Elwood Goes to Lewisville

What would have happened if inpatient V. Van Gogh had been scheduled for twice daily rabbit therapy? Could Vince have gotten his act together while petting a nonjudgmental animal in his room at the Saint-Remy asylum. As a starving artist, Vince must have filled out applications to qualify for the sliding fee payment scale.

I can see Jimmy Stewart and Harvey doing hospital volunteering--you know, chatting with the inmates, helping them mark their meal menus. Elwood P. Dowd has some grand pookah rabbit healing powers.

This afternoon I get to go to the "bunny farm" to get supplies for the classroom pet. Or maybe I just misunderstood when the nice young men in the clean white coats said, "funny farm".

They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Renewing raindrops

I like this fabric, too. It reminds me that the anticipated storm brings the needed moisture to the soil allowing growth. The storm is not just a sky show.


The brown doesn't work with all the car window blocks. I'm a bit concerned about the fabric fading.


While I was waiting for the clerk to measure and cut the fabric I was subjected to Neil Diamond's 1971 "I Am, I Said." I'd have preferred B. J. Thomas singing "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head," from 1969. Thank heaven it wasn't the 1968 Richard Harris version of "MacArthur Park." I don't think that I could take it, as it took too long to bake it--Even longer than this project has taken!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

After this exhausting week of natural disasters and economic catastrophes, it is good to remember the day is beautiful if I'm paying attention.

I'm trying to remain a cockeyed optimist about the possible foundation repair to my condominium building. The water shut-off valves outside each unit were inspected to ensure they would survive a major building repair. The shifting in my part of the building is minor in comparison to the other half. Visualize wringing out a washcloth. That is the twisting that has occurred between the two halves of the building. The washcloth wring twist pretty much describes the current economic situation, too.

Still, the sky was a gorgeous pink and purple accented by the red neon Walgreens sign from the store across the street when I took my recyclables to the carts at six a.m. When I left for work an hour later, hot air balloons were floating above the city in advance of this weekend's Plano Balloon Festival. Arriving at school, there was a perfect sunflower open to catch the light of this lovely North Texas day.

Stopping by my public library after work to pick up picture books about occupations for the preschoolers, I was wowed by this fabulous angular-winged katydid sunning on the wall. Impressive in person, I'm even more amazed since I downloaded the digital photo and can notice details my human eyes couldn't see unaided. Isn't he a handsome dude!? Okay, he's got some green tattoos, but I'm still asking him would you be mine, could you be mine, won't you be my neighbor?

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

"Out of touch"

All week the preschooler sang this vaguely familiar song. Her version is lacking almost all the consonants. She sings it during lunch, before nap, and the instant she wakes up, on the playground, in class. It makes her very happy, although it seems to be about a bad day, and she does a special walk when she sings it, taking very big steps, and bending forward.

My current lifestyle is blissfully ignorant of pop music, and of most television commercials. Still, her tune was vaguely familiar.

Thanks to the wonders of Google and Wikipedia, I know just how totally out of it I am! Daniel Powter's song, "Bad Day", was the Billboard #1 song of 2006. BBC News says it was the most played song in the UK during the period 2003-2008. It's been used for Coca Cola commercials, sung at the last FIFA World Cup, and matched to basketball videos on You Tube. There is even a version, heaven preserve us, by Alvin and the Chipmunks in their 2007 animated feature movie.

I may be even more out of touch than John McCain!

I can't write the preschool version without consonants, so I'll just color the lyrics the favored pink of three year old girls:

Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
You've seen what you like
And how does it feel for one more time
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Tom Thumb with luck

"I feel lucky!," as Mary Chapin-Carpenter would sing. It's raining, for one thing. Plus, this morning I took the Gecko Box to the post office and there was no line! I should probably go buy a lottery ticket.

Instead, I saw the LCD sign outside the Tom Thumb Store that read, BIG MEAT SALE. Whoa. I haven't shopped at the Tom Thumb in a dozen years, but I feel lucky.

In the mid-Nineties the Tom Thumb annoyed me by being the first grocery chain to have Reward Cards. Its skinny aisles were also a place I was likely to encounter my ex. The very helpful staff at the store pharmacy disappeared, and so did I. Amazingly, the store stayed in business without me.

Later, when my ex remarried, I stopped shopping for three ravenous teen sons and their friends at my old Albertsons. I didn't enjoy meeting the new wife there, or a city mayor I disliked. That store withered away without my business, and is now a vacant blight at a major corner.

DFW is a hotbed of grocery competition. I'm not sure how much the market analysts factor ex-spouse avoidance into their charts and graphs. As gas prices have increased, I mostly buy groceries at the store on my commute route. Even so, I can count nearly a dozen chains where I've purchased groceries in 2008, all within ten miles of my house.

I feel lucky today that it is the twenty-sixth birthday of my first son, Mr. Speech-Debate. Being his parent has been a joy and a wonder and enormously rewarding every day of the twenty-six years.

