You learn something new every day — even after you think you’ve heard it all
The first days of school have passed without incident, but somehow a mother just can’t help being anxious. I saw my son off safely and gave him the necessary lectures — Stranger Danger and all that — but he is a high school teacher, so you can see I have plenty to worry about.
It doesn’t get any easier. Learning has changed a lot over the years. When I was in high school, the big question was whether it was safe to go into the girls’ bathroom. No.
Today the question seems to be how to get the students to put away their phones. One teacher reported that he confiscated a student’s phone and the young man spent the rest of the period staring at the place where it was stored in “agony and longing.”
My younger great grandson is suddenly a high school student and reports that the days seem long. When I was in school, there was an hour and a half for lunch when everyone was expected to walk home where Mother could be counted on to fix a hot lunch. Walking to and from school I had to pass by the garage doors where the Very Bad Boys hung out. They smoked and wrote Very Bad Words on the garage wall. I consider that my first experience in learning a second language.
“What would you study,” I asked a friend, “if you had time and money to pick anything?”
“Oh,” he laughed, citing advance degrees from half a dozen prestigious universities, “I’m through with learning.”
Although he’s certainly qualified, and teaches as a community service, I felt a little sad. To me, the great reward for hard work has always been finding out something new. Now that there’s extra time, I can learn new things.
I’m taking singing lessons. No one has ever asked me to sing, and many people have asked me not to. I am sincerely terrible. But singing raises your spirits and expands your diaphragm, and just may be helpful in combating the voice deterioration that comes with Parkinson’s Disease.
Over the years I’ve rejoiced at unexpected learning, from Red Cross training to life drawing and oil painting. A spider once crawled into the wet paint of a still life, wiggled all around, and died. I got an award for that painting.
One year, I took a class in baking portrait cakes. My first effort was supposed to be a portrait of Star Wars’ mega menace Darth Vader, but the cake didn’t turn out right and it looked more like Darth’s less successful twin brother Darrell. I don’t make portrait cakes any more.
I’ve written often of the feeling of pride I had as a small child waiting at the polling booth for my mother to vote. My father was a practitioner of the politics of Never. Never voted and he never went to church, though he always said the Southern Methodist Church was the one he didn’t go to. I learned something important back in the days in Montana when your very existence could depend on your neighbors. It’s everybody s task to get involved.
Tomorrow I’ll go to my second election postcard writing party. These are not political and no party is endorsed or recommended. The cards just carry a reminder of date and time of elections in the localities where these elections are taking place.
Is it worthwhile? Studies show that reminders like this are far more effective if they come from close friends than from strangers, and yet at this point, even small numbers matter and there is that feeling of community that I’ve missed so much.
One of my sons wrote about a meaningful learning experience. He came home from college with a huge diamond stud in his left ear. I took one horrified look and slammed the door.
“You took that very well, mother,” he called from the outside.
He bravely continued to wear the earring despite scathing disapproval from the home front — until the learning experience occurred.
“I had stopped in a community gathering place to do a little research, perhaps have a bit of light refreshment. A truck driver (apparently also doing research) — a big truck driver — took exception to my earring. He said lots of surprising things. He even mentioned you, Mother. I didn’t even know he knew you.”
One goes to college for an exchange of ideas but still, my boy couldn’t stand by and allow his mother to be insulted by a perfect stranger. In the course of the discussion, the truck driver yanked the earring through the lobe of my student researcher who promptly lost interest in further research or wearing earrings.
“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts,” John Wooden has said.
Where to find Dorothy in September
Swimming Upstream Radio Show, https://swimmingupstreamradioshow.com
Sept. 2: Legendary Black Heroes
Sept 9: Generation Gap — Journalist Ray Miller-Still talks about “I sure didn’t learn this In school”
Sept 15: Retired Washington state Supreme Court Justice Richard Guy talks about what really happened at the trial of Donald Trump and why the American people are so disillusioned.
Sept 22: Author Marjorie Turner Hollman discusses “How to have safe, fun travels with handicaps or health conditions”
Contact Dorothy by phone at 800-548-9264 or by email at Dorothy@swimmingupstreamradioshow.com
