Electronic Blues

Tomorrow I will go to the cell phone store. I have been told I am due for an upgrade. This includes a new phone for free. I am dreading the visit.

What? Getting something for free that is newer than what I have now? Dread? I must have a screw loose somewhere, you might think. The dread comes not from what I have coming in the way of opportunity. It is solely because I will have to learn to use the darned thing.

Last year I got a similar message, and I went in to see what was available for me in the way of new and beautiful cell phones. Before I go too much further I need you to understand that I am not brand new to this portion of the electronics explosion. I have had portable phones since the early 1990's, when they were called "bag phones," weighed eight or nine pounds, and took up the same space in your car as a passenger.

I have had flip-phones, flat phones, and fancy phones. They have been delivered to me in blue, silver, multi-colors and black. I have avoided pink. I have taught my octogenarian parents how to use cell phones. My phones have been extremely complex in their capacity, and here is where the problem lies.

Last year when I went to get "upgraded," I was very clear in explaining to the clerk at the cell phone store what I did and did not want. My phone did not need to do the following:

A. Make movies

B. Take photographs. I have a very nice camera for those two items.

C. Translate what I say into fourteen different languages, including ancient Greek and Welsh. Almost everyone who speaks those is dead.

D. Automatically test my blood sugar. If I were diabetic I might appreciate this, but I am not.

E. Provide me with detailed road maps of the continent of Antarctica, in case I should want to go penguin filming, or something similar. I hate being cold.

F. Give me access to the fishing charts of the Atlantic seaboard. If I did fish, and I have not done so since I was 12, it would be in a lake or a stocked pond. I see no reason to go 15 miles off the coast of Newfoundland in search of the perfect tuna. My grocery store has them.

G. Access my email the second it is delivered to my inbox. I do not want to get all of my forwarded jokes dumped into my cell phone, which will alert me to their individual presence with an incredibly annoying ring tone. I wish to read them at my convenience and in silence, please!

H. Allow me to watch movies. Why anyone would grab the opportunity to view "Avatar" or "Midsummer Night's Dream" or any Bruce Willis classic on a 2" by 3" screen escapes me. I am a fan of Imax, not I-miniscule!

What I do want, ever so much, and what would make me happy, is the never-wavering capacity to make a phone call, from my phone to another phone. Don't tell me the subscriber I am trying to reach is being searched for. If it's my husband (and it usually is), he is probably playing a video game on his Blackberry, and you are allowed to interrupt that activity so he will receive the call! Needless to say, this capacity is not always available.

Oh, and quit telling me my new phone is free if I have to pay for it and wait 3 to 6 months for a gift card to come in the mail. If I have to pay for it, it is not free. The gift card is because of your guilt in charging me for all those $&*#&%!! applications I will never use, and is directly in proportion to the number of pages of directions I will have to decipher before getting to the incoming and outgoing calls. And by the way, I only need the book in one language.

Those of you whom I call regularly, you now know why you will not be hearing from me for the next few weeks. If you really need to talk, call me on my home phone. It never needs charging, and is always in the last place where I hung it up. It has a cord.

I am currently sitting at a large, armoire-type piece of computer-holding, file cabinet, storage drawered, shelved furniture. It is substantial, and it is somewhat impressive. The impressive part is that I put it together myself, with instructions by IKEA.

I have discovered over the 36 years of my marriage that any piece of furniture that arrives at my home in a large, flat box will be put together by only one member of the family, usually me. The other members are only allowed in an area beyond an approximate three-mile radius. The one who is putting the furniture together (me again) is allowed a full weekend to complete the project, during which he or she is also allowed an unlimited number of the following:

1. Stitches

2. Well-placed curse words, uttered with emphasis

3. Alcoholic beverages, to be ingested only after 90% of said furniture is completed

4. Trips to the hardware store to find a screw that almost matches the one you lost

5. Trips to the drug store for pain killers and bandages

6. Trips to neighbors' homes or yards for momentary consolation

7. Trips to the doctor for item #1

8. Loudly uttered congratulatory phrases from others upon completion of the project

With that in mind, let me tell you about putting together my computer desk, which is what it said it was on the box. The one that I saw at IKEA about four years ago was very nice, went with my old house and its furnishings, and couldn't, I thought, be all that hard to create. After all, I had constructed a couple of IKEA tables, and a few chairs. This should not be all that different.

In fact, I lied about the one box. It took two boxes to hold the pieces of computer desk which was to adorn my den, and a third box to contain all of the hardware components. The first two boxes were very large, and incredibly heavy. The third was small, and heavy. My first project was getting them from my car to the second floor of my house. Since all other family members had been banished for the duration of my "build," I was on my own.

