Masters of Encouragement

Posted on August 3, 2011 by jphilo

A few weeks ago, on one of this summer’s blistering hot July days, three former colleagues and I spent the afternoon together. Vicky, Pat, and Pauline are still teaching, though I jumped ship in May of 2003. We loved teaching fourth grade together, collaborating and sharing ideas freely. But we shared more than work. We shared life, trading recipes, advice about raising teenagers, and how to care for aging parents.

After too many years apart, we gathered in Pauline’s cool and comfy living room and picked up our conversation without missing a beat. We talked about what our kids are doing, and their life journeys so far. We shared disappointments and unexpected joys, sorrows and hopes, our dreams for the future and our fears. Most of all, we encouraged one another, just like we used to do after hard days at work.

Believe me, these women are about the most encouraging people around. Or course, encouragement is second nature to people who teach fourth graders their multiplication facts, persuade unwilling students to write cursive, and can make the geography of the United States interesting. Vicky, Pat, and Pauline – they are masters of the craft.

After a few hours with them, all of us crying a little and laughing a lot, I knew what I miss most about teaching.
Not the paperwork.
Not the politics.
Not the paycheck.
Not even the students so much.
What I miss most are these three, strong women who encouraged me to take a risk and pursue my dream of becoming a writer. And, I envy the students, the parents, and the faculty who will rub elbows with them when school starts in a few weeks.

Do they have any idea of the treasures these women are?

Happy Landings – Recycled

Posted on June 28, 2011 by jphilo

My mother highly prized education, something her three offspring are more grateful now than during our childhoods. Even Mom’s gifts were designed to further our education and prepare us for the college careers she was determined we would all pursue. Every time I look at this game box, now displayed in my kitchen with other dust-catching memorabilia, I shake my head. Did she really think a kid would want a geography game for a birthday present?

Happy Landing – Recycled

Recently one of my childhood games, passed on to younger cousins when I outgrew it, was returned to me. The thrill of owning Happy Landings: A Geography Game (Whitman Publishing, 1962) did not overwhelm me when I received the game as a birthday present when I was 9 or 10.

For me, a geographically challenged child from the word go (my best guess is that the game was given after a particularly abysmal score on the social studies portion of ITBS) playing the game was an exercise in failure. The board was a world map marked with red stars. After drawing a card with commands like “Ride over Mackinac Bridge which connects upper and lower Michigan” or “Climb towering Mt. Everest in northern India,” players placed their marker on the corresponding star. I don’t remember ever getting a star in the right place. And since the map, the cards and the markers are in pristine condition, the game didn’t see a whole lot of play at our house or anywhere else.

But as a kid, one thing about the game intrigued me: I could spend hours gazing at the children on the cover. The boy was okay, mostly because he’s holding the pointer which was cool, but the girl was fascinating. She was the epitome of early 1960s perfection. Note the curly hair, the lovely bow in her hair, the unwrinkled shirtwaist dress with it’s own gigantic bow, the lace on collar, cuffs and waistband, and the wonderfully full skirt. And from the look on her face, you can bet she can answer every Happy Landings question without breaking a sweat. She was everything I aspired to be and couldn’t accomplish, no matter how hard I tried. That’s why I spent hours gazing at her picture, trying to imagine what it would be like to have a dress like hers, curls like hers, and smarts like hers.

I’m thrilled to possess the game again because it brings back so many memories: the chalky, booky, dusty smell of the elementary school I attended, girls wearing shorts under our dresses so the boys wouldn’t see our panties on the jungle gym at recess, the joy of discovering Laura Ingalls, the Bobbsey Twins, and Clara Barton inside the covers of library books, and the disappointment of failing another spelling test because I got “b” and “d” mixed up again.

But mostly, I’m thrilled because the game reminds me of how far I’ve moved beyond the child who once owned it and yet how much of her remains. I no longer obsess over lace, bows, ironed dresses, and curly hair. But, I still mix up “b” and “d” when I’m tired, and I still love meeting characters inside a book.