Over the years I've gotten used to reward cards, and have at least eight on my keychain. Got a Tom Thumb reward card today to get the full benefit of the BIG MEAT SALE. The store has been nicely updated, except its got too much of that dimmed indirect light Starbucks-style ambience for my bifocals.

Why the grocery store was named for a tiny guy who rode around on a mouse and kept getting eaten by animals and giants never made any sense to me, but neither did the names Hinky Dinky and Piggly Wiggly. Seems like Three Bags Full would be a more honest nursery tale allusion.

The preschoolers were learning the Hinky Dinky Double D Farm song this summer, but it's more likely the grocery store name was related to the World War I song, "Mademoiselle from Armentieres". Neither would inspire me to name a grocery store:

Oh it's beans, beans, beans
That make you feel so mean,
On the farm, on the farm,
Oh, it's beans, beans, beans
That make you feel so mean,
On the Hinky Dinky 'Double D' farm....Oh it's corn, corn, corn that makes you feel forlorn...

Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlez-vous?
Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlez-vous?
She could beg a franc, a drink, a meal
But it wasn't because of 'er sex appeal
Hinky, dinky, parlez-vous
You might forget the gas and shells, parlez-vous
You might forget the gas and shells, parlez-vous
You might forget the groans and yells
But you'll never forget the mademoiselles
Hinky, dinky, parlez-vous.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Peter Piper On the Patio

While I was watching a hummingbird at the feeder, this little anole lizard leapt onto the pepper plant and called for my attention. He only consented to pose for one photo as he scanned the airspace around pretty much my entire crop of peppers. Jeepers creepers, this has been a hot summer to garden.

I've had three [3] peppers, and one [1] tomato. Total. The basil is going great, but the cilantro and other herbs shrivelled up and died. Even the red cannas that attract the hummingbirds are shorter and slower to bloom than usual. I would blame all this on a brown thumb, but the school garden isn't doing much better. Only the okra and basil are thriving. The okra can thrive all it wants, but I'm still not going to eat it!

Johnny Mercer wrote casual, memorable, and witty lyrics from the 1930s into the Seventies. He collaborated with a Who's Who roll call of the best and most famous composers and singers of the era. Louis Armstrong premiered "Jeepers Creepers," the jazz standard Mercer and Harry Warren wrote for the movie "Going Places" in 1938. Incidentally, Ronald Reagan was in that movie.

Jeepers creepers, where'dya get those peepers?
Jeepers creepers, where'dya get those eyes?

Johnny Mercer/Harry Warren 1938

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Plum bunny loves me

The preschool bunny might be up for some Bohemian plum dumplings. He's decided that I'm his buddy again after a considerable period of indifference. The reason for his change of heart? Irrational rabbit rapture for plums eaten way down to the pits!

These delicious plums came from the grand opening of the Sprouts Farmers Market grocery store at Coit and Campbell, the latest destination in my summer "staycation". I've been eating the plums at lunch or snack, then letting Norton nibble the leftovers. To let me know he's appreciative, he snuggles up next to me while students do their reading aloud work. It's great fun, since the children think Norton has come to listen to their reading, and we all read better with an audience!

A rabbit lets you know he cares by galloping around your feet in tight circles and occasional figure eights. This hilarious cross between figure skating and lagomorph rodeo might have been the inspiration for one of my favorite picture books. Oh, I will be so disappointed if Rabbits On Roller Skates, by Jan Wahl, has been culled from my library's shelves!

Driving home after the vigil service about eight tonight, the sun was setting in a luscious, intensely glowing, plum color. True, the effect was probably due to all the particulates and ozone in our air, but I'd like to think that my student is reading to a happy rabbit out there somewhere.


Somebody loves me, I wonder who
I wonder who he can be
Somebody loves me, I wish I knew
Who can he be worries me
(Buddy DaSilva / George Gershwin / Ballard MacDonald) 1924

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Walk and talk, Suzy

Since the 1995 installation of Dale Chihuly's colorful glass swirls in the Hart Window of the Dallas Museum of Art's atrium, I've imagined the pieces as swirling flowers and sea creatures. They usually remind me of the amazing twirling plates act on the Ed Sullivan Show in the Sixties. Last night, for the first time ever, I contemplated square dance skirts and petticoats, Dr. Pepper and Shiner Bock bottle caps while staring up at the art.


Image respectfully reproduced from the Chihuly website.

The DMA was celebrating Texas bluebonnets and swing music, and showing the classic movie, "Giant" with James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor. Grandpas in western shirts were twirling little bitty granddaughters on the dance floor to the music of Maurice Anderson and his band, "The Dukes of Western Swing". The event had pulled in a different demographic for a Friday evening of special activities. Sharp marketing!

My companions were adamant about their allergies to "country music," and afraid they would break out in itchy rashes from prolonged exposure. Once upon a time I would have rejected it without listening, too. Now I just wear a great big smile, and never do look sour.

