The Curse Of Cursive

My kindergarten teacher only taught me two letters of the alphabet: the letter "D" and the letter "O".  She never mentioned that there were more than two letters in the alphabet.  She never even taught me "U" and "G", so I could spell my name: D-O-U-G.

Looking back, I think what she needed was an identifying mark for me to put in the corner of my finger paintings so she could tell my finger paintings from all the other finger paintings in the class.  I am guessing that there was no Donald and no Doris in my Kindergarten class, so “DO” was distinctive enough. 

It was up to the first grade teacher to teach all 26 letters in the alphabet, both capital and small.  Now I could write Dick and Jane and Spot and Doug.  Things were going great until I hit third grade.

The third grade teacher told us that the system of handwriting that we knew, called printing, was inferior.  We now needed to learn a whole new system of handwriting, called cursive.  Suddenly, I had to think about shape (a capital cursive "A" does not look like a capital printed "A"). I had to think about connectivity (you were not allowed to lift your pen from the paper until the end of a word -- unless the word started with a capital "D").  I had to think about proportion (two-thirds of a small cursive “f” must be above the line and one-third must be below). 

Worst of all, the teacher graded me on how my writing looked --- not on what my writing said.

I went along with the program until sixth grade.  I was eleven years old, and I knew that I did not want people to look at my writing --- I wanted people to read my writing.  

I went up to my sixth-grade teacher and whined: do I really have to write in cursive?  She struck a deal with me: I would write in cursive in sixth grade, but once I graduated and went on to junior high school, I could print everything.

I looked forward to junior high with great anticipation.

From age twelve on, I never wrote in cursive again. Once I broke the chains, I was a happy writer.  Not only was I a happy writer, I was a focused writer.  My printing was very legible --- I was aware that other people could easily read what I wrote, so I had better write something worth reading. 

I lived cursive free until I joined the army. 

To get my monthly pay from Uncle Sam I had to salute, speak my serial number, and sign.  I would salute the commanding officer and say, “US52764669 reporting for pay, Sir.”  Then I had to write my name in the pay book in cursive; the army called this a “payroll signature”.

I still haven’t gotten rid of the cursive in my signature, but to me cursive is dead.  It died on the last day of sixth grade in 1955.  I don’t miss it one bit.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

I Was A Teenage Angel

When I was in high school, I became an angel.  I was not the kind of angel with wings, halo, and harp.  Instead, I became a Broadway angel, the kind that bankrolls Broadway plays.

Actually, it was an off-Broadway play.

A high school classmate invited a bunch of his friends to a play reading in his parents’ living room.  The playwright, the director, and the producer of a play were there seeking financial backers.  I was thrilled to be in the same room as real theater people. 

The play was called “Angels of Anadarko”.  As portions of the script were being read aloud, I was swept up in the story about an immigrant family that moves to Anadarko, Oklahoma.  The family struggles to learn American ways while dreaming of striking it rich.

Shares in “Angels of Anadarko” were one hundred dollars each.  Ten of us high school students chipped in ten dollars each, and bought one share.  We became angels.

I went to see the play after it opened off-Broadway.  Although I only owned one-tenth of a share, I considered the play to be my own personal achievement. 

On stage was a modest Oklahoma house with a modest exploratory oil well in the front yard.  We watched the immigrant family struggling with American ways --- mainly, they struggled to learn the rules of baseball.  We watched the family dreaming of striking it rich --- sure enough, the oil well started gushing during the second act of the play.

I left the theater bursting with pride.

Then I read the review in The Village Voice:

I can imagine no useful purpose in an extensive analysis of "Angels of Anadarko", which is among the worst plays --- in production --- that I have had the misfortune to see in a legitimate off-Broadway theater.  Certainly no useful purpose was served by its being produced.  My personal feeling is that no one has the right to inflict this kind of incompetent trash on an audience in the professional theater, and it makes me angry.

The review made me angry.  But maybe I should have been proud instead.  Not only had my ten dollars helped finance a play, it had helped create the worst theater review in New York history.

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You can read the complete issue of that Village Voice online (October 18, 1962).  To rub salt in my wounds, the week that Angels of Anadarko opened was also the week that Edward Albee's "Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?" opened.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1299&dat=19621018&id=lUtPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1I8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4084,4439512

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Hair Vs. Lauren Bacall

I was visiting my parents just outside of New York City, and I invited a friend from Seattle to come visit as well.  My brother and sister-in-law and their children were also visiting, but my parents found a way to squeeze in Nick, my friend from Seattle.

