Don't Fall in the Spring

Last week, my first graders studied consonant blends
and this week, the "-ing" ending was reintroduced.
Tuesday we put them both together
to make the word "spring."
I passed out long coiled plastic springs,
an anything-you-can-fit-in-a-basket Ollie's find,
and we cut them up
and used them for hair
on our construction paper veterans,
gym decorations for next week's Veterans' Day assembly.
Vets, we thank you for your service.

We then donned our coats
and tripped outside to find another kind of spring,
where water comes out of the side hill.
It is about ten feet into the woods.
I had glimpsed it
earlier in the fall
when trampling down a path
for kids to explode touch-me-not seed pods,
the bubble wrap of earlier generations.
I led my class toward the spring along the dry side hill.
We climbed over a log
and under a deadfall
to reach the weepy site.
"This is a spring.
Water comes right out of the ground here."
I then extended a hand to each child
to make sure they didn't slide into the spring
as they passed over it.
The kids were reforming the line behind me
when I heard "Whoa!"
" Look!"
" Cool!"
There was a second spring,
rimmed in giant, moss-covered cut stones,
built perhaps a century ago
when settlers used springs for refrigeration.
We were all so excited.
We had discovered Penfield's version of Machu Picchu.

Wednesday at recess
I told the kids that I would be going into the woods
to take a picture of the spring
but that I would still be able to watch them play.
I put on my kneehigh rubber boots,
took a shortcut through the mowed wet area
and entered the woods with my iPad.
Click.
Nice picture.

 

I turned to watch the kids at play,
then started back across the wetness.
Slurp.
One boot went calf-deep.
Hmmmm.
I tugged.
I wobbled.
I stepped on my coat.
The next step sunk the other boot to within an inch of the top.
Stuck.
I considered abandoning the boots
and walking out in my stocking feet
but then I remembered high school physics
and mass
and surface area
and figured I may end up even more stuck.
And even muddier.
I decided to call the office for help.
I reached for the walkie talkie on my whistle lanyard.
Hmmmm.
In remembering the iPad,
I had forgotten the walkie talkie.

I called to M,
the star student of the day,
and asked her go to the office
and tell them
to ask the custodian
to pull me out.
She was off like a shot.

Over dashed J and T,
two curious little boys.
"Hey Teacher! Are you stuck?"
"Yes.
It's very muddy.
Don't get close.
Back up."
Three more boys raced over.
I used my teacher look
and teacher voice:
"I SAID BACK UP!"

Meanwhile,
as soon as M entered the building
she saw the custodian.
"Mr. Doug!
Mrs. Shaffner is stuck in the mud!
You need to come!"
Doug smiled his teasing smile
and started for the door, saying
"Tell her I'll be there in forty-five minutes."
M's eyes got huge
and her voice,
bless her heart,
got a bit bossy.
"Mr. Doug!
You need to come RIGHT NOW!"
 
One long tug and one boot slurped out.
The second was more stubborn.
In the end,
I was bear hugged
and carried from the mudhole.
Mr. Doug's sneakers were no longer white.
He and M
are now sharing hero status
at Penfield Elementary.

Every day has adventures
and opportunities to be thankful
and maybe even heroic.

Today if it doesn't rain we are going for another walk.

Sixteen Books That Changed My Life

Facebook friends have been posting lists of favorite books recently.

I love reading the lists
and have found great leads for the coming months,
but I am curious--  
Why did they choose that particular book?
Here is my list
with why
in the order I discovered them:

The Big Wave by Pearl Buck, fourth grade.
This story of a tsunami in Japan
taught me that the world was much larger than my experiences,
that horrible things can happen,
and that there is life on the other side of tragedy.

C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
was given to me by Mrs. Richards,
my Pioneer Girl prayer partner,
when I was in fifth grade
and was the first book to show me
that a story could be deeper
than the basic plot would indicate.
During my first semester at Houghton
I was amazed to find out
that there were six more Narnia books...
not much studying was done the rest of that week.

Peanuts by Charles Schulz
was important in junior high
when I spent hours drawing Snoopy and his friends.
I became aware
that some pictures
ARE worth a thousand words;
one dancing dog portrayed the essence of joy.

As a teenager,
reading Katherine Woods' translation of
Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince
simplified the essentials of life.
Years earlier,
Uncle Dick had written in my autograph book.
(Remember autograph books?
RMA.
AFA.
In those days,
the acronyms were simple.)
Dick quoted the Little Fox:
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.
What is essential is invisible to the eye."
Thanks, Uncle Dick.