Sitting around the table and watching the dance floor, stages of life twirl before me. How wonderful to be those lucky little girls dancing with their attentive grandpas. Party and dance in the evening, and have a dish of butter brickle ice cream, too. Swirling in your dance skirt, you are the center of the known universe, pulling everyone into your personal movie with your amazing gravity!

Another guy, hopefully a gentleman, holds your elbow on your first encounter with inebriation. It's a funny dance, but the steps are tricky. He makes you a cup of Folger's freeze-dried instant coffee and sings softly, "Oh, walk and talk, Suzy; walk and talk Suzy. Walk and talk, Suzy; walk and talk Suzy." How does he know this incongruous dose of Bob Wills is the best way to sober up?

Three sons and a freeze-dried if not instant-divorce, it is time to get out of Dodge. A solo road trip to Caprock and Palo Duro canyons in the Texas panhandle yields and unexpected connection to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Spend a little time in Turkey, Texas where Wills was a barber by day and musician by night.

When the boys were little we had a cassette tape of railroad songs, truck songs, and songs about Oklahoma and Texas. It had "San Antone" and "Take Me Back to Tulsa" by Bob Wills' band. They probably don't remember it at all, amidst all the "Wee Melodies" and singing multiplication tables we listened to on road trips. Maybe a little fondness for Texas swing will show up in their eclectic music tastes eventually. And, psst! Their mommy still says they are too young to marry!

Take Me Back To Tulsa - Bob Wills/Tommy Duncan

Where's that girl with the red dress on? Some folks calls her Dinah;
Stole my heart away from me, way down in Louisana.

Take Me back to Tulsa, I'm too young to marry;
Take me back to Tulsa, I'm too young to marry.

Oh, walk and talk Suzy, walk and talk Suzy;
Walk and talk Suzy, walk and talk Suzy.

We always wear a great big smile, we never do look sour.
Travel all over the country, playing music by the hour.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Tourists in our own hometowns

Gas prices, airplane fares, and other economic conditions are causing many Americans to rethink the traditional summer vacation. Our workday commutes are pushing lots of to use mass transit where it's available. Some of us have the option of using mass transit to become tourists in our hometown. It just takes a little mindset shifting.

In an area like the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex there are an amazing number of possible attractions and events to see on any day or night of the week. Most residents never sample even a fraction of the possibilities, myself included. Many residents travel the same route everyday in their car, and never experience it on foot or by train, myself included We are always going and going, driving past the pretty little park, but never getting out of the car to walk past the flowers to sit on the bench.

Last evening I had the chance to ride the light rail to downtown Dallas to hear a "casual concert" by the Dallas Symphony. The ride gave me chances to see the impressive amount of construction going on along the DART rail corridor.

A brisk walk from the Pearl Station brought us to the Morton Meyerson Symphony Center with views on every side of new construction in the Dallas Arts District. The concert itself was "a gem," and I'm still hearing the Allegretto non troppo movement of Mendelssohn's Concerto in E Minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 64, in my head.

Afterwards, we intended to walk to catch the McKinney Avenue Trolley for a ride through Uptown and a late supper. The walk up Pearl took us past the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank building. I had only the foggiest notion that Dallas had a Federal Reserve Bank, and that it might have a building with art in its lobby. I wasn't sure it was really art, as it looked like a giant fiberglass model of a heart from the sidewalk.



Walked up the steps to the bank. From this vantage we could begin to see a bull seeming to plow through curving waves with a male figure following. Bull... sea... male...Poseidon? Was Poseidon the Greek god of banking and U.S. monetary policy? I've always been vague on the bull markets, but clearer on Theseus, the Minotaur, and returning home with black sails!

Or maybe this was a conceptual representation of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the early Spanish explorer of the New World whose surname means either "head of cow," or "in charge of vacations," depending whom you ask. Walking closer to the lobby window we could begin to tell it was a man plowing behind a yoke of oxen:

The Dallas Fed's art collection comprises contemporary works, including sculpture, oil and acrylic paintings, photographs, lithographs, collages, pen and ink drawings and a sound sculpture. The collection represents a diverse group of artists from Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico whose expressions reflect the Eleventh District’s historical and cultural diversity. The cornerstone of the collection, Luis Jimenez's "Sodbuster", is located in the main lobby. This fiberglass sculpture, depicting a farmer and two oxen, is a tribute to the spirit of the American West.

At this point the building security guard came through the lobby to wave us away with absolutely no sense of humor. I know I looked like a terrorist in my sandals and floral skirt! Must have been my purse that set him off.

On up Pearl, we waited at the stop for the McKinney Avenue Trolley. The trolley is known to tourists with guidebooks, but exists only as a vague concept to a long-time resident of suburban Plano. In theory, we could ride the trolley, get supper, then ride the trolley back near the DART light rail station. Sounds like a vacation itinerary!