I picked Nick up at the airport, and brought him to my parents’ house.  As a joke, I introduced my sister-in-law, saying she lives out West in Cleveland.  

Nick, who grew up 2,500 miles west of Cleveland, was incredulous.  He asked my sister-in-law if Cleveland was really in the West, and she replied: “Cleveland sure ain’t in the East.”  I think she was speaking for herself, not merely going along with my joke.

Nick had two requests for his visit to New York City: he wanted to see a Broadway play, and he hoped to see a guy named George Feldman, the only other person he knew in the area besides me.  I told Nick I would get us tickets to a play.  However, since there were ten million people in the New York City area, it would be impossible to see George Feldman --- Nick did have his address or phone number.

Our first jaunt into New York City was to see an underground movie. 

Underground movies were low-budget artsy movies --- a new concept in America.  The film we saw was Chafed Elbows, which mixed some 35mm photos developed in a Walgreen’s drugstore with live scenes thrown in.  The film, whose main character was a man who once had a hysterectomy, was totally in bad taste.  It was produced by Robert Downey, Sr., whose wife played all of the 12 female roles in the film.

Nick and I were suitably astonished by Chafed Elbows.  Nick, however, was disappointed that we did not watch this underground movie while underground; it was shown in a small theater at street level.

We walked out of the theater, and heard a voice call: “Hey, Nick!”  It was George Feldman.  The odds were ten million to one that we would bump into him on a New York sidewalk, but bump into him we did.

Our second jaunt into the City was to see a Broadway play. 

I was torn about which play to see.  The City was plastered with posters for a play called Hair, which billed itself as "America’s First Tribal Love-Rock Musical".  I had no idea what a tribal love-rock musical was.  So, I got tickets to Cactus Flower because it starred Lauren Bacall, the husky-voiced actress who appeared opposite Humphrey Bogart in many movies.

It was a thrill to see Lauren Bacall live on stage.  But as the play dragged on, I got the impression that everyone in the theater was there to see Lauren Bacall live on stage.  The play was pretty forgettable.

Eventually I would get to see Hair, and realize that I should have purchased tickets to that show instead of a piece of theatrical fluff like Cactus Flower.

Hair addressed contemporary issues.  Claude is one of the main characters, who wears tie-dye clothes and sports long hair.  He spends most of the show agonizing over getting drafted.  At the end of the play, Claude appears on stage, hard to recognize because he now wears a military uniform and his hair is short.  He declares, “Like it or not, they got me.”

The cast of Hair then sings a song with the poignant lyrics: “Inside something there is a rush of greatness.  Who knows what stands in front of us.”

Within a few short years after Nick’s visit to New York City, both Nick and I would be wearing military uniforms and our hair would be short.  Like it or not, they got us. 

We were in the Army, at one point stationed at the same fort, waiting to see what stands in front of us.  Waiting to let the sunshine in.

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The last six minutes of Hair (the film, not the play)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhNrqc6yvTU

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

If The Viet Cong Invaded Hershey, Pennsylvania

It was the morning of the third day of being inducted into the United States Army.  I knew that this was the day I would lose my moustache.

We would be marched to the post barber shop where all our hair would be cut off and our faces shaved clean.  The Army was going to destroy my moustache.

I decided I would beat the Army to it.  On that third morning, I shaved off my own moustache.  The post barber still cut off all my hair.  After the barber, we were marched to the post photographer, who took photos for our Army IDs.

I missed my moustache, and yearned to get it back.  I found a set of Army regulations and looked up facial hair.  The regulations said that a soldier can have facial hair only if he has facial hair on the photo of his ID.

How could I get around this Catch-22?  I looked at my ID with my clean-shaven photo.  I noticed that the birth date on my ID was off by one day. 

I took a risk and started growing a moustache.  As soon as I thought the moustache was long enough to show up on a photo, I went to post headquarters and demanded a new ID with my correct birth date.  A new ID meant a new photo, and now my newly-grown moustache was on my ID. 

I was safe.  Or was I? 

The Army made us watch a Scary Training Film about Communists.  It was in black-and-white, poorly acted, and reminded me of a junior high science film.  

Communists took over a town in the middle of the night.  The next morning, people were thrown in jail without trial, and lots of other bad things happened.  The Communists were easy to identify: they had uniforms, they carried rifles, and every last one of them sported a moustache.

