to return to Victoria’s Secret with your honey and revel in picking through those dainty thongs with her as your coach. And remember, this is research. By the time you depart, a few of Victoria’s Secrets will have been revealed. By then, you’ll have enough confidence for a solo flight to buy your Victoria a sweet nothing for her birthday.

Showering on Venus

Soap, water, maybe a washcloth. Pull back the grody shower curtain in a man’s domicile and that’s what you’ll find hanging in his bathtub. Guys just dont want to think too hard as they perform their daily ablutions. Stand outside the shower, turn the water on full blast, adjust to preferred temperature, and step in. Suds up, maybe apply shampoo, sing some popular tunes, off key and occasionally off color, rinse off, shut down, dry off. Apply deodorant and shave if it’s a work day. Done.

Women, on the other hand, have enough beauty and comfort products to stock a small mall, a closet sized version of the Body Shop lining every flat and hanging space behind their shower curtains. Recently, the Columnist had occasion to shower in his lady friend’s bathroom. Bathroom may actually be the inappropriate term for this area, a day spa in the Berkshires would be a more apt description.

Your unsuspecting columnist blithely pulled back the shower curtains, (another column may be necessary to fathom the reason women need an outer and an inner shower curtain), twirled the correct knobs and stepped in for a refreshing morning rub a dub dub. Water cascading off his back, he surveyed the scenery, searching for the shampoo.

In his own shower, the shampoo is easily detected since it is the only standup bottle in the compound. Here, however, your columnist was perplexed to see seven or eight tall plastic bottles, none of which had Shampoo written plainly and largely on its side. Recalling women talk about depilitating while in the shower intimidated this columnist, convincing him not to try an empirical approach by indiscriminately loading a handful of lotion on his head and then screaming in horror as handfulls of his hair fell out and began to clog the drain.

A major examination period followed in which the columnist, battling clouds of steam which would have forced a 747 to perform an instrument landing, tried to read the labels on a regiment of uniquely shaped bottles, any of which might have contained a simple shampoo. Hmmm, deep fortifying treatment, undo months of damage, restore and renew intensive... I dont think so. Caswell and Massey lavendar and Elder flower body wash, well, maybe if nothing else comes close. Aha, Seleca shine hairspa conditioner, good, put that aside for use after I find the shampoo. Lavendar salt scrub, nope, but geez doesnt this remind him of how his lady friend smelled last night? Neutrogena body oil. Nope. What’s this one? Avalon organic botanicals lavender glycerine soap. Nope. Running out of options here. If this takes much longer, my skin is going to resemble a pachyderm’s.

Whoa, what’s this over here? Says “Dove” on the label. Isn’t that a woman’s soap? Keep reading the smaller print. Shampoo? Yes!

In the meantime, I’ve single handedly lowered the height of the Quabbin Reservoir by several inches just while looking for the shampoo. Now, where the hell was that soap?

If you dine with the devil, bring a long spoon

Editorial:
Bring a long spoon Paul Tamburello
Wednesday, April 7, 2003

This commentary was aired as a "Radio Diary" on NPR affiliate station WBUR FM on April 7, 2003

www.onpointradio.org/shows/2003/04/20030407_b_main.asp

The airwaves and print media are saturated with news of the war. It's not surprising that by now school age children have information and are forming opinions. The children in my fourth-grade classroom are no exception. But I can see that the weight of those opinions shares time and space with baseball season, learning the multiplication tables, and who they'll play with at recess.

When I was their age, America had just started what was called the Korean conflict. I knew that something important was going on in the world. Before walking to school, I tuned in to Martin Agronski on the radio for the latest news. One morning, I remember racing out of my room and breaking the news to my parents that Harry Truman had just fired General Douglas MacArthur. Once outside the house, though, I thought about playing baseball with my friends.

At school, no teacher so much as breathed a word about the war but I do remember our classes being herded down into the basement to practice air raid drills. It seemed like a clandestine affair; we kids loved the adventure, the time out of class, and had no real fear about our personal safety.