A warm night with a cooling breeze and the occasional sprinkle, it was pleasant standing at the trolley stop. And standing. And standing. Looking back south at the lighted skyscrapers from this new vantage point and waiting. My stomach was starting to growl in a manner that would alarm the Federal Reserve.

Look! Here it comes! Here it comes! And there it goes! What's up with that? Guess I won't be singing about Rice-A-Roni or Thomas the Tank Engine anytime soon. I'll just hang onto that violin concerto in my head for awhile.

Walking on it was fun to see girls' volleyball teams and trendy loft dwellers passing on the sidewalk. Over seven hundred VB teams are in Dallas for the Junior Olympics championship, probably seeing more sights between games than most locals.

It was easy to be annoyed that the trolley didn't stop, and that it was a long walk back to the DART station. There was a distinction to be discovered. The McKinney Avenue Trolley is a free attraction sponsored by local entities and manned by volunteer rail afficianados. It is not mass transit with a timetable and transfer points. Some other visit I'll sing the "Trolley Song"* with Judy Garland or Frank Sinatra:

Clang, clang, clang went the trolley
Ding, ding, ding went the bell
Zing, zing, zing went my heartstrings
From the moment I saw him I fell

Chug, chug, chug went the motor
Bump, bump, bump went the brake
Thump, thump, thump went my heartstrings
When he smiled I could feel the car shake


That's all the vacation I can handle for one evening, but it sure was fun seeing the city in a new way.

*From "Meet Me In St. Louis," 1944, by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane.



© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Alamo cocktail swords

Waiting to pass through the security chute at the new Collin County Courthouse for jury duty, I wondered why this was the first event on my summer vacation itinerary. Shouldn't I be beached on the sand sipping a parasol-garnished frozen concoction?

Not the moment for applying sunscreen and searching for my lost shaker of salt; alas, I was on the case in McKinney. To be honest, I was hoping to be off the case, but staying philosophical should I be selected for a jury, the duty of every citizen.

There's a life-size bronze statue of Col. William Barrett Travis in the courthouse lobby, drawing his famous line in the sand with a life-size cocktail sword . "Bronze" plus "sand" should equal tan, relaxed, and buff, but those of us gathered in the Central Jury Room are chubby, irritable, and pasty.

The legend goes that Travis called the defenders of the Alamo together to announce that reinforcements would not be coming. The District Clerk announced there would be no coffee, let alone donuts.Travis drew his sword to make a line in the dirt, asking all who were ready to stay and die to cross the line. One person declined to cross, but escaped over the Alamo wall, and lived to tell the tale.

I've never made a clothespin Col. Travis, but I suspect it would be much like making a clothespin Captain Jack Sparrow. Wish I'd thought of that for all those times when my middle school sons had to do Texas history projects!



When my sons were about middle school age, they had a computer game called "Battle Bugs". The bugs marched around on a picnic blanket planting toothpick flags to a theme song forever implanted in my brain. I don't know if the battling bugs ever had cocktail parasols or swords. Maybe they drew their own line in the powdered sugar defending a box of donuts.

Two songs are battling now for control of my mind. Will the "Battle Bugs" theme conquer Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville"? Shouldn't this internal struggle render me unfit for jury duty? I don't even like donuts, but I'm ready to climb the walls to get a glazed one with a cup of black coffee!

...The alluring odor of last week's pizza lies heavy in the air. Antennae strain and agony etches lines of pain into the faces of the cockroaches. With monumental effort, these warriors raise the flag above the carnage in the pepperoni. This is Battle Bugs. A game of military strategy where insect troops rage across tabletops and storm junk food targets. Standing in their way are legions of enemy bugs, armed to the teeth. You - and your battle smarts - guide your troops to glory. Will your armada of spiders cross the cola lake in time to save the flag? Will the suicide run of a kamikaze mosquito take out the praying mantis? At what cost? At what price victory? We Will Fight In The Pizza. - We Will Fight In The Cookies. We Will Fight In The Coleslaw. We Will Never Give Up.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Cam Phone Spam Scram Gravy Ain't Wavy

Here in Plano voter interest in the municipal election is up one mild eyebrow twitch above the usual total apathy. We have a, gasp, openly gay candidate for city council. We have a $490 million school bond proposal when many families are cutting their driving and eating lots more beans.

Speaking of gas, the candidates have ALL figured out how to use automated annoying phone calls. I was home this afternoon because of school conference day, and the phone rang every five minutes with a robo-candidate urging me to vote.

Somehow, I got off the campaign track into a discussion about gravy. Growing up, it was a given that during any meal served with gravy someone would remark, "Scram gravy ain't wavy." What did it mean?

Googling "scram gravy" I learned that the expression probably derived from an old-timey newspaper comic about a fireman called "Smokey Stover". If you happen to remember anything from "Smokey Stover" about Molly freezing on the trolley*, PLEASE leave a comment! Dad and I have been as far up and down the sidewalk of Memory Lane as he can go pushing his walker, and I barely remember the comic in the Omaha Weird Herald.

