CHAPTER
V
TELECASTER
Who am I?
TELE:
My lineage is of venerable vintage. The
first half of my name comes from the Greek word meaning afar. I share this
esteemed title with some of the most important words associated with modern
communication: telephone television telegraph telex telescope telemetre
telepathy telephoto telespectroscope teletype telstar telephotograph telecommunications
CASTER:
A person or thing that casts
CAST:
to throw... to launch to throw one end of
a fishing line into the water to shape by pouring into a mold used to support
something broken while it is mending to arrange actors or parts in a play
the actors in a play form, look or appearance
CAST ABOUT:
to search or look
CAST OFF:
to let loose... untie from moorings
CAST UP:
to turn upward
CAST A VOTE:
to present a ballot for the candidate of
one's choice
BROADCAST:
electronic transmission to the public the
act of throwing and scattering seed for dispersion in sowing
I AM A SONG
WHILE MY GUITAR
GENTLY WEEPS
I look at the world and I notice
it's turning While my guitar gently weeps With every mistake we must surely
be learning Still my guitar gently weeps
I don't know how you were diverted You
were perverted too I don't know how you were inverted No one alerted you
I look at you all ... see the love there
that's sleeping While my guitar gently weeps I look at the floor and I
see it needs sweeping Still my guitar gently weeps -George Harrison
I'm alone now. Sue-On and the kids have gone
to bed (1 am). I look again at the pink book in my hands, I look at the
yellow course outline which will dictate most of my waking moments for
the next two months, I look up at my music wall. What in Hell am I doing
this for? I have turned my back on my old friend hanging on the wall. But
why? Like so many of my best teaching ideas, the inspiration hits me under
fire. I presumed that a journal would be required in this, the final course
of my Masters Programme, but I wasn't sure just how I would approach it.
RE suggested tonight that we should cut through the bullshit...that curriculum
should involve experiences. Some of my most rewarding lifetime experiences
have revolved around that weird-shaped, metal-adorned chunk of wood hanging
in front of me. If Robert Pirsig can be presumptuous enough to share a
spiritual odyssey with a motor sickle and endeavour to make motorcycle
maintenance a high art and spiritual event surely I can turn to my old
friend for a bit of guidance. My old friend uses just as much technology
and can at the same time be a much more intimate companion. Cycles get
you from A to B...they shake...and stink...they can kill you. Guitars transcend
such mundane pursuits and in doing so, I feel are much more in tune and
in sympathy with the journey upon which I am about to embark.
For some reason, reading and skimming Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance drives home just how much I crave
that which has played such an integral part of my life till now...MUSIC.
Oddly, this perusal of tonight's book purchase seems for some reason to
open a deep yearning for one of my consuming passions - not a motorcycle
but my music...my guitar...my Fender...my Telecaster.
LISTEN TO THE
MUSIC
I think I have made a big mistake in my
teaching. Yeh, after 23 years. I have tried to separate my musical experiences
from teaching activities...till now.
Mistakes abound tonight. I skimmed through
"Zen" enough to see that much of the book centers around a father's relationship
with his son. I read the Afterword. The son was murdered on the streets
of San Francisco, some time after this book was first published. For some
reason I am really shaken by this - I don't feel like reading this book
- I'm afraid it's going to turn into a painful flashback experience. I'm
going to try to sleep.
A LONG AND WINDING
ROAD
I embark on my odyssey accompanied by Kemo
Sabe (my faithful briefcase companion) and my bruised and dented coffee
flask. But, along with these regulars I add a touch of pizzazz this morning.
Dr. Enns arranged for me to sign out a laptop computer to facilitate the
electronic transfer of my writing assignments in the interim between regular
classes. True to my promise of last night I also pack a road-weary guitar
case adorned with even wearier stickers: North England football clubs,
flags, band logos, etc. Wedged in between all of this paraphernalia for
teachin' and larnin' is one of my most amazing sources of inspiration -
5-year-old China-Li. Mom, Sue-On, left much earlier for her teaching job
at Birtle Collegiate - having crawled out of bed two hours ago. The first
stop on the first real day of my two month journey through the mosaic countryside
of education is quite fittingly at the door of my daughter's nursery school.