Happily I had discovered the "Thump and Twirl" method of stepping a large box from the back of my car to my front porch. From there a bit of "Shove and Slide" technique got the vast weight up the steps and into the house. Going to the second floor next meant going up a two-step landing, a nine-step slant of about 45 degrees, another landing, and five more steps to the top. This necessitated a "Flop and Drag," followed by a "Shove and Grunt," back to a "Drag and Scream," and ending in a "Slam and Jam."

Then I took a nap.

After the respite, I opened the boxes and dug out the directions. I will say that IKEA directions are relatively easy to follow, at least when compared to some furnishing items I have received with directions that have obviously been book-translated from a far-eastern dialect or two. I have been told to "place the panel marked 'B' into the slot marked with an arrow (red) and tightly move into position over the panel marked 'C', holding while firmly placing screwdriver into screw marked 'M' and making tight."

This particular set of directions was a source of laughter for many months after the project was completed, mostly because none of the pieces were marked, and following the directions invariably led to an impromptu game of "Twister." When played alone, that game can get more than a little frustrating.

Back to my computer desk. My simple instructions included references to more than 35 pieces of laminated wood, and a plethora of screws, bolts, tracks, runners, protective grips, door magnets and hardware. If that wasn't daunting enough, the larger pieces which had to be flung and twirled with ease, or held straight up while a much smaller piece was firmly attached, weighed an average of 35 pounds.

The directions, which took up about 12 pages, included installation of three rolling shelves, for the keyboard, printer, and an odd contraption that held the keyboard shelf. All had to have tracks and rollers installed, and then they had to fit into each other and the huge outer cabinet that held them all. It took somewhere near 5 tries to install the first track, as I kept getting it upside down. I finally got it when I turned the directions right side up.

I made it through a file drawer (five sides and two tracks, plus two edge protectors for the drawer tops and two pieces of antiqued bronze drawer pulls), a regular drawer (same approximate number of parts), then the interior-shelved storage section. I finished with a flourish the three-way divided CD and paper storage shelves in the top section of the interior, then looked at the two 20-inch by 6-foot doors which were to be attached on the front of the computer section.

These were substantial, to be put in place to close up and protect the contents of my computer desk. They were also to be held approximately 10 inches off the floor while the various screws and magnets were properly attached. These doors have since found a happy home in the back of my den closet, where they will stay indefinitely. My cabinet is doorless, and I bet the contents have not felt the least bit threatened.

I do feel a certain sense of pride when I sit down at the thing, slide the keyboard out, and begin to hunt and peck my way through a new online adventure. I am fairly sure that everything is installed right side up, that the correct screws or bolts are holding together the correct parts, and that this is a computer desk of substance. It will not disintegrate any time soon.

I finished with no stitches, no need for the doctor (except maybe for some anti-anxiety meds), and no trips to the hardware store. I lost no pieces, damaged nothing, and was able to put it all together on my den floor, so the finale was simply to stand it up and put it in place. It took me one day, but I must add that I stayed up awfully late that night.

Thank you, IKEA, for your directions, that are almost easy to understand. I have no problem patting myself on the back for the lack (for the most part) of curses uttered during the project completion. The only alcohol necessary was a large glass of wine, lifted by me in honor of a job well done (nobody knows about the doors!).

I will note, however, that no big flat boxes have been delivered to my house since.

Needs no title!

I love women. Not in the physical sense, though they are fun to look at. Not as a critic, looking over a wearer of the latest fashion, unless something about the fashion is really eye-catching, in a Lady Gaga-esque sort of way. None of that stuff is really important, when you get right down to it. And that's what women do after they reach a certain age: they get right down to it.

When I meet a brand-new possible friend (and that's the way I look at everyone these days), I have little use for the standard pleasantries. I am really no good at small talk, and that's the stuff our men-friends seem so good at discussing. How is the weather? Who won the big game? Can I borrow your lawn mower? How big was that fish? What was your last golf score? Men can spend a full weekend together and come home knowing nothing about each other.

Women, on the other hand, quickly learn about themselves and each other in a depth that sometimes startles me, but is always pleasing. Having said that, I will admit to the fact that the woman I met tonight I met because she was wearing a fabulous belt. All right, that is the standard "I like what you're wearing" opener, but it didn't stay there very long.

The friendship, which started at about 8:30 and lasted until approximately 9:15 (when I had to leave the event), took no time at all to delve into background - where did you grow up? - what era were you part of, and does it relate easily to mine? - Has your life been slow and stable, or has it been full of variety and change, as has mine? - How is life for you now? Are you comfortable, or is it a bit rocky?

It took no more than a minute to realize that compatibility was a given. I think that is because we eventually, and hopefully, reach a point in our lives where we are steady and confident in who we are as women, and as a result we no longer feel the need to compete. Instead, the desire to connect is far stronger, and the information and questions can go on for hours.