Palmer's Fieldbook of Natural History
told me interesting stories
about what I saw around me each day:
Teasel used to be mounted on belts in woolen mills.
Staghorn sumac wood needs no varnish,
and twigs with the pith removed
can be used as maple sugaring spiles.
Male monarch butterflies have black scent glands
visible on the hindwings.
House flies throw up before they eat.
Great horned owls hoot at middle C.
Grasshoppers prevent diarrhea in red bats.
Dandelion pollen is sterile.
Porcupines are useful
to people lost in forests
because they can be killed easily
and the flesh is good to eat.
A robin's Latin name
is Turdus migratorius.
Really.
I checked Palmer's book out of Houghton's library
so often
that Den bought me my own copy.
It was one of the best gifts I have ever received.

My roommate Holly
introduced me to Milne's Winnie the Pooh
when we  were both in the children's play;
she was Uncle Rabbit,
I was Roo.
Dan Woolsey brought Pooh to life.
It was my first experience as an actor,
but not my last.

My grandma Maud raised me on Bible stories,
but at Houghton,
I was to read the whole Bible.
The ancient book of Job
in the Old Testament
had it all:
affluence,
poverty,
tragedy,
hopelessness
and hope,
poetry,
and mystery.
Job 38 through 41 continues to remind me
"Who do you think you are?"
Where were you when I laid he foundations of the earth?
...Who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together 
   and all the angels shouted for joy?
...Where does the light come from and where does the darkness go?
...Who is the mother of the ice?
...Are you able to restrain the Pleiades?
...Are you the one who makes the hawk soar?
Then Job replied, 
"I am nothing-- 
how could I ever find the answers? 
I place my hand over my mouth.
Daily
I bow to the Mystery
and place my hand over my mouth.

In my twenties,
Michener's Centennial
and Haley's Roots
gave me the stories that drew me into the history.
Over the years
Michener's fiction
drew me into non-fiction
and gave me stories of the places we would visit:
Colorado.
The Chesapeake.
Alaska.
Israel.

Heyerdahl's Kon Tiki
started me
on stand-alone non-fiction.
I have bought his books at used book sales
only to find my name in them.
I should stop donating.

L'Engle's Many Waters
postulated background to Noah's flood
and changed the way I imagined Biblical characters.
I once heard Madeleine L'Engle speak
at the Carnegie Library
and when she had finished
I asked her no questions.
Instead, I sat behind her
and listened to her answer everyone else's questions.
Fascinating.

Comparing Joe Slate's wonderful story
How Little Porcupine Saved Christmas
to its ho-hum later edition
Little Porcupine's Christmas
showed me how a good story
can be ruined
by wrong word choice.
I wrote to Joe
and asked him why the changes were made,
which led to a semi-friendship
but that is a story for another time.

Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes
warmed my mother heart
(Calvin lived in Luke),
amused my first grade teacher heart
(Miss Wormwood is me without coffee),
and mushed up my creative heart
(some stuffed animals
seem to have more personality
than some people I've met).

In my forties,
reading Catherine Marshall's Christy
led me to read The Prayers of Peter Marshall,
who was the chaplain to the US senate in the 40s.
He wrote in lined thoughts
rather than paragraphs
and I have followed his lead.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The Story of the Von Trapp Family Singers
was written by the Maria
and tells the now-famous story
of The Sound of Music.
What you see in the movie
is only the first third of the book;
her story continues
and is overflowing with faith
and love
and service
both in Austria and in the US.
There is usually more to the story than what we know.

What's So Amazing About Grace?
(and pretty much any book by Philip Yancey)
affirms my questioning nature.
Thinking and Christianity
sometimes are not neighbors;
Yancey puts them together well.

Steve Saint's The End of the Spear
challenged my first-world way of looking at life.
Steve is the son of Nate Saint,
and was raised in Ecuador
among the Auca/Waodani tribe who killed his father.
His book showed me courageous love
as well as a view of first-world America
through a hunter-gatherer's eyes.
It reminded me
that good can come from bad,
and that we often see life
as through a window well-smudged with dirt.

My fifties?
Nothing yet comes to mind.
I look forward to reading your suggestions
but please tell me...
why?