She can't wait to get there. She has been dressed and "packed" for hours.
Strung across her shoulder is her empty book bag - empty so that she will
have room to bring back another lot of paintings, drawings, models and
other creations to hang on our already heavily laden fridge door. Our kitchen
art gallery would never pass fire inspection. The flurry of excited activity
around this nursery school is soon cancelled out by the lethargic scene
which greets me across town in the hallway outside the Grade 12 room. Where
did they lose this excitement? How can I maintain my daughter's sense of
wonder, excitement, and momentum in her quest for knowledge?
HERE COMES THE
SUN
(POV WH as pre-schooler)
Sheep... sun... porridge... Oh Oh! Bonnie's crying again... Mommy's awake...
Oh No! I don't want to go! I bet Mommy forgot. She's not calling me. I
don't want to go! Why do I have to go? I don't know any kids. I want to
stay with Nipper. We can go down to the tree fort. I saw a rabbit there.
"Billieeeee! Time to get up. You don't want to be late for your first day
at school. Breakfast is ready." I'll hide under the covers. She'll forget.
She'll think I can't wake up. I won't have to go. I just want to hug Noo
Noo and stay here for ever and ever.
This year I have the same grade 9 class of
20 kids for three courses - all morning, every morning. I approached this
schedule with not a little trepidation. How could I keep twenty kids motivated
for four consecutive periods all year long? Despite my fears it has turned
out to be a very successful year. Only now, with my yet fledgling new perspective
on curriculum, can I start to analyze why it is working. Through employing
my own experiences and interests I seem to have made it work. This has
been a journey of twenty interacting experience-generating minds travelling
through a milieu of different physical settings (I use two classrooms and
a multipurpose/stage area), on every known method of conveyance (we experience
a barrage of A/V and interaction devices which conjure ever-changing atmospheres,
moods, times, weather, and milieux).
MILE ZERO
(POV WH pre-schooler) I like it when
Mommy drives the blue truck. I get to ride by the window. Oh no. Bonnie's
crying again. I think Mommy's crying too. Poo ooh stinky diaper. There's
Daddy on the tractor! Ouch! My new black lunch kit's getting hot. "When
can I open it Mommy?" "Will Gary be there Mommy?" "Will you stay at school
with me Mommy?" "Why do I have to go Mommy?"
NANO LAND
The first leg of our journey today turned
into a Tron-like odyssey - Tele and fellow travellers were drawn with all
the force of a black hole into the alien universe of the microchip. Their
mission was to try to unravel the mystery of how cold, impersonal 0s and
1s could master the art of music.
SHOW AND TELE
(POV Telecaster
guitar) I like these times. I get to see faces, reactions, close up. The
surprising thing is that kids who think they know so much about rock and
the music scene, really know so little about guitars. Even after our classroom
demo, few kids could actually name many guitar or synthesizer parts. A
speaker is something you sing into, a chord is something you plug into
a speaker - a bridge?... a nut?... a pickup?... an acoustic?... Most think
I have 4 or 5 strings! Makes me feel like one of Disney's three-fingered
anamorphic creations. My style has changed considerably over the last 30
years. There was a time when my partner in sound was just a small amplifier.
Even though I sometimes wax nostalgic for simpler times it is with not
a small measure of pride today that I bask in the adulation and wonderment
shown by the kids in Will's class. Something magic seems to fill the air
when people and guitars come together. Most everyone admits to having tried
or to having wished he could play the guitar. We started off with my simple
solidbody sound but we soon got carried away with chorus, echo delay, octave,
compression, overdrive, distortion, and of course this led to a tour of
our 128 synthesizer sounds: violins, trumpets, tubas, organs, flutes, percussion,
sax, ad infinitum. Most of our time was focused on my synth capacity since
the whole raison d'etre for this display was to show the effect of computer
technology on music. I think I'll be back.
