This is Part 2 of a continuing story about my house meeting a rather large tornado.

for Part 1 -- The Tornado, click here.

Part 2 -- The Trip to RoEllen

Let me backtrack a bit -- let's leave the Explorer idling in Tommy's driveway for a minute with "Midnight Rider" cued up and ready to play -- in order to explain a couple of humorous aspects in the back story that I completely ignored earlier. Immediately after digging herself and my sister out from under the chimney, my mother made her way to the unmolested farm across the road from our house. Amazingly, the farm's rotary telephone was working fine, no problems. (God bless South Central Bell!) After some rudimentary first aid from Old Man Viar and his wife (I honestly believe that his first name was "Old Man" -- even his wife referred to him thusly) my mother asked for the phone to let her family know what had happened. Bloodied from the bricks and totally disoriented from the experience, she could only pull one phone number out of her head. She steadied herself, dialed extremely slowly (rotary, after all) and waited for the phone to be picked up. Yep. She called her nephew, Todd.

Here's what's amazing about this: at this time, my mother and my uncle Tommy talked on the phone twice a week, AND he's had the same phone number since 1977. Also, because of the long distance charges from my dorm (coupled with my incredible lack of money) my mom actually called me -- dialed my number -- at least once a week. Did she call Tommy? No. Did she call me? No. She called Todd. She had never spoken to Todd using the phone before . . . what's more, Todd and his wife Tracy had only lived in their house about a month, so their phone number had recently changed. But Todd's house phone was the only number her leaky mental Rolodex could produce after a live burial at four in the morning. Mom called him and asked him to contact Tommy and me.

Todd expressed his concern for their welfare, hung up, and called Tommy. No answer. He called his brother, Tom Jr., who tried calling Tommy's cell phone. No answer. Tommy was dead asleep, and my aunt Carole (who would normally shout him awake like a good Marine roommate) was up in Tennessee visiting her ailing sister. Tom and Todd conferred and decided they had to go to Tommy's house to wake him up. Yeah, to Tommy's house, where he slept with weaponry.

***********************************

Todd and Tom arrived at Tommy's (alliterative, isn't it?) at about 5:45 Eastern, scarcely forty minutes after the tornado. They rang the doorbell; they knocked on the door; they shook the garage door. No answer. At this point, Todd mentioned that the downstairs window over the living room couch had a rusty catch, and if they felt lucky they could probably break in. Tom expressed reservations -- my uncle is a gun nut, after all -- but Todd assured him that he had entered the house late at night many times during his teenage years by using that very window. Go underage drinking! Woo-hoo!

Todd slipped the catch, lifted the window, and fell into the house with Tom following close behind. Both of them have spoken of the profound terror they both felt as they made their way up the staircase, each of them yelling like an idiot: "Dad, it's us, your sons!" "Ha-ha-ha! Don't kill us, father!" "We love you, don't bust a cap in us!" and so on. When they were about halfway up the stairs, my uncle Tommy emerged in his pajamas with a Glock tucked in the waistband . . . he looked at Todd and said, "I knew it had to be you, you're the only one who has ever entered the house through that window."

"WHAT?"

"Don't pretend you didn't used to sneak in that way all the time, youngster."

***********************************

Tommy asked if I had been called -- I had not, but he didn't know that yet -- and neither Todd nor Tom knew, so he decided that I must be informed quickly. But how? He didn't have my phone number.

Oh, but he had Jami's.

(For more information about the crazed year of 1997-1998, click here.)

***********************************

Jami was getting ready to go into school that day. She had finished her student teaching the previous semester and was employed as a substitute teacher by the Lake County (FL) School District.

So, here's the scene: the phone rings at Jami's house at 5:56 AM. She's in a bathrobe, applying mascara, when her mother runs into the bathroom.

"It's Brad's uncle Tommy. There's been a horrible occurrence."

So Jami goes to the phone, only to hear Tommy say: "Jami, it's Tommy. A tornado has struck and destroyed Marsha's house in Dyersburg . . . there are four total dead. I've got to get in touch with Brad immediately, and I need his number. Now."

Jami reads off the number, and asks, "Is there anything I can do?"

"You can pray." CLICK.

Now, did you notice anything missing in their conversation? Like, perhaps, reassurance that my mother was alive? Jami was led to believe that I had unexpectedly lost my mother and sister just three years after the shocking death of my father. She did not find out until lunchtime that my mother and sister had survived. My family? Overly dramatic? Naaaaaah.

*****************************************

Back to the Explorer . . . (finally!)

I hopped in, buckled up, and we were on our way. There were two vehicles in our mini-caravan: one aging Ford Explorer (with Tommy, Tom Jr, and me) and one brand-new Ford F250 Super Duty (Jamie Rice, Todd.) We fueled up at QuickTrip, made our way to I-75, and headed north.

There was an undue sense of tension in the Explorer as we headed for Tennessee. We shared few smiles, exchanged few wisecracks, and generally indulged in great deal of negative speculation about the extent of the damage, both physical and emotional. Who knew what to expect? I cannot fully express the dread that completely filled me -- I supposed (not unwisely, as it turned out) that this experience would be the most traumatic of my mother's life, even more traumatic than my father's death, or that time that she saw Barry Manilow at Mud Island.

**********************************

Because of the vagaries of scheduling, the loading of the cars, a short lunch break, and atrocious traffic, we did not make it to Nashville until 3:45 PM. Traffic -- it was horrible, absolutely the worst I have ever personally experienced on I-24 between Chattanooga and Nashville. There was a point where I personally believed that we would just have to pitch our tents on Monteagle and wait everybody out . . .

Funny thing, coincidence. You'll note that I marked our arrival time in Nashville as 3:45 PM . . . how can I be sure of the exact time, you ask? I had finally -- haltingly -- voiced my fears to Tom and Tommy about Mom's mental health around Murfreesboro, some thirty minutes before we arrived in metro Davidson county. To their credit, Tom and Tommy tried to allay my fears. Honestly, though, who could have? My dread had grown into a tangible thing, with weight and dimension. Just as we entered metro Nashville, I had finally gotten around to expressing my greatest fear to them, a fear I had suffered from since my father's death four years previously: does God mean, somehow, to punish our family?

Now the coincidence: Tommy immediately poo-pooed the suggestion, and he offered up advice that under other circumstances would be very sound. He said, "You're just feeding off of the negativity surrounding this tornado. You need to take your mind off of it -- it's not healthy to brood about a situation where you aren't even sure yet of the details." To aid me in doing so, he clicked the radio on, and we enjoyed about two verses of a country song before the Emergency Broadcasting System tone sounded. All we could do was look up and stare at each other as the announcer breathlessly described a tornado supercell that had formed a funnel cloud in downtown Nashville at ". . . 3:45 PM on the DOT!" According to the announcer, all of the windows in her studio had just exploded into shards of flying glass, and she was uncertain how much longer she would be able to broadcast, if at all. She was able to exclaim, "This is the same supercell that devastated Manila, Arkansas and RoEllen, Tennessee, earlier today, taking the lives of at least two Tennesseans . . ." Then there was a burst of loud static, and the radio station no longer transmitted. Shocked, all three of us turned toward the downtown area where we could barely see the top of a funnel in the distance. Cars all around us pulled off the highway into the median, the guardrail area, anywhere, looking for a place to hide. As Tommy began to accelerate, weaving in and out of the sporadic stalled traffic on I-440, hoping to get us out of the path of this tornado, Tom Jr. turned to me, and in complete seriousness, said, "Holy [expletive], maybe God does hate you."

*******************************************

Part 3 later . . . here's the bell. I hope I'm not being too annoying with the updates . . . now that GACS has internet again, I promise to work on the next posting tomorrow. . .

A few thoughts as I wait for my brain to recover -- Lord-a-mighty -- from a weekend of listening to Willie Nelson and reading Rick Bragg. I'm a true son of the rural South, you see. As I slopped up my last bite of grits this morning with a little biscuit and a little red-eye gravy, I thought to myself, "Wow. Did you ever think that you would live in an area with horrible traffic and acceptable dental care?"

