Sentimental

Includes poetry, reflections, nostalgia

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The Pearl

‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. Matt 13:45-46

I believe in moments of grace, when we are given more than we can imagine deserving. We may have discovered such a pearl, like the merchant in Jesus’ parable.

It was almost by accident, but its value was obvious, and I reached for it resolutely.  And pretty soon I knew it was more than a pearl, but my key to the kingdom.  That’s how it was when I met Victoria almost five years ago.

I was a widower, but committed to another chance at marriage, because the single life was not for me. I had tried out  OurTime and Match.com for three months, meeting some congenial women, many multiple dates, one that had touched me emotionally. I was an ardent reader of the roster of Match candidates in my 25-mile radius and had even started a Match correspondence with a woman in Texas.

At a professional conference in St. Louis I sat in the bar of the downtown Marriott and scanned the local listings for Match. But why? I was only in town for two more days and St. Louis was 500 miles from home. I think I was reading the Match listings as I would the daily newspaper. Who’s new? What hope?

Then I sent out three invitations for Saturday night, as I would have if I were home. Why? In retrospect it made no sense to start dating one night before leaving town. Still I received two responses the next day, one regretting she already had plans and one saying, ok let’s have dinner.

I made reservations at Copia, a restaurant in walking distance, and then spent that Saturday in Conference sessions. I returned to my room and had time enough to get ready for dinner at 6 pm.  I remember my date, known to me as “Vi,” said she would wait in the bar, wearing a distinctive hat.

When I got off the elevator I saw her, standing in the bar crowd, wearing that stylish hat. Recalling that moment I can’t help but associate her with Iris Gaines played by Glenn Close in The Natural, bathed in some heavenly radiance the first time Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) sees her. It wasn’t quite the drama of the movie, but it was more than the usual first Match date where two people wave at each other and you realize this is your date for the evening.

It was a cold, windy November evening when we hurried down the street to the restaurant, getting the premium two-person window seat. I remember Vi could not keep that hat on in the wind, but it had served its function–to identify her.

I remember we occupied that table for three and a half hours.  I remember the food was great, but “Vi” was better. She talked twice as much as I did, but she was easy to interrupt, quick to listen. And we got quickly into serious issues like our family and religious backgrounds. And I remember that less than ten minutes into our conversation, she said, “It’s nice to be wanted,” and her voice broke.  I was hooked.

I remember half way into our conversation, we were talking about who Jesus was in reference to the first chapter of John’s Gospel. That does not sound like first date conversation, but it tells you everything about what was important to us. I remember saying Christianity was not about the answers, but the questions, and she remembers registering that in the positive column of her first-date assessment.  We both talked freely about our deceased spouses, and that proved to be a hallmark of our future relationship. We wanted to remember and honor them.

I remember her shapely legs as I watched her go to the rest room at the end of dinner. As we left the restaurant, I remember Vi saying we should pray about how we might pursue this relationship. She was signaling she wanted to continue the relationship long distance, but I had heard this line in the past as a stop sign for the gentile Christian dating relationship.  I was a little panicky when I assured her I would be in Lawrence, Kansas visiting my sister for the Christmas holidays. Vi reassured me that she considered that a convenient opportunity to meet again.

Back at her car, she offered to drive me around to the entrance to my hotel.  At some point I said, “I’m not sure I know your name,” although she remembers telling it to me in the beginning. It was “Victoria.”

I remembered the awkwardness of ending about fifteen first dates on Match. I had learned one thing for sure. Not to miss making a good first impression.  “I’d like to kiss you,” I said before exiting the car. The most glorious smile burst on Victoria. So I did.

That was it. I knew some “amazing grace” had happened. I had found a “pearl of great value.” It was a climactic moment for Match.com, but, most of all,  for Victoria and me.

Sleepless in St. Louis

You are incredible:

A few moments

Doubting the mechanism match.com

Then believing in me

The untested product

spilling out into your life.