ONE NIGHT
STAND
(Words & Music by Bill Hillman) (CD
ALBUM #10)
Make the same ole
rounds
Hit the same ole towns
Pickin' Country and
Rock 'n Roll
Crowd gettin' loud
Band gettin' louder
Till the whole thing's
outa control
Hey Hey...All right
Gonna be All right...
tonight
We boogie all night
Watch 'em brawl and
fight
People never listen
like they should
They want the same
ole songs
Say there ain't nothing
wrong
With "Roll over..."
and "Johnny B. Goode"
It's a one night stand
It's a one night stand
And we're standing
up for Rock 'n Roll
Fifteen years
Of smoke and beers
And fifteen thousand
bars
Nights get lonely
When you're on your
own
With nothin' but your
old guitar
It's a one night stand
.......... It's a one night stand
And we're standing
up for Rock 'n Roll
ONCE
UPON A MORNING
(POV WH pre-schooler)
"Good Morning Children. How many of you know O Canada? Stand up straight.
All of you sing now. Now children, line up along the wall and sit on the
bench. Billie can you count to ten? Can you count to five? Can you print
your name? What are your initials then? How old are you? Can you talk?"
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP That's the sound of Daddy's blue truck.
That's how Bonnie blows the horn. Mommie's ready. Ooo that door is heavy.
Now I can go home and play with Grandpa. "Billie! You can't come out yet!
It's not noon yet. I'll take you back." "I don't like it Mommie."
OWED TO A GUITAR
(POV Telecaster
guitar) I feel like a common whore. Admittedly, I am hanging on a rather
impressive music wall, no rundown street corners for me. But can there
be any other name for it when one is taken down and used to make money
on slam bang weekends... and then put back wet with the discarded Gretsches,
Voxes, Harmonies, Mosrites, Silvertones, Banjos, Steels, Chinese Lutes,
Fiddles, Flutes, Ovations, Twelve Strings, Yamahas.... You yearned, saved
for these others .... these one night flings... you used them but you always
came back to me.
Looking back over
the thirty years of my life, this year has to be a low point. First you
neglected me for the computer - this I tolerated, after all, I am also
part of a computer now. But then came the long night drives - I have always
been a part of your night life but you have been going alone. Then, my
creator, Leo Fender, died last March.
Final blow ... your
ode to a guitar string in your last journal...A guitar STRING!!!...Will,
we change and discard these things like dirty socks! Not one word about
me...about us!
BRING BACK
THE GOOD TIMES
(Words & Music Desperado) (From CD Album
#10)
You don't look at
me like you used to do Babe
You don't say the
things you used to say
We don't seem to talk
like we used to do Babe
Does it really matter
anyway
Is this the end of
the line
Is there nothing left
to be said
Do we forget the past
- what's gone between
Or just look straight
ahead...or should we...
Try ...to bring back
the good times
Try ...to forget all
the bad
I ...just wish we
could start again
And bring back the
good times
And all the magic
they had
Is there any point
in this rescue operation
Is there any meaning
to this song
Should we call it
quits - no obligation
Just turn our backs
and say so-long
I just can't believe
it's over
Won't you tell me
you've changed your mind
O Baby! O Baby! Don't
leave this thing behind
Why can't we just...
