You Say Armadillo

 Suzanne's assignment for us was to write something about Russell the Pink Armadillo. Why Russell the Pink Armadillo? I don't know. Then Mary, who taught English as a second language to Spanish speakers, pointed out that armadillo is a Spanish word, and in Spanish the double-l is pronounced as a long-e. Therefore, she said, it should be arma-dee-o.

  So, with thanks to Mary for the idea, and apologies to Ira Gershwin, here goes.  

   Russell and Darlene, two pink armadillos, sat quietly in a shady spot near the stream. It was their special place. They went there to hold paws, snuggle, dream of the future, listen to the stream babble and hear the birds sing.

   Darlene had suggested they meet that afternoon, and Russell had been looking forward to seeing her. It wasn’t the rendezvous he’d expected, however. Darlene was edgy, not her usual smiling, talkative self. He had tried to kiss her on the cheek, but she turned away. He wasn’t very good at small talk, and Darlene wasn’t helping. She was nervous, fidgety, visibly upset.

   “What’s the matter, honey?” Russell asked.

   “Nothing,” she said.

   “Nothing? Are you sure? You act like something is the matter?”

   “I’m fine. OK.”

   “Please tell me what the problem is,” Russell said. “Maybe I can help.”

   “You want to know what the problem is. I’ll tell you what the problem is: Things have come to a pretty pass, our romance is growing flat.”

   “What is that supposed to mean?”

    “It means,” Darlene said, “you like this and the other while I go for this and that.”

   “That’s the dumbest thing anybody ever said.”

   “Dumb or not, something must be done.”

    “And why must something be done?” Russell asked.

    “Because, you say armadillo, and I say arma-dee-o.”

   “And?”

   “And, let’s call the whole thing off,” Darlene said.

   “But oh!” Russell said. “If we call the whole thing off, then we must part.”

   “True.”

   “And oh! If we ever part, then that might break my heart.”

   “So?” Darlene said.

   “So we know we need each other, so we better call the calling off off.”

   “No,” Darlene said. “Let’s call the whole thing off.”

   Darlene turned to leave, and her cell phone rang.

   “Oh hi, Joe,” she said. “I’m on my way to your place now. Love you”

   “There’s a Joe who lives on the other side of that hill. Is that who you were talking to?”

   “Yes.”

   “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but he says ‘armadillo.’”

   “But happiness is just a guy named Joe,” Darlene said.

  

Notes from the Home - June 17, 2013

   My Father’s Day began on the Lake Erie shore. I got there from the Covenant Woods’ laundry room by reading Katie’s essay “A Day at the Beach.” Katie writes, “you hear the slap, slap of the wave on the shore.” I had to settle for the slap, slap of the washing machine, but that was alright.

   “The children are a delight,” she writes. “They scamper in and out of the waves, laughing and shrieking. They throw pebbles into the water with enthusiasm and an awkward overhand throw.”

   “The sun sinks lower in the west…The sun is bright over the water, long orange rays streak across the surface. Boats drift in and out of the streaks pulling some of it with them as they go.”

   Her piece sparked memories. As the washers went through their cycles, I thought about the quiet walks I took through Lake Shore Park. And I thought about the more raucous times, when we took Russ and Beth and let them spend the day in the lake.

   Katie’s essay is in Good Words Two, a compilation of the essays and poems our writing class presented at the reading of the same name last month. Don had them printed and bound, and Elaine sent a copy to me. The quiet of a Sunday morning provided the perfect accompaniment to the musings of a very talented bunch of scribblers. After being with that group for five years, I still can’t thank Mary enough for luring me into their company.

  

   Russ and Karen came over in the afternoon, bringing dinner with them. Pork chops cooked with sauerkraut and apples was the entrée. Very, very good.

   Russ’ time with Barnes & Noble came to an end Friday. B&N is downsizing, and his job was eliminated. They will, however, continue to pay him for a couple months, although he must agree not to go to work for Books-A-Million for at least a year.

   On a positive note, Russ did sell a cartoon to The American Legion Magazine. It came as a surprise. The magazine had told him it wasn’t interested in any of the cartoons in his latest submission. Then someone had a change of heart and decided one was worth keeping. That wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago when the rejected cartoons would have been put into the submitter’s SASE and returned. In these days of e-mail submissions, however, the stuff hangs around in the queue, and who knows.

   When Russ, Karen and Molly headed home, I went out for a lap or two around the Covenant Woods’ parking lots. In the lot behind C Building, a woman whom I don’t remember seeing before and who must have been here to visit someone – she looked too young to be a resident – was walking from her car toward the building. We said hello and talked for a few minutes about the weather, which at quarter after seven, with sun getting lower and the shadows longer, was very pleasant. Then she asked me if I was diabetic. When I told her no, she handed me a Snickers bar.