You sat  down skeptical,

But suddenly vulnerable.

I wanted to leap across the table

Hold you, thank you

For trusting a reckless stranger

Who reached for the dating slot machine

Coming up quadruple apples.

Is there a script for first dates?

Where the couple circle around

Confident and qualified

Securing the high ground?

We trashed that script

With shameless grief and joy

Held in one hand.

Where did you get the courage?

A careful principled woman

Venturing out on a chill November night

Gambling or believing,

Taking the risk

On the out-of-town stranger.

You are incredible.

 

 

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Fairy Tale Kingdom

Frankenmuth, MI aspires to be a fairy tale and comes close to it. With a river and a covered bridge (Holzbrüche), a clock tower with animated characters portraying the Pied Piper, a cheese castle housing 14-year-old cheddar, an auto-harp band playing tunes on the pavement,  and the famous Bronner’s indoor market, celebrating Christmas 24-7 year around, the town has abandoned time-bound reality.

We stayed two nights at the Bavarian Inn on one side of the river and crossed it each day to walk the street along the river lined with clothing and souvenir stores, restaurants, and folk musicians. At sunset we saw the Pied Piper enacted in the clock tower of the Bavarian Inn Restaurant (below). The tower of the Cheese Castle tower proclaimed the wonders of cheese in Germany, France, Italy, and the U.S. The auto-harp orchestra performed on a patio adjoining the walk through town. They recruited audience participation by passing out maracas and sticks and playing with some gusto.

My only disappointment was the quality of Dunkelbier, which seemed a little thin when it was available. One winner was served up in the Ratskeller in the basement of our hotel, a milk stout with hints of coffee.  Otherwise, flavored water was the dark fare.

Saturday night we had reservations for the All-you-care-to-eat Fried Chicken Dinner at Zehnder’s, right near the bridge crossing onto Main Street, Frankenmuth.  The appetizers outshone the main course of chicken, stuffing, potatoes and mixed veggies. Appetizers included chicken liver pate and cheese spread, cranberry relish and cabbage salad, a high-quality cole slaw. Fried chicken was over-rated.

 

View of our hotel from the far side of the Cass River

Holz Brucke

 

Sunday morning we returned to T. Dubs to enjoy the breakfast pizza. As I write we are still enjoying the leftovers in our refrigerator at Sally’s Place, Stratford, ON.

We have no photos of Bronner’s world famous Christmas store. It seemed smaller and ordinary compared to the exotic memories we had of its immensity and variety.  We left after a half-hour strolling and wondering where the excitement went.

On Sunday we headed east, with the marvelous breakfast pizza and a few souvenir trinkets in tow.

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Where the Light Comes Down

On a cool August morning people in dark clothing began to drift into St. Thomas ‘a Becket Church in Canton, Michigan. The broad  narthex suggests a convention area more than an entrance to a sanctuary, and some paused in small groups before entering the darker space, the silent space.

A group of middle-aged women were gathering in the narthex several yards from the back of the sanctuary. They stood in a semi-circle awaiting the arrival of a complement of a dozen or so, murmuring their greetings. “We’re going in together,” someone announced,” so we can have a moment together around the coffin.” The message was passed on to each person as they arrived to tearful  hugs and kisses.

At a quiet signal they moved into the sanctuary and stood at the back around the coffin. The woman illuminated in repose was too young and small for that sad bed. She had been larger and energetic in life: a daughter, a wife, a mother, a thoughtful sister and friend who made things happen. Her body was barely a memory of who she had been. Her Camp sisters stood in a semi-circle, remembering.

The ample sanctuary was half-full and filling, lit only around the altar, a broad area with a steeple shedding some natural light from above. It was a semi-circular, domed space, more communal than traditional Catholic churches.  A priest and some lay people were preparing the altar.

From the middle of the group of women around the coffin, a few quiet voices began to sing: “Abide with me. Fast falls the eventide.”  Bright, solemn voices around them took up the verse in perfect unison.