CHORUS
OMPHALE'S
SPINNING WHEEL
(Suspense Radio Show theme)
Some years ago I developed a course for
the Department of Education which I called Entertainment Arts. As part
of our journey through Language Arts, we often take time to turn off into
some of the side trails originally carved out for the Entertainment Arts
course. Lately, we have been exploring the long-forgotten world of radio
drama. Some of my fondest memories and most formative experiences came
out my youthful travels through the Golden Years of Radio. In an attempt
to crystallize these memories I have, over the years, amassed a treasure
vault of over 10,000 shows from the '30s-'70s. As usual there is just not
enough time to share much of this material or experiences with today's
travellers. I listened then and the sounds are with me to this day. Radio
listening was very important to me. It was certainly more important than
eating - I remember bolting down a meal to hear Tom Corbett - Space Cadet,
Superman, Gene Autry and The Cisco Kid (coincidentally, as I write this
the familiar voice of Jackson Beck comes on, doing a voice-over for Thompson's
Water Seal - he must be in his 70s but can still be heard doing commercials
and cartoons like the Transformers). Evenings were spent with Jack Benny,
George and Gracie, Lux Presents Hollywood, Fibber McGee & Molly, Amos
'n' Andy - the list, and variety is endless. Radio listening was infinitely
more important than going to school. How many times did I make my cold
last longer so I could stay home to follow kindly old Ma Perkins or Pepper
Young through their daily soap operas. Radio listening was as much a part
of life as dodge ball, recesses, bicycles and homework. How could you do
without it? I fell in love with radio at a very early age, and though the
radio I loved is lost to me, my love has continued. Radio was largely a
private thing whether in the family circle in the living room, or in bed
listening under the covers. You had things your own way in Radio Land.
No one could tell you the monster on Lights Out was too gruesome, because
you could make it as gruesome as you liked. No one could suggest that Buck
Rogers' girl friend, Wilma Deering, wore a spacesuit that fitted rather
too snugly for a boy of your age to observe. You ran the show. The results
your imagination provided were good. There were no padded shoulders on
the Lone Ranger or Batman, Superman flew with no jiggly trick photography,
and the Martians whom Orson Welles helped attack Earth were certainly more
convincing than anything the movies have ever provided. It was all as true
as a dream. A child simply to save his sanity must at times go underground
- have a place where he cannot be got at by grownups. Even now my head
is swimming with trivia from that time period - but, sadly, no one is interested
or wants to hear. I do believe, however, I can use some of these experiences
as I attempt to pass on the spirit and wonder of it all to my fellow travellers.
THANKS FOR THE
MEMORIES
The lights go out. My travellers are scattered
about this mysterious world of the imagination on an undulating magic carpet.
Organ stings and stabs, minor chords, crescendos, segues, fade-ins, fade-outs,
filters, foreshadowing, flashbacks, S-FX, overacting, underacting, laughs,
screams... During our trip we travel to outer space, inner space, jungles,
deserts, mountains, sea bottoms, the wild west, the orient, '20s...'30s...'40s...
'50s... past...present...future.
My travellers entertained each other today.
Radio drama is an excellent imagination generator and it opens many doors
for creativity and expression. Over the last week we have been creating
our own radio scripts - and our rehearsal activities have made their presence
known to all within earshot: sound effects, technical tricks, shouts, weird
accents, exclamations, wild read throughs, pandemonium. It is a very non-threatening
way for shy kids to hang up their wallflower cloaks and to enter the performing
arts.
CANDLE IN THE
WIND
(POV WH 6-year-old)
"Stand up straight now Grade Ones. When the curtain is drawn I want you
to look out across the theatre audience and try to find your parents. Billie
will recite first. Remember to speak up" The lights. They hurt my eyes.
Everybody's clapping. Everybody staring. I don't know what to say now.
There's Daddy. And Nanny. Why are the kids giggling? I feel awful. They're
staring. Teacher's telling me what to say. That's all? The other kids know
what to say. Prizes! Maybe I'll get one another time.
BASEMENT SUITE
IN A FLAT
(POV Telecaster
guitar) I was with you during those lonely awkward early years at Brandon
College - in that basement room watching you cook spaghetti when the landlady
wasn't smelling, you held me and caressed me while you listened to those
far off American radio stations all night instead of cramming calculus,
physics, chemistry, crystallography. I was with you before you dreamed
of becoming a teacher....remember the nights you stayed out all night...not
at beer bashes ... no you weirdo - you came back bleary-eyed after spending
all night hiding from the Brandon College Library watchman...hiding in
the out-of-bounds board room off the stacks with piles of newspaper archives
just so you could bring back some story to me about early show business
greats.