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Here's a neat thing: neat in the sense that it's vaguely creepy. I was actually going to post about my upbringing in rural northwest Tennessee, the old 'sweet potato pie and I shut my mouth' sort of a thing, you know? I actually typed "RoEllen, Tennessee" into Google to see what might be available, and the first link that came up was this link from the National Weather Service. Here . . . I'll post part of it for those of you too lazy to click:

RoEllen, a rural Dyer County hamlet located about five miles east of Dyersburg in Tennessee's northwest corner was struck by a tornado around 4:05 a.m. on Thursday, April 16, 1998. The National Weather Service issued a Tornado Warning at 3:35 a.m. as the tornadic thunderstorm was approaching the Mississippi River from Arkansas. Thus, the warning was posted a full half-hour before the tornado struck.
The RoEllen tornado first touched down to the west of the community. Moving rapidly toward the northeast, the tornado crossed state Highway 104 about 1.5 miles west of RoEllen (Fig. 1). At that point, the tornado produced only F-0 damage. While most of the initial damage swath was to trees, one home along Highway 104 suffered minor roof damage. The tornado then passed over open agricultural land until it crossed Welch Road. A farm's machine shed was heavily damaged just north of Welch Road's intersection with Clanton Road. The tornado then increased to F-3 intensity and completely demolished a substantial brick home located along Cribbs Road and a house trailer next door (Fig. 1, #1 & #2). Both homes were occupied.
The bodies of the house trailer's occupants, a man and wife in their mid 40s, were found near a copse of trees about 250 yards toward the southeast of where the house trailer was sited. The remnants of the house trailer were widely strewn. Heavy objects such as the water heater, stove, and clothes washer were found about 200 yards to the north. The twisted remains of the trailer's frame were found about 300 yards toward the northeast. Two lightly constructed homes between where the trailer had been and where its frame landed were not seriously damaged, suggesting the frame may have flown over them.
Residents of the brick house, a mother and teenage daughter, saw notice of the tornado warning on television. They went to shelter in a corner of the home's basement. While the tornado completely demolished their home and deposited a pickup truck on the remains, they were unhurt.

Here's the creepy part: the mother and teenage daughter in this tale of woe happen to be my mother and my sister. Our "substantial brick home located along Cribbs Road" (thank you, National Weather Service, for calling our house overweight) was demolished. I mean, DEMOLISHED. Our eccentric next-door neighbors, the Kolwycks, were killed apparently instantly.

There are few things that my leaky sieve of a memory can actually recall with perfect clarity. Strangely, most of them are insignificant moments, without real weight. Isn't it strange how you can recall the exact tint of Laurie Morgan's hair in sunlight (I sat behind her and the window in first grade) but you can't really remember what color your car is when you exit the Publix? Or what your grandmother's hands looked like?

However, pure adrenal stress has burned the memory of April 16, 1998 into my brain like a brand. I was in graduate school in Statesboro, Georgia, a mere 635 miles southeast of RoEllen when my uncle Tommy Wolaver called me from Atlanta at 6:11 AM Eastern Time. I had gone to bed around 4:00 AM, and I can't recall ever being so groggy when the phone rang. My graduate housing roommate actually answered the phone, luckily, for he was a 27 year old ex-Marine who was one of the few people actually loud enough to yell me awake. I got to the phone only to hear Tommy say something about our house being destroyed by a tornado, and that my mother and sister had to dig themselves out from under our chimney which had fallen on them in the tumult. Describing the scene, he painted a picture reminiscent of a Dore illustration of Dante's Inferno. All I knew, in my sleepy certainty, was that my house was spread across most of Dyer County, and my mother and sister desperately needed my help. Tommy, the rock of our family, even sounded worried.

"We're goin', boy. How long do you think it'll take you to get to Atlanta?"

"Don't know -- four hours, four and a half, maybe? I'm gonna hit rush hour on 285, aren't I?"

"Just know this: as soon as you get here, Tom, Todd, and I will be ready to go."

I hung up the phone, packed a small bag, and arrived in Snellville two hours and fifteen minutes later. For those of you calculating at home, that's 226 miles in 135 minutes; to put it another way, I touched 138 once between Dublin and Macon on I-16. I have ridden faster, but never again have I driven that fast.

Did I mention it was raining? The whole way?

*************************************

After the death of my father in 1994 and his mother in 1995 (Dad quite unexpectedly passed away at age 45, MeeMaw at 68; at the time my father died, MeeMaw knew she had cancer and refused treatment because, she said, with her husband and son dead she just "didn't see the use") I had few relatives left, really -- our family history is a litany of death and stupidity that causes most people to gasp with pity. I, of course, find it humorous (or even humourous, when I'm feeling frisky and British.) People have asked me where I got my sense of humor, as neither of my parents share my personal concept that everything can be laughed at . . . there are three reasons, really:

Reason 1: I am now, have always been, and will forever be the smallest kid in my class/school/family/world. I am a midget in the land of giants. I have always been short, strange, and unathletic. In our world today, but especially in rural agri-Tennessee, boys and men who are my size either develop a world-class sense of humor or an Alaskan-sized shoulder chip very quickly, 'cause we're the ones forced to prove ourselves. I couldn't carry a knife to school, but I always had my mouth.

Reason 2: Until I attended David Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, I had darkened the door of a church building maybe . . . maybe five times? Six? Three Easters, that I can recall. Christians in my neck of the woods were really more objects of fun than they were reverence (around the Denton household, anyway) so I lack an essential respect for sacred objects and ideas that I see in others around me. Strange, really, especially dealing with some of the kids in my eighth grade Bible class here at GACS . . . I have a few students (but more than you'd guess) who have enormous reverence for holy things, but absolutely no respect for authority. [NOT GENERALIZING ALERT! I SWEAR I'M NOT GENERALIZING ALERT!!!!] I have seen good kids -- great kids -- refuse correction from adults in our hallways, filtering out reprimands like so much white noise. Yet reference Jesus, God, or the Golden Rule, and they feel remorse. I was raised as an exact opposite, in some kind of weird land of doppelganger virtues, where you could laugh at God all you want, but may He help you if you ever disrespect any adult, 'cause you'll need Him when Dad hears about it.

Reason 3: You've just got to laugh if you're a member of my family, because -- not to be morbid, or anything -- everybody just died. By the time I was nineteen, I had attended over twenty funerals. Nine of them were for close family members, including all four of my grandparents (three of which had moved into our home shortly before their deaths; perhaps it was the house?) and my father who had seemed indestructible at the time. (Still does.)

********************************************

That last reason, the utter lack of family above ground, gave Tommy's words about helping family a special resonance in my mind as I made my way to Atlanta. They also gave me a kind of grim determination to not let up on the accelerator until I had established enough velocity to coast in for the last twelve miles or so.

When I arrived in Snellville, Tommy was ready. What does this mean, exactly? Well, Tommy has a $17,000 gun collection, if that gives any indication of his readiness. Tommy also happens to be one of the most successful real estate brokers in the metro Atlanta area -- he's happy to give away his trade secrets, which consist of hard work after effective planning. How do you effectively plan for a tornado? Easy. Overpack.

We had a full set of camping gear, including 14 tents and 14 sleeping bags for ourselves and anyone else who might be stuck working outside ("God bless those Boy Scouts!" said Tommy, when I asked where he had gotten them.) We had 11 Coleman lanterns, 9 shovels, 9 pick axes, 4 chainsaws, 2 buckets of fire sand, ("Better safe than sorry!") a post-hole digger, 3 12-pound sledgehammers, and, I believe, 30 pounds of peanut butter. We also had Tommy's sons Tom Jr. and Todd, otherwise known as my enormous cousins. I am not kidding you. Tom Jr. (6'4", 255) and Todd (6'2", 230) look like half of the most terrifying D-line you've ever seen. Add to the mix their good friend Jamie Rice (6'3", 270) who agreed to come along for the ride, and my uncle Tommy (well, 5'9," but he's an easy 225) and we lacked only a good defensive end for a run to the playoffs. Me? Sorry to disappoint, but at a slow 5'7", 180, I'm not really the final piece to anyone's athletic puzzle.

I parked my sporty two-seater in the driveway and leapt into the Ford Explorer.

**********************************************************

Looks like I'll have to serialize this one, as my planning period just ended. I'll finish this story later, for my sake, if not yours . . .

Is it time?

Could it be?

Yes -- Blog Roll Call!

You'll notice, the more astute of you, that I link to other blogs I enjoy and read. I've added a blog or two without fanfare, and I thought that it would be a nice time to introduce the other bloggers you'll find here . . .

Matt Elliott: What can I say about Matt Elliott that he has not said himself, written down, and posted to other blogs anonymously in order to increase his own popularity? In a word, nothing. He is one of the two finest worship leaders I have ever heard, a truly caring individual, with excellent taste in music, political allegiances, coffee, and books. He is, in short, much cooler than I am.

Jon Owen: The second of the greatest worship leaders I have ever heard is, of course, Kip Walker of the Crieve Hall church during his late 80's heyday . . . ok, that's overly cruel. No, indeed: Jon Owen is the other greatest worship leader I've been pleased to experience. Jon is the chaplain (and a Bible teacher) for Greater Atlanta Christian School, where I teach (not much longer, if the administration finds this blog, I'm sure) so I get to see him interact with kids almost daily. [SO AS NOT TO BE PERCIEVED AS JOKING, IRONY OFF] Jon wants everyone to have a personal relationship with Jesus; even more striking than that, he means it -- he really does -- and that's a wonderful thing to behold. [IRONY ON] He claps too much. But we love him anyway. Go Spartans!

