Quick, Get In The Lorry

I taught at The School For Arabic Studies in Kano, Nigeria, for four years.  Of all those years, there was nothing quite like the third day on the job.

My first two days on the job were focused on learning who my students were.  Not only did I have to figure how well they knew mathematics, I had to figure out their names.  The names were Muslim, from the Koran, and there wasn't much variety.  Since the custom was to take your father's first name as your last name, there was even less variety.

So, in one class, I could have a Kabiru Yahaya, a Yahaya Musa, and a Musa Kabiru.  Plus a Hamidu Yusuf and a Yusuf Hamidu.  And even two students both named Danladi Mohammed. 

A seating chart was my only way of telling who my students were.

On my third day at the school, the Principal walked into the staff room, and said: "Quick, get in the lorry.  A second-year student has died."

The lorry was the school truck, and was used to transport supplies - but it had some benches and could transport people.  It was transporting the school's teachers to the home of the deceased student's parents.

The United States Peace Corps had trained me for living in Nigeria.  They taught me the Nigerian currency system; they taught me how to treat a snakebite; they taught me which cuts of camel meat made the best hamburgers.  But no one had taught me what to say to console grieving Nigerian parents.

The teachers got off the lorry and stood before the parents.  I stayed in the back, trying to be inconspicuous, having no idea what to say or what to do.

One teacher, an Englishman, stepped forward and said, "We are sorry to hear that your son has died."  It was translated into Hausa for the parents, and they nodded in acknowledgement.  

The body was lying on a stretcher, wrapped in a white sheet.  The stretcher was lifted and the funeral procession began.  The teachers did not join in the procession, but we could hear it as it wound through the streets with mourners chanting the Hausa prayer for the dead: Allah ya ji kansa; Allah ya ji kan rai --- May God have mercy upon him; may God have mercy upon us, the living.

The body was taken to a burial field, where it was buried on its side, facing Mecca, to await Resurrection Day.

The lorry took us back to the school.  There was no teaching that day.  I sat at my desk and thought back to what the Englishman had said to the parents.  I realized that sympathy is universal; all you have to do is express it.

I took out my second-year seating chart, and found the name of the student who had died.  He had been in my class on the first day, and he had been in my class on the second day, and now he had just been buried on the third day.

I lifted my pen.  Should I cross out his name or should I draw a big X through his name?  

I hesitated, and then wrote R.I.P. on the seating chart.


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Sympathy is universal, and here is a 4-minute video in Japanese anime style about the death of a daughter, who was being treated for cancer at St. Jude's Childrens Hospital in Memphis.  The singer is James Otto, and the song is Where Angels Hang Around:

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

And, if you have a box of Kleenex handy, here is a girl dying of cancer who is helping her little sister learn the lyrics to Where Angels Hang Around so her little sister can sing it at her funeral:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl0FtKpSIsY

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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

Tweaking The Tree

Sometimes when I walk from the living room to the dining room, I tweak the Christmas tree.

I see a bare spot and move an ornament to fill it, or I see too many red ornaments together and move some of them, or I see that Santa is looking into the tree again and I turn him around so he is looking out the tree.

But most times when I walk from the living room to the dining room, I see an ornament and it gets me thinking.

I look at the paraffin drum major, and I wonder how old he is and guess that he goes back to the 1940’s.

Spuds MacKenzie reminds me that yard sales are good sources of cheap and sometimes historic ornaments.

The ornaments we bought on vacation make me re-live the days in Aruba or the time we took a cable car to the top of a mountain in the Tetons.

I check out the dried starfish from Galveston and make sure they are out of the dogs’ reach.  The starfish may be dried and old, but they are organic and, in the dog’s eyes, very edible.

I look at the cream-colored ornaments and remember when I went to a yard sale and told the woman there that I was looking for Christmas ornaments.  “Oh, my mother just died and I will sell you her ornaments.”  I proudly display these ornaments on our tree, thinking that I am continuing some other family’s tradition.

I see all the candy canes and think about the time Randy and I got our first tree and candy canes were the cheapest way to fill up all the bare spots.

The pretzel man from Czechoslovakia makes me remember when I used to work for the May Department Stores headquarters here in St. Louis.  Salesmen from ornament companies would come to headquarters and leave samples, in hopes that the May Company would place big orders for their ornaments.  Once a year, May Company employees would get to purchase the samples, and that’s how I got the pretzel man.

The merman says New Orleans to me.

I look at the Empire State Building ornament and think about the New York friend who sent it to us soon after he had witnessed 9/11.

I realize that I have a personal relationship with most of the ornaments on our tree.  So, maybe I am not tweaking the Christmas tree --- the Christmas tree is tweaking me.