BLOWING IN THE
WIND
(POV Telecaster
guitar) We did something today we haven't done enough of over the years
- a campfire singalong. This has to be the strangest one I have ever done.
We are in a storage room off the gym...the lights are out but there is
a glow from a campfire in the middle of the room (a good imitation of one,
least). Will arranged earlier for the kids to compile a collection of songs
which they all know. Since he had a feeling that this compilation would
not be a roaring success, he prepared a backup set of lyrics - mostly songs
from the hootenanny era... all of them popular before these kids were conceived.
After an initial uneasiness things went surprisingly well...the darkened
room was a real motivator. They want to do it again - next time around
a smokey campfire and under a bona fide luna (with mosquitoes).
WAYFARING STRANGER
(POV WH First Year
University Student)"Taught yourself how to play guitar and sing eh. Blues...Bluegrass...Bob
Dylan...Beetles (sic) ... BeBop...Boogie Woogie... Working your way through
college by doing television, radio shows, playing one nighters and bars
uh? Sorry son, we don't offer college courses on that type of stuff...
well, you might try the Music Department... Lorne Watson. History of Western
Music... Wagner... Mozart..." "Sure... I'll take it. Wow... listening lab...
stereo headphones... stereo records... A new world!!!" "Where are you going
with that Elvis record...Johnny Cash!?? THE BLUEGRASS OF DON RENO &
RED SMILEY... Good God! Do you know where you are?... We study MUSIC here!"
Great in stereo though.
TO THE SEA
Many progressive curricularists like to
adopt the metaphoric self-image of swimming upstream against the mainstream
deluge of current practice. This image has a certain appeal to my rebellious
side but going upstream can not change the course of flow nor can it have
any effect on the shape and nature of the river bed. It changes the mainstream
little or not at all - water will not run up hill. The combatant struggling
against the current is gradually worn down. I am convinced that a more
effective strategy must be to use the momentum and power of the mainstream.
One can harness such power and redirect it to carve out cutoffs and new
channels downstream - to reach the sea carrying maximum alluvium, with
maximum force, at peak flow.
THE STEEPLECHASE
Much of my time lately has been ticked off
thinking about curriculum. I have tried numerous methods of sorting and
classifying the various definitions of curriculum. The harder I have tried
to come up with fancy cut-and-dried sheaves for the stook, the more I have
kept sliding back to the original latin root of curriculum - "race course."
All of the words I have ever heard applied to curriculum have kept dovetailing
and veneering together into some amorphous, kaleidoscopic, surrealistic,
spiraling race course. I have been immersed in the pool of education for
over 40 years - at all grade levels, in nearly every subject, on both sides
of the desk, and in many strange places - steered fore and aft, starboard
and larboard (yes, and sunk and salvaged) by many different navigation
lights - and as a result I have been tugged and tucked, shrivelled and
shrunk, rolled and reamed, ballooned and burst, and illiterated and alliterated
into some kind of mutated hybrid cynic and pollyanna clone...in equal parts.
While attempting to condense the various
species of curricula down to a wieldy file card size, an image of Darwin
kept coming to mind. "Mr. Darwin...Please classify the contents of your
Origin of the Species in a hundred words or less on the palm of your hand."
In my dilemma, my first thought was to turn to contemporary experimenters
who had just invented the zoetrope - an animation device that contained
a pedestal-based revolving drum slitted so that as it was spun around,
small figures in various positions (such as horses on a race track) on
a strip of paper inside the drum seemed to be in motion when viewed through
the slits. My plan of creating a dynamic, visual interpretation of the
runaway, ever-interacting, centrifugally-bound curricula thoroughbreds
fell through when I made a model on the required 3x5 card. It made a drum
which could only be considered a success - and comprehensible - in Lilliput.
