Saturday

11 March 2017

— small hints of spring

Good Morning All,

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago I wrote about my annual class survey, Who’s There?, conducted on the first or second day each fall, my goal being to get some sense of what the class’s collective persona might be, as well as to get the kids talking in a casual way about the sorts of issues literature addresses all the time. I told you specifically about what the kids looked for and valued in a friend.

Several of you (which is to say, three of you) inquired as to what else I asked the kids. But I could find the stats for only that one class of six, and that did not seem to me to be enough of a representative sampling to interest you. 

Then, thanks to Johs insisting I bring my old iMac with me to the new house (I was for just chucking it), I brought it in from the cold garage a few days ago, plugged it in for the first time in four years, figuring it wouldn’t work for beans, and—Holy Toledo!—suddenly it was making its usual Apple opening sound (a musical sort of boy-ing) and there was my good old desk background picture of the Concord River, taken a dozen years ago when Max and I rented a canoe for an afternoon), just as we were approaching the stone arch of the Route 2 bridge. Even the redwing blackbird perched on the reeds to our right was still there. Plus of course all the small index-card-icons of various files superimposed on the water.

The next three hours, which I had admonished myself to spend hauling and emptying garage boxes, disappeared. Doubtless, it will sound ridiculous, but it was like meeting an old friend again unexpectedly. My good old iMac had been faithfully holding so much stuff I had entirely forgotten about, including lots and lots of photos, fiction, and poetry that I somehow had not transferred to this Apple Pro I am using now.

The only bad news was/is, it also had a special icon for Maelstrom, a dangerously addictive game where the world as we know it depends upon my ability in my space ship to avoid hurtling asteroids and blast them into fragments before they strike Mother Earth. The more I succeed, of course, the more they come in profusion. I devoted another hour on that task, stopping only because I was bathed in sweat from the responsibility, and took a shower.

In the interests of these prefatory natters not getting too long, I shall stop here and report tomorrow on what daily activities (eating, listening to music, watching tv, etc.) top the list of my thirteen grade 11 students in 2008.

Go Well and Stay Well, 

Bhekaron