As a kid in the Sixties, I believed that "scram gravy ain't wavy" was a jab at our neighbors who made lumpy gravy with flour and milk instead of using the inherently superior smooth cornstarch recipe seasoned with brown sauce. I have to laugh, but we kids must have had playground taunts like, "my mom's gravy is smoother than your mom's gravy!" It was an era of Meat and Potatoes.

Fritzi's Gravy

Yield: 2 cups


2 Tbsp fat drippings
2 cups hot water drained off the boiled potatoes you are going to mash
2 Tbsp Argo® Corn Starch
1/4 cup cold water
1 tsp Gravy Master or other brown sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Remove all but 2 tablespoons fat drippings from roasting pan. Stir in hot water. Cook over medium heat, stirring to loosen browned bits. Remove from heat.


Put corn starch and water in a small jar with a tight lid, then shake until smooth; stir into pan. Add seasonings. Stirring constantly, bring to a boil over medium heat and boil 1 minute.

*Dad is probably thinking of Walt Kelly's Christmas classic:

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., and Kalamazoo!
Nora's freezin' on the trolley
Swaller dollar cauliflower Alleygaroo!
Don't we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou
Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
Boola Boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Country pickin' fingers

Don't park your double-wide in the Rose Garden, Bill. You weren't a horrible President, especially compared with Dubya. Nothing you and Monica did under the desk was any worse than what millions of good old boys and girls do in offices, Ford F-150s, and tacky motels every day. I just don't want another Tag Team Clinton mud-wrestling administration.

Should Hillary become the Democratic nominee by some weird twist of soap operatic amnesia fate, I will root for her greased pig in the 4-H grandstand against McCain's Hundred Years' War hog. But even then, Bill, please don't set your trailer up on cement blocks out there by that reflector pool!

I'll fix your flat tire Merle
Don't ya get your sweet country pickin' fingers all covered with erl
Cause you're a honky, I know, but Merle you got soul
And I'll fix your flat tire Merle

So, Bill, just set your Lazy Boy recliner out there on the lawn of your library and amp up the Pure Prairie League song. Leave the busted out washing machine on the porch. Don't make me cross state lines to explain it any clearer!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Not your middle-aged Olympic torch relay

If I were the Statue of Liberty, Tom Bodett would have to leave the light on for me. Having a terrible time turning twist-knob switches at the bottom of lamps lately.

I've given up a few times and just crawled under my desk to unplug or plug in the lamp cord. That limbo-limbo solution may be temporary. So far, I can still twist knobs at the tops of lamps, but my professional underhand pitching career is probably over for good.

"The first things to go are the_____." We've heard that phrase since Phidippides ran the first Marathon in 490 B.C. Fill in the aging blank with knees, eyes, hearing, memory, neck, sex drive, stomach muscles, shoulders, or ankles. For me the answer seems to be "wrists". Did this ever happen to Chubby Checker? Come on baby, let's use that wrist:

Come on baby let's do the twist
Come on baby let's do the twist
Take me by my little hand and go like this
Ee-oh twist baby baby twist
Oooh-yeah just like this
Come on little miss and do the twist

Actually, this is my third thing to go. First I lost my ability to thread needles. Then I lost all interest in ...


...


...


...


...


dusting!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Pointy Pontiff Ears

"Why are the kindergarten students wearing Pope hats," I asked Dad. We were driving to the drugstore just as the morning kids were being dismissed for the Easter spring break.




Something had gone wrong with the traditional bunny ears craft project, and the teacher has my complete sympathy. We never know when an art project will go just that little bit off course! It might just be a scissor's whisker's mistake in the cutting of pointy ears with those round-tip Fiskars.

I didn't have a student available, so my zebra hand puppet is modeling the mitre and bunny ears. The Eastridge kindergarten kids were parading proudly out of school wearing their bunny ears on sideways. I didn't have my camera, and certainly wouldn't have snapped a photo, but I sure wish I could capture that image.

That brings me to the vocabulary word for the today:

rotogravure
1913, from Ger. Rotogravur (originally, in full, Deutsche Tiefdrück Gesellschaft), said to blend two corporate names, Rotophot and Deutsche Photogravur A.G. Etymologically, the roots are L. rota "wheel, roller" and Fr. gravure "engraving." The process was used for printing photo sections of newpapers and magazines, so that the word came to be used for these.

I won't begin to try to define the terms for "papal headgear". It's a crossword clue that appears often, and the choices are usually mitre or tiara.

And now for the sing-along, brought to you by the makers of bright foil-covered chocolate eggs and pastel plastic grass:

"Easter Bonnet"

In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it,

You'll be the grandest lady in the Easter Parade.

I'll be all in clover and when they look you over,

I'll be the proudest fellow in the Easter Parade.

On the avenue, Fifth Avenue,

the photographers will snap us,

And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure.

Oh, I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet,

And of the girl I'm taking to the Easter Parade.