Sue

PS. Some of Den's favorites?
The Bible
The Poems of Robert Frost
Trails of a Wilderness Wanderer, Russell
The Lion. the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lewis
Mere Christianity, Lewis
The Hobbit, Tolkein
The Little Prince, Saint Exupery
A Day No Pigs Would Die, Peck
Where the Red Fern Grows, Rawls
The Education of Little Tree, Carter
I Will Fight No More Forever, Chief Joseph
I Heard the Owl Call My Name, Craven
Landscape Turned Red, Sears
Coming Into the Country, McPhee
Boy's Life, McCammon
Wilderness Empire, Eckert
A River Runs Through It, Maclean
Your God Is Too Small, Phillips
Earthsea Trilogy, LeGuin
Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, Sider

Fairies

The beginning of a Great Adventure

We love James Barrie's Peter Pan.
His fairy,
Tinkerbell,
was a nasty little creature
but since 1904
most fairies have become beautiful
and kind.
The Rainbow Fairies books by Daisy Meadows
are perfect for many beginning readers
and five-year-old Anna has read most of them.
Though she is a realist in most areas,
she believes in fairies.
"If I saw a real fairy,
I would be scared,
but only for a little while."

Last Friday afternoon at the swimming hole
Anna and I went for a walk down the creek.
I have been going to the swimming hole since I was a little girl
but only this month
have I explored below the bridge.
It's one of my new favorite places.
(Lucy was not interested in joining us--
it was past nap time
and all she wanted to do
was find a cuddly item,
in this case, a sponge,
and fall asleep in the jeep.)
We held hands as we trudged down the creek,
Anna in all the deepest places
until she remembered
that fish live in water.
"Are there fish in here?"
Not wanting to lie,
I replied,
"This water is very clear.
Do you see any fish?"
"No."
She took a few more tentative steps.
"Let's walk on the rocks instead."
We found rocks
that reminded us
of dog heads
and dinosaurs.
We found a peeper frog
the size of a pinkie fingernail,
so tiny
that when we held him
we could not feel his weight
and carried him along the creek
until he made a brave jump
and disappeared.
As we rounded a bend
where twenty-foot-high rhododendrons were in flower
and a fallen tree
made a bridge across the rippling water
I heard Anna's breath catch.
"This is where fairies would live."
As she looked around
she became even more quiet and serious.
"Let's look for their houses."
"Aren't their houses invisible?"
"They build them in hidden places."
We peered in the tall grass on the creek bank.
No houses.
We crossed the creek on stepping stones
and peeked into a hollow
beneath an enormous rhododendron.
No houses.
We looked down the creek
at a big rock
in the center of the stream.
"If I were a fairy, I would sit there."
Anna gathered up her courage
and crossed the potentially fish-filled waters.
"Anna, I don't see fairies,
but I do know birds have rested here."
Anna thought a bit,
then giggled
at the bird droppings.
"Let's go tell Bop and Lucy."

"...Bop!
We found a place where fairies live!
And birds sit on the fairy rock
and go to the bathroom!"
Bop replied,
"How do you know those weren't fairy droppings?"

May you have a blessed week,
may you recognize magical places
and not step in any fairy droppings.

Unfinished Conversations

This weekend
we had interesting conversations
with two-year-olds
and thirty-two-year olds
and seventy-two-year-olds,
with local friends
as well as friends visiting
from faraway places like Kenya
and Tanzania
and Indonesia,
conversations about Kenya's tribal hierarchy
and sparkler safety
and beets
and how the blunt people from the Netherlands
can't understand why the USA media
doesn't question the actions of our government,
how the center of a wheel of cheese
is called "the virgin's nose"
and how tongues
turn different colors
depending on what color of popsicle you eat,
and is it better
to have a hot shower in cold air
or a cold shower in warm air?

...but our friends departed
before we finished the conversations.
Why "the virgin's nose?"
What have you learned from failures in your life?
What is your favorite popsicle flavor?
Are there any English tripthongs?
Or is it triphthongs?
Or are both spellings acceptable?
Are band-aids an essential part of childhood?
Why do some words end in -ent
and others in -ant?
What life-changing things
did you learn in college
that were not curricular?
How many of Dr. McCallum's psych principles can you list?

Anyone want to pick up these conversations?
Come out for a popsicle.

Evidence of a blue popsicle

Sparkler fun with Abigail and Anna

P.S. Kyle! Come back!