ALWAYS
(POV WH a kid on the farm) "Do you know
what we used to do Willie, when I was a kid back in Elrose, Saskatchewan.
We used to make water bombs out of scrap paper." "Holy Cow, Dad! Neat!"
"You fold a square. Fold again. Fold diagonally. Again. Bring together.
Now fold the edges in. Tuck away the wings. Put your mouth over the opening...AND
BLOW IT UP. It holds water. It's like a hollow ball...a sphere." Wait till
I show the kids...not all the kids...just Boof and Bill and the gang. We're
gonna terrorize the school. What if I put ink in it?
WILLIE AND THE
PO BOYS
A racecourse is just too 2-dimensional -
that's the whole trouble with curriculum today. How about a SPHERE! Round!
Expanding. PO! Yeh. Think tank. Nuh uh! DeBono doesn't go far enough with
his term "lateral thinking." I see it as 3-D thinking. Expanding Universe!
How to turn a file card into a sphere? No, you silly bugger...not that...A
WATER BOMB!? Nope! Back to Lilliput. It's a golf ball...Maybe Dr. Enns
is a golfer. It would float. Waaaaiiit. It is just a vessel. An idea generator.
I can still put the concepts/ideas/defs on a card. 59 words. Cut them out
of the card. Leave the frame of the card. Put the words into the ... the
... Dialectic Generator - The Dialectic Sphere of Curriculum. Mix them
up. Pull out words. Fit them back into the empty frame of the file card
at will. Fill it up. Any order that fits. All the defs that fit. Voila!
3X5. Do it every day. The only definition I can live with.
Thanks Dad.
HEART OF GOLD
(POV WH a kid on the farm) Gold! Here
in our own stone pile. "Mom can I have some cloth to sew some little bags?...and
a needle and thread?" "Look Mom! Look what I sewed!" I'll hide the bags
all along the stone fence with the other treasure I've hidden there. The
best stones I'll put in my pirate chest under the verandah...nobody can
get in there. I've got almost enough pop bottles in there to buy another
Hardy Boys or Zane Grey book. Wow! I'm going exploring again tomorrow.
THE MOTHERLODE
For over 10 years now my blood "yung uns"
have been finding little bundles of treasure in English style stone fence
around our grounds. Fantasies of pirates, wild west prospectors, sunken
galleons, and all the popsicles such long lost treasures could buy lure
them back year after year to peer into all the hidden recesses of the ancient
stone wall built by their great grandfather.
The broadcasting and harvesting of such
touchstones along the road we travel is probably my most important, and
most enjoyable task - and I hope, an ongoing legacy.
THE MAD ARTIST
(POV WH a kid in
junior high) Humming Bull, Keyhole Mugsy, Korak the Grocery Boy...Ken,
Catherine, and Ernest don't seem to mind their characters - they are even
giving me stories about themselves to put into my book. I've got to finish
drawing this page by noon...then if I can get it coloured I can pass it
around. Oh Oh...here comes the teacher...she doesn't like comics. Last
week she took away one of the greatest pocketbooks I have ever bought -
Mad Strikes Back by Harvey Kurtzman. If I could draw like Wallace Wood,
Jack Davis and Will Elder I could sell a million of these comics. I'd draw
everyone in the school. And the stories - are they funny: Prince Violent...Gopo
Gossum...Ping Pong... Poopeye... Teddy and the Pirates...Manduck the Magician...
Superduperman... WOW!