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Here is a 1950 Christmas song (Everybody’s Waiting For) The Man With The Bag that has been updated by Black Prairie.  The song video, complete with a yule fire in the fireplace, is 4 minutes long:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVjzPQTQI1Y

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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 Good, The Bad, And The Sad

On the same day, I got a good Facebook message about a bookstore and I got a sad Facebook message about a bookstore.

The good Facebook message came from France: “Thank you, Douglas E. Schneider for the wonderful suggestion.”  My friends, before they left on vacation, had asked me what they should see in Paris. 

They were thanking me because I had suggested a bookstore: Shakespeare And Company at 37 Rue de la Bucherie.  I assumed that the bookstore had not changed since I had a good experience visiting it forty years ago --- and I was correct.

 

I had described Shakespeare And Company to my friends as a bookstore filled with the aura of the Beat Generation that hung out there.  When you step inside, you can almost believe that you are breathing the same air that William S. Burroughs breathed.

However, not all my bookstore experiences have been good.

When I lived in Seattle, there was a bookstore one block from where I worked.  On lunch break, I went over there to buy a book.  I stepped into the bookstore and saw a chill sweep over the staff.  A man had just entered their feminist bookstore.  I could feel the disdain as a clerk reluctantly sold me a book.  I thanked my lucky stars that the book I purchased was written by a woman.

When I visited Hong Kong, I entered a bookstore and was immediately entranced by the music they were playing: serene songs sung by an angelic choir of Chinese children.  I could swear that one of the songs was a subdued version of Oh, Susannah.

I pointed to the speakers in the ceiling and told the Hong Kong clerk that I wanted to buy the music that was playing.  He had no idea what I was talking about.  I tried charade mode; I tried speaking slowing; I tried speaking in elementary words.  Finally, the clerk understood and I got my music.  However ,the notes are in Chinese, so I cannot tell if that really was Oh, Susannah or not.

When I moved to London, I was excited to visit the world’s largest bookstore, called Foyle’s.  My excitement dissipated once I entered the store and found out that the entire bookstore was arranged by publisher.  I had no idea how to find a book.

There was a woman in one room who looked like she might be on the staff, but I wasn’t sure.  “Excuse me, are you a customer or do you work here?”

The woman turned her British eyes on me and replied, “What does it look like?”

I almost had a meltdown.  I almost said, “Lady, I am a foreigner here in your country and I am learning how to find my way around and now I am in a bookstore and I need help and I have no idea how to ask for help.”

I forgot what I really said to her.  I did get the book I wanted, but I never went back to Foyle’s.

The sad Facebook message came from St. Louis.  The Archive Bookstore announced: “We have reached the last page of our story. It was interesting, it was exciting, it was enriching, it was heartbreaking, and now it is over. Farewell to the good times, the good books, the good people who shared our story.”

The Archive was a used bookstore, which even had a resident Labrador retriever.  I once did a reading there from my book Puppy Out Of Breath. 

I am sad that The Archive closed.  But I know that the format of our reading material is changing and the way we purchase our reading material is changing.  Someday, saying ‘I went into a bookstore to buy a book’ will sound as quaint as saying ‘I went into a Western Union office to send a telegram’.

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Here is a 4-minute YouTube description of Shakespeare And Company:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUpSR9fhQDM

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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 Secret London Museum Grapevine

Some friends, about to leave on vacation last week, asked me if I knew any good secret museums in London.  I answered: “Yes I know a good secret museum; I found out about it through the secret London museum grapevine.

When I moved to London in the 1970’s, Great Britain was in a national phase of looking back.  They were looking back at the Home Front - - - domestic life during World War Two.

I knew a few things about the Home Front.  I knew about the bombings, about rationing, about evacuating children to the British countryside, about blackouts, about carrying a gas mask at all times.  I knew that all these did their part to help Britain win the War.

But it was not until I moved to London that I learned that upholstery patterns did their part to help win the War. 

London newspapers featured articles about a special line of furniture for wartime production.  It was called Utility Furniture, and it was designed by the government.

Utility Furniture was spartan.  

The idea was to design furniture so that lumber was cut with as little waste as possible.   Also, they needed for upholstery cloth to be cut with as little waste as possible.  This meant that patterns needed to be simple and repetitive for easy matching at seams.

I was surprised to read that the War increased the need for furniture in Britain.  Then I was a bit embarrassed when I realized that when people’s homes were bombed, they needed new furniture.

British furniture had suddenly become an interest of mine.  I mentioned my new interest to Lynn, an American friend who lived near me in London.

Lynn said: "Then I have a museum for you.  Nobody has ever heard of it.  It is a museum of British domestic life, located a former poorhouse in East London.  And it has Utility Furniture."

Oooh - a furniture museum!  And in a poorhouse, just like in a Charles Dickens novel!  However, there was a problem...

I said to Lynn: "But nobody goes to East London."

