Do Not Upstage The Earth Science Teacher

I took a course in earth science when I was in junior high school.

One day, the teacher held a “science bee”, which was similar to a spelling bee.  We all stood up, and were each asked an earth science question.  If you got the answer wrong, you had to sit down.  This continued until there was one person left standing.

My turn.  The teacher asked me, “When is the earth closest to the Sun?”  My mind started grinding away.  Equinox/solstice --- no, they’re not right.  Aphelion/perihelion --- I never could remember which one meant close and which one meant far.  Finally, I blurted out an answer:

“The earth is closest to the Sun on Sundays.”

As soon as the class started to roar with laughter, I knew I had made a big faux pas.  I had upstaged the earth science teacher. 

Now, instead of sitting down, I had to bend over.  I knew the routine: I stood at the sink in the front of the classroom, put one hand on the cold water faucet and one hand on the hot water faucet, and bent over.  Mr. Shapiro then whacked my derriere with a blackboard pointer.

It did not hurt; the goal was humiliation, not harshness.  It was the equivalent of the hook used to yank unpopular acts off of a vaudeville stage.  After all, it was earth science class, and Mr. Shapiro wanted to be the source of all humor.

We graduated from junior high school that year, and many people signed my copy of the yearbook: “Doug, have fun on Sundays!”

Thirty-four years later, I went to my high school reunion. Our old teachers had been invited, and Mr. Shapiro showed up.  He was carrying his copy of the yearbook. 

I greeted him, asked him for his yearbook and his pen, and sat down.  I turned to the page where I had written some drivel in his yearbook: “Mr. Shapiro, thank you for the interesting earth science classes.”

It was time to rectify things. It was time to write what I was too timid to write when I was fourteen years old: “Mr. Shapiro, the earth really is closest to the Sun on Sundays!”

Now I am helping plan our fiftieth high school reunion, and I sent out an email to everyone on our distribution list.  I was surprised at how many people responded to my email:  “Hey, Doug, good to hear from you.  Are you still having fun on Sundays?”

Fifty-four years after that science bee, some of my classmates still remember me as the person who dared to upstage the earth science teacher.

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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

The Shores Of Flushing Bay

The Matinecock Indians gathered fish and shellfish in the bay.  When the Dutch settlers came in the seventeenth century, they named it Vlissigen Bay after a seaport in Holland.  When the English took over, they pronounced the name as Flushing.  The bay became a waterfront resort for wealthy New Yorkers in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. 

In the twentieth century, it was no longer a resort, and became home to LaGuardia Airport, where I worked as an airport engineer.  I was on a survey crew, and I got to know some of the airport’s neighbors.

LaGuardia’s airplanes take off over water, most of them flying directly over Riker’s Island, which is New York City’s main prison.  Sometimes our crew needed to survey on the island.  One time, our boss decided to make our excursion to prison more pleasant; he asked his wife to make lunches for the crew.  Her specialty: pot roast sandwiches.

I didn’t know you could make sandwiches out of pot roast.

We got to Riker’s Island by the prison ferry, did some surveying, and took a break for lunch.  I sat on a seawall, and started to eat my pot roast sandwich.  There was a lot of trash floating in the water below me.

The trash included a dead rat bobbing in the little waves.  I noticed that the dead rat was gray.  In fact, it was the same color gray as the pot roast sandwich.  My appetite disappeared.

Besides surveying in a prison, we got to survey in a sewage treatment plant on the shores of Flushing Bay. 

The supervisor of the treatment plant always greeted us.  The World’s Fair was going on that summer, and he wanted us to know that all the sewage from the Fair went through his facility.  The fact that his facility could handle this huge amount of sewage made him proud.

One time he wanted us to know that the facility did a great job of treating sewage.  There was a little tap on one of the tanks; he filled a glass with some liquid from the tank.

“This liquid is the end result of our treatment, and it is fit for human consumption”.  He held the glass up to the sunlight for us.  It was like an invitation --- come sample the cleansed sewage from the World’s Fair.

But no one on the survey crew took him up on the invitation. 

In my mind, the shores of Flushing Bay were associated with a busy airport, a huge prison, and a sewage treatment plant.  Not a happy picture. 