One last thing that hasn’t changed? I still don’t like playing geography games, so please, buy something else for my birthday this year!

Walking with Learning Styles Down Memory Lane

Posted on June 16, 2011 by jphilo

This week is a trip down memory lane. I’m at a writers’ conference housed on the grounds where I attended church camp as a kid. Other than the buildings and grounds being much smaller than they did 45 years ago, everything looks pretty much the same. That’s a good thing because:

Deeply buried directional memories are keeping me from getting lost.
This place feels like home which leads to a good night’s sleep.
Internet access is severely limited, so conference attenders are interacting face to face. How strange is that?

This morning I facilitated a workshop called To Thine Own Self Be True. After a brief introduction of the three basic learning styles – visual, auditory, and kinesthetic – attenders used a learning styles inventory to determine their dominant styles. In small groups, they shared what they’d learned and how to apply it to their writing time and spaces. (Teacher friends, is this making your hearts go pitter-pat?) Then, they did the same thing with Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences. And guess what?

The workshop was a huge hit.

Several writers had “aha” moments about why they react the way they do. They talked about it all through lunch. And they extended what they’d learned about themselves to fictional writing. How could information about learning styles and multiple intelligences to add dimension and depth to the characters they create? How could word choice appeal to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic readers?

I had a ball applying my teacher training and experience to writing.

So, here we are half a day into the conference, and I’ve already walked down both my church camp and teacher days memory lane. Now, I’m getting a little nervous about what’s next on this path down the past:

Summer with cousins at their farms?
College romance?
Wilds of South Dakota days?
Swapping pregnancy stories?
Children’s hospital hauntings?

Hmm. Maybe it’s time to quit while I’m ahead, get in the car, and head home. Or maybe I should suck it up and boldly face the past. Which one will win out? It all depends on how much I miss the internet.

I Hope the Peonies Are Blooming

Posted on May 30, 2011 by jphilo

The peonies are late this year. Only one bush has flowers on this late Memorial Day, and just a few of it’s pink buds braved the morning’s unaccustomed heat and this spring’s too familiar fierce wind.

But those blushing blossoms were enough to spark memories of Memorial Day city band concerts and my high school friends. We donned our white shirts and black pants, dug our instruments out from under the pile of three-ring binders and notebooks dumped in bedroom corners after the last day of school, and made our way to the red stone courthouse where the concerts were held.

I walked the four blocks, greeted now and then by peonies waving in the wind, their lovely faces bathed in perfume and ants. Some homes had only bush or two, while others sported long rows bending under the weight of red, white, or pink flowers.

The peonies were my favorite part of the concert, outside of seeing my friends. I was not much of a musician, but oboists are a scarce breed, and the band needed someone to warm the second chair seat. Oboe scores of patriotic music consist mostly of rests.

So I had plenty of time to make faces at friends making music….

Kim and her trilling flute,
Bill and Ann hitting the after beats on their French horns,
Chris standing in the back plinking on the string bass,
Bill, Jacki, and Steve sounding smooth in the saxophone section,
Jane and John playing alto and bass clarinet,
Mary Ann’s bassoon towering above us all.

And more faces at the friends who came to listen…

Cherie,
Roxie,
Katie,
Dean,
Richard,
Lowell,

sitting together on a blanket, swaying with music, along with the peonies, to John Phillip Sousa marches, Aaron Copeland’s swelling numbers, George M. Cohan patriotic show tunes, and the National Anthem.

I haven’t touched an oboe or played in a band for over twenty years. But this Memorial Day, when the first bright pink blossom waved in the wind, I heard the music again. The Washington Post March, Appalachian Spring, I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, The National Anthem.

I missed the music.
I missed counting rests.
I missed making faces.
I missed those dear, old friends.

Wherever they are this Memorial Day, whatever they are doing, I hope they remember the music. And I hope the peonies are blooming.

The Red Tulip

Posted on May 9, 2011 by jphilo

The red tulip in our flowerbed this Mother’s Day unearthed a memory of my third grade teacher. She was an old maid, thin and tall, her face creased from decades of smoking, her clothes dark and musty, her face a perpetual frown.