"That is why the museum is so wonderful.  There are no tourists in East London.  There are no crowds.  No TWA tourbuses prowling the streets.  You will have the museum all to yourself."

I did have the museum all to myself.  I strolled from the 1600’s to the 1950’s.  Before you entered a period room, there was a little anterooom, with a description of what you were about to see.  So, the period rooms had no signage, just furniture.  What a delight.

Today, this museum still remains a secret.  It is off the beaten path --- and people may be reluctant to go there because they can't figure out how to pronounce its name: the Geffrye Museum.

I am sure that if I went back to London, I would still have the museum all to myself.

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The Geffrye Museum is considered a curiosity by Professor Hutton.  Here is a one-minute BBC video of the Professor, in his ill-fitting tweed jacket, describing the museum:

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

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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

Not Looking For Mr. Goodbar

While I was in yoga class, I noticed that everybody else could sit cross-legged, but I could not.  I had to kneel.  That made me feel wimpy, but it was the best I could do.

Kneeling instead of sitting cross-legged did not seem like a good reason to see a doctor.

Looking in the mirror, I noticed that the vertical lines on my checked shirt have stopped being straight; they have become wavy.  It appeared that I had become wavy.  I could easily avoid the wavy lines by wearing solid-color shirts.

Being wavy did not seem like a good reason to see a doctor.

Getting in bed, I noticed that my right leg felt like it was on fire whenever I lay down.  I could find a less painful position, but never one which made the fire go away.

Pain seemed like a good reason to see a doctor.

I downplayed my wavy spine, which is caused by scoliosis. 

I did not want to stress my wavy spine because of Diane Keaton.  

In the movie Looking For Mr. Goodbar, Diane played a schoolteacher with a slight case of scoliosis.  Her scoliosis made her terribly insecure and drove her to haunt the singles bars of New York City in the 1970s.  My scoliosis is much more obvious than Diane’s, but it has not made me feel insecure.

I went to a chiropractor, who checked me out and said that the fire in my leg was caused by stenosis.  I went to a medical doctor, who checked me out and said that the fire in my leg was caused by stenosis.

After an MRI scan, I went to a surgeon who took me on a journey down my spine.  Starting at the neck, the MRI showed vertebrae that looked symmetrical and happy.  Working the way down my spine to my lower back, however, there were some unhappy vertebrae.  They were scrunched, as if I had been hit by a small battering ram.

I asked the surgeon how he could fix my vertebrae.  His eyes lit up as he described how he would move some of the bone on one vertebra.  His eyes lit up more when he described how he would shave some of the bone on the next vertebra.

The shine in his eyes meant that I had found the right surgeon.

On Wednesday, I will get my stenosis fixed. 

However, I will not bother to fix my scoliosis since it is easy to switch from checked shirts to solid-color shirts.  I will not be looking for Mr. Goodbar.

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A three-and-a-half-minute intro trailer for the 1977 film Looking For Mr. Goodbar, which makes New York seem ominous and sleazy and a bit like Paris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp1Lb694uag

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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

Keeping It Quiet

The sign on our local gas station/convenience store says “Thank You, Veterans.”

This seems ironic - outside the business world veterans can be thanked, but inside the business world, veterans are supposed to keep their veteran status quiet.

An employer should not be asking for your veteran status, especially during a job interview…the same way they should not be asking for your age or your religion.  By law, a company cannot discriminate on the basis of age, cannot discriminate on the basis of religion, and cannot discriminate on the basis of veteran status.

My employer did not ask me if I was a veteran during my job interview.  But they did ask me after I was hired.  Revealing the status is voluntary, and the list of veterans in the company is kept confidential.

I decided to tell the company that I was a veteran.  I wondered how many people around me were also veterans, so I decided to write an article for the company newsletter.

To solicit requests for veterans’ stories, I could not look at the confidential list; Human Resources had to send out a request for me: if you are willing, please tell me about your military service.

The responses were eye-opening.  Maybe only veterans with eye-opening experiences wanted to be in the company newsletter, but it did make for a good article.

One guy survived the 1967 fire onboard the USS Forrestal.

One guy, after 64 weeks of intensive Russian language training, was stationed in Scotland to intercept Soviet submarine communications.

One guy was a Nuclear Weapons Officer.

One guy surveyed roads in Vietnam.

One guy was a helicopter pilot who helped rescue a crew of Apollo astronauts in the Pacific Ocean.

One guy ran an airfield in Kosovo.

One guy talked about how he couldn’t wait to get out of the military, but looking back he realizes that the military taught him teamwork, and how to do things he didn’t want to do, and how to treat others the way he wanted to be treated.

Walking around the office, I see that these guys, just like me, have blended into the company just fine.  It seems odd that we are supposed to keep our veteran status quiet.