Abide with me. Fast falls the eventide.

The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide.

A quietly startling moment. The service had begun from the rear of the sanctuary without the least preparation.  A spark of love, of gratitude, of prayer.  It was a familiar vespers tune, as they say, “putting the church to bed.” It often puts a loved one to bed at the end of life.  And it calls on the divine to come down and share the pain of  loss.

When other helpers fail and comforts flee.

Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

In a moment the living and the dead are together, knowing all are finally going into that dark night. But the Camp sisters are going together. They have worked, played, served, and loved together. Now they walked the shadow of the valley of death together.

Camp Miniwanca had just concluded another summer of joy on the banks of Lake Michigan when word of Kim’s passing reached them.  Kim and her mother Jan had been noticeably missing, so everyone knew it was coming.  Kim and Jan should have been sharing the swimming, the games, the singing,  the meditations, the sunsets on the beach. They would have been leading and serving, as well as playing, because Miniwanca had been a lifetime of friendship and growth for both of them. Now their sisters had crossed the state to say a final good-bye.

Miniwanca Sisters

Randy remembered the fun of being Kim’s kid brother at the beginning of the service. He captured her high-spirited leadership and the profound influence she had on others.  We heard God’s promises to the living and the dead from the three readings from the scriptures and an anthem from the Psalms. The priest spoke encouragingly of the communal life of the obscure town of Nain, where Jesus resurrected a widow’s only son [Luke 7:11-17 NRSVUE].  Canton was the community to which Kim gave so much and which gave much to each other. We sang “Taste and See, the Goodness of the Lord” and then received Communion or a blessing. The draped casket followed by the family left the sanctuary first. Then we left less ceremoniously, glad to have known such a vibrant woman as Kim Strube Scartelli.

The quietest tribute was the most sacred. The moment that unexpectedly began the funeral mass, when Kim’s best friends shared her love and memory in soft voices, voices of reverence and wonder.  In the words of Carrie Newcomer

I can feel it in the hollow spacesIn the quiet placesWhere the light comes downI can see it in strangers’ facesIn the lines and tracesOn the winter groundWhere the light comes down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Meaningful Coincidences

Just proof that all creation, then and now ,

Is made of meaningful coincidence,

Reality of strange significance.

(A Book of Psalms, Edward Clarke, 125)

Often I’ve wondered how the writers of the original Psalms can go on and on about knowing and keeping God’s laws, and finally I get why.  Because they knew it was more than the endless rules set down in the Torah, but the daily guidance set forth in “meaningful coincidences.”  God was speaking every day through the creation that was alive with meaning, if only we would listen to it.  These were the “laws” that we may easily neglect.

A single deer just crossed the road, heading into my backyard. I thought of her, somewhat resentfully, munching on our hostas while we were out of town.  I thought again and realized that we were sharing the fruits of the earth with our neighbors, though not intentionally.  Our hostas won’t be blooming this year, but they have provided life for those neighbors that struggle to live off the land. That is a meaningful coincidence: learning to share with my neighbors.

I find the intrusion of deer on our property like a visitation, a miracle of heaven. They are surviving in a suburban neighborhood that grew up around them. They learned to accept it and feed on it.. They cross the busy street in front of our house with no small peril, but they have learned to cross at dawn and dusk when the traffic is light.  The deer that cross the more trafficked streets in my community are not always so lucky.

Our neighbors live in a wooded ravine at the back of our backyard extending from higher ground to lower.  They seem to find adequate forage there, but it does not prevent them from munching on our garden closer to our house. Some mornings we catch them in the act and enjoy their company, but we have sprayed our hostas with “Deer-Out,” because we wanted them to bloom. That dream has been munched away another year. Today I realized that the hostas are a community’s resource, not solely for our benefit. I am not always glad to share, but I understand now it is about sharing, rather than guarding our property against intrusion.

