sea salt

 (published in word~river literary review) "What I love about our students is that there is so much to mine out of them.  They're not used to valuing education, or thinking that they have intelligent things to say, but it's in there..." This is my answer to the question I hear a lot these days: "What do you like about teaching?" It's true.  Our students are at a wonderful crossroads in their education, where they can decide to complete an associate's degree and begin careers, or they can transfer to a 4-year college and earn a bachelor's degree.  No matter what they choose, they are very often accomplishing more than they, their parents, and many of their teachers thought possible.  I'm not sure when I first compared teaching to mining, but I can't think of a more apt way to describe it.  What makes mining unique is that it's not a guaranteed success - you can fail.  This doesn't mean the precious metals or diamonds ...

On this day, five years ago, my grandfather finally passed into peace after a long and painful battle with Alzheimer's.  Grampy has been the inspiration for much of my writing, including my memoir, At Ease.   To honor the memory of his life, struggle, and death, I've copied below a few scenes from my memoir. I love you, Grampy.  I still miss you... The Motorcycle My head was hot under the red helmet and I held my breath as Grandpa leaned in to secure the chin strap, the plastic clasp burning with summer heat. He bought the helmet for the grandkids to share, but while I was riding I pretended it was all mine. It was my turn to ride. My older sisters, Christine and Angie, had already ridden, and Julie had to wait in the driveway until I got back, since she was only eight and I was ten. I hoped Grandpa wouldn’t shorten my ride because she was waiting. As he lifted me onto the motorcycle, I stretched my legs to keep from touching the hot chrome of the exhaus...

To confirm the actual date of the end of the Civil War, I consulted a history timeline. While the war officially ended in May of 1865, a series of events led up to the important day on which, in theory, a divided nation was reunited. This morning I came to an important realization: I am from nowhere. The date is February 16, 2010; the location is Boston, MA; the battleground is the train. Like the Civil War timeline, my own important date (today) is preceded by a list of previous events and circumstances that, while I didn't know it at the time, prepared and shaped me for the moment on the train. I call this moment my Civil Observation, which in turn led to the Realization that I am, in fact, from nowhere. I grew up in South Florida in a true melting pot that included many different groups of people: Jewish, Indian, Asian, and Latin American (I didn't have a crush on a white, American, Protestant boy until I got to college). My parents are from New England, like so many...

Last night I peeled a pound of shrimp. It was a slimy task, tedious, and smelly. And I had to continually shoo the cats away, since the smell of fresh seafood drove them crazy. Standing over the pile of shrimp, peeling off their tails and legs, I had a bizarre feeling of power. I thought, "How pathetic that the part I'm peeling away is the shrimp's armor - its protection - and I'm just standing here, unaffected, peeling it away. Why even bother having a shell when it's this easy to take off?" And then I pulled too hard on the end of one and the whole tail came off, shell and shrimp. And the next one I squeezed too hard while peeling away the legs and I all but flattened the shrimp. And then I realized it wasn't an easy task at all. The shell has to come off - there's no way around it. But it has to be removed slowly, carefully, and gently. A tug too hard in one direction will bisect the shrimp; holding the shrimp too firmly while peeling causes ...

I hate talk radio.  Maybe it's because I spend so much of my day talking, or because I love music so much, or because my sisters and I listened to sports talk radio every morning with our father on the way to school - no matter the reason, when I turn on the radio, I want someone to sing to me. This morning on my way to school, I was listening to 91.9 WUMB, Boston's all folk radio station.  I love this station for the folk music, but in the morning I especially appreciate Dave Palmater's non-yelling, non-advertising, non-pop-music voice.  The tone and volume and cadence of his voice are less DJ, more grandfather in a rocking chair on a porch talking about Woody Guthrie.  It was this voice that lured me in and kept me tuned in long after a song had ended.  "It was on this date in 1964 that the governor of Illinois declared the Kingsmen's recording of  'Louie Louie' pornographic, and asked all local radio stations to stop playing it." Real...