My moustache was legitimate because it was on my Army ID, but it put me under suspicion.  Nevertheless, I continued to wear a moustache.

A friend of mine told me about the time he applied for non-combat status.  Then it became clear why the Army had shown us a film about Communists taking over a town

My friend did not want to go to Vietnam and kill people.  He wanted to become a medic and go to Vietnam and heal people.  He went before a board led by the adjutant general, where he was grilled about his beliefs, culminating in the Big Question.

My friend was from Hershey, Pennsylvania.  So, the Big  Question the board asked him was: “What would you do if the Viet Cong invaded Hershey, Pennsylvania?” 

He did not really answer the question; he just said that Hershey was in no danger of invasion.  They granted him non-combat status anyway, and he served as a medic in Vietnam.

After his time in the Army, my friend went back to Hershey. 

I always wondered if the Scary Training Film and the Big Question had an impact on him.  I wondered if he spent any time watching out for boats coming up the Susquehanna River --- boats filled with Asian-looking men, in uniform, carrying rifles, every last one of them sporting a moustache.

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Here is another Scary Armed Forces Information Film: "How To Spot A Communist" (one minute long):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkYl_AH-qyk

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Bob, Quid, Guinea

When I arrived for the first time in Nigeria, there was a lot of adjusting to do.

I had to adjust to an unfamiliar climate and unfamiliar food.  I had to teach in a school system based on the British school system, and I had to very quickly learn how to deal with a non-decimal monetary system.

Nigeria --- just like Britain at the time --- used pounds, shillings, and pence.  (Pence if you are talking about an amount of money, but pennies if you were talking about the metal coins.)  They also had a half penny, sometimes called a ha’penny just like in the old folk song. 

This system was an arithmetical challenge: there are 12 pence in one shilling.  And 20 shillings in a pound.  Stop --- multiply 12 times 20 in your head --- that makes 240 pence in a pound!

To make things interesting, there were nicknames --- A pound was called a quid, and a shilling was called a bob.  Even more interesting: the abbreviation for a penny was “d”.

Plus, there was a unit of charity.  One never donated a pound; one always donated a guinea to a charity.  A guinea equals a pound plus a shilling, which would make it equal to 21 bob, or maybe 252 pence, or 504 ha’pence.

As an American who grew up with a decimal monetary system, learning all this was formidable. 

I once saw a Nigerian elementary school arithmetic textbook; it contained page after page of currency problems.  I pitied the Nigerian kids in second grade who spent an enormous amount of time multiplying 12 times 20.

Physically, the Nigerian pennies and ha’pennies were quaint: they were circular with a hole in the middle.  I made fun of these coins until the day I saw someone carrying a bunch of pennies on a string.  Then I realized that the hole in the coin is not quaint; it is practical.

Design-wise, the Nigerian pennies and ha’pennies had the Star of David on them.  The Star of David was ideal for a coin with a hole in the middle.  However, the design did make me wonder if I was living amongst one the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

I loudly proclaimed the superiority of decimal currency to my Nigerian friends.  They did not believe me when I said that decimal currency was simple.  Pounds-shillings-pence was second-nature to them.

Luckily, the Central Bank of Nigeria believed that decimal currency was simple.  They switched the country to a decimal currency in 1973.

Now I no longer need to pity the Nigerian kids in second grade.


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SONG: If you haven't got a penny, then a ha'penny will do.  A young woman plays guitar and sings the old folk song (1.5 minutes):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbIbjLGEas8

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Brains - 25 Cents

I entered a Chinese restaurant and ordered a St. Paul sandwich.  It was a big moment --- the moment when I finished my list of foods to try that are only found in St. Louis.

Actually, it is a list of vegetarian foods to try.  Therefore, my list did not include a Brain Sandwich, once so popular that ads for it were painted on buildings.  Crispy pig snoots did not make the list.  Pork steaks, a staple of St. Louis BBQ, are also not on the list.

My vegetarian list contained five unique St. Louis foods: gooey butter cake, St. Louis pizza, toasted ravioli (cheese-filled), concretes, and St. Paul sandwiches.

Gooey butter cake is easy to find in St. Louis, but there are dozens of variations, and it took a long time to find a really good version (at Sugaree Bakery in Dogtown).