Is this one of God’s meaningful coincidences or did we just do a poor job of protecting our hostas? In spite of the ravaging of plants we wanted for our own pleasure, I still feel honored by the visitation of deer.  They contribute a kind of innocence to our lives that we find lacking in the greater world.  They trust us within eight feet of our windows or twenty feet when we are out in the yard.

One morning we woke to find a fawn sleeping in our garden, barely ten feet from our house.  We didn’t even notice until the speckled body began to stir.  Once we recognized each other, the fawn moved away, but not with panic, more like judging what a safe distance might be.  That visitation seemed such a blessing, to share our garden with a wild thing.

For about two years we have observed a limping doe on the fringes of our yard. She was always by herself until this June, when we saw her limp across the street followed by a tiny fawn. We called the mother “gimpy.”  We have been astonished to see her survive, let alone give birth to a fawn.  She is her own miracle of endurance.

Fortunately we are not sharing our yard with bear or raccoons, the more presumptuous of God’s creatures. That might break the spell of the visitation and blessing.  What we have is the “meaningful coincidence” of innocent neighbors, who occasionally cross the boundaries of cultivated land to feast on plants not provided for their dinner.

We are dismayed by our loss, but honored to have such neighbors.

Wayfarer though I am on the earth,

do not hide your commandments from me.

( Psalm 119:10)

 

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Reunion Pilgrimage

The long-deferred 50th Reunion finally transpired June 9-12, 2022. With two years of reunions delayed, we had three 50th Reunions in one gorgeous weekend, plus the first ever 50th Reunion for Kirkland College, our sister school that survived ten years before dissolving into Hamilton in 1978.  Our class was the first to see co-education on the Hill.

Note that the roadside sign credits Samuel Kirkland with the founding of Hamilton, yet he had to wait 156 years to get his name on a college, a women’s school that preserved his name for ten years. Hamilton is named for its illustrious trustee Alexander Hamilton, because the name had a little more visibility. Below center, Kirkland’s tombstone reveals that Samuel was a missionary to the Oneida tribe; the tombstone beneath memorializes his protege Schenando, who helped found the struggling mission in Clinton, NY.  Class annalists (narrative historians) claim that the mission never gained solvency or credibility, until founded as an academic institution “Hamilton-Oneida Academy” in 1793.

 

 

The Hamilton Chapel (above) remains the symbol and anchor of the campus. When the steeple and walls were found deteriorating, the College raised $3.1 million almost effortlessly, because of alumni (ae) devotion to this prominent and significant structure that can be seen lighted from the NY Thruway at night.  The renovation considered the oldest records of the construction of the Chapel going back to 1827. The renovation story is summarized at https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/preserving-chapel-steeple-history-refurb

We witnessed a “ribbon-cutting” to recognize donors and include alumni in the opening of the newly preserved Chapel. Kind of anti-climactic for those who might have lived through the decapitation of the steeple and other more dramatic stages.

I tried to capture the inscription in the third floor library, a new addition to the structure. It says “Send forth your light, O God,” backed by a half-moon window that projects sunlight on the table in the foreground of my photo. To me, this  was one of the significant renovations.

Of course, reunions are really about meeting people who have aged dramatically, while you remain ageless. Below are some of my dearest friends: Bruce MacIntyre (coat and medallion) my musical roommate for three out of four years; He might well be singing at the left; Ray Boggs (coat, tie and medallion), first freshman I met on LI, where we lived; and Dave Klein, below (in the coat and tie), another Long Islander, who endeared himself with massive letters sent through the U.S. mail over the last ten years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the Reunion Banquet: A pick-up choir

The medallions were passed out to all members of the Class of ’70, probably for surviving this three score and ten and managing the journey to College Hill another time.  With the exception of these individuals and Bob Frazee, whom I failed to capture on film, I could not recognize any of my former cohorts at Hamilton.  We were severely dependent on the hanging name tags worn at the belly button and sometimes even needed a little narrative to remember our connections.
The final remembrance took place in the chapel on Sunday morning, when our own Charlie Hambrick ’70 delivered a sermon on the importance of remembrance and inclusion, followed by a reading of names of those deceased since we met last. I recalled some of them as hall mates in the freshman dorm–men too young for this inclusion.