Now, a teacher myself, I don't conduct air raid drills, but I do ask my fourth graders "What do you think about the war?" And the hole in the ground in lower Manhattan reminds me that their personal safety is no longer a valid assumption.

Recently, I asked them where they got their information about the war. I scanned the room as I asked, TV...radio...the newspapers? They sensed that I was done with my little survey, and looked at me quizzically. "There's another source," they said. "Who?" I responded. "Our parents," several kids said, and most heads nodded.

The rest of my survey revealed that most of the children in front of me were opposed to the war. I told them that I was surprised, that much of the country was deeply divided about the question and they seemed to be uniformly against it. Then I did what any self-respecting teacher would do, I asked another question. "How many of you have mixed feelings about the war?" Nearly every hand shot into the air. Many were quoting their parents. "I feel half and half about it," one boy said. "I agree with what my dad said because we should stop Saddam Hussein now so there's less chance he can hurt us."

"And what's the other half?" I asked after he paused. "But I don't agree with the war because we will hurt innocent people in Iraq." I saw more heads nodding. The boy followed up to say that he'd heard a caller on a radio talk show insist that if he could sit down with Saddam Hussein, he could talk sense to him and make him a better person. The host cut him off and shouted "IF YOU DINE WITH THE DEVIL, BRING A LONG SPOON."

There was a pause in the room while 20 fourth graders tried to figure out what that meant. "My dad said that it means it will give you more time to think about what you're doing."

"Which would keep you a safer distance from something dangerous, a short spoon or a long spoon?" I asked. The verdict for a long spoon took only a few seconds this time.

By having these talks, one of my goals as a teacher is to acknowledge the gravity of the war and give my students a chance to make sense of it. With equal measure, I need to give them a long enough spoon so they have the distance to focus on being kids. Sure enough, minutes after our discussion, they're back to the times tables, baseball, and the games they want and need to play when school's dismissed. Now that I think of it, maybe I could use the long spoon myself.

Paul Tamburello is a writer and teacher who has taught in Brookline since 1970.

Acquisition syndrome in Best Buy

Acquisition syndrome in Best Buy, or why the economy keeps on rolling

My home answering machine was beginning to look pretty stodgy compared to the ones at my friends’ houses. Time for an upgrade, I thought as I drove to the mall and its newest mega store, Best Buy, hoping that it would live up to its name. From my parked car, I enjoyed a quiet stroll through the frigid, inky evening, the sounds of other shoppers and traffic muffled by a recent layer of heavy winter snow.

As soon as I pushed open the store’s huge glass doors, I walked into an abrupt wall of 110-volt ambience. The low electronic rumble of the place started resonating in my bones. Every item in the store seemed plugged in or powered up and was playing, and playing loud. The thrum, rumble, chirp, ring, and whir of the devices made it sound like a digital jungle.

This was shopping on a grand scale, with aisles and aisles of sleek new products built to make my listening, viewing, and communicating life easier. Phones, televisions, radios, laptop computers, digital video cameras and personal digital assistants were on display. And I don't mean two of a kind, like in Noah’s Ark. No, I mean ten or twenty of a kind, likely to cause choosing amongst them a task worthy of a summit meeting.

As I walked the aisles, tempting sounds, like the Sirens used to lure Odysseus astray, lured me to investigate products I hadn’t anticipated purchasing. The store had taken on a personality and was romancing me. I felt the credit card in my pocket begin to oscillate and heat up. Given unrestrained budgetary resources, I’ll bet I could have increased the nation’s monthly retail index with the purchases I started to consider. “Hmmm, I wonder how that cool surround system would sound in my living room?”

I began to luxuriate in the sheer variety, endless design, and advanced technology within those aisles. Like I’d been mainlining a consumer drug, I began to enjoy it as a sensory experience, submissively allowing the technological wizardry wash over me and play me like an instrument of pleasure.

Who said shopping was a chore? I marveled at how many ways there were to design a radio that produced rich bases and trebles while either playing a CD or locked onto my favorite radio station. With other shoppers fiddling with dials and knobs, the auditory Babylon created by about seven genres of music emanating from the radio aisles was almost comic. Pushing on in my expedition, I stopped in my tracks as I rounded the corner in the television aisle and beheld Steven Spielberg-like color and sound emanating from three plasma television screens the size of a basketball backboards.

Nearing the final rows of the store, I came across two huge rows of telephones. A non-digital alarm chimed in my head, reminding me of the reason I’d come here in the first place.

Of course, there were dozens of phones to compare. Digital, call waiting, one line/two line, caller ID, corded/cordless; and something for every budget, from the practical, no frills models to the types which could serve as mission control for a space launch.

I had come to this mega-store to replace a six-year-old telephone answering machine, which had been at the leading edge of technology when I bought it. Now its features reminded me of an old-fashioned rotary dial phone. Remember those? If Yogi Berra were still making remarks that made him the most widely quoted catcher of all time he’d say, “Boy, new things get older faster these days!”

I began thinking the same thing. Over time, all of the choices we make today will inevitably become out of date, or may lose their luster. They may even become valuable for reasons different from those that drove us to seek them in the first place. Figuring out what to discard and what to keep is the enduring question. Goodness, the last thing I expected to reap from this excursion was a trip down the philosophy aisle.

My internal shopping circuitry was on sensory overload. I needed a recharge before I could make a decision about which phone was for me. I needed to walk over to the Friendly Ice Cream store on the other side of the parking lot. As far as I could remember, they served only two kinds of coffee, regular and decaf. Now that’s a decision that I’d have no trouble making.

Me and Mr. Rogers

Editorial: Teacher has come to see himself in Mr. Rogers
Commentary
Brookline TAB
Wednesday, March 5, 2003

This column originally appeared in the TAB in Sept. 2001. Fred Rogers passed away Feb. 27 after a short battle with stomach cancer.

I was sorry to hear that "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" taped its last TV episode recently. But I have to admit that when I was a young teacher, I couldn't relate to Fred Rogers. He was just too hokey. That set piece where he smiles reassuringly at the camera, dons his cardigan sweater, comfy shoes, and starts talking to kids in that soft voice was just too gooey. How could anyone be that uniformly cheery? Was he unfazed by a misplaced pair of glasses? A disagreement with the bank? A bad hair day? Was he impervious to life?

Now that I've entered the status of elder statesman in my school, it's dawned on me that Fred and I have a lot in common. For starters, we both believe deeply and unshakably that we make a difference in young people's lives.

But I must admit that sometimes I have my moments of disappointment and wonder whether I've been outpaced by pop culture. I wonder if Fred has some days when he just doesn't want to put on that lumpy sweater? But then for me, and I'll bet for Fred, the bedrock belief in the humanity of our missions, a common mantra that we preach every day, perhaps to ourselves as well as to our young charges, kicks in and returns us to our bearings. Toward the constant North Star of our belief, to make sure that kids know that "They matter."

Mr. Rogers's set piece of opening each day with the same reassuring routine is about consistency, providing something our young audience can count on, to signal them that they're back in our "neighborhood," a place where they fit in, and are important.

I don't have the cardigan sweater, but I do have my own morning routines to which kids become accustomed, and even begin to emulate. Like the time last spring when I was a couple of minutes late arriving to my classroom. I walked in to find a small line of students at my desk, and one of my ambitious students efficiently collecting homework by using the routine she'd seen me use for months. I smiled widely and pulled a chair up beside her as she completed the task.

Her initiative led other students to ask to perform that chore on subsequent mornings, laying claim to a big chunk of their "neighborhood" and showing me that my talks exhorting them to be responsible for their learning had taken hold. I'll bet Fred would have loved that. I know I did.

Like Mr. Rogers, I aim to have open discussions with my fourth graders using what I call "Life Talks," and Fred would call his "Conversations" for the day. Fred with the pre-kindergartners at the other end of the camera, me with my fourth graders sitting in front of me. Subjects such as death, divorce, cruelties and unfairnesses of life, mingle with light hearted, often very amusing talks about pet peeves, the joys and tribulations of having siblings, and our "faves" of just about everything.