Bev Dowdy: As blogs go, mine skulks about like the angry kid in the back of the class, trying desperately to hide yet yearning for attention so greatly I am willing to embarass myself totally just to be seen . . . yep, Bev's blog is the complete antithesis of mine. If you think that reasoned dialogue has gone the way of the Victrola only to be replaced by a loud tinny yelping, then I beg you to visit her blog. It's incredibly well done; it will make you think; it will make you (gulp) CHANGE your thinking. Bev teaches political science and government at GACS.

Mandy Richey: Mandy teaches civics, geography, and humanities at GACS. After graduation, she plans to attend the University of Tennessee at Martin and major in nursing . . . whoops! Got carried away, there; thought I was back announcing the homecoming court at a DHS football game . . . Mandy's great. Warning: she's very pious, sterile, and demure in her thinking, so it may be difficult to get an opinion on anything from her.

(Quick humor interlude: in order to include the DHS Golden Trojan football roster in the homecoming joke above, I actually had to track down my high school's website. Click here to see the best of what the web has to offer in West Tennessee! WARNING -- your head may actually explode with laughter when you see that "West TN Agriculture: The World View" is listed ABOVE the curriculum link . . . priorities, priorities!)

Matt Byars: Matt writes poetry, builds wooden furniture in the shop in his garage, teaches college English, plays a mean hand of Texas Hold'em, and isn't employed by GACS . . . what's that noise? Oh, it's everyone leaving my blog to read the cool guy's. Poop. I'm not even going to mention that he owns a plasma screen television. Hello? Is anyone left? Anyway, he's a great guy, with a great blog, and a perspective on life just skewed enough to be highly amusing. Read his blog!

I hope you have enjoyed this update . . . click and read on, my peeps! Word!

Found on www.handwritingwizard.com :

Analysis, Bs Denton:

Bs exaggerates about everything that has a physical nature. Although he may not intend to deceive or mislead, he blows things way out of proportion because that is the way he views them. He will be a good story teller. This exaggeration relates to all areas of his material world. Bs allows many people into his life because he is accepting and trusting. He is sometimes called gullible by his friends. That only really means that he trusts too many people. Bs has a vivid imagination.

Bs has a tendency to put things off, Bs procrastinates. He sometimes pretends to be busy, so he will not have to do whatever he is putting off. He is often late to appointments or deadlines. This usually leads to a great amount of effort at the last minute to meet the deadline. Procrastination is an important factor as it relates to his output on the job or at school. Remember, Bs will put it off until later. Procrastination is easily overcome through a simple stroke adjustment in the handwriting.

One way Bs punishes hisself is self directed sarcasm. He is a very sarcastic person. Often this sarcasm and "sharp tongued" behavior is directed at hisself.

Bs's true self-image is unreasonably low. Someone once told Bs that he wasn't a great and beautiful person, and he believed them. Bs also has a fear that he might fail if he takes large risks. Therefore he resists setting his goals too high, risking failure. He doesn't have the internal confidence that frees him to take risks and chance failure. Bs is capable of accomplishing much more than he is presently achieving. All this relates to his self-esteem. Bs's self-concept is artificially low. Bs will stay in a bad situation much too long... why? Because he is afraid that if he makes a change, it might get worse. It is hard for Bs to plan too far into the future. He kind of takes things on a day to day basis. He may tell you his dreams but he is living in today, with a fear of making a change. No matter how loud he speaks, look at his actions. This is perhaps the biggest single barrier to happiness people not believing in and loving themselves. Bs is an example of someone living with a low self-image, because their innate self-confidence was broken.

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I hate it when junk like this works.

A couple of things: one, would you trust analysis that included the word "hisself?"

Two, why, with all the positive comments, has this site not exploded with popularity? I can only wonder.

Overheard on xanga.com:

the_math_geek: i feel that a large portion of poetry (as well as modern art) is for the birds.

This is for you, Wes.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Transcript of an actual conversation from Winter Quarter 1998; Statesboro, GA, Seminar in Poetry Writing, Graduate, ENG 8809]

Professor: Good God, son! This is 1998! AND YOU'RE MOUTHING FORMALISM AT ME??!!! Are you Cleanth [expletive deleted] Brooks or something? Wake up and realize that you're not in [expletive deleted] Podunk, Tennessee, anymore!

BSD: Why are you yelling? All I said was that maybe . . .

Professor: You are a naive fool, that's all! Show some sense. SHOW SOME SENSE!

BSD (angrier): WHAT? What did I do?

Professor: New Criticism is dead!

BSD: I'm not a new critic! I 'm not Cleanth Brooks, or Robert Penn Warren, or Donald Davidson, or anybody else. I'm just not very, uh, very postmodern, I guess. I'm not a fan of deconstruction . . .

Professor (snorting): I'm sure Jacques Derrida's heartbroken. He's probably thinking of ways to convince your inimitable genius right now.

BSD (tearing up in frustration): LET ME FINISH! I just think that good poetry should mean something, that's all.

Professor (genuinely angry): WHAT ARE YOU? THREE YEARS OLD???!!! My God, my God. Poetry is dead! Nothing means anything, anymore! Poetry mean something? Modern poetry has no power to affect anyone or anything -- IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO!!!!

-------------------------------------------------------

A. Zolynas
The Man Who Had Singing Fits

He would begin unexpectedly anywhere,
bubbling into song at the Woolworth's cash register,
in the elevator, in the restaurant
as the waitress approached with coffee,
in board meetings.

The pale canary of his heart chirped
from its cage while all around him
we woke momentarily, startled
out of our cultural trance,
too amazed to be embarrassed.

His family and friends were used to these fits,
and we too became charmed
by his soft voice, the lilting, gentle song
that never quite made sense
but had something to do
with a quiet, confused love.

He would sing for a half minute,
and then he'd be back among us, no memory
of his departure or return, no memory
of the stream he'd dipped us all into,
that one running along just under
the surface of anything you and I
think we understand.

-------------------------------------------------------

Robert Lowell
For the Union Dead

"Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam."

The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.
The airy tanks are dry.

Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass;
my hand tingled
to burst the bubbles
drifting from the noses of the cowed, compliant fish.

My hand draws back. I often sigh still
for the dark downward and vegetating kingdom
of the fish and reptile. One morning last March,
I pressed against the new barbed and galvanized

fence on the Boston Common. Behind their cage,
yellow dinosaur steamshovels were grunting
as they cropped up tons of mush and grass
to gouge their underworld garage.

Parking spaces luxuriate like civic
sandpiles in the heart of Boston.
A girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders
braces the tingling Statehouse,

shaking over the excavations, as it faces Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens' shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage's earthquake.

Two months after marching through Boston,
half the regiment was dead;
at the dedication,
William James could almost hear the bronze Negroes breathe.

Their monument sticks like a fishbone
in the city's throat.
Its Colonel is as lean
as a compass-needle.

He has an angry wrenlike vigilance,
a greyhound's gentle tautness;
he seems to wince at pleasure,
and suffocate for privacy.

He is out of bounds now. He rejoices in man's lovely,
peculiar power to choose life and die--
when he leads his black soldiers to death,
he cannot bend his back.

On a thousand small town New England greens,
the old white churches hold their air
of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags
quilt the graveyards of the Grand Army of the Republic.

The stone statues of the abstract Union Soldier
grow slimmer and younger each year--
wasp-waisted, they doze over muskets
and muse through their sideburns . . .

Shaw's father wanted no monument
except the ditch,
where his son's body was thrown
and lost with his "niggers."

The ditch is nearer.
There are no statues for the last war here;
on Boylston Street, a commercial photograph
shows Hiroshima boiling

over a Mosler Safe, the "Rock of Ages"
that survived the blast. Space is nearer.
When I crouch to my television set,
the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons.

Colonel Shaw
is riding on his bubble,
he waits
for the blessèd break.

The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease.

---------------------------------------------------

William Butler Yeats
Sailing to Byzantium

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

-------------------------------------------------------

Philip Larkin
Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare.
Not in remorse-- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused -- nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always.
Not to be here,

Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels.
Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says
No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear -- no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink.
Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others.
Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Elizabeth Bishop
Casabianca

Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood on
the burning deck." Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love's the burning boy.

--------------------------------------------------

Elizabeth Bishop
Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore

From Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning,
please come flying.
In a cloud of fiery pale chemicals,
please come flying,
to the rapid rolling of thousands of small blue drums
descending out of the mackerel sky
over the glittering grandstand of harbor-water,
please come flying.

Whistles, pennants and smoke are blowing. The ships
are signaling cordially with multitudes of flags
rising and falling like birds all over the harbor.
Enter: two rivers, gracefully bearing
countless little pellucid jellies
in cut-glass epergnes dragging with silver chains.
The flight is safe; the weather is all arranged.
The waves are running in verses this fine morning.
Please come flying.