Not a glimmer of anticipation cracked her crusty exterior as she explained the week’s art project one early May morning. “You’ll each draw the outline of one tulip on the front of your Mother’s Day card.” On the chalkboard, she demonstrated how to sketch a perfectly symmetrical, three-pronged tulip with our pencils, add a slim stem and one pointy leaf on either side of it.

Several of us dug in our desks for crayons so we could color in our drawings, as we’d done for every weekly art project all year long. “You won’t need your crayons. We’ll be painting them,” the teacher announced.

We looked at one another in eight-year-old, wide-eyed wonder. Painting? Had she said painting?

Now, that was the most exciting prospect in our classroom since we’d taken our first Iowa Tests of Basic Skills in February. On that day, after teacher read the directions for the vocabulary test, she said, “You need to know one more thing before taking the test. A peninsula is a body of land surrounded on three sides with water.” She pulled down the map of the United States. “Like Florida.” She pointed to the state. “Now, open your booklets and begin.”

We did as instructed. I was pleasantly surprised by question 3 – “What is a peninsula?” Me and everybody else did a whole lot of looking around in eight-year-old, wide-eyed wonder after we filled in the oval that corresponded to the answer, “A body of land surrounded on three sides with water.”

But painting was way cooler than realizing that you and everybody else in your class knew the right answer on an ITBS question. Painting had a messiness potential that completely overshadowed filling in the correct oval with a number two pencil. We were quivering with excitement.

The teacher nipped it in the bud. “Pass your cards to the front of the row. When I call your name, come to the back table to paint your tulip. While you wait for your turn, begin your phonics seatwork.”

So much for messiness potential.

When my turn finally came, I went to the painting table. It was covered with newspapers. My card sat beside two bowls of paint, one green and one red. The teacher frowned and said to paint the tulip red, the stem and leaves green, to stay between the lines, and to not drip the paint.

I dripped paint.

I tried to stay between the lines, but a loose bristle sent tiny scrolls every which way. Until the teacher said to stop. Then she used a tissue to remove the loose bristle. She rubbed red paint off her yellowed fingers and granted permission to proceed. I finished as quickly as I could, eager to get away from her accusing eyes and the unhappiness that dripped from her face, the discontent enveloping the table where we sat.

On Mother’s Day I gave the card to my mom. She admired it, oohed and aahed, and put it on the refrigerator. But I didn’t care if I never saw the card again.

Since that Mother’s Day red tulips have never been my favorite. Until this morning, when the tulip in my flowerbed unearthed this memory, along with a realization that escaped my notice for more than forty years.

Cold, But Not That Cold

Posted on January 24, 2011 by jphilo

After a quiet weekend with absolutely no commitments, a rare occurrence, I can’t think of a subject worth blog space for today’s post.

If Hiram had worked on the bathroom remodeling, a progress report would have been in order. But he worked on taxes, and who wants a progress report on taxes? If football was a big deal at this house, it would have been a hot topic. But all I know is that the Packers beat the Bears and the Steelers beat some other team, and who wants a football analysis from a football ignoramus? If anybody around here was sick, this post could have monitored vital signs. But we’re healthy, and who wants to know the color of our mucus anyway?

Which leaves the weather, which continues cold and snowy, as the default topic of conversation. In this part of the country, it’s been darn cold, in the single digits above or below zero for a couple weeks. However, our Minnesota son phoned to report their weekly low, a frigid 30 below. Suddenly Sunday morning’s nasty sounding minus 7 appeared positively balmy.

We were cold last week, but not that cold.

Our phone conversation moved on to a discussion of the lowest temperatures we’d experienced – weather Limbo, so to speak, seeing how low we could go. Surprisingly, the 50 below Alaskan temperature Hiram recalled was not much colder than the 45 below we endured in Harding County, South Dakota during the winter of 1982.

Now that was one cold weekend.