Then I read that Nathan Hale was captured on the shores of Flushing Bay on September 21, 1776.  The next day he was hanged, after announcing that he regretted that he had but one life to give for his country.  

Definitely not a happy picture.

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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 Cannot Look A Mango In The Eye

Living in Africa changed my perspective on some fruits and vegetables.

West Africans enjoy spicy food and they use peppers to make their food hot.  The markets are full of all kinds of peppers, but I never once saw a green pepper – the heatless, spice-less kind that are sold in American supermarkets, the kind that I grew up with.

I missed green peppers.  When I left Africa, I took a plane to Frankfurt, Germany.  It was my first time on German soil.  I did not go looking for a bratwurst or a pretzel or for a stein of German beer; I looked for a green pepper.

I found a grocery store, bought a green pepper, and sat on a park bench.  I bit into my first green pepper in years: heatless, spice-less, reassuringly bland.  It could have used some salt, but it was bursting with moisture, and I was happily transported back to my childhood.

West Africans generally do not eat potatoes. 

However, if you knew where to look, you could find potatoes for sale in the city where I lived.  Potatoes were rare and they do not keep well in a tropical climate; so, their price was escalated accordingly.  I learned to live without them.

Sometimes, I would splurge on a restaurant meal: steak and fried potatoes.  The fried potatoes were quaintly called chips, just like in Britain.  I considered it a luxury meal --- not because of the steak, but because of the chips.

Even today, thirty-five years since I left Africa, whenever I eat potatoes I think of them as a treat.

But mangoes are not a treat. 

In Africa, I was paid monthly, and I would often run out of money at the end of the month.  That was the time for mangoes.  They cost two pennies each, and I could fill up on mangoes very cheaply. 

The city streets were planted with mango trees, and children threw rocks at the mangoes to dislodge them.  The children, eager to earn some cash, did not give the mangoes a chance to ripen fully.

This meant I was filling up on mangoes that tasted faintly like kerosene because they hadn’t ripened. 

Today when I see a mango in the supermarket, I can’t look it in the eye.  It is a vivid reminder of the days when my money ran out.

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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

As Cedar Falls, So Falls Waterloo

I received an email from Iain Boyd, who lives in New Zealand. 

I had written a Scottish country dance and posted it on the Internet.  Iain had seen the dance, liked it, and wanted to teach it in his dance class.  However, he was sure that his fellow New Zealanders would appreciate an explanation of the dance title.

The dance was written for Lee and Karen Potter, who were celebrating their first anniversary by unveiling a new dance floor they had installed in their house on the banks of the Cedar River in Cedar Falls, Iowa. 

The dance title: “As Cedar Falls, So Falls Waterloo”.

Explaining my title to a New Zealander seemed formidable, but I gave it a try:

DEAR IAIN:

In the USA in the 1930's, it was believed that whatever political party won the state elections in the state of Maine would be the party that won the Presidential elections the same year. Someone came up with the saying "As Maine goes, so goes the nation."

So, the structure “as goes, so goes” indicates a bellwether condition.  The state elections in Maine no longer predict the national elections, but the saying has proved a productive one for American journalists and for headlines.

Looking on the Internet, I see:

     As Alcoa goes, so goes the U.S. recovery
     As China goes, so goes the world
     As Jed Lowrie goes, so goes the Boston Red Sox
     As Verizon goes, so goes metered billing

Using the “as goes, so goes” structure, the dance title contains a pun.  Lee and Karen Potter live in Cedar Falls.  Falls is really a noun, but when you put it in the structure, it becomes a verb.

The dance title also contains a tease.  In the USA, we have numerous instances of cities in the United States that are so close to another city that they get hyphenated. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Fargo-Moorhead, Cedar Falls-Waterloo.

Typically, the people who live in the first of the hyphenated cities do not want to be associated with the people who live in the second hyphenated city. And vice versa.

So, I was teasing Lee and Karen by putting Waterloo in the title of the dance.

Sorry, Iain, it takes much longer to explain the title of the dance than to teach it...

 

SINCERELY YOURS,

Doug Schneider

PS: the dance instructions are on the Internet at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/ldfs/8x32/2010/09/250273.html

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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