Come with the pointed toe of each black shoe
trailing a sapphire highlight,
with a black capeful of butterfly wings and bon-mots,
with heaven knows how many angels all riding
on the broad black brim of your hat,
please come flying.

Bearing a musical inaudible abacus,
a slight censorious frown, and blue ribbons,
please come flying.
Facts and skyscrapers glint in the tide; Manhattan
is all awash with morals this fine morning,
so please come flying.

Mounting the sky with natural heroism,
above the accidents, above the malignant movies,
the taxicabs and injustices at large,
while horns are resounding in your beautiful ears
that simultaneously listen to
a soft uninvented music, fit for the musk deer,
please come flying.

For whom the grim museums will behave
like courteous male bower-birds,
for whom the agreeable lions lie in wait
on the steps of the Public Library,
eager to rise and follow through the doors
up into the reading rooms,
please come flying.
We can sit down and weep; we can go shopping,
or play at a game of constantly being wrong
with a priceless set of vocabularies,
or we can bravely deplore, but please
please come flying.

With dynasties of negative constructions
darkening and dying around you,
with grammar that suddenly turns and shines
like flocks of sandpipers flying,
please come flying.
Come like a light in the white mackerel sky,
come like a daytime comet
with a long unnebulous train of words,
from Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning,
please come flying.

--------------------------------------------------

Gwendolyn Brooks
The Mother

Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?--
Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.
But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.

-----------------------------------------------------------

No power to affect anyone or anything, my fat white butt.

Random thoughts as I persue my dream of more caramel, caramel, CARAMEL!!!!

Sorry.

--------------------------------------------

It's election time, again -- or time to ask yourself, "No, really, these are the best you could come up with?"

Every year, it seems, I ask myself this question.

There are, according to the latest U.S. Census estimates, 290,809,777 people living in the United States. Wouldn't you hope, as I do, that our most rigorous methods for presidential candidate selection would give us the pinnacle of American thought and ability? That we would, somehow, sift and glean and carefully select from those 290 million people only the kindest, the strongest, the smartest, the most honest, the most moral, the . . . well, the best?

George Bush and John Kerry?

Really? These men are the best we can do?

Blaaaaaah. It's the same feeling I get from watching Army football. I know that specialization has killed the game, and the Army recruits students first, then athletes, but I always feel bad wondering if we should send the University of Connecticut to Iraq, 'cause our countries best athletes could not "do much against UConn's bigger, quicker defenders."

-----------------------------------------------

Been reading Borges again. This is what the Matrix franchise was trying to do all along, yet he's still done it better than anyone ever has. Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy bemoans the current fetish with epistemology (the science of knowing); I respect Durant as much as anyone, and agree up to a point -- epistemology is explained much better through story and fiction than it is thorough rigorous logical analysis. You do waste your time if you try simply to explain the process. Read "The Lottery in Babylon," "Funes, His Memory," "Labyrinths," or "The Library of Babel" if you want to stretch your mind around the problem of meta-knowledge, semiotics, or temporal analysis.

Warning: Borges + Closed or Tired Mind = Headache. Don't say I didn't warn you.

----------------------------------------------

Photobucket????!!!!! PHOTOBUCKET???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What happened? ? ?

It accidentally ERASED 149 online albums?

AND MINE WAS ONE OF THEM????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ALL MY PICTURES GONE??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Therefore, you may have noticed that my windblown, eighth-grade-Savannah-trip-photo has been replaced. Who is that, you may ask?

Someone you need to know, of course! Here for the answer.

------------------------------------------------------------

Bell rang; planning has ended; more later!

I swear to you, this is the last time.

The last time I make you read The Onion horoscopes.

Your Horoscope

By Lloyd Schumner Sr.
Retired Machinist andA.A.P.B.-Certified Astrologer

Aries: (March 21—April 19): You're getting tired of living out of boxes, but if you stop now, you'll damage your reputation as the patron saint of the cardboard cubist lifestyle.

Taurus: (April. 20—May 20): There are those who say you're just a glorified janitor, but you fail to see how the titanium mop and bucket add glory to what you do.

Gemini: (May 21—June 21): You'll soon learn the important legal and semantic differences between the phrases "folksingers should just die" and "it'd sure be nice if someone slaughtered all the folksingers."

Cancer: (June 22—July 22): Hey, it's not your fault if the others around the office don't find your horrifyingly racist sense of humor funny.

Leo: (July 23—Aug. 22): You'll be surprised and pleased to find yourself listed between Leah and Levi in Who's Who In The Bible, but you won't really like what the editors had to say.

Virgo: (Aug. 23—Sept. 22): You'll be overrun with shallow, boring romance-seekers merely because you genuinely enjoy long walks and sunsets.

Libra: (Sept. 23—Oct. 23): There's no law about over-enjoying the work of Uriah Heep, but the judicial flexibility built into our society will see that you get what's coming to you anyway.

Scorpio: (Oct. 24—Nov. 21): Leprosy is certainly not the problem it once was, but that might not be any consolation to you.

Sagittarius: (Nov. 22—Dec. 21): The National Hockey League lockout will have little or no effect on you, which is fairly surprising, considering you're Lord Stanley's Cup.

Capricorn: (Dec. 22—Jan. 19): You'll experience a soufflé that sends you into a white-hot inferno of culinary passion, instantly incinerating you and everyone in the downtown restaurant district.

Aquarius: (Jan. 20—Feb. 18): This week will be prime for advancement at work, as long as you manage to avoid the ball lightning and the other guys don't.

Pisces: (Feb. 19—March 20): Good news: The airline will only charge you four Frequent Flier Miles for your violently abbreviated flight this Friday.

Music test time!

(Oh, I might as well say it . . .)

Age test time!

That's right, humble readers. In another installment of the recurring series *****Signposts that Brad Denton has Officially Gotten Old***** I submit to you this musical pop quiz on song lyrics. My sister e-mailed me to let me know that her roommate's music appreciation class at Middle Tennessee State University took a "just for fun" pop quiz yesterday -- a pop quiz on pop music. Cool, eh? Not so -- the professor, who is four years younger than I am, created this test from some of his more favorite obscure songs from popular performers. Obscure? Maybe, but I knew 'em. Then he went even farther; he crossed the line. He labeled this music as "oldies."

That's "oldies."

Oldies.

You'll see what I mean in a minute. Let's see if you did as well as I did -- I answered all ten immediately, with very little hesitation. (No cheating! I did not use the internet, or Google my way to a better score, so you can't either!) Meredith freaked her roommate out by taking the quiz and making a four, which would have been the highest grade in the class (I made her listen to my albums when we were younger.) I have supplied the answers below, but in order to give you the same chance I had, I have interposed a nostalgia-filled aside to separate them from the questions. Here we go . . . good luck!

Name the song and performer for each of the following lyrics.

1. "Well they closed down the auto plant in Mahwah late that month
Ralph went out lookin' for a job but he couldn't find none
He came home too drunk from mixin' Tanqueray and wine . . ."

2. "The streets are lined with camera crews
Everywhere he goes is news
Today is different
Today is not the same
Today I make the action. . ."

3. "No good deed goes unpunished
And I don't mind bein' their whippin' boy
I've had that pleasure for years and years . . ."

4. "Baby nothin's guaranteed
Take back your acid rain
Baby let your T.V. bleed . . ."

5. "When your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote
I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions . . ."

6. "You say you'll give me
Eyes in a moon of blindness
A river in a time of dryness
A harbour in the tempest . . ."

7. "Reach out for me and hold me tight
Hold that memory
Let my machine talk to me,
Let my machine talk to me . . ."

8. "She was just another notch on my guitar
She's gonna lose the man that really loves her
In the silence I could hear their broken hearts . . ."

9. "Now they sit and rattle their bones and think of their bloodstoned days.
You chose your words from mouths of babes
Got lost in the wood.
The hip flask slinging madman,
Steaming cafe flirts,
In Chinatown howling at night. . ."

10. "It's nothin dangerous
I feel no pain
I've got to ch-ch-change
You know you got it when you're going insane . . ."

Answers follow!

[Begin nostalgia-filled aside]

Now, I'm not quite thirty, but I always had the musical tastes of a mulleted fifty-year-old. My first love (in many ways still my strongest) was stadium rock. I adore 60's and 70's "power" rock: Zepplin, early Stones, The Who, The Doors, Skynyrd, Boston, Rush, The Allmon Brothers (for my softer side), really anything mindlessly (or thoughtfully) guitar driven. To this day I still treasure actual albums -- LP's, 45's, records . . . whatever you want to call them, as long as they include a screaming Fender and a creepy falsetto. Save my life, I'm going down for the last time!

The first album I ever owned (purchased with my own money) was ZZ Top's Afterburner. It was well worth that $5.77.