Written by Irving Berlin

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Unsavory type

My neighbor spotted an "unsavory type" going through the condo complex recycling bins to collect all the cans. She also used the term "hobo", which I hadn't heard in decades. She was glad to report she had successfully "run him off the property". This gave me a wonderful mental image of an elderly woman shaking her cane at a tramp fleeing with his bindle on a stick.

First, the lesson to remember--Items placed in recycling bins and dumpsters are not secure just because they are surrounded with disgusting or decomposing material. Private, personal, and financial information, including those endless offers of credit cards, should be shredded. This "unsavory type" did his scavenging in broad daylight and seemed to just be collecting cans to sell.

Second, what is an "unsavory type" or "unsavory character"?--Without getting into the Spitzer scandal, the implications seem to include disagreeable, morally offensive, and suspected of criminal behavior. "Unsavory" can also mean tasteless or insipid.

But, third, what is "savory"?--I thought it was an herb, but it is actually two different Old World herbs called "summer savory" and "winter savory" whose leaves are used as seasoning. My 1976 Joy of Cooking explains:

The leaves of winter savory are used in stews, stuffings and meat loaves. Sauteria montana, a rather resinous perennial evergreen sub-shrub, grows to 18 inches and tolerates lean soil. Summer savory is a much more delicately flavored herb and has many more uses. It is classic in green beans and green bean salad; in horseradish sauce and lentil soup; and even in deviled eggs. It is also used with fat fish, roast pork, potatoes; tomatoes and French dressing. Sauteria hortensis, which grows to 18 inches, needs light, well-composted soil.

I'd never heard of herbs until Simon and Garfunkel sang "Scarborough Fair" in 1966...
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

To further complicate the issue, "savories" are a course served in English dinners before the fruit or after the sweet, "to cut the sugar taste before the port is served". Some of them are fishy. The whole situation is getting fishy, if you ask me! Some savories suggested in Joy of Cooking are oysters or chicken livers wrapped in bacon, sardine crepes, tomato tarts, curried seafood tarts, and toasted cheese rolls. I might be inclined to fake a nosebleed during this course, and return just in time for the port!

Fourth, what's the origin of the term "hobo"?--To me, the term conjures a boxcar hopper who uses a secret code to mark the houses of kind women who will offer food.

I grew up still close enough to the Great Depression to know at an early age that running away from home required tying my belongings in a bandana and hanging that bundle on a stick carried over my shoulder. That bundle on a stick is known as a bindle. This meant that if you couldn't tie, you couldn't run away from home. If you couldn't fit what you wanted to take along in a bandana, you couldn't run away from home. If your mom didn't let you play with sticks, you were probably never going to get a breakout opportunity, and you probably still live with your mom. Also, if you wanted to run away from home, you had to smear your cheeks with Crisco and slap on coffee grounds, which is a fairly significant deterrent to riding the rails.

These theories of the origin of the word "hobo" come from Wikipedia:

The origin of the term is not confirmed, though there is a plethora of popular theories. Author Todd DePastino has suggested that it may come from the term hoe-boy meaning "farmhand", or a greeting such as Ho, boy!.[2] Bill Bryson suggests in Made in America that it could either come from the railroad greeting, "Ho, beau!" or a syllabic abbreviation of "homeward bound". Others have said that the term comes from the Manhattan intersection of Houston and Bowery, where itinerant people once used to congregate.

Still another theory of the term's origins is that it derives from the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, which was a terminus for many railroad lines in the 19th century. The word "hobo" may also be a shortening of the phrase which best describes the early hobo's method of transportation, which was "hopping boxcars", or of the phrase "homeless body" or "homeless bohemian". Additional claims about the word's origin include derivations from the Japanese word houbou 方々, meaning, in reference to travel, "various places", and from the Spanish word jobo, meaning, in the Cuban phrase correr jobos, "truancy". Some Hoboes claim it stands for Helping Our Brothers Out...Hoboes differentiate themselves as travelers who are homeless and willing to do work, whereas a tramp travels but will not work and a bum does neither.

The Online Etymology Dictionary offers fewer choices:

hobo
1889, Western Amer.Eng., of unknown origin, perhaps related to early 19c. Eng. dial. hawbuck "lout, clumsy fellow, country bumpkin." Or from ho, boy, a workers' call on late 19c. western U.S. railroads. Hence facetious formation hobohemia "community or life of hobos," 1923 (see bohemian).

Fifth, what about street people, panhandlers, the homeless, vagrants, swagmen, tramps, and bums?--We hear so much about The Homeless. I don't have time to study the various words, but they seem to indicate different reasons for homelessness. The person spotted "on the property" taking cans from our condo recycling bins seems to have a plan for making a bit of cash. Maybe shelters for the homeless could be supported by collections of cans. And, ho, boy, aren't there some seriously curried fishy tarts out there holding high offices?