FIRST BORN
(POV Telecaster
guitar) One of the first songs Will and I wrote, over 20 years ago, was
really a metaphor. Sue-On and Will did a great job of singing this song
about a free spirit lover and I put in some pretty original chord and key
changes:
BLUE SHALLOW
RIVER
(Words & Music by Bill Hillman) (CD
Album #10)
Blue shallow river
Why must you race
Blue shallow river
Why not slow your pace
Take it slow in your
wanderin' Must you keep drifting free
Why be always searching
For a distant land or a never reaching sea
Blue shallow river
Stand your own ground
Blue shallow river
Get yourself unwound
You know love's never
going to find you
In your dance to a
distant hill
You can let your dreams
unravel
Only if you take it
in your mind to lie still
THE RIVER ALPH
A teacher employing journals in his teaching
is calling on the student's own resources which means he must have the
patience and wisdom to listen, to watch and wait, until the student's stream
of thought becomes apparent. This stream may be quite irregular and meandering
but learning becomes incomparably easier if it is built on such a dynamic
basis. The teacher's duty is merely to set the creative pattern into which
these forces will then naturally flow and to promote a constant flow from
the well of inspiration. This is not a new idea - it can be traced all
the way back to ancient Greece but mankind has seldom had the desire or
intelligence to apply such an insight to the process of education. Why
is it assumed that education must involve only the layering on of endless
veneers of alien wisdom when there is such magic locked inside already?
I see a journalistic approach to teaching as a way of drawing out, or better
still, just releasing this elixir to enable it flow out under its own power.
Destructiveness and creativity are opposed forces in the realm of the mind.
I have found that a student's creativity nearly always develops and grows
at the expense of his destructiveness. To create is to construct, and to
construct cooperatively is to lay the foundations of a peaceful community.
Great changes in the destiny of mankind can be effected only in the minds
of our young.
So much hangs on the love of reading - an
aversion to the written word is a habit we have observed... and promoted
- if unintentionally... for too long in our education system. For the reluctant
reader, the books must be made out of the stuff of the student himself.I
have found such a motivating piece of reading to be the s.e hinton novel,
The
Outsiders.
DREAM TEAM
We stopped at a clearing along the road
today to share another chapter of the teen novel The Outsiders - which
even though set in the '60s, still reeks of relevancy. All of us sought
out a different part of the wood to mark off our private little dream capsule
- a place where we could comfortably and magically crawl into the pages.
After reading our chapter of the day we all wrote three observations in
the form of questions, or open ended statements, into our road journals..."I
don't understand why...What bothers me about...My favourite scene occurred
when...I don't think it fair that... I predict that..." All through the
process we decorated the facing page of the journal with sketches, random
thoughts, words, poems, songs, pictures, doodles, tracings, lipstick impressions,
fonts... anything to convey our immediate impressions. We call this hodgepodge
potpourri our "Bonkers Page." I promised my fellow artists that they would
soon have even more fodder to add as the Francis Ford Coppola movie adaptation
is playing just down the road.
THE OUTSIDERS
(POV Telecaster
guitar in England) They're looking at us kinda funny Will. Haven't they
ever seen Canadians before...I'm sure they've seen Telecasters before...Albert
Lee plays one. And Clapton (God) plays a Stratocaster. Three nights ago
we played Saskatchewan, two nights ago Sault St. Marie, and last night
we slept in a posh hotel in Bromley, Kent...are you as tired as I am. I
believe all the stories about jet lag now. England's longest drought and
heat wave for almost a century! Not much greenery here. All day in a Cromer
van - the gear and eight people - to get from London to Middlesborough.
You mean we play up there...no air conditioning...500 people...the what?...the
Boofs...oh...The Order of the Buffalo. A Workingman's Club. How do we plug
in? 220 volts? Are these amps going to work? Damn rented stuff. We're on
in half an hour? We haven't even had a sound check. The houseband opens
for us? Then a comedian and singer. OK. We're on for half an hour? OK.
Then you break for what? Housie? Oh. Bingo. We close with a dance set...before
ELEVEN? That's it? No we're not Yanks. We're from the colonies. Whew! That
made a difference - but we're still outsiders. Now if we could just understand
THEM! It's lonely up here...just me and Willie, Sue-On on those rented
Rogers drums and Kevin on that silly Hohner Clavinet and keybass. I hate
to admit it but I think being with teachers helps a bit up here. The Beatles
played here? Here? ... and Elton John?... Neil Sedaka?... What do you mean
we went down a bomb? They seemed to like us. Aha. To bomb is to do good
here. All right. Bring on another 30 nights...and a shandy.
POOH HOLLOW
(POV WH pre-schooler)
They're the ones. They're my favourites. Peter Rabbit, ABCs and Brer Rabbit.
Read longer tonight Mommie...Please.
FROM THE MOUTHS
OF BABES
As I packed for the day's journey this morning,
I noticed that China-Li had helped organize my briefcase again. She often
sends little things that we have shared and enjoyed as family - things
that she thinks my students would also enjoy. Usually I leave them unpacked
- a little girl's simple treasures - rocks, sketches, bugs, figurines,
cookies, etc. don't always hold much appeal for a super cool adolescent
(it sure must be boring being cool).
This morning's offering, however, touched
a sympathetic chord - it was a simple little book I had read and sung to
her last night. I had promised to read aloud a chapter of The Outsiders
to my rowdies today but something told me the time was right to go against
the grain and really get back to basics. I read the book to a group fully
prepared to hear about gang rumbles, teen alienation, and generation gaps.
Instead they were stroked with simple, childlike words - words which stoked
the universal reciprocal emotions which forge the love ties between parent
and child.
The book describes a mother coming into her
son's room each night after he falls asleep, to gaze lovingly at his sleeping
face and to hold and rock him gently as only a proud, admiring, loving
mother can do. Each time she sings the same lullaby - a bond timeless and
universal. The pages describe her doing this through all the stages of
her son's growth - infant, toddler, school age, right up till he leaves
home to start a family of his own. One night he receives a feeble telephone
call for help and he races back to his old home to rock and embrace, hold
and comfort her one last time. The last page shows a baby girl asleep in
her father's arms while he rocks and sings:
I'll love you forever I'll love you for
always As long as I'm living My baby you'll be
Not a dry eye in the house.
TIME BANDITS
(POV WH school kid on the farm) Oh no!
Not again! My head! My throat! ...and I can't stop coughing. Heck! I'm
sick. Hey! I can stay home from school. Nanny will make eggnog with snow
in it. I can listen to radio and read my books all day ... and play war
with my soldiers ...and all my neat junk. Mommie will bring me ice cream
& orange juice and Nannie will rub my back. It's not bad being sick
at home.
Dixie cup lids with movie stars! Beanie
badges with comic book characters! Tarzan Big Little Books! for box tops
Buck Rogers Secret Repeller Ray Ring! Little Orphan Annie Secret Decoder
Ring! from Ovaltine Invisible Ink! from Sky King Straight Arrow cards!
from Shredded Wheat Official Pilot's Hat! from Cream of Wheat Roy Rogers
Bandanna and Six Shooter!
Nooo oooH ...not the mustard plaster!!!
LITTLE HOUSE
ON THE PRAIRIE
Curriculum should be intertwined with the
student's home experience...but the sad truth is that many students come
from either a near-vacuum or home situations they would rather forget.
Many of these kids find far more fulfillment hanging out on street corners
or at the 7-11. My home has always been the core of my existence. I dwell
with family, love, warmth, shelter, food and entertainment, in a place
to unwind and recharge. I try to instill all of these elements into my
curriculum.
MEMORY TAKE
ME BACK
(Words & Music by Bill Hillman) (CD
Album #12)
Mother's mother on
the porch where she's making butter.
Grandfather's out
in the yard where he loves to putter.
Screen door slams
- sister runs in cryin
Skinned a knee out
where the collie dog's lyin'.
Memory take me back
just one more time.
Daddy's in the field
where he keeps the prairie dust flyin'.
Rain don't come but
the clouds they keep on tryin'.
Though drought and
hail made times a lot tougher
A mother's love saw
that we didn't suffer.
Memory take me back
just one more time.
Saturday night Daddy
takes us into town for a movie.
Late night shopping
and farm talk swapping on Main Street.
Old men standing by
the pool hall talking
Young folks out on
the sidewalk walking
Memory take me back
just one more time.
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