After ZZ Top had done all the damage they could do, I entered a phase we all suffered through, namely the "Chicks Will Dig Me If I Adore Beach Music" phase. And, yes, I called them "chicks." And, yes, I used "dig" as a verb when I was in high school. And, yes, I had no idea why I couldn't get a girlfriend. For a short time, I owned every Jimmy Buffett album. I defended his talent right and left ("No. NO. Seriously. Ignore everything he's done since '79. He really had talent -- he really did. How do I accept him? Oh, I just pretend he died just before the release of Somewhere Over China, and they've used a Buffett cyborg ever since.")

Around 1992, I entered my current phase, my mature music phase. Picasso had his famous "Blue Period," and I have my "Purchase-Every-John-Cougar-Mellencamp-Album Period." He's sort of like Buffett, but he's not a cyborg. At least, I don't think he is. Even if he is, I really like his music. Go cyborgs!

[End aside. ]

Before we get to the answers, I would like to revisit my initial anger.

OLDIES????!!!!! YOU CALL THESE OLDIES???!!!!!

Ahem.

Answers:
1. "Johnny 99" by The Boss. I am considering sponsoring a federal bill that will make the purchase of Nebraska mandatory for every aspiring solo artist. Me and her, we had some fun sir, and ten innocent people died . . . sounds like my dating life.

2. Peter Gabriel, "Family Snapshot" -- great song, more murder. It was here that I first began to worry about the sanity of Meredith's professor. Ole Pete never does write too many happy, well-balanced songs, does he?

3. Of course! "Crumblin' Down" by J. C. Mellencamp, back when he still had the middle name. Deduct five points -- no, no, that's not enough! -- don't even give yourself *credit* for this one if you wrote "Crumbling."

4. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "Jammin' Me": A song I will always remember fondly, if only for the line "Take back JOE PISCOPO!!!!" I think we're all in agreement on that one.

5. ***Guilty admission alert!!!***: I would never have known this one if it hadn't been the tagline on Matt Elliott's website AND if he hadn't taken me to three Elvis Costello concerts in the past couple of years . . . this one's "Everyday I Write the Book." I was not an E. C. fan until recently. For some reason, he never played the Dyersburg-Tatumville-RoEllen circuit in rural northwest Tennessee. We did see a lot of .38 Special, though. I suppose you must know your audience . . . and be able to hold on loosely.

6. U2, "All I Want is You": If you've seen the seminal Stiller/Garafalo/Ryder/Hawke film Reality Bites, then you already know this one as the love theme from the greatest movie ever made by humankind. Citizen Kane, Schmitizen Kane! Rosebud, my butt! Yes, I'm medicated!

7. One of my favorite songs of all time -- "World Leader Pretend" by R.E.M. Has there been a better college radio band in the history of college radio? Did you, like me, just realize that the history of college radio only encompasses about sixteen years total? Do you, like me, suddenly feel a need to dance? PRETZELS, BABY!

8. Oooooh. I adored this album, song, and artist. This is "Strong Persuader" from the Robert Cray Band; this album also included the song "Smokin' Gun," one of the best hard blues tracks of all time:

I'm standing here bewildered
I can't remember just what I've done
I can hear the sirens winding
My eyes blinded by the sun
I know that I should be running
My heart's beating just like the drum
Now they've knocked me down and taken it
That still-hot smoking gun

9. I know this courtesy of Brad Kibler, the obligatory "Friend from the Early Nineties who wanted to Stalk Natalie Merchant." Didn't everyone have one of these? Really? C'mon, admit it. You were that person, weren't you? Weren't you? There's no shame here. Anywho, the song is "Hey Jack Kerouac" by 10,000 Maniacs.

10. Have you ever been both elated and shamed at the same time? Did you ever possess a piece of information so oddly, crudely unhelpful that you were ashamed you knew it? Yet were you somehow at the same time PROUD of this knowledge? Yep -- here's where I am. This one's "Cat Scratch Fever" by the Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent.

Shall I add a rubric, or scoring scheme?

0-1: Don't feel bad, youngster. Once you start driving in seven or eight years, you'll forget all about failing this.

2-5: Partially old. You're either on the cusp of falling apart, or you're a repository of strange knowledge that should be suppressed. Get out of your house sometime!

6-8: Aged. Enjoy gumming the prunes, Gramps, 'cause these songs are supposedly "oldies."

9-10: Glacial. Your movement is measured not in distance, but in time. I'm sorry to inform you, but you have surpassed the elderly. Buck up, though, because today is tapioca pudding day at the home!

Bleary-eyed, groaning, dare-I-say --gassy--, our hero turns his attention away from the endless headlines scrolling at the bottom of the ESPNNews ticker ("MIAMI BEATS FLORIDA STATE 16-10 IN OVERTIME!!!!!!!!"; "ROBBY GORDON WINS THE EMERSON RADIO 250!!!!!") and toward his blog.

"Hoo-boy," he says, "hoo-boy -- I'm a tired toto."

Opening Microsoft Outlook, he sees an e-mail message. 'Hello there -- what's this?' he thinks, tiredly. 'Is anything worth keeping me awake any longer?'

Of course there is.

He sees the one thing that will keep him awake, and make him post.

That's right.

It's The Onion horoscopes.

Your Horoscope
By Lloyd Schumner Sr.
Retired Machinist and A.A.P.B.-Certified Astrologer


Aries: (March 21—April 19) Your beloved Sparky will shock you by traveling 1,000 miles back to you. But then again, loyalty is the reason you married him in the first place.

Taurus: (April. 20—May 20) It's going to be a busy, nerve-wracking week, but by the end, you'll be elevated to Imperator For Life Of The Greater Taurus Economic Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Gemini: (May 21—June 21) No one's ever called you a rich, sexy genius, but that was before National Say Hurtfully Untrue Things Day.

Cancer: (June 22—July 22) You'll help realize Western civilization's oldest dream, but it's only the one about getting to school late on exam day.

Leo: (July 23—Aug. 22) An unlikely coincidence involving the spontaneous combustion of your trousers and their subsequent suspension from communications cables will not be enough to teach you to tell the truth.

Virgo: (Aug. 23—Sept. 22) You're working hard on your list of songs you want played at your funeral, but the flawed premise of the project is that it assumes the presence of attendees.

Libra: (Sept. 23—Oct. 23) Your reading group insists that the Iowa School is more concerned with list-making than with producing good fiction, but frankly, you just wanted to talk about hobbits.

Scorpio: (Oct. 24—Nov. 21) Don't waste time developing a healthy body image, as your body will look a h**l of a lot different starting Thursday.

Sagittarius: (Nov. 22—Dec. 21) Romance and a felicitous atmosphere for new projects are foretold by the moon passing through your sign this week, as well as—wait a second! That's no moon!

Capricorn: (Dec. 22—Jan. 19) It's difficult to be compassionate and loving in today's increasingly cruel world. The term "diminishing returns" comes to mind.

Aquarius: (Jan. 20—Feb. 18) You'll be repeatedly cited as a living refutation of the Great Man theory of history.

Pisces: (Feb. 19—March 20) All the stars in your sign have an important message of hope, but you may not get it before the sudden explosion in your galactic spiral arm Wednesday.

(from The Onion, VOLUME 40 ISSUE 36, 8 SEPTEMBER 2004; accessed 10 September 2004.)

Why only post once, when you can post twice? I just had to write in on this while it was on my mind.

Matt Elliott (you can view his blog here) keeps me abreast of all things political, and he e-mailed me a wonderful link to Travis Stanley's blog. The page I have hyperlinked discusses Bush's recent acceptance of the Republican nomination. It's a magnificent refutation of Bush's asinine implication that democracy is the only God-ordained form of government; Travis says this much better than I can:

Before you criticize me, let me say, "I'm not saying Sadaam was a good leader. I am not saying Iraq is worse off without him there. I'm not saying democracy is not an improvement from dictatorship." So, don't criticize me with any of these statements. There are plenty of other things to criticize me for, so be creative. What I am saying, however, is that regardless of the benefits we experience with democracy that does not mean democracy is a divine right or the only acceptable form of government under God. If you would, think back with me to the book of 1 Samuel. When God decided to directly intervene in the politics of a particular nation called Israel, what kind of government did He establish? Hmm...Democracy? WRONG! I believe God established a monarchy, complete with a king who was either put on the throne because God directed a prophet to anoint him as king or he simply inherited the throne by blood. There were no elections. There was neither a House of Representatives nor a Senate. There was a king and a nation that followed his leadership. I'm not saying this was good. I'm not saying that monarchy is the answer to the world. But I find it problematic to say that democracy is the only "God-ordained" form of government when the only biblical account of a "God-ordained government" was a monarchy.