Just so you don't join me in insomniac mental scrolling searching for the lyrics to that bad Cher song about people taking Bud cans out of the recycling bin:

Gypsies, tramps, and thieves
We'd hear it from the people of the town
They'd call us gypsies, tramps, and thieves
But every night all the men would come around
And lay their money down

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Hoopoe

Privilege and responsibility are the dual characteristics of citizenship. We lucky American citizens have the privilege of voting for our officials, and the responsibility to be informed voters. On this day of the Texas primary election, I had a heavy burden and great joy besides attending the post-election precinct convention. More on that note later. For now I'm talking about the hotly contested goat and troll auditions for the spring music festival.

My little sister, the choral director, will never believe it. I evaluated music auditions! She used to stand beside me in the pew of the United Church of Christ (not the same congregation as Senator Obama), and suggest tactfully that I didn't need to sing the hymn "if I didn't want to". I could "just read the words silently", she advised in a whisper. My little brother would support her suggestions with his most forceful aspect, and it is mighty tough to exert influence wearing a pale blue polyester suit with wide lapels and a navy and orange floral necktie.

We won't even discuss how I went to CVS to buy a new toothbrush, and the Bee Gees' "Stayin Alive" was playing on the piped-in Muzak. The Bee Gees sang higher than any of the preschool kids trying out for the Wee Billy Goat. An old married couple, okay, over fifty, was rocking out in the greeting card aisle.

Feel the city breakin' and ev'rybody shakin'and we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive. Ooh, hoo, hoo, hoop, Stayin' Alive.

"Did you ever hear of a hoopoe?," my lead teacher asked. We are talking about birds, not bad disco haircuts. The hoopoe is actually an Old World bird with a bad disco haircut; cute in it's own way, but probably not critical for Texas preschoolers to learn. It says its name, oop-oop-ooping along.

The music festival troll has a big nose and a club. This is all starting to sound familiar. Few children are brave enough to even audition for the part. I want to reach across the divide between my inflated imperial status as auditioner to their young hearts as auditionees to tell them THE TROLL IS THE ROLE TO GO FOR! Few moments in my own childhood were as deliciously nasty and satisfying as playing Cinderella's stepmom in a neighborhood basement production. Well, maybe that time when I was two years old and went totally berserko running up and down the aisles of Leon's Food Mart with my exasperated very pregnant mom in slow pursuit.

Trolls and goats and hoopoes, oh my! Bad disco suits and grocery store hoots... My little brother's very first LP was the Snoopy vs. The Red Baron album of the Royal Guardsmen. The strange comedy cover album by a sextet from Florida included the song that haunted my afternoon. The "Alley Oop" words and music are by Dallas Frazier, 1960, based on the comic strip.

There's a man in the funny papers we all know

Alley Oop Oop, Oop Oop Oop

He lived way back a long time ago

Alley Oop Oop, Oop Oop Oop

Well he don't eat nothin' but bearcat stew

Alley Oop Oop, Oop Oop Oop

Oh well this cat's name is a-Alley Oop

Alley Oop Oop, Oop Oop Oop

Now I will listen to some election news, oop oop!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Equestrian?

"When you die they make you into a statue." The preschoolers are discussing death and Bibles while chewing PB&J sandwiches with their mouths open. It's scary. What if the statue is formed from masticated Wonder Bread?

At the State Fair someone carves a likeness of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, or the champion bull from a giant blob of butter. When I die, I hope I won't be sculpted in butter. And when I'm dead, dead and gone, there'll by three sons born wondering how their mom was turned into a Gaston Lachaise "Floating Nude" sculpture!

The talented songwriter Laura Nyro died of ovarian cancer in 1997 when she was only forty-nine. She sold her first song to Peter, Paul, and Mary in 1966. It goes like this:

And when I die and when I'm dead, dead and gone,
there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.

I'm not scared of dying and I don't really care.
If it's peace you find in dying, well, then let the time be near.
If it's peace you find in dying, when dying time is here,
just bundle up my coffin cause it's cold way down there,
I hear that's it's cold way down there, yeah, crazy cold way down there.

And when I die and when I'm gone, there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.

My troubles are many, they're as deep as a well.
I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell.
Swear there ain't no heaven and pray there ain't no hell,
but I'll never know by living, only my dying will tell,
only my dying will tell, yeah, only my dying will tell.

And when I die and when I'm gone, there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.

Give me my freedom for as long as I be.
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me.
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me,
and all I ask of dying is to go naturally, only want to go naturally.
Don't want to go by the devil,
don't want to go by the demon,
don't want to go by Satan,
don't want to die uneasy,
just let me go naturally.




© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Werewolf bath maneuvers

Things got muddled when I started looking for the origin of the childrens' song "Looby Loo". I remember singing this song with the words "all on a Saturday night" instead of "hickory dickory dock." The Saturday night reference might be to the tradition of the family Saturday night bath in the galvanized tub in the kitchen.

Alternate versions of "Looby Loo" include the familiar part of the Hokey Pokey about putting your left hand in and out. They may be about testing the temperature of bathwater heated on the cast iron stove....