Victoria and I made this journey as a road trip, so there are many more stories to link to this trip.

But this is what we want to remember as the Reunion.

Dave Klein Explaining

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California Dreamin’

All the leaves are brown (All the leaves are brown)
And the sky is gray (And the sky is gray)
I’ve been for a walk (I’ve been for a walk)
On a winter’s day (On a winter’s day)
I’d be safe and warm (I’d be safe and warm)
If I was in L.A (If I was in L.A.)
California dreamin’ (California dreamin’)
On such a winter’s day

The song was released September, 1965.  The Mamas and the Papas version haunted us through the winter until it drenched the air waves. I was getting ready to graduate, and finally a song had come along to capture my melancholy, and my dreams. California dreamin’ in the heart of winter.

When you are a senior in high school a lot of things are breaking for you. You have a driver’s license, maybe a job, maybe a college acceptance, maybe a girl friend. O.K. three out of four wasn’t bad.  I didn’t have a girl friend, but I did a lot of California dreamin’ about one.

The song made you feel like the winter of Long Island Sound was going to blow over, and you would find yourself dating some California girl who couldn’t get enough of you.  It had  lonesome lyrics and an expectant melody. How could a song about grey skies and brown leaves sound so hopeful? Because you could dream yourself into expectations. Probably my most hopeful/ hopeless dreams involved Julie Christie (Dr. Zhivago),  Jane Fonda ((Cat Ballou), and Claudine Auger (Thunderball).  In that era sexiness involved rescue by some courageous male, not to mention curves in the right places.  Considering my courage usually fell short of asking a girl out on a date, my fantasies were a bridge too far from reality.

I remember the song playing in the background that June at Terri’s birthday party. Terri was a girl in my math class. I was pleased to be invited to her party; her crowd was pretty much my crowd.  The song gave me just enough hope to ache for someone when there was no someone on the horizon yet. I remember her party was outdoors, the music and the weather were sundown warm, and I was California dreamin’.

Terri sat down next to me on her patio and politely asked about my plans for after graduation. We were both headed for college, both to small liberal arts schools, both English majors, both unattached, although Terri was on the rebound from a fall relationship. That intimidated me a little, because it meant she was more experienced. But she was very sweet with curly, shoulder length brownish hair and barely an inch taller than I was. And I could tell she was available.

My built-in melancholy rule was that I should date girls who were Christians, though not necessarily Presbyterians. Still how did you know a girl’s spiritual condition, if she went to another church, and you didn’t share the same religious life together? Your best bet was to date ab intra ecclesia,  within the church. And yet I was not so attracted to girls within my own church. The cutest ones were Catholic. That stymied my dating expectations.

Stopped in to a church
I passed along the way
Well I got down on my knees (Got down on my knees)
And I pretend to pray (I pretend to pray)
You know the preacher likes the cold (Preacher likes the cold)
He knows I’m gonna stay (Knows I’m gonna stay)
California dreamin’ (California dreamin’)
On such a winter’s day

The song even had a church in it. I was pretty sure Mama Cass was praying for guidance about romance when she “stopped into a church.”  As it turned out, she only “pretended to pray.” Still she was in a church, where I knew anything could happen. If there was a difference between “California dreamin’ ” and “praying,” I did not think much about it. I hoped God would notice my longings and find me a life partner in my senior year of high school. A little disconnected from reality, I was.

Terri made it perfectly clear she liked me. I think we even talked about church a little to establish we had common spiritual ground.  She gave all the right signals. My senior summer stretched ahead with the possibility of checking the fourth box of my great expectations. I just had to reach out . . .