   “I’ve seen you riding around here before,” she said. “You’re a real inspiration.”

   I thought about telling her there’s nothing inspiring about cruising the parking lot in an electric wheelchair. The real inspiration is watching some of the older residents walking up and down the long hallways, forcing themselves to take a few more steps to get to a bench, where they can sit for a moment and rest before going on.

   “How are you?” I’ll ask.

   “I’m making it,” she’ll say, as she sits on the bench catching her breath.

   And she is. So many of the residents are, slowly, but with determination, making it. Now that's inspiring.

   But there was a Snickers at stake, and all I said was “thank you.”

  

  

  

  

  

Declining Standards

     Back in the day – the day being the mid-sixties, when on good a day I was aspiring to be a mediocre student at Bethel Park Senior High School – I couldn’t wait to be free of the English teachers who went into paroxysms of disgust at the first sign of a comma fault, a dangling participle, a missing word or some teensy-weensy spelling error. 

     The other day – that day being Monday – I was disappointed to discover that at least one English teacher has mellowed.

     It all started a few days before when Jim, a resident, approached me at dinner and said Dennis, the bus driver, had given Covenant Woods his two-week notice.

     “A couple of the ladies asked me to put something together for him,” Jim said. “I told them, ‘I’m no writer, but I know someone who thinks he is.’ Would you be willing to write something?”

     I told him I would be. And I did, to wit:

Dennis,

For greeting us with smiles;

For driving all those miles;

For trips to the Dollar Store,

Publix, Wal-Mart and many more;

For being on time for our doctor appointments

So we could get pills, shots and some ointments;

For taking us to Friday lunch

And making sure we were a happy bunch;

For always offering a helping hand;

For making even gray days grand;

For a thousand big and little favors;

For your friendship that never waivers;

We thank you, and just want to say,

You sure do brighten every day.

     Well, not exactly to wit. It was more like half-wit, or nitwit. You see, when I finished the poem, I read it over many, many, many times until I was satisfied there were no embarrassing errors. Then I printed it up, waited until Dennis was out driving the bus, and took the poem to Shirley at the front desk. She said she’d show it to Jim, and if he liked it, she’d make a copy on colorful paper.

     Apparently, Shirley and Jim enjoyed the poem. And at dinner Monday, Jo, who had concocted the idea of writing something for Dennis, went around the dining room asking residents to sign the fancy-schmancy sheet of paper with the poem on it. Eventually, she got to me.

    If I learned anything in my ten years with the Star Beacon it was that the easiest way to spot mistakes in my game story was to read it in the next day’s paper. A misspelling that had escaped my notice when I repeatedly read the piece the night before would jump right out of the paper and choke me as I drank my coffee. The instant Jo handed me the poem to sign, my stupidity became apparent – or more than normally apparent, some might say. The flaw in my gem was suddenly so obvious it might as well have been printed in bold type – seventy-two point bold. In the last line I’d typed “brightened” instead of “brighten.”

     “Jo, I made a mistake.”

      “I know,” she said. “I’m a retired English teacher. I noticed it right away.”

      “I’ve saved it on the computer. It will take me two seconds to fix it.” I said. “Shirley is still here. I’ll be right back with a good copy.”

      “But almost everyone has signed this,” she said. “It will be OK. No one noticed. Nobody said anything.”

     So it turns out, forty-seven years after walking across the stage with my diploma from BPHS, I’ve met an English teacher who says, as I did in 1966, “So what? It doesn’t matter. No one will notice. Nobody cares.” But in 2013, I’m convinced that it does matter, that people will notice, that they will care and that they will pass me in the hall and whisper to their friends, “That guy doesn’t know ‘brighten’ from ‘brightened.’ What an idiot!”

     Oh, where are all the fastidious, persnickety, never-end-a-sentence-with-a-preposition, never-split-an-infinitive English teachers when I need one?

My Verse Excuse Ever

 Alas, there hasn’t been much productivity

   On my part. It seems I have a proclivity

   For idleness, indolence and passivity.

   Hours I should spend in writing activity,

   Working hard to improve my expressivity

   And stoking my engine of creativity,

   I’ve used for pursuits I can pursue more idly.

   And I sport a backside that’s grown large and widely.

   Oh, OK, go right ahead and remark snidely

   That tsk, tsk, tsk, my appearance is unsightly

   And the odds of me writing a great tome unlikely.

   I say, to blazes with your negativity,

   Great minds – like mine – don’t need hyperactivity.

   Looking at all things with great objectivity,

   I bet daydreaming was Einstein’s main activity

   When he wrote that thing on relativity.