St. Louis pizza was invented by a man who was changing his career from laying floor tile to making pizza.  He hated stringy pizza, so he invented a cheese called provel that would not be stringy when melted.  He did not cut his pizza in wedges; he cut it in squares, just like floor tiles.  St. Louis pizza crust is thin and crispy, reminiscent of a saltine.

Toasted ravioli was not really new to me; it was featured on the menu of a restaurant near the place where I worked near Boston.  Toasted ravioli there was an appetizer or an entrée, and you could get it with red sauce or white sauce.  How toasted ravioli made it from St. Louis to Waltham, Massachusetts, I do not know.

When I moved to St. Louis, concretes became an instant hit with me because they are made of frozen custard.  Frozen custard was a summertime treat back when I was a kid on Long Island.  St. Louis has ramped up the idea of frozen custard, adding in a wide range of mix-in choices: fruit, chocolate, nuts, coconut, malt, gummi bears.  The frozen custard in St. Louis is thick --- so thick that it does not fall out of the cup when you turn the cup upside down.

The last item on my list of foods to try that are only found in St. Louis, a St. Paul sandwich, is only served in a few Chinese restaurants. 

I lived in St. Louis for 15 years before I tracked one down.  I ordered the vegetarian version, and here is what I got: an egg foo young patty, along with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, and thin sliced pickles, between two slices of white bread, wrapped up in a sheet of sandwich paper.  It was surprisingly good.

I couldn’t wait to tell my St. Louis friends that I had achieved a milestone and had eaten a St. Paul sandwich.  Most friends were dumbfounded; even though they had lived in St. Louis all their lives, they had never heard of a St. Paul sandwich.  I had to describe the sandwich, and they cringed when they heard the ingredients. 

In fact, one friend said I should have followed up my sandwich by swallowing some Tums --- Tums, after all, were invented in St. Louis.

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A man filmed a 1-minute YouTube tribute to his St. Paul sandwich.  Raucous music by Dutch Jackson, a St. Louis hip hop artist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK4QqnJ7MZQ

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

In Praise Of Mud

The head of the local chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians knows that I used to live in a mud house. 

So, I have been asked to give a lecture about mud architecture in West Africa.  In my lecture I will be praising mud.  I will start off with a picture of the grandest mud building in Africa: the Friday Mosque in Djenne, Mali (see photo above). 

The mud house I lived in was not grand.  It was one-story and small, but I was fond of it.

Mud is an excellent building material for the tropics.  It is readily available and inexpensive.  Thick mud walls absorb heat during the tropical day, keeping you cool.  At night, they give off the heat they have trapped, keeping you warm ---- warmth is important for the aged and the infirm.

Ceilings were made by laying straw mats across white palm timbers (the only wood that African termites do not eat).  Then a layer of mud is laid on top of the mats to make a roof.

The enemy of a mud house is rain.  In the tropics, the rainy season only lasts about two months; it may rain every day, but it only rains for a couple of hours.

My roof was protected by metal spouts that stuck out over the courtyard, directing rain water away from the roof and keeping rain water from running down the walls.  For extra security, I had all the exterior walls covered in a semi-waterproof plaster made from crushed locust beans.  It was a lovely shade of dark brown. The plaster was applied with sweeping hand motions, which gave the walls an interesting visual rhythm.

An American house is surrounded by a yard.  My African house was the opposite; it was a courtyard surrounded by a house.  The courtyard had flowers and trees and was pleasant.

A 9-foot-high wall went all around the lot, and each room of the house was placed up against the outside wall.  The rooms had only one door, which opened into the courtyard.  So, if you wanted to go from the living room to the dining room, you had to walk through the courtyard to get to the dining room.  Likewise, to get from the dining room to the bedroom, you could only get there by walking through the courtyard.

Some rooms had windows, which all faced the courtyard

There was one entrance room, the only room with two doors: a door to the street and a door into the courtyard.  There was no doorbell or door knocker.  When someone came to visit me, they would stand at the front door and shout a blessing: “Peace be upon you.”

Then I would welcome them with a blessing in response: “And upon you, peace.”

The visitor would go through the entrance room, and then bend over to go through the door into the courtyard.  This second door was purposely built low, so that the visitor must bow to enter the house.

In the courtyard, the visitor would find peace.  The tall surrounding walls kept the noise and bustle of the outside world at bay; the flowers and trees gave off serenity, the dark hand-plaster lent an air of dignity.  

Yes, it was like finding peace.

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YouTube video of me describing how I came to live in a mud house in West Africa (11 minutes):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw16p1HQnc8

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com