Mr. Rogers and I both may be dismayed at seeing youngsters exposed to so much violence and fast paced entertainment. But that just adds fuel to our vision to provide them with slower paced activities, chances to reflect on who they are, how they fit in, and how we're interconnected with each other.

Every day Fred produced Mr. Roger's neighborhood, and every day I produce Mr. Tamburello's classroom. They are both places that value a sense of community, encourage asking questions, and recognize the emotions which are part of the landscape of growing up. We both love to invite guests into our "neighborhoods" to introduce our audiences to a broad variety of influences and interests.

Hmmm... maybe I'll go shopping this weekend. That cardigan sweater and comfy pair of shoes don't look as hokey as they used to.

Paul Tamburello is a teacher and writer who has taught fourth grade in Brookline since 1970.

On reading Joan Didion for the first time

On reading Joan Didion for the first time
by Paul Tamburello

Why I write.
That was the title of the first article I was required to read in the first writing class of my writing career. After reading Joan Didion’s essay, I feel compelled to write a sequel:
Why I don’t write.

I don't want to write any more because Joan Didion just killed me. She killed me with her intellect, she killed me with her imagination, she killed me with her keen sense of observation, and she killed me with her ability to structure a piece that, like a Charlie Parker solo, started off with an expressed idea, hurtled off into impossibly twisting and turning tangents, and then miraculously landed on its feet where it started. The murder weapon had the fingerprints of “voice” smeared all over it.

How could she do that? Or more to the point, how could I ever in my lifetime even come close to writing like Joan Didion. I just don't have the required tools.

Joan wonders about everything. Joan sees a woman walk into a room and she gets an idea to write not just an article on, say, the effect of exotic perfume on bystanders, but an entire novel. And it’s not like she sees some broad outline, but she nails descriptions, details, and a whole chapter. I look at the same woman striding into a room and see hips, legs, arch of the back in relation to arc of the bosoms. Hopeless. Joan wonders “why she was in the airport and why Victor didn't know”. I wonder what’s her phone number. Hopeless.

I don't mind that Joan admitted that she stole the title of the essay from George Orwell. All writers steal, they’re an incestuous lot. I should know from my other career. I'm a teacher. We steal ideas from each other regularly, then, like blue jays homesteading in the nests of other birds, we transform them into our own. I also get ideas from reading the news, columns in the newspaper, listening to the radio, and looking out the window. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Nothing’s new under the sun. Writing something worth reading...well, that’s another matter entirely. Even if you do it with a purloined idea.

Joan says writing is an aggressive act, “an invasion, an imposition of the writer’s sensibility on the reader’s most private space.” Then she unleashes a dazzling display of literary firepower, leaving a trail in my writer’s mind like a tank rolling through a corn field. Her writer’s voice is as strong as a nuclear reaction. If Joan Didion were a country, George Bush would be declaring war on her for creating a weapon of mass destruction, causing developing writers to shrink back to their intellectual borders and not even think about penning a piece of literary journalism and signing it.

And I'm not fooled by that Brutus like disclaimer that she drops on page 18, saying that she doesn't consider herself a writer because she doesn't think in the abstract. About ten words after that, she tosses off a phrase like “I found myself contemplating the Hegelian dialectic and would find myself concentrating instead on a flowering pear tree outside my window and the particular way the petals fell on my floor.” The lady doth protest too much. Since when do you cite Hegel to prove you’re not an abstract thinker? I felt like she flipped me her literary middle finger and smirked.

She says she never took drugs but when she says she wanted “to write a novel so elliptical and fast that it would be over before you noticed it, a novel so fast it would scarcely exist on the page at all.”, I rolled my eyes and said, “Yeah, right.” I can just see her in her tiny Berkeley apartment, toking up on some really good “tops” from Nepal, and riffing with her classmates about “a book in which anything that happened would happen off the page”, and seeing the really deep and connected nature of the universe. She’s just one of the lucky ones who could wake up the next day and actually remember those riffs with enough clarity to write them down.