(from http://travisstanley.blogspot.com/2004/09/problematic-bush.html; Travis Stanley, owner/operator, accessed by me 8/04/2004 at 10:15 PM)

My only question here would be, hey, did God really ordain the monarchy? Didn't God establish the monarchy only at the behest of the people of Israel, who wanted a king just like all of the other countries that surrounded them? I thought that God really ordained the concept of the ruling judges, hence the O.T. book named, appropriately enough, Judges. (This is about as deep as I get -- I hope you weren't looking for an in-depth exegesis or something.)

In thinking about this, I became really excited by the idea.

If God wanted us to have judges, doesn't that mean that He tacitly agrees that laws cannot be static?

Think about it: if the law were simply the law, then why would judges be needed? Doesn't this imply that each case must be handled on an individual basis? If you steal because you starve, and not out of a wish to harm someone else at your expense, do you get the same punishment as the one who stole to harm? If there were no judges, then the punishment would just be the punishment . . . no questions asked.

Plus, the idea of a wise, trained council, chosen by God -- it's really the concept of eldership or shepherds that churches still use today, isn't it?

Wisdom-based leadership. That's what the concept of judges boils down to, doesn't it?

Of course, I'm going right now to the old KJV and make sure that I got this right. If I didn't, well, it's something to think about anyway. Make sure you completely read Travis' post -- it's excellent, and it's much more thought-provoking than this one.

I love the internet.

Recently, Merriam-Webster online held a poll to identify the top ten favorite words chosen by the visitors to their website; the results are here. I don't want to ruin this for you, but the top word chosen was also my favorite word, the word "defenestration." Here's the definition, from Merriam-Webster online:

Main Entry: de·fen·es·tra·tion
Pronunciation: (")dE-"fe-n&-'strA-sh&n
Function: noun
Etymology: de- + Latin fenestra window
: a throwing of a person or thing out of a window

- de·fen·es·trate /(")dE-'fe-n&-"strAt/ transitive verb

Just try and use that puppy in a sentence, will you? What a fabulous, unmarketable, incredibly specific term. ("Walter defenestrated the elephant to create an escape route." or "We were quiet throughout the sermon, but we all gasped at the defenestration." or "The defenestration of Betty opened the door to my own.")

For those of you who think that's random, here's one of the photographs that comes up when you put my name, Brad Denton, into the Google Image Search directory:



What are they doing?

------------------------------------------------

I've been reading again.

I don't have time (we're already late for a dinner date, Jami and I) to write down everything I should about the wonderful things I read over the summer, but know that a huge book geekfest is coming. Soon. I'm currently reading Faulkner's Sanctuary, with an eye towards re-reading Light in August -- great stuff, this, and inspired by reading my aide's great paper on As I Lay Dying. Faulkner, now, that boy could string words together. I'm excited by the prospect of revisiting his work for the first time in four or five years. Man alive!

You know what? The only thing better than reading . . .



. . . is re-reading. (What did you think I'd say? Heroin, or something? It's a family friendly blog!)

Apparently Necessary Disclaimer: The Author of this Blog is Himself an Idiot, and Not Unaware that his Ranting can be Interpreted as a Judgment against those he views as Overly Judgmental. Please be Advised that the Delicious Irony of the Situation is not lost on said Author.

(But it's how I really feel, dang it!)

I'm about to violate a rule I set for myself.

We're all closet legalists, aren't we? By that I mean we all pretend to interface with the world, react to stimuli, make decisions based on rational thought focused by our experiences . . . but we're also list makers, yes? We have our little clipboards filled with checklists to assess our growth, development, correctness.

I have lists I keep in the back of my head. These lists are my lists; you may have similar ones, dissimilar ones, I don't know. One is entitled "Things My Parents Told Me I Will Never Tell My Children" -- this is a list you may have, as well. You know this list, right? Things your parents told you all the time that you swore to never inflict upon your kids? Things like "You think this is something? Everything was so much better when we were younger *sigh*." Or, "In my day, people had respect for others!" Or even the inevitable, "Appreciate what you have, young man! When I was your age I had to . . ." Insert horribly melodramatic tale of woe here, usually punctuated by immense piles of snow and hurricane force winds. Who knew that West Tennessee became Montana for months at a time in the 1950's?

The rule I am about violate has to do with another list I keep. This list is entitled, "Things To Never Write About on Your Blog Because It's a Public Forum, Idiot."

I'll quit stalling now -- I swore I would never mention religion. To begin, I really don't know enough about the Bible. When I was growing up (by the way, those were much better days!) my family did not attend church much . . . my father was a cynical and lapsed Methodist (a Methodist without Method, perhaps?) and my mother was a pseudo-member of a small church that most of the people in our hometown thought of as some kind of strange legalistic cult. When we did attend church (twice a year or so) as a family, we went to mom's cult. Of course, it wasn't really a cult, but I can't blame anyone for thinking so. After all, we were trained (with long sermons and even longer prayers) to snap viciously if anyone -- ANYONE -- assumed that the church we attended had anything at all to do with any other church, even those nearby of the same name. The Baptists called us "Campbellites"; the other churches around us of the same name called us "anti's," or "non-institutionals"; eighteen elderly people and four younger than sixty (including me) called us "home."

Books could be written about my little "home" church and its wonderful ability to sow the seeds of alienation, division, hypocrisy, and discord. Now, I'm going to try very hard not to be judgmental, as they were; I'm going to try very hard not to loose my anger, either, because I know it's ultimately counterproductive.

That church hurt me. It hurt my mother deeply.

I am reminded of a great poem I read years ago (forget the author, sorry) who wrote about his daughter's response to a day camp at a local church: "How could I tell her the truth/That church was a place for people who wanted only/But to hurt other people with their holiness/And keep a Bible filled with rules she could never fathom." I think everyone who has spent time in our fellowship (though the men of my home church would have said "brotherhood" -- sorry ladies, you get only to cook for us) understands the perilous chasm between legalism and liberality. On the one hand, you have rules that can never be kept that seemingly exist only to prove your own worthiness; on the other hand, you've got a universalism that includes everyone, even those who don't ascribe to your values. Spirit AND truth? You've got to be kidding me.

Those more astute among you may be asking, "Great! What does this have to do with anything?" My history with the church reared its head just recently. While browsing other blogs and websites this weekend, I came across a public message forum that disguised itself as an open forum dedicated to discussion in the body of believers. After one post -- ONE post, and remember, I still quote exclusively from the KJV -- I had received a number of "corrective" e-mails that threatened to collapse my computer monitor under the weight of the scriptures included in them for the sake of eliminating my error. Wow. It seems God does not want us to sing a song during the passing of the Lord's Supper. That's apparently VERY bad.

Even reading those last two sentences I am forced to laugh at the outrageousness of their intimacy. Many of you may not know what I'm talking about -- heck, many ***Christians*** have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. In order to understand the concept of the debate, you and I have to be so close in doctrinal belief that the world would see no difference in us. Unfortunately, my new acquaintances on the message board certainly did. I am tempted to write back with some shocking sin -- "What does the Bible say about bestiality, friends? Should I be worried about my salvation if I keep eyeing my dog?" The saddest thing about this story is that they would be far more accepting of that struggle than the idea that our worship styles could be different. All of the old anger I felt at my home church came rushing back in a flood of memory. I literally shook with anger at my keyboard. "Don't they know?" I thought. "Don't they understand how much their inflexibility hurts other people?"

And yet, here I am. I'm still in the church, still looking for truth, still trying to understand.

That right there may be the greatest of the miracles of Jesus Christ. In a fallen world filled with flawed people who use the word of God as a defensive weapon to wall off their own faith, we still search for Him.

Crazy, isn't it?

I'm back . . .

This time, with an M.A. in English.

Thank you. Seven years . . . how can I fully express the futility and frustration I felt for seven years? It's more than a weight, more than a burden, more than an albatross. Maybe now I have the strength to unleash the burgeoning passion in my soul for interpretive dance.

Both of the regular readers of this blog have asked that I give you an example of the poetry I wrote to complete my creative thesis. As much as I would like to publish examples of my poetry, I am concerned that doing so would put this blog just a "This Page Under Construction" sign away from internet hokeyness. Still, my unimaginable need for attention drives me to post some poetry. Love it, hate it -- I don't care. Just send me money! (Ahem.)

Poem #1: Here's my ode to irony, specifically the air of detachment it assumes in a literary context. I love the juxtaposition of the "postmodern" world view, too -- hey, if nothing is real (or at least provable) through the problematic lenses of sensory perception, and if our engagement of the world must only take place from a distance, then why the heck does my hand ache so much?

IRONY

I cut my hand today; I can never seem
To operate the can opener without tragedy.
Blood pooled at my feet. I should have
Realized the beauty in the agony and
Used the greatest weapon in my arsenal
Of artifice: irony. Certainly Thomas Mann
Would elevate my mere misfortune to high
Farce: sure, Tom and Henry James would
Quickly telescope my hand to rest on some
Distant pedestal. Then we could observe together
In our witty detachment, removed from
The messiness that comes in the moment.
But I could not think to detach myself,
To observe and tease from afar. It hurt too much for poetic devices.