If I didn’t tell her (If I didn’t tell her)
I could leave today (I could leave today)

Why didn’t I tell her I liked her? Why didn’t I ask her if she had seen Thunderball  or Cat Ballou?  Why didn’t I suggest dinner at Central Avenue Pizza? Scared. Paralyzed by religious compunctions stronger than desire.  I can feel them in the pit of my stomach today fifty years later.  I can see Terri searching my eyes, I can hear the tidal pull of

California dreamin’ (California dreamin’)
On such a winter’s day (California dreamin’)
On such a winter’s day, (California dreamin’)
On such a winter’s day

It wasn’t winter in the air, but winter in my dreaming. Winter in  my hapless soul. Sorry, Terri.

 

 

 

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Joy in the Time of Coronavirus

“Aimless Love” (Excerpt)   by Billy Collins

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore

I fell in love with a wren   . . . . 

. . .  I found myself standing at the bathroom sink

gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient, so soluble,

so at home in its pale green soap dish.

I could feel myself falling again

as I felt its turning in my wet hands

and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

“Aimless Love”  is the title poem of a Billy Collins anthology published in 2014. It reminds me of why he is the favorite of so many readers.  He turns ordinary moments into celebrations, the mundane into the magical.

How much we need now that magic as we careen around the same four walls for weeks on end!  How much we need the magic of the soap “so patient, so soluble.”  Will we ever view soap “affectionately” again?  What about disinfecting wipes and protective masks? Can we celebrate them now?  Will we remember them nostalgically?

Collins makes me think I’m missing a lot as I blunder through isolation. “Poetry fills me with joy,” he says, “and I rise like a feather in the wind.” (“The Trouble with Poetry”).

There is joy in the woman herding her two copper-colored retrievers twice a day up and down my street. Joy in the startled deer rushing through the back yard toward the street, and suddenly turning around to slink back into the woods. Joy in sighting our back yard patio from across the ravine separating us from the backside street–seeing our backyard as the neighbors see it.

Joy in the robin staring us down from a perch atop our wind chimes, in the inquiring approach of the cowbird looking up at the sliding patio door, in the Cooper’s hawk dive bombing our feeder, but coming up empty.

Joy in the bird chorus striking up, many hours before before sun-setting, as I am rounding the high school track. Joy in the magnolia blossoms flitting in the breeze past my window like a late spring snow flurry. Joy in the surprise delivery from FedEx, a pair of women’s sandals in a box inside another box. 

 

Joy of isolation in the time of social media. Victoria Facetimes with her distant grandchildren. Our writer’s group members share their work on Zoom twice a month.  We will celebrate Holy Communion next week on YouTube. Not quite the same as face-to-face, but it is joy.

Joy in the Governor’s melodramatic speech ordering shelter-in-place in Missouri for twenty days. Ours is the 41st state to declare a shelter-in-place mandate.  Our governor has a feeble sense of anti-climax.

Joy in pondering what is meant by “essential services,” exempt from the “stay-in-place” mandate. The blue and red utility paint in our front and back yards are the harbingers of the drainage engineers, contracted to drain our swamplands next week.  Essential services?  I am reminded of the caution signs we’d see visiting New York: “Dig We Must!”

Joy in the water getting hot right before the rinsing is finished. Joy in the soap dispenser, the disinfecting wipes, in the hand soap that purifies and saves us from infection, not to mention death.

Simple joys in the time of the coronavirus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jim Schaefer: Colleague and Friend

Image may contain: James Schaefer, smiling, eyeglasses

The Optimistic Jim Schaefer

It’s been two months since we lost Jim Schaefer and three years since I shook his hand and we shook heads together about the sluggish pace of education reform.  We have been both idealists with implicit faith in teachers and staggered hope for the institutions that harbored them.

I met Jim sixteen years ago after he had finished his first summer institute at the Eastern Michigan Writing Project.  In those days just a few college instructors came through the Eastern Michigan Writing Project Summer Institute, but he was bound to change that.  No one who taught with him was ignorant of the work of the Writing Project.”I can’t believe every writing teacher doesn’t do this!” was his incredulous litany. The summer institute encompassed his three great passions: writing, reading and teaching. He also valued, and contributed to, the enduring community of teachers forged by the intensive summer experience.

