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