Anna,s sugjeststons

This week's guest blogger is our granddaughter Anna, five.

1/you shod NOT talk To strangrs! NO NO NO NO NO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2/stop and look booth ways 2 time,s befor you cross the rood.

3./keep yor hands on the stearign weel all the time

4./ do not eat ice creem on A/a new rug.

/5.do not drik juse on A/a new carpet./

6./you need to folow ruls

7/wene you cook you need to now the resepee.

Happy Birthday, Canada!

Happy birthday Canada!

We have heard your friendly seagulls
and your ferry whistles
and the french accents of young girls,
the midnight cries of mating cats
and the quiet sound of knots of ribbon snakes
slithering away into the woods.

We have glimpsed your seals
and puffins
and sea urchins
and lynx
and dall sheep
and wood bison,
and found grizzly scat in the middle of the road.

We have waited at your borders to be scrutinized
and questioned
and be taken apart. 
Advice: Never say
"What's the matter lady,
you got PMS or something?"
like Uncle Dick did.

We have felt your whale splashes,
your cold nights on Lake Huron,
your tidal bore,
and your mosquitoes.
Our feet have waded in your tidepools bare
because we left our flip flops on PEI.
We did not wade in the Yukon
after we saw a huge tree appear
and disappear
from its muddy flow.

We have canoed to your pictographs.
We have looked for tiny moonworts
and found old bottles instead.

We have tasted your snails
and seaweed
and mussels
and lobsters
and fresh strawberries
and a bucket of perch.

We have sung,
rather well,
on your public radio station
near the Plains of Abraham.

We have tried,
unsuccessfully,
to count your fireweed
and to make a fish harness,
and have helped sink a boat called "Dundee."

We have seen the underwater lights of night divers
and the twinkling lights of fireflies.
We have seen the rocky cliffs
that used to touch African shores.
We have seen the maple leaves
on the haunches of the horses
of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
We have seen your canola fields
and are glad you changed the name
from "rapeseed."

We found the snake you hid in our stove.
We have worn our honeymoon jeans
to one of your proper churches.

We were reminded of Aslan
singing Narnia into existance
at the foot of the mighty McKenzie mountains.
Primal.

We have climbed your trees
and a few cliffs
to find perfectly cubed rocks.
We will climb your Rockies next year,
God willing!
We have loved it all,
mostly.

We are comfortable to be your neighbor
and happy to be your friend.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation: June

A partial list:

10. Cooking hot dogs over a campfire.
Relish.
Mustard.
Good conversations.

9. Teaching Vacation Bible School.
Alice based the week
on GT and the Halo Express scripture memory.
Love GT!

8. Visiting Goodwill.
It borders on addiction.

7. Looking at the roadsides.
Elderberries are currently blooming.
There was a dead porcupine
along 322 east of Rockton
and I had a "Get Well" balloon in the car,
so I tied it to his front leg
and took a picture for Luke,
bless his heart,
who tolerates my humor.
A car pulled over,
perhaps thinking I had car trouble,
then, thankfully, left.
More cars were coming
(busy road for the middle of the afternoon)
so I left,
only to see a car slam on its brakes
in my rear-view mirror.
I did a u-turn
and retrieved the balloon.
Warped humor should not cause accidents.

6. Went to a mountain picnic and took a dessert.
A dessert that people liked.
A dessert that people requested the recipe for.
Den was shocked.
We circled the day on the calendar.

5. Eating Calliari's bread
spread with real butter
and Palumbo's hot chicken spread.
What Primanti Bros is to Pittsburgh,
that combo could be for DuBois.
Hometown food.

4. Visiting local state parks with the grandgirls.
If you're interested,
Bald Eagle State Park's water is warm and a bit dirty,
Parker Dam's water is clean and COLD,
and Black Moshannon's water is cool
and full of tannic acid from vegetation--
thus the name BLACK Moshannon.

3. Reading children's books
and then writing reviews for a company in D.C.
The good news is: free books!
The bad news is: I've thrown some of them away.
If I can't recommend them,
why pass them on?

2. Watching 24 every Monday night
and Doc Martin on Thursdays on PBS.

1. Looking for things
that are creature-like
in public places.
For the past two years,
I've carried stick-on googly eyes in my purse
(a Luke suggestion).
The most recent find is below.
Ten points if you can identify its DuBois location.

How did you spend your June?

Hello