Jim’s obituary reflects another interest: disseminating good news about academic literature.

James Schaefer Obituary

Jim shared his passion for writing and reading through the creation of the Riprap TV Program, the Michigan-based show focused on interviewing professors and authors of academic books from around the United States for nearly twenty years. As host and executive producer of the program shown on CTN (Community Television Network) based in Ann Arbor, Jim was an exceptional conversationalist with a gift for making people feel at ease while discussing complex academic theories.  Notably, Jim worked with the team to help develop the first book festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Jim used these skills to interview Eastern Michigan Writing Project authors, Cathy Fleischer and Becky Sipe, and — for a promotional video–interviewing me.  His unfailing smile and engaging questions nursed me through a video production in spite of my photo-phobic rigidity. “You can smile a little,” he kidded me and his coaxing smile helped me muster a tentative grin.  In a video session I experienced some of the reassurance Jim usually saved for his students. He was always most proud of the ones who struggled with language or socio-economic disadvantages and would share their writing with me. “Isn’t that amazing?” he would beam proudly. I was always sure he was proud of me.

Jim and his wife Karen brought their skills with video and photography equipment to dozens of Writing Project events, from summer institute closing celebrations to fall conferences, endlessly documenting our work for our website and promotional fliers.  They donated their professional skills and hours of time for little more than our fervent gratitude.  If I have any regrets about unfinished business, it is that we did not honor them at a public celebration for their tireless efforts to celebrate our work. But they never made you feel obliged.

It is significant, and a little sad, that there are hundreds of photos on the Writing Project website taken by Jim and not a single one taken of him.
Jim and I enjoyed sharing good books, worthy causes, and persistent frustrations, like his quest for a doctorate in education. Jim had a big picture view of educational change, which confounded the microcosmic demands of a doctoral dissertation, so he labored with institutions and advisors to sharpen his focus. Ultimately he faced the fate of too many advisors with their own idiosyncratic goals for his work. Anyone who has pursued a doctoral thesis for more than few years can sympathize.

A year of our relationship never passed without a book sent in the mail or an article attached to an email for my perusal.  I sent a few in return, but I could not match Jim’s generosity. He had wide-ranging interests and never tired of trying to broaden my horizons.  I was touched that he kept me in mind even in his retirement, when our paths rarely crossed.

In my work of collaborating with talented writing teachers, I have met exceptional human beings, who inspired me to work smarter and harder. None exceeded the tireless optimism and generosity of Jim Schaefer, whom I have loved as a colleague and brother in literacy.  I am grateful we crossed paths and then shared the road to better teaching.  Heaven will be enlarged by his kind and expansive spirit.

 

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WYSIWYG (In Memoriam)

What a guy!

                          You compacted five pounds

         So exquisitely you

                         Inspired spontaneous grins

                     When your twin dark flags

                 Your proud white tiller

                     Gamboled into our hearts.

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In Memoriam: Diane

You wanted to see “Fantastic Beasts.”

It was playing in the next county,

But we were undaunted.

I picked you up on a rainy Friday

Arriving in plenty of time for good seating.

Front row of  the main section

The only ones in the theater.

Today I relish the memory:

The two of us commandeering the theater.

We loved the casual way Newt Scamander

Retrieved his fantastic beasts and stowed them in his suitcase.

Nothing to see here, folks, but infinite imagination,

The possibility of the what-if and the hereafter,

Where my sweet Kathy was traveling.

Easy to range into unknown worlds in a theater

We had all to ourselves.

Today you are in that fantastic place,

Far from me.

Your defiance of mind boxes,

Your faith in the unseen,

Your unassuming kindness,

Recall the rainy day

We shared

So sure of

The beyond.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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