Whatta grandstander. If she were a football player she’d be spiking the ball into the end zone abut every fourth paragraph. Take the bevatron for example. When she first gratuitously drops that name in the fourth paragraph, I thought it was something you sat on to get yourself cleaned up up after going to the bathroom. Is there any good reason why a bevatron should show up in this essay, other than to embarrass the rest of us with our ignorance of the contraption, whatever it might be.

Just about the time I decided to get up and leave the class, having had my vote canceled by the sheer virtuosity of the first three pages of this essay, I read the sentence “It took me some years to discover what I was. Which was a writer.”

It dawned on me that Joan might not be trying to kill me after all, but was offering to rescue me from giving up my desire to pound on the keys. By the time I finished the essay, I realized that Joan was telling me, with extended metaphors and her intellectual “A” game, what I knew from reading Donald Graves, Don Murray, Annie LaMott and others who have the compassionate habit of writing in plain English, that writing “tells you, you don't tell it” . And that you learn to write better by writing often. And probably taking a class and getting ideas from other fledgling writers.

So I guess I won’t drop out of class and sign up for cooking. I’ll keep writing , even though I know I have a ‘shaky passport” when I put my fingers on the keyboard. I’ll just keep plunking along so I can, like Joan, find out what I already know. But please, someone show me the door if I so much as breathe anything about a bevatron.

October 2, 2002

September 11 First Anniversary

Editorial: Sept. 11 is still with us
By Paul Tamburello / Guest Commentary
Wednesday, September 4, 2002

The scab has hardened but the wound hasn't healed. How many times a day do you pass a faded American flag fluttering from a bridge overpass or a neighbor's porch and not have a momentary flash back to your own raw reaction to the first, stomach wrenching look at that fireball in lower Manhattan. Sept. 11 is history we can still see, hear, and smell.

The first anniversary is looming and every public place in America will be involved. Schools will certainly be high visibility sites of commemoration and teachers will have the responsibility to draw a lesson from history. As a fourth grade teacher, I want to do it right.

Like other elementary school teachers, I look for authentic ways to connect with my kids. During the 180 days of our collective existence, I'll weave a huge web of connections, enrolling my students as accomplices. I'll model ways to connect the dots between the books we read, narratives we write, or the funny, touching, or sad stories that happen to us along the way. I'll coax my 10 year olds to consider the shades of gray that line many of life's choices about friendship, trust, loyalty, telling the truth, what's fair and what isn't.

While there are rafts of ideas about how to commemorate the day, I want my small group to have input into the process and the product. The job for me as a teacher is to insure that whatever we choose to do has some root in my students' hearts and minds. My best tools for figuring this out are the same ones I've relied on for 33 years... asking questions and listening to the answers. These fourth graders sitting around me were only eight or nine years old when they witnessed this event. I want to listen very carefully to get their reality about it and respond to it. Last year, as a nation and as individual teachers, we responded reflexively. This year we can respond reflectively. We're on the front lines again.

Whose thoughts will my kids be talking about? Theirs, their parents, the recent headlines? What will we talk about? Patriotism, tolerance, loss, religion, revenge, reconciliation, stereotyping? What will I say ? How much will I "steer" the conversation? This isn't like other days of commemoration. This history is still unspooling from the reel, we're actors in the film, and we have a stake in the outcome. I'll be listening for ways to frame their thoughts in layers of country, community, classroom, and individuals. I want us to see ourselves as one of the small but significant threads that comprise the many-textured fabric of this nation.

Children haven't been on the planet all that long and they remember most of their lives with detail and conviction. Once they see that I use their collective memory as a way to connect with them, to assess and teach them, they jump right in when queried. Sometimes they even lead the discussion, either to cement their learning or reinforce their sense of "belonging" in the classroom. One of the joys and challenges for me is to be open to the unanticipated twists and turns my creative, sensitive thinkers will uncover as we hurtle down the road to consensus and a mutually rewarding destination.

