Monthly Archives: September 2019

Sometimes Losing is Winning

[Friends Seminary. [Photo credit: Google Search.]

I spent New Years Eve, 1990 alone in a bar in Binghamton.The only kiss I got was from the off-duty bartender who had started celebrating early.  He kissed the top of my head and said: “I love you, man,” and then fell backwards onto a table.

I was at the wrong end of a bitter divorce.  Working as a ‘temp’ at IBM in Endicott, NY, I felt I had nowhere else to go but down.

Fate stepped in and made me buy a copy of the Philadelphia Enquirer. (It was a legit paper, not the Enquirer that your thinking of).  I found an agency that placed teachers.  Without losing a moment to think, I circled the ad and sent in my resume.

I was hired after a single interview at Friends Seminary in the lower East Side of Manhattan.  So I packed up and headed to the Big Apple.  A month earlier I was walking in a park in Binghamton.  The local NPR station ran a public service piece.  The host read a list of ten questions.  If you answered yes to five of the ten the advice was to seek professional care ASAP.  Clear signs of sever depression.

I answered yes to eight of the ten.  Was I down or what?

Without boring you with the details, I got a 26th floor studio on W. 92nd Street.  It was perfect.

So, I started teaching again.  This time it was in a Quaker school.  Make no mistake, only a handful of staff and teachers were Quakers.  But, I learned what a unique place it was the first time I attended an Upper School “Meeting for Worship”.  It was not religious at all.  The students just sat quietly and only stood to say what was on their mind when they felt the need.  I heard sad stories and funny incidents.  I learned more about the adolescent mind in the two years at Friends that twenty years in public and private schools.

I was happy there.  I taught my way, but as it turned out, it wasn’t the ‘right’ way.  The head of the middle school didn’t take to my methods and I couldn’t understand her demands of me.

By contract, the Head of School was supposed to observe you teaching once before your two-year probationary period was over. He came into my Astronomy class on the last day and left before the class was over.

The next day, he and the middle school head told me that my contract would not be renewed.

Did I feel cheated?  Yes.  Did I cry on the phone to Mariam when I told her the news? Yes.

I found an agency that pointed me in the direction of The Town School on the upper east side.  I taught a class in front of the science head and others

I got the job and I never looked back.  I spent ten years at Town.  I was asked to join the board of The Association of Teachers in Independent School of New York.

I was even the science department chair a few times.

Sometimes it’s a glove…sometimes it’s a shoe or a coat.  But you always know in the end when the perfect fit happens.

[The Town School.  My best fit. Photo credit: Goodle Search.]

 

 

 

Sitting In Another Cemetery

[Me gazing at the soccer game. Photo credit: Mariam Voutsis]

You, my readers, may think I’m a bit morose and morbid.  My last post was about Evergreen Cemetery, in my home town of Owego, NY.  But, if you think that I am very dark, you’re wrong.  Yes, I have a strong nostalgic mind.  But today I had a job to do.  I’m a volunteer photographer for Find-A-Grave.com.

That means that I get requests from people from far off USA, hoping somebody like me would take the time to go out to a country cemetery and photograph the gravestone of ‘Aunt Martha’. Whatever you may think, I consider it a great service to fulfill these requests.  (I get no monetary reward, nor would I accept one.)  I’m satisfied with the thank-you emails.

But, today.  Today I had some severe lower back pain.  It was difficult to walk the small churchyard.

I took a rest and sat on a boulder that was actually a headstone.  I looked over at a nearby athletic  field where Paul Smiths College was playing soccer.

I heard the shouts, the goals, the cheers and the young men yelling and encouraging. This is  something I did in my youth.

I sat feeling very isolated.  I couldn’t play that game ever again.  It’s a strange and powerful thought when you sit in a churchyard.

I kicked back a few soccer balls that had been hit into the cemetery.  I could still do something with my legs!

But my back still hurt and I heard a shout from Mariam.  She had found some memorial we had long searched for.

Now I sit in our screen-in porch and listen the the howling wind.  Our squash is in the oven.  Summer is ended and I must put the plexiglass panels back into place.

Time flies like the wind.

 

 

A Cemetery With a View

[The grave of Sa Sa Na Loft. Evergreen Cemetery, Owego, NY.

Photo credit is my own.]

I’m back in my home town of Owego, NY for a reason.  I have no one to visit.  Nothing to purchase (I did buy two books at River Row Book Store), but I was there on an early September afternoon for a sad occasion.  I was there to attend a memorial service for a long time friend of mine, Teri Ware Bramlett.  It was held at the Hickories Park under a glorious sky.  The Susquehanna River flowed slowly behind my chair. It was the color of an olive.

But this post is not about that.  Perhaps I’ll post my memories of Teri at a later date.  I had errands to attend to.  The top of my list was going to TOPS and buying flowers for my family’s grave at St. Patrick’s Cemetery.  Then I had to center myself.  Find the place where I can take in the whole of my early life.  And there is no other place than the “Indian Girl’s Monument” on Cemetery Hill (Evergreen Cemetery).  From there I can scan the valley below.  I can oversee my hometown like a king rules from the highest castle tower.

Certain places are obvious, other less so.  The trees are still full and green block some of what I wanted to see.

I sit on the bench with my wife.  I can see St. Patrick’s Church…where I was baptized and where most of my family’s funerals were held.  I can’t make out my old home, too many trees.  I can barely see the backyard of my childhood girlfriend’s house.  I see the Susquehanna, entering the view from the far left and fading off toward Pennsylvania to the right. I can see the Court House.  There’s Lake Street where I hung out with my friends in the 50’s and 60’s.  All of us overwhelmed by the power of hormones we never knew about until we bacame adults.

It’s all below me, but so far out of reach.  My youth was spent on these streets.  Memories began to flood my mind.

It’s time to go.

I realize I’m no longer a physical presence in this village, but I can never fully find myself free from the chains of the past.

To Say Happy Words…and Sad

[Teri Bramlett}

I’m preparing to travel back to my hometown, Owego, NY.  I’m going to attend a memorial service for a long-time friend.  It will be held at the Hickories Park.

I hope it doesn’t rain.

I hope my words are funny, complimentary, joyful …and sad.

Because that is what you feel when when a very old friend has passed.  It’s not happy.

We’ll drive six hours to check into a hotel…in a town I lived most of my life in.  I haven’t been back there in four years.

I am thankful for Teri’s son to have invited me to this event.

I hope it doesn’t rain.