Poem #2: Is this over-the-top, or melodramatic? Sure it is. I wanted to write a poem using the second person and see if the intensity (and general furtiveness) it commands would translate well to poetry. Ah, well. It's an experiment.

CATALYST

Go quickly to the stair. You can almost hear
The voices below urging you to breakfast; your mother
Laughs without conviction, your father equivocates.
Go now, hurry! They are simply biding time, awaiting
Your appearance. Yours is the final entrance.
Have you not heard your cues? You know they are
Making small talk to pass the time until you arrive.
You can almost hear them now. How does the script
Read today? Will this lovely, cloud-filled morning
Bring your mother of compromise, who will allow peace
By temporarily ignoring every wound she's carefully salted
For years? Or will the unforgiving eternal sunbeams reveal
Your mother of retribution: a withered, tattered figure held
Together by secret cunning and an awesome mechanical hatred?
It is the same with your father. "Peace, peace at all costs" is his
Credo, though he confuses peace with avoidance. Will he
Play the part of the blustering, expansive patriarch, eager to
Appease and assert? Or will he assume the role of the sniveling
Conniver, excusing himself on the basis of the world's
Conspiracy against him? How will it be between these two,
Who know no other roles than these? What awaits?
Go. Their world hangs upon your entrance.

Poem #3: I won an award for the following poem. Okay, it's an award I made myself with Microsoft Works, but it's an award nonetheless. Oh, it contains a bad word, that I will star out. (My African-American thesis advisor adored this poem and told me it lost its power if I blunted the word in the first line, but I informed him that not starring it here might annoy some AND cause me to lose my job -- please accept my apologies for equivocating, Doc.)

Achilles in Reformatory

I remember: "n**ger" was the word
He craved, like the chaplain craved for Christ;
instant justification
For all the horror of twelve years
Of warfare to flood over his body
Like the Styx --

We watched as he donned
The breastplate of depravity,
The shield of torment,
And the mighty sword of smoldering rage
Forged all those years ago
By Hephaestus's foundry in East St. Louis --

One time, in the cafeteria, it took six guards to put him down.
Sunlight glinted off of forks and food trays.
Chaos reigned.

When his blood lust was sated,
He shared a laugh with Ares
As they walked him down to solitary.

White Hector they carried to Baptist Memorial.

I was secretly relieved when they
Made good on their threat to keep
Him confined, alone: that way
He could make no friends to avenge.

Poem #4: This poem is a villanelle; a villanelle is a chiefly French verse form running on two rhymes and consisting (typically) of five tercets and a quatrain in which the first and third lines of the opening tercet recur alternately at the end of the other tercets and together as the last two lines of the quatrain. Metrically, you're looking at good old iambic pentameter. Remember Dylan Thomas in Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night?

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

(From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1952, 1953 Dylan Thomas.)

Well, I had to write a number of verse forms: x number of sestinas, x number of Petrarchan sonnets, x number of Elizabethan sonnets, x number of Spenserian sonnets, etc. I had to submit one villanelle. Interestingly enough, I have only ever written one villanelle, and I wrote it as a response to James Joyce's autobiographical novel The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Though I adored the book, I did occasionally tire of his portrayal of Stephen Daedalus as the uber-intellectual youth. Thinking back, I decided to write of my heroic childhood in a villanelle.

Villanelle: A Portrait of This Artist as a Young Man

Try not to pick your nose in church today.
Old ladies weep when burdened by your snot --
Show manners once in your young life, okay?

Yes, every week the ladies swoon, for they
Believed at first you had some kind of clot.
Try not to pick your nose in church today.

The worst is when you bow your head to pray:
Must we buy you some kind of chamber-pot?
Show manners once in your young life, okay?

We talk about this every week, I say!
This you will learn if I must force the thought --
Try not to pick your nose in church today.

And even if MY anger is allayed
You know what happened to the wife of Lot!
Show manners once in your young life, okay?

I tell you son, this is the only way.
(Your father teaches lessons best forgot.)
Try not to pick your nose in church today.
Show manners once in your young life, okay?

Thus endeth the boredom. If you wish to taunt me, go ahead. Only know that I am, with a graduate degree from THE Georgia Southern University, sufficiently academically accomplished to ignore your cruelty.

Apologies . . . it's the summer, we just moved into our new house, I'm still driving four hours both ways to graduate school, and my home computer is on the fritz . . . updates will likely be sporadic until late July . . . I know the web needs me, and I'm sorry to seperate you from my genius . . . hello? Is anybody out there? Just as I suspected . . . the world is not ready for me. Go ahead and hate me -- you merely empower my own bitter cynicism. I'm getting a black beret, a tweed jacket, and a mocha latte: soon I will be seen at coffeehouses throughout the south, laconically commenting on the state of world affairs and how it is not my place as an outsider to "engage" it.

Don't you hate those people? Now, I'm pretty much a liberal Democrat (RANT ALERT! RANT ALERT!) but I absolutely despise those people who thrive on their smug ironic commentary. Sure we as a nation (I mean America, not the Democrats) have done despicable, horrible things -- same atrocities, I might add, that every nation has committed -- but I can't stand people who wallow in the pig muck of mistake and guilt. If we are mistaken, help us see it, understand it, and fix it. In my graduate school class (an overview of American literature, this term) there are a number of people who espouse a philosophy centered around the evil that is America . . . every class period I hear how the American Dream is a lie propagated by the powerful, fed by our wanton consumerism, conspired into being by every American citizen; indeed, Marx would be proud, as it is the new opiate of the masses. There is no freedom! they cry. America's insipid class system is destroying us all! they scream. What a terrible place! they moan. We've had an entire class period where various members of my class have decried the Satan masquerading as the American public school system for making them read Mark Twain. I am not kidding. I drive home every night with a headache.

Run for office. Petition your congressman. Get involved in your community efforts. Move. If America is such a horrible place, either do something about it or get out. Before you jump ship for North Korea, however, ask yourself where else in the world you will find the sheer amount of opportunity that exists here in the United States of America. Do some people enjoy greater advantages here? Certainly, and we don't need to kid ourselves that the fight for equality in this country is even halfway over. Think for a moment about that sentence, though: how many other countries around the world struggle with -equality-? How many other governments espouse a commitment to diversity? I can think of at least 17 countries offhand that make assembling en masse to protest the government a crime punishible by jail time or even death (in extreme circumstances.) Here? It's a -right- given us by the first amendment to our Constitution! And we have the gall to say that we are being -OPPRESSED- by the American government, and lied to by the American Dream?

I have a secret dream of my own: you might call it my American Dream. I see seven or eight of my classmates weathering storm, famine, and thirst on a rickety boat for days until finally reaching their freedom by washing ashore on the Cuban coast. Of course I'll not be with them. I've chosen oppression and Mark Twain.

Did you ever desperately need to be putting grades in your school computer, or grading final exams, or boxing the 7,230 books you own for transport to the house you just purchased, or reading Mansfield Park, or trying to catch up on sleep you've missed because you drive seven hours to graduate school twice a week?

Yep.

So here's the stuff I've found on the internet recently that's fascinated me . . . a hearty Dyersburg thanks to everyone who e-mailed in to contribute to this list -- oh yes, that's only me, Brad Denton, mad props. I am my own peeps. Holla!

(Can you tell I'm not sleeping well?)

1. Random Shirts, Home of the $10.00 tee!: Wow. I've already purchased the double sided "Calvinism -- This shirt chose me/Armenianism -- I chose this shirt" tee, so don't think you've cornered the market on individuality, hombre. I am more expressive than you are, by cracky! (If you know what "by cracky" means, please write in and explain it to me. Or should I do like that weird guy in my grad school class and refer to myself using the editorial and royal "we." Yep, I like that better. If you know what "by cracky" means, please write in and explain it to us.)

2. Lee's Useless Super-Hero Generator: Cresting the wave of popularity created by my mention of the Internet Anagram Server (see earlier post), I only fear that mention of this site will encumber web traffic to the point that all credit card transactions in the U.S. may cease. Hundreds of you -- nay, thousands -- wrote in to say that you enjoyed the Anagram Server, so I offer this to you, you one of many who adore me! Ha ha ha -- I've gone mad!

Ahem.