Even though these kids will have been with me for only several days before the anniversary, they're already under my wing. The bonds we begin to forge in September will last through June, and in my mind, forever. That's history, too. They will be looking at those faded flags long after I've retired. When they do, I intend them to remember the lessons we began to build about the challenges of living in a global community and how we behave in it. We are not just citizens of this small and unique classroom but citizens of our town, of our country, and of our world. Our voices shall be heard.

Paul Tamburello is a teacher who has taught fourth grade in Brookline since 1970.

Craning toward the heavens

July 10, 2002

Craning toward the heavens

By PAUL TAMBURELLO

We’ve always looked to the firmament with awe, wonder, or fear. It wasn't long ago that we spent months looking at smoke ascending to the sky as a smoldering monument to our lost innocence, our shattered sense of security. On the evening of July Fourth in Falmouth, thousands of spectators on land and sea craned their necks toward the heavens in anticipation of a reassuring annual ritual.

Dusk had settled in leisurely measure over Falmouth Harbor, the orb’s last golden rays lazily giving over to the transparent slate blues of early evening. Then, imperceptibly but absolutely, it was dark. We spectators on a deck in Falmouth Harbor for our annual holiday picnic, busy with our chatter, hardly noticed the graduation.

The food and company were the main ingredients but the grand finale, a point of reference for the rest of the summer, was going to be the display of firepower soon to be rocketed into the sky from the barge floating placidly offshore.

This evening was actually one of the only times our lives would all intersect until the next Fourth. The subject of our past shared experiences of fireworks fair and foul came up just as often as the whereabouts and whatabouts of our children, our jobs, and the precarious times in which we’ve been plunged since last September.

The fallout from that late summer day, the indelible image of two fireballs of inconceivable dimension, comes to mind now every time we look up into the sky for anything.

At about 9:10 p.m., the fireworks announced themselves with a single airborne explosive shell and a sky opening explosion of color. We didn’t know it yet but we were in for a treat.

On a night with the gentle onshore breeze blowing away the heat of the day, we witnessed the most imaginative display of fireworks wizardry in memory. God, (sorry, the name just slipped out) we needed that. It may not have surfaced to a conscious level of thought, but I needed to experience the comfort of an annual tradition. I felt reassurance as I listened to the universal ooohs and ahhhhs which reflexively burst out of our mouths as the dazzling pyrotechnics lit up the sky. I needed to see wonder in the firmament.

The smoky wisps of dissipated fireworks drifting lazily over the beach to slowly melt into the night were stealthily thawing the sense of self preservation I had built up since last September.

New blasts of color blooming and booming overhead performed unexpected and crowd pleasing dances and sky walking jigs. Primary, decorator, and patriotic colors artfully segued one after another, often punctuated by a few staccato bangs followed by a basso profundo bone shivering KaBoom.

Some fireworks exploded in surreal slow motion, arching upward then cascading to earth with unbelievable grace in huge, lingering, slowly fading golden trails. I felt mysteriously sheltered, as if under the branches of some heavenly willow tree.

With creative celestial choreography, many of these gentle tokens were succeeded by volcanically propelled bursts that reminded me of the stars blurring by in a Star Wars movie. " Hyperspace speed, Chewy! "

At one point, I found myself sitting back and surveying our crowd of 14 people, Gen X-ers to 70-somethings. I felt a sense of kinship with this disparate group of friends. Our differing opinions about politics, religion, and race were blown away like the smoke from the incendiary display overhead.

If there’s one thing the world is in need of it’s kinship, a sense that we all belong here together, and, stripped to the core, have the same basic aspirations. Do life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ring a bell?

The enveloping darkness made me aware of my puny size in the grand scheme of things. My synonymous responses with those of the crowd made me feel safe and secure within it. It occurred to me that I don’t feel that way any more with unquestioning acceptance. The simple routine of watching the fireworks together was not so simple this year.