I was pregnant with Allen that winter, and we were going a little stir crazy in our small house. So when good friends called and asked if we wanted to go to Spearfish and eat out, we said yes without batting an eye. Our friend drove 115 miles one way – prudently taking the longer paved road rather than risk the gravel trail which would have cut the trip to 90 miles – to The Sluice, our favorite Black Hills restaurant. We chatted the whole way down, all through supper, and the entire trip back, not one bit concerned about potential engine issues, flat tires, or freezing to death by the side of the road.

The story is proof of the old adage, “With age comes wisdom.” We wouldn’t think of doing such a thing now-a-days, even with a cell phone for emergencies and no unborn baby along for the ride. Such behavior is risky and stupid. Even on days like this one, when the blog post topic makes me wonder if my acquisition of wisdom has kept pace with my age, one thing’s for certain.

We may still be stupid on occasion, but we’re not that stupid.

Do You Ever Think About Death? – Recycled

Posted on January 18, 2011 by jphilo

One look at the title of the blog entry originally posted in January of 2008, and I knew it would be this week’s recycled post. For the past three weeks, death has been on my mind. Not because someone is dying. Because I’m writing the section of Different Dream Parenting about death. Not just death, but the death and children. Not fun.

I feel like a hypocrite tackling the subject since both my children are living. But often while writing, and again today while reading through this old post, I find reassurance in my father’s life and my son’s early years. Those experiences taught me to think about death, and those thoughts are the foundation of what I’m writing now, as this recycled post shows.

Do You Ever Think About Death? – Recycled

“Do you ever think about death?” A friend asked the question in an email this morning. He thinks his son, who has been ill for a very long time, may be dying.

Yes, I told my friend, I think about death every day. It started when I was a kid, and I looked at pictures of my dad in his younger days – showing cattle, playing football, goofing around with his friends. That young man didn’t look like my dad. My dad sat in a wheelchair, weakened by multiple sclerosis. He grew weaker for thirty-eight years before his body died, but even as a kid, I knew that little bits of him died every single day.

When my son was born, my husband and I confronted death often. It almost tore me apart until God showed me the depths of His love for our baby, and I learned to hope in His promises.

Sure, I think of death every day. But I think a lot more about life when I face choices about what I believe and what I do based on my beliefs. Will I concentrate on the little bits of me that die every day or will I focus on the new life I receive? Will I fear death or love life? Will I ignore evidence of God at work in or will I acknowledge and submit to it?

As I think about death and life, the truth becomes clear. I can’t stop death. But I can choose to live in a way that honors the gift of life, the life God gave my father, the life he’s given my son, and the life of my friend’s child.

Every day, I think about death. But I choose hope.

Oh, to Be Five Again

Posted on January 10, 2011 by jphilo

Sometimes, I’m amazed by how much my perspective has changed since childhood. Way back then, when my sister and I made this magnificent snowman (with the help of a college student who rented a room in our basement), snow was the best thing about winter.

Snow meant a day off from school and from Mom’s eagle eye. Back in those days, teachers had to go to school on snow days, so we had eight hours of free reign in front of the television. Dad was our willing conspirator in TV gluttony, joining our worship of Captain Kangaroo, I Love Lucy reruns, Password, and Concentration, interrupting the frenzy just long enough to catch the market reports on the noon news broadcast. All the talk of pork bellies and hog futures was nauseating, but quickly forgotten when the Dating Game came on.

Fifty years later, snow’s the worst thing about winter, not counting the cold, the dark, ice, mittens, snow boots, coats, and hats. But I’m not counting them, so pretend I didn’t say anything. Snow’s really, really the worst thing during a week like this one, with four speaking engagements, which means I have to be on the road. Or decide not to travel, which means an event has to be cancelled, which means disappointing people. And I hate disappointing people, which is why snow is my least favorite thing about winter.

Which means this week will be either an adventure in driving or a series of disappointed people. So far, I’m ahead of the snow because I drove to Independence, which isn’t supposed to get as much snow as back home, a day early. We’ll see how long it takes for Old Man Winter to get ahead of me.