Then there's the barnstorming aeronautic version of the song preferred by most male children:

Here we go loop de loop
Here we go loop de lie
Here we go loop de loop
All on a Saturday night.

A loop is simply a 360 degree change in pitch. Because the airplane will climb several thousand feet during the maneuver, it is started at a relatively high airspeed and power setting (if these are too low, the airspeed will decay excessively in the climb and the maneuver will have to be discontinued.) The pilot, once satisfied with the airspeed and throttle setting, will pull back on the stick until about three Gs are felt. The nose of the airplane will go up and a steadily increasing climb will be established. As the maneuver continues, positive G is maintained by continuing to pull. The airplane continues to increase its pitch until it has pitched through a full circle. When the world is right-side-up again, the pilot releases the back stick pressure and returns the aircraft to level flight.

This makes me want to watch my VHS tape of "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines!" Or you could view my walking buddy's son's You Tube flight simulation videos.

And where's the werewolf in this swampy mud mess? The Cajun legend of D'loup-garou would make a good Saturday night lullaby. The Blue Dog painter, George Rodrigue, gave me my first hint of this cautionary canine lurking in Louisiana, just waiting to scare the holy hokey pokey right out of wayward kiddies.

The "Looby Loo" song has origins in America, Ireland, Canada, and England. And so I close this post with a link to Warren Zevon singing "Werewolves of London." Just remind him to flush and wash!

I saw a werewolf drinkin a pina colada at Trader Vic's
And his hair was perfect.
ahhhooooo, werewolves of London
ahhhooooo, going Looby Loo!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Intermission at the Met

During the second intermission of the live broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera's "Die Walküre" today (heard on WRR 101.1 fm), there was a brief interview with David Sylvester, the Assistant Wardrobe Supervisor. His job is making sure each singer arrives on stage wearing his costume just as the designer intended.

Sometimes singers are not thrilled with their costume and pretend to have lost part of it. Sometimes they want to wear their costume in a manner they consider more personally interesting, comfortable, or flattering.

Oh, geez, can I relate?! My students are always trying to lose their hats or wear their jackets upside down. Sometimes they get confused about which coat hook is theirs. More often they have pink furry princess parka envy, and just "borrow" someone else's coat.

Does this David Sylvester person ever have to teach the singers to spread their costume out on the floor, stand by the collar or hood, put their arms in the sleeves, and flip the whole garment up over their head? Does he have to stand behind them and reach around to zip their zippers, lining up the engine and coal car before pulling the train along the track?

I have a lot of experience reminding my little singers to fetch their lunchboxes and the notes from their cubbies. I could easily expand my repertoire to remind singers to fetch their swords, veils, and mustaches. True, my little singers are singing Looby Loo* in raspy false baritones with contorted lyrics, but the skills required for the job are the same.

Most tellingly, Mr. Sylvester reports his essential role reminding soloists to use the facilities. "Did you go before you put on your costume?," he asks them. "Are you sure?"

I've been asking this question professionally since I went back to work in 1994. Before that I asked it at home for a decade. True, I was the Assistant Wardrobe Supervisor for snowsuits, swim lessons, karate class, scout meetings, and peewee sports teams, not the Metropolitan Opera. But David Sylvester didn't say anything about asking the singers if they remembered to fuh-fuh-fluh-flush and wah-wah-wash their hands!

*My students prefer these Looby Loo lyrics:

Here we go looby loo
Here we go looby light
Here we go looby loo
Hickory dickory dock!

[repeat ad nauseum]


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Look For the Silver Lining

My hat is off to Jerome Kern, who wrote this song for the musical "Sally" in 1929:

Look for the silver lining
When e'er a cloud appears in the blue.
Remember somewhere the sun is shining,
And so the right thing to do,
Is make it shine for you.

A heart, full of joy and gladness,
Will always banish sadness and strife.
So always look for the silver lining,
And try to find the sunny side of life.

My current stitchery project includes a piece of shiny gray lining fabric, so I can't help but hear Andy Williams or Judy Garland singing Kern's song about the silver lining.

Perhaps the first time I made the big journey to Omaha as a child, we dined in the fancy Silver Lining restaurant at the Omaha Municipal Airport. In that era of sophisticated airline travel one was more likely to dine on scallops or steak than McMuffins while watching planes take off and land.

Jumping ahead twenty years, my optimistic sister-in-law had a fabulous gift for mangling idioms. To her, "every hat had a silver lining." Guess my glass was half-empty on those frigid Nebraska nights, as I paraphrased, "every hat gives me static hair cling."

Every cloud has a silver lining
A poetic sentiment that even the gloomiest outlook contains some hopeful or consoling aspect. Cf. [1634 Milton Comus I. 93] Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

‘Every cloud’, says the proverb, ‘has a silver lining.’[1869 P. T. Barnum Struggles & Triumphs 406]


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder