Crushing The Orchid

In spite of all the planning that couples go through, the moments I remember best about weddings are the awkward moments.

Like the outdoor ceremony where the couple had tied their wedding bands on their dog’s collar.  When the minister asked for the rings, the groom’s brother released the dog.  The dog did not run up to the bride and groom.  Instead, it took off running in the opposite direction and had to be chased.

Like the couple that was seated in large high-backed chairs facing the altar, and had to constantly peep around their chairs to look at their wedding guests.

Like the couple that had a mass as a part of their ceremony, in spite of being a bit shaky on when to stand/sit/kneel during a mass.  They were constantly looking over their shoulders at the wedding guests to figure out what they should be doing.

Like the bride who was getting married in an outdoor ceremony and let out an ear-splitting I DO so that all the guests could hear her.

Like the child who said in a loud voice, “Look!  My parents are getting married!”

Or being served dinner at a wedding reception and having the lights turned off so that we ate by candlelight.  It was such a lovely touch, until I found out years later that we were not supposed to eat by candlelight --- there had been an electrical blackout in the building. 

Or the maid of honor who gave a speech and instead of telling the guests how lucky she was to be the sister of the bride, she told the guests how lucky the bride was to have a sister like her.

“Victoria, do you take Richard to be your lawfully wedded husband?”  At that point, I could hear a woman five rows away from me say in a very loud voice, “Richard?  I thought his name was Robert.”

I found it awkward when I went to my first Muslim wedding.  The groom was a student at the school where I taught in Nigeria.  At the wedding, I discovered that something was missing, namely, a bride.  In fact, there were no women at all --- the bride was having her own ceremony in another part of the city.  The groom’s ceremony consisted of listening to speeches while drinking orange soda.  I thought I was going to see some spectacle, but it seemed more like a business meeting.

The most awkward wedding moment was when I arrived at the church and greeted the mother of the groom.  I gave her a great big hug, thereby crushing the mother-of-the-groom orchid pinned on her mother-of-the-groom dress.  I tried to straighten out the petals, but it didn’t help.

I have been haunted by that moment ever since.  I am going to a wedding tonight and I plan to be very careful when I hug someone.

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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 Need A Drink

                Doug's students at historic house in Kano

My elementary school teachers took us on field trips.

In 4th grade, we went to Lollipop Farm.  The “farm” had animals you could pet and even hand feed.  For us suburban kids, it was the first time we came face-to-face with a cow.

In 5^th grade, we went to the Saddle Rock Grist Mill, perhaps the oldest tidal grist mill in the country.  This was not the first time I had been to the mill.  The stables there had been converted into housing, and my parents were thinking of living in the stables, but we wound up in a suburban split-level house instead, much to my disappointment.

In 6^th grade, we went to the Museum of Natural History in New York City .  The focus of the trip was the fish exhibits.  After looking at models of fish, displays of fish, photographs of fish, and dioramas of fish, the class went to the museum cafeteria to eat the lunches that our mothers had packed.  I opened my lunch bag and found a tuna fish sandwich inside.  It was impossible to eat a fish after looking at fish.

I saw the other side of field trips when I became a teacher in Nigeria at a girls’ boarding school. 

We did a nice daytime field trip to a historic house.  The house was built around 1720, and had artifacts from everyday life.  I liked seeing the students light up when they recognized an object their grandmother had.

But I cut back on field trips after we went to a play at nighttime.

Nigerians are big fans of Shakespeare; a popular hobby is translating his plays into a local Nigerian language.  However, our field trip was not to a Shakespearian play; I took a busload of students to A Man for All Seasons.  Shakespeare’s plays are filled with activity and interesting characters and awkward situations.  A Man for All Seasons is a cerebral play.  The actors spent most of the time standing still on stage and talking. 

The Nigerian audience made a valiant effort to follow Sir Thomas More’s agonizing about his private conscience while doing battle with his public duties.  Most of the audience gave up and drifted into the dark recesses of the theater.  My students drifted there as well.

Uh oh.  I was supposed to be chaperoning these girls.  I had no idea what was happening in all that darkness, and I grew exceedingly uncomfortable.  I could no longer follow Henry VIII’s agonizing about the burdens of being a king.

Then I got an idea.

When lights came on at intermission, I chased the girls out of the recesses of the theater.  The girls were easy to spot because they were wearing their school uniforms.  I told them that the play was over.  It was time to get on the bus and go back to the dormitories.  Some girls tried to correct me and point out that the play was only half over, but I was adamant.

When the bus dropped them off back at the school, I heaved a sigh of relief.

I was so frazzled from the evening that all I could think was, “I need a drink.”  This was not just some trite line from a black-and-white movie --- I really did need a drink.  I headed for a bar.

I wonder if my 4^th grade teacher had headed for a bar on the day we went on a field trip to Lollipop Farm to hand feed the cow.

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2-minute YouTube home movie of Lollipop Farm, Syosset NY, complete with sound of 8mm projector:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kbxkYKbVV0

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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 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