Oh, to be five again, loving snow, watching TV with Dad, playing outside with my sister, building the best snowman ever. Oh, to make everyone happy. Oh, to feel completely safe.

Practically Perfect

Posted on December 20, 2010 by jphilo

Mom called Sunday afternoon to see if I’d read the obituaries yet. She gets on these funeral patrol kicks now and then, checking for a final report on old friends, acquaintances, and former students.

Well, yesterday she hit pay dirt. “Kathy Knudtson died,” she informed me, her voice animated. “I thought you might want send a card to Kari.”

Mom didn’t seem to notice my slight pause, caused by neither her death watch fixation or her management of my sympathy card outflow. Without her two proclivities, I wouldn’t have seen the announcement, and thus sent no card to one of my dearest high school friends.
No, I paused because the news of Mrs. Knudtson’s death was so surprising. She was, I realized after hanging up the phone, one of those fixtures from childhood I thought would live forever.

You see, Mrs. Knudtson was my first piano teacher. Considering my limited musical ability, she should be called Saint Knudtson. How she greeted me with a smile before each lesson, I’ll never know. How she kept her patience, teaching the same fingerings over and over, gently tapping out rhythms with her yellow pencil week after week is a mystery.
And somehow, while she folded back the page of my older sister’s hand-me-down piano book and erased the glowing comment my more musical sibling had earned, she came up with an encouraging word for me. “Try this song one more week,” she would write, the pencil lead making the scritching sound I loved. “Practice makes perfect.”

Well, it didn’t.

Mrs. Knudtson, on the other hand, didn’t need any practice. In my eyes, she was perfect. Small and graceful, she dressed stylishly without being showy. All the years of my childhood, she looked young and beautiful, every strand of her wavy cap of dark hair in place. Even after my piano lessons ended, she greeted me by name at church, school, wherever.

In a photo Kari sent a year ago, Mrs. Knudtson was lovely. The past four decades treated her kindly. Her hair remained dark, her face unlined – perhaps because of lowered stress after my parents gave up the dream of a musical career for their middle child.

So the news of her death gave me unexpected pause. How can she be gone, this lovely woman, this practically perfect woman – the Mary Poppins of my childhood?

Already, though we haven’t seen one another for over forty years, I miss her gentle smile.

The Camp Crook 125th Anniversary Cookbook

Posted on December 13, 2010 by jphilo

The packages have been arriving thick and fast for the past week or two. Christmas presents ordered on the internet, a repair part for the upstairs shower, my camera lens back from the fix-it shop (yippee!), and a box all the way from cowboy country.

In the package were three Camp Crook 125th (1883-2008) Anniversary Cookbooks, one for each of our newlywed couples and one for us oldyweds. Gerald and Becky, friends from Harding County, South Dakota sent them. Becky, grandma of the two boys attached to the boots above, wrote a note in each one. In the elder Philo copy she wrote, “ May these names and recipes remind you of all the memories in Harding County.”

Eagerly, I turned the pages. Many of the recipes were new, but a good portion came from the 1983 Centennial cookbook, which was created during the years we lived in the tiny town. Turning the pages brought back memories of the townspeople who supported us through the tough years after Allen was born.

Prairie Style Baked Beans from Walter Stuart, the crotchety old widower who kept chickens and his old cow, Snippy, in a makeshift barn behind the school.
Several yeast bread recipes in memory of Effie Brewer, the gruff widow who always wore a work shirt, trousers and a squashed, pork-pie hat wherever she went.
Contributions from fellow teachers during my first year in the classroom: Marie Knapp, Carol Odell, and Karen Douglas.
Recipes from parents of my former students. Submissions from the former students – which I could handle – knowing that most of them were married now. And recipes from their children – which was hard to swallow – who can’t possibly be old enough to cook!

And there amidst the recipes submitted by strong women who have made the vast, tall-grass prairie their home, were my recipes. What an honor, what sweetness it was thirty years ago to be counted a cook with them. What a delight to be part of their history still.

Thank you, Becky, for a most delicious gift.

Down the Gravel Road www.jolenephilo.com

Category Archives: Reflections on the Past