Kissing 2015 Goodbye (Off?)

        It began with a sucker punch to the gut and didn't get any better fast.
        My funny Valentine Pat presented the day after the year appeared with a stomach ache. Pill Hill told him it didn't look good. Indeed, at the end of a week of more invasive tests he was handed a death sentence. Which he accepted with characteristic good humor and uncharacteristic courage. I know I was not the only one who admired his un-whining forthright acceptance of the finality we all face.
      Before all of that, in fact August 2013, I had begun researching and writing The True Story of John Yates Beall, and committed to produce it in 2015, the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. So the balance of April, May and June till the 4th was dedicated to the dizzying whiz of costumes, set, props, lights, music, rehearsal imbroglios, and performances.
      In late August, I hopped the train to Denver, and my dear Sister drove us to Silver City, New Mexico, where I delivered the quilt I had been working on for my nephew for the past year. On the way, we stopped in Albuquerque, NM, and I saw a friend and former roommate I hadn't seen for a quarter century.
      A right fine trip, until I opened my email one day and found a message from a Des Moines lawyer. I had written a contract for 3 performances with the little piece of work who played the lead in Beall, and I had been in the process of arranging a third, when said little piece REFUSED to do the third, but wanted to be paid anyway! Intent on redefining entitlement, I guess.
      From the time the play was over, I dealt with kids, undoubtedly, stealing my bikes, which were left in the park, thrown on top of the pop machine and I was left riding an old Schwinn with no gears. During the three months this was going on, I finished the editing changes to a book I completed last year called A Boomer Teacher Memoir, detailing the course of my career from 1st grade teacher, to publisher, high school teacher, to college adjunct and beyond. (Thanks so much, Diane!)
       Despite having to pay the Des Moines cutie 5 times what I earned for two years work on Beall--of course, nobody believes you go to a lawyer with 15 partners on the letterhead and offices in a downtown bank building, she's certainly schtoomping somebody in the vacinity, tho' I have no clue who--the year ended on a positive note. 
      My friend and fan, Tim Fay, agreed to publish a chapter from the book in the Wapsipinicon Almanac. (Eternal thanks, Tim.)    
      While in New Mexico in summer, I had interviewed to teach an intensive English course to Mexican kids. In early Nov. I was invited, packed, and boarded a train in Galesburg, IL heading south. Though teaching 9 hours a day, it  was such fun and the Mexican young people were so hard-working, sweet and respectful that I am looking forward to going back. 
       . . . sitting here at the end of this painful year assessing, doing my best not to compare the Mexican young people I taught the last couple months with the bicycle thieves, the entitled pieces of work I have dealt with this year, but I am sure you can appreciate, it's hard.
   
   

   

Christmas in Las Cruces

Christmas in Las Cruces was delayed until Saturday late by the arrival of the NYC sister of my gracious hostess, L___. A more or less fortuitous delay, as it began snowing mid-morning and by late Saturday looked more like Christmas itself had.
     Less fortuitous because I had ridden a dozen blocks south to a big shopping street, not followed directions and not arrived on target: Albertson's.
    However, the local Humane Society junk shop up the road was most amusing, and I squandered the better part of an hour oogling stuff I didn't need, couldn't  buy or carry. Invested in a travel bottle of body wash, donated to the dogs, discovered the grocery store was 2 blocks up and finally arrived at the destination I set out for more an hour before.
     By the time I located the wine, the coffee, acceded to the non-list impulse of a Ghirardelli raspberry-filled chocolate bar and waited longer in line to pay than I had spent picking things up, it was snowing fistfuls of fat, wet flakes, which were melting in the warm streets, accumulating in the yards on the cacti and yucca.
      Riding a fender-less bike, I was soaked through by the time I got home. Good excuse for a glass of wine. The dinner was grand; A Child's Christmas in Wales, a gift to one and all from Dylan Thomas, perennially heartwarming; the presents more than we deserved.
      In short, a superb, snowy Christmas in a sunny clime. It has been mostly in the 60's here, as it was  mostly up the road in Silver City, most of November.