When I saw that incandescent willow tree gracefully cascading over Falmouth Heights, I knew it was offering us all celestial shade for that night, a temporary respite from the hateful gleam which may yet cascade upon us on another day.

Paul Tamburello is a writer and teacher who lives in Watertown.

A country illuminated, one street at at time

A COUNTRY ILLUMINATED, ONE STREET AT A TIME
Guest commentary by Paul Tamburello
September 20, 2001

Halfway down my street, I started to cry. The primitive emotion uncoiled right from my gut, rose through my throat and out my mouth. Tears, runny nose, contorted face, all within seconds. A well of emotion that had been forming since Tuesday morning had been tapped and rushed to the surface like a geyser. I was relieved that it was dark, but knew that if any of my neighbors had witnessed these Friday night tears they’d have understood at once.

Let me start at the beginning, which was Tuesday September 11, 2001, a day America was changed forever. No need to go into the details, you know them all.

Friday, after days of assessing whether my fourth graders had been traumatized by the extraordinary pictures of death and destruction, and after holding an elementary classroom version of a Day of Remembrance and Mourning, I just wanted to sit down in familiar comfort of home, and let the metaphorical dust of the past days settle without my watching it or listening to it. I needed to unplug. There had been nowhere to be free of the images of destruction or the conversations, so surreal in content.

The school day had been book ended with our morning meeting and a minute of silence at the end of the day. I welcomed the hours in the middle as a pilgrim welcomes an oasis. I poured myself into having my fourth graders learn the names of the chambers of the heart, find prime numbers in their multiplication charts. practice cursive writing, and see how to write a declarative paragraph. Even indoor recess due to rainy weather was a respite.

Elsewhere else reality had been bent out of shape and I had been bent with it.

There was no where to avoid the topic. The endless loop of videotaped carnage I had been seeing since Tuesday had slowly crossed the border in my brain from nightmare to reality, a nightmare come to life. After school, at a physical therapy appointment, I was asked how the kids were taking the scenes of death. At my health club, a fellow member recounted the previous evening’s memorial service for his friend who was on Flight 11. At my local gas station, the Libyan attendant, with whom I’ve had friendly chats for two years, railed about the ruthlessness of the terrorists. In the back of my mind I prayed that this kind man from North Africa wouldn’t be targeted by hateful citizens seeking retribution for the barbarity in New York.

By the time I walked up to my porch, I was in desperate need of refuge. Stuck in my front door was a small note reading
Dear (Oliver Street) Neighbors,
Tonight at 7 PM, please join our neighbors on Oliver Street by lighting a candle on your porch or outside your door. to grieve for those who lost their lives and for all of us whose lives have been forever changed by the sad events of September 11.
Others all over America will also be lighting candles. We are all a community of Oliver Street, of America, and of the world, even with people in the Arab nations.

I walked into my kitchen, too drained to participate. Then I recalled that just that morning I’d told my students how citizens derive strength in times of duress by using symbols, the country’s flag for instance, to provide comfort and resolve in times of sorrow and grief. Wearily, I got up, found a candle, lit it, and put my own little symbol in the front window.

An hour later, rejuvenated by curiosity, I decided to walk down my street to see whether anyone else had complied with the note.

Halfway down the hill I realized that my little street had indeed connected with other communities in America, in some kind of nocturnal communion. Every house but one had candles in sight. Large candles, small votives, solitary candles, massed candles.

The emotional dam I’d built to contain uncertainty, loss, and grief, burst. I cried for me, for the country, for the families of the dead and missing, and for our assumptions about life in America which were blown up with the World Trade Center. But my tears were redemptive as well. I could see that my little neighborhood was surviving on its own, in its own little way, and was part of other little streets across this great and flawed country surviving and regenerating in the same way.

I never thought I’d see anything as powerful as the fireball I saw on Tuesday. Somehow, in time, the small glow of those candles on my neighbor's porches is going to outshine that horrible sight.

Paul Tamburello is a teacher and writer who’s taught fourth grade in Brookline since 1970.