Anyway, here are my five randomly generated super identities:

Mad Enigma
Power(s): Glows in the dark, Hypnosis
Source of powers: Cybernetics
Weapon: Atomic Pitchfork
Transportation: Vibro 4x4

Wind Midget
Power(s): Super-human stamina, Super strength, Light generation/control
Source of powers: Unknown
Weapon: Foam Pellets
Transportation: Alpha SUV

Archfighter
Power(s): Energy blasts, Animate/control the dead
Source of powers: Unexplained
Weapon: Ether Hammer
Transportation: Insect Glider

Detective Tornado
Power(s): Seventh sense, Flight, Heat generation
Source of powers: Chemical
Weapon: Magnocarbine
Transportation: Crimson Chair

Stone Lad
Power(s): Friction manipulation, Psychic, Super jumping
Source of powers: Abnormal brain function
Weapon: Celestial Rifle
Transportation: Squirrel Catamaran

To be perfectly honest, I've always dreamed of sailing around the world on a catamaran made of squirrels. Uh, shooting foam pellets at people. Um, from my magnocarbine. Righhhhhhhhht. With my warcry of "Fear the Mad Enigma!" I will fight crime using only my manipulation of friction! Evil beware!

3. Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie: For protection against mind control, of course. Isn't it strange how you find these things? I had an eighth grader who was procrastinating on our career day; he was to have completed at home an online career survey called "Future Focus." Needless to say, he had not finished it and asked to use the computer in my homeroom. He started Internet Explorer, but he could not remember the name of the website where the survey was located. He decided that www.futurefocus.com was a likely site, and so he was directed here. This site, however, was for Future Focus, Inc., a corporate security and investigation site. Intrigued by the "case studies" they presented on the front page, I decided to poke around on the site. That's where I found the aluminum foil link above, and this: the greatest disclaimer in the history of mankind. After reading this, I knew that this site was being produced by one lone pasty guy in a cubicle and not the work of a shadowy organization whose resources rival those of the Central Intelligence Agency.

4. Trinkaus -- An Informal Look: From the Annals of Improbable Research, in itself a fascinating site. Trinkaus is a professor of statistics who has found the perfect way to circumvent the large university "publish or perish" mentality by publishing constantly -- about nothing. I love this guy, and the story is absolutely true.

5. The Political Graveyard: Politicians On Money: Who hasn't forgotten the name of the guy on the dollar coin? Well, I have not -- it's Eisenhower. Okay, what about the guy on the first $500 note issued by the treasury. Easy -- it's Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin, of course. Who was the "Poo Bah of the Confederacy," the man on the $2 Confederate note? Simple -- it's Judah Philip Benjamin. If you think for one second I knew any of those before I went to the site, well, you're correct, and I'm a huge loser.

Hopefully, like me, you can avoid most of the things that you need to be doing with these simple diversions. Rock on, people. Rock on.

Well, the check didn't bounce. Hallelujah!

We're homeowners.

More internet stuff. I LOVE the internet stuff. I decided today to "Google" my best friend Dustin -- you've "Googled" a friend, right? Or at least "Googled" yourself, you solipsist! (Even the fact that I've written this in the second person is putting a hop in your step, admit it!) I thought that a name like "Dustin Adkins" would be rare enough as to give me the current information about MY friend Dustin. So I went to "Google" Dustin Adkins, and here are the results:

1. Dustin Adkins, President of Mountain State University Students for Bush! (Not my Dustin, I assure you.)

2. Dustin Adkins, the losing pitcher for the Wichita Rattlers! (Hmm. My Dustin is an extremely unathletic Democrat. Not him.)

3. Dustin Adkins, 5th Place (Senior Division) International Conference 2001 Scenario Writing Winner, Future Problem Solving Program! (Well, Dustin and I graduated together in 1993 from Dyersburg High School in Dyersburg, Tennessee, so I'm hoping he didn't have to remediate for 8 years. In Kentucky. Wouldn't that be a slap in the face of Tennessee education? Your high school was so bad, you had to do 8 more years of it in Kentucky? Have mercy.)

4. Dustin Adkins, Champion Supreme Dairy Female, 10th Annual Livestock Expo-West! (Wow. How the mighty have fallen. Good luck having a future after you've been saddled [no pun intended] with that award by the Department of Agriculture. "What'd you win, Dustin?" "Uh, Supreme Dairy Female." "Dear Lord, what have they done?")

5. Dustin Adkins, Powder Metallurgy Technologist, Level 1! (What can I say here? I'm not even sure what this is!)

And there are so many more fun Dustins that time will not allow me to tell their varied and disparate stories. Suffice to say, you would be horrifically bored.

If you read the earlier post, you know that I'm back in grad school to finish my M.A.

What classes am I taking, you ask?

You'll all be glad to know that my two seminar topics have amazing relevance to my current career as a junior high English teacher. The first seminar boldly proclaims its message without omitting any extraneous details -- Seminar in the 19th Century English Novel: Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte. That's right! I'm not just reading Emma, no ma'am! Nor am I just reading Emma and Mansfield Park, no no! I'm reading Emma, Mansfield Park, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre! If my eyeballs can survive this month without being forcibly self-extricated using a spoon, I count this month a raging success. Needless to say, I'm not exactly pumped about this half of the class.

However, I've found that I need to be forced to read novels out of my interest field, and I usually end up loving them. So far, I really enjoy the professor, and I love the eccentrics that work on a M.A. at GaSou.

The second half of the seminar promises to be much more exciting (for me, anyway!) -- Seminar: Flannery O'Connor. Now I adore O'Connor's work; she's long been a personal favorite. Plus, she's distinctly a Southern author, perhaps the prototypical Southern author, and I am more interested in Southern American than I am Southern British, 19th century style.

Next update? I'll let you know if the eyeballs make it.

Big things happening here. As most of you know . . . wait, wait, no . . . as NONE of you know, I am an alumnus of Georgia Southern University. Yes, that Georgia Southern University, the home of the finest English Department on the eastern seaboard! Uh, the eastern seaboard of Georgia. Hmm . . . finest English Department for a *public institution* located on the eastern seaboard of Georgia. No, the finest . . . well, you get the idea.

How did I choose GaSou, you ask? Hearken back with me to the dog days of Spring 1997: how well did you know your future then? I was getting married in June 1998 -- that much about my future I knew in 1997 -- and I had no earthly idea what I was going to do with my life. I had recently graduated from David Lipscomb University (the home of the finest English Department in an American-Restoration-Movement-derived college or university located within the city limits of Metropolitan Nashville/Davidson County) and the employment field confided to me by my college-entrance-mandated career survey (package deal with the Myers-Briggs; "Psychologist/Counselor" and ENFP on the same day, can you believe all the self-awareness I gained that day?) didn't really appeal to me. So: I had won medals at graduation (for something?) from the English Deparment; I was an English major; I was president of Sigma Tau Delta (STD!!!!!!!!) the English honorary society; my advisor and confidante was an English professor. Strangely, I somehow felt that graduate school in English was in my future.

But where to go? Somewhere close to Jami (who would be in Florida student teaching in the second semester of 97-98; also, the June wedding would be there. . .) Plus, somewhere cheap (Public!) and somewhere I could still be admitted, despite the fact it was late March of 1997. Florida State and the University of Florida? All materials due December 15, 1996, thank you very much. University of Central Florida, South Florida, North Florida? No admission after February 1, 1997; no exceptions. Even Valdosta State turned me down (March 1, 1997).

But GaSou had (and has) a rolling admission policy, and they were downright eager to take my money. So I spent 1997-1998 there, doing my coursework for an M.A. in English. It was actually a very good graduate education, all my joking to the contrary.

Of course, I didn't finish my thesis. A million times you've heard this, right? Breeze through the coursework, don't finish the thesis. I began a perfectly serviceable thesis on the humanist framework found in the later novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; my advisor hated it. So, I started another on a different aspect of his work; never did finish it.

End of grad school. Kaput, right?

Well, no. I never finished my academic thesis, no, but I did channel my inner writer enough to finish a creative thesis in poetry (enjoyed that much more than the non-creative one) and [INSERT DRUMROLL HERE] I discovered that under the conversion to the semester system from the quarter system I needed six more hours of coursework to finish the degree. So I signed up for the course, and here I am . . . with one six hour seminar between me without the M.A. and me with academic bliss.

Here's where the fun begins: I did not know that I lacked coursework until March of this year (March to March, eh -- a fearful symmetry there; Blake would be proud!) and as I am up against the seven year rule, I must finish before August. So I need six hours worth of credit this summer from Georgia Southern. Easy, huh?

I didn't know until yesterday that GaSou had changed its academic semesters in the summer so that the first course started in May . . . May 11 to be precise. So that's why I found myself hightailing it to Statesboro, GA, a three-and-a-half hour trek from my current Atlanta home, in order to make it to my graduate class at 6:30. Oh, yes, I drove back last night, too, when the class ended. At 10:30. So I got home around 1:45 AM or so, just in time to collapse and awaken at 6:15 in order to teach my eighth graders. Yep. I've gotta do this twice a week until the end of school.

However, I'm excited by the prospect of the high adventure that goes along with finishing this seven-year-long chapter in my life; I need epic drama and torment in order to give meaning to those things that would otherwise be devoid of significance.

I need sound and fury. For me they signify . . . everything.