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Veterans Day: it is time to remember the people who never lived to tell their stories to a company newsletter.  Here is a 3-minute video of “Lullaby For A Soldier (In The Arms Of The Angels)", a song written by Dillon O’Brian.  It is sung by Maggie Siff during an episode of Sons Of Anarchy.  Maggie’s photo is the first one you see, followed by photos of the other cast members:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmucVmr60HQ

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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 Do Dassn't

When it came time for the Sheriff of Mayberry, North Carolina, to fire Mayberry's school crossing guard, the guard told Andy Griffith, “You dassn’t!” --- and Andy Griffith replied, “I do dassn’t!”

I was very surprised to find out that someone besides my grandmother used the word “dassn’t”.  Grandma was the only real person I ever heard use the word.  As far as I was concerned, Grandma owned that word.

I was in junior high school when Mom and Dad came in the door one afternoon with Grandma and a couple of suitcases. “Grandpa is in the hospital, and Grandma is coming to stay with us.”

Grandpa died that night.  In the morning, Dad pulled me aside and gave me instructions: go give your mother a hug and tell her you are sorry that her father has died.  

I did as instructed.  Years later, I still think was the most important fatherly advice I ever received.

Grandma stayed with us for many years.

She had wonderful sewing skills and many people came to her for alterations. She always made time to sit down and read the daily newspaper, which arrived in the afternoon back in those days.

She helped out the household by loading and unloading the dishwasher.  When loading the dishwasher, she scrutinized every utensil.  She was unwavering in her belief that if a utensil had not been used during a meal, it should never go into the dishwasher, it should always go back into the silverware drawer.

  

She probably would have said: "You dassn't wash a clean spoon".

Dassn't was a contraction of “dare not”, but it really meant “should not”.  You dassn’t do this = You shouldn’t do this.  You dassn’t do that = You shouldn’t do that.

I heard that word a lot as she gave me grandmotherly advice.  But her most memorable use of dassn’t was for a soldier in a World War Two documentary.

Grandma and I were watching a black-and-white documentary about the Burma Campaign in the Southeast Asian jungle.  The campaign began with the British retreating long distances.  The British lost 50,000 men before finally managing to regroup and push the Japanese back.

Besides facing enemy gunfire, the soldiers faced malaria, monsoons, dysentery, heat.

At one point, the documentary showed a British soldier hacking his way through the jungle underbrush with a machete.

Grandma could not resist giving the soldier in the documentary some grandmotherly advice: “Oh, he dassn’t use that big knife --- he could cut himself”.

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So much more to fear and to endure: a 58-minute BBC documentary in color about the longest campaign of World War Two --- The Burma Campaign:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9bvTrK-130

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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

Exactly 3 Hours To The Kentucky State Line

The ad in the paper said: 
COME VISIT PADUCAH, ONLY 3 HOURS AWAY.

Ever since I first saw Paducah on a map as a kid, I wanted to visit a place with such an intriguing name.  So, I took a day off from work.  I left our house at 7:04 AM, and I crossed the Kentucky state line at 11:04.  The ad in the paper was correct.

What I found is that Paducah is a city of architecture, a city of history, and, most of all, a city of art.

Paducah is lucky to have a large number of 19^th Century buildings still gracing its downtown.

The American-German National Bank:

Another bank:

The grand downtown commercial hotel:

Shop Historic Paducah:

Paducah is where I found out about America’s first sojourn into government health care.  President John Adams knew that America’s prosperity depended on merchant ships, and in 1798, health care was provided to merchant seamen.  It was then extended to the men who worked on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

Paducah was the site of a Confederate raid in the Civil War.  The town displays its history in public, on its flood wall.  Over 50 flood wall murals describe the history of Paducah, including its industrial history.

Paducah was the home of Vice President Alben Barkley.  Barkley captured my imagination because of his moment of death.  He was giving a speech and quoted Psalm 84:10, saying "I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty."  He died on stage just minutes after saying that quotation.

Art abounds in Paducah.  The biggest tourist attraction in town is a museum of quilts and fiber arts.  But the city has deliberately sought artists to boost its economy.  They have an artist relocation plan, and pay artists to move to Paducah.

The artists get low-cost houses in Lower Town.  The house serves as a studio, a gallery, and a residence.  I talked to artists who had moved from Michigan, Vermont, California, and the State of Washington.  They were all ecstatic to be in Paducah.

Before heading back to St. Louis, I had to visit the town's piece de résistance for a fan of architecture: the Paducah Post Office.  It is a midcentury modern building designed by Edward Durrell Stone.  It is a small-scale version of the US Embassy that Stone designed for New Delhi, India.

Paducah, Kentucky,which I had wanted to see only because it had an intriguing name, proved to be a city with intriguing architecture, intriguing history, and intriguing art. 

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A 4-minute YouTube tour of Paducah:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y55ikhMl45g


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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