It was too bad that the event we shared held other responsibilities for both of us. I would like to have dug further into her history, asked the whats and whys of career choices and family, looked at tastes and dreams. I am sure our conversation could have gone on until midnight with neither of us becoming bored. Golf scores would never have come up.

Anyway, I hope she knows that she enriched my life with her presence, just for 45 minutes of information sharing. Women friends are invaluable, no matter how brief the friendship.

What to do

It is a beautiful, cool, breezy spring day outside, and here I sit, curled up in front of my computer, enjoying the view from my den window. The wise thing to do, one would think, is to get outside and take a long, leisurely stroll through the wonderful old town we call home. Everything is in bloom at once from a warm, wet April, and the colors and scents fill the air - with pollen.

There's the rub. The leisurely stroll would go more like this:

Step out the front door and gaze at the fifteen or sixteen tall, old maple and oak trees that are coating the street, the cars, and the lawns with yellow powder that makes my eyes water and itch just thinking about them. Strolling among them means my eyes will shortly be closed and it will take a pair of pliers and a full bottle of Benadryl to get them to open again.

In the next block there is a tall wooden fence covered with honeysuckle vines, full of lovely white flowers with bright yellow centers and a perfume that can close my throat in a nanosecond. Maybe it's because I used to eat the flowers as a child. I'm trying to recall why that seemed like a good idea. For that matter, there were a lot of things I thought were good to eat at an early age that for me to ingest now would need the help of something hydraulic. Ah, childhood.

At the end of that block there is a charming pink rose bush. The flowers are tiny and delicate, the bush has reached enormous proportions. I am actually not allergic to roses, but for about 10 years now a colony of yellow jackets has decided to dig their nest directly under that particular bush. Have I mentioned I am allergic to insect stings?

As I walk I hear the whirring and buzzing of a nearby lawn mower, taking a combination of grass and pollen and tossing it wildly into the air, for all to breathe. I figure at this point it will take about two weeks for my nose to stop running. Now the red rash and itching have started as well. The rest of me keeps walking, but with renewed strength, and in the opposite direction. I must get home!

Two of the more friendly neighborhood pups are out to play. Their homes are between me and my destination, and they are very happy to see me. Their greeting takes the form of an awful lot of jumping and licking and sniffing and leaning against. You guessed it. I am allergic to dogs.

If I do make it back from my journey still standing and breathing, I then take the front steps to my porch, where there is a particular strain of tiny, black, jumping spiders. They make their homes in the nooks and crannies of my old flagstone and concrete steps. There is not enough Raid in the world to get rid of those pesky bugs.

I am basically Buddhist at heart, and am very careful not to harm any other living thing, but one of them bit me once and put me in the emergency room. I am sure my karma is ruined for at least the month, but out comes the spray and away go the spiders.

I will finally enter my place of safety, my lovely glass-enclosed front porch. There I can sit in my grandmother's wicker rocking chair and gaze at all of the natural beauty my neighborhood can hold. It is truly the reason we bought the house, 35 years ago. I wasn't allergic to anything back then.

Of course I already told you (in an earlier post) about the family of squirrels that took up residence in the porch roof. Did I mention the starlings? They had nests there for at least five years in a row, and the adorable chirping of the new baby birds turned way too quickly into a grating squawk that was anything but pleasant, and way too constant. Oh, and I am allergic to anything with feathers.

Now that I really think about it, when we had two feet of snow on the ground, none of these things were a problem. If you heard me complain the tiniest bit about the freezing cold and the impassable roads and the awful heating oil bills, I take it all back.

Ah-choo! Sniff. Scratch.

Oh what the heck, it is awfully pretty out.

In search of a little light.....

There are really only two kinds of people in the world: those who turn on and leave on every available light in every room they enter, and those who cannot leave a room without switching those same lights off. Inevitably, in any given family of four, two of each characteristic will appear. This is a scientifically proven fact. It is also a scientifically proven fact that every marriage has in it at least one very nasty argument based upon the previous scientifically proven fact.

For instance, my husband came home from work today, while the sun was still up, walked in the front door and did the following:

1. Turned on the switch next to the door that controls the two wall sconce lights over the fireplace mantel. (This is next to a window - see reference to sun being up.)

2. Went to the first available table lamp, and turned it to the highest available illumination level so he could look to see if there were any messages on the answering machine. I must add here that the answering machine has a lighted number, which blinks, telling you if there are any messages. There were not. (This is next to a four-foot by six-foot window - note sun position.)

3. Approached the second table lamp, by the first window, and turned that on in case he wanted to come back and sit in his favorite chair and read. This chair is next to the fireplace. (Note previously mentioned sconces and window placement.)

4. Walked into the dining room and immediately turned on the switch controlling the chandelier over the table, where he might at some point put his laptop to complete some project or other, like the alphabetic filing of the day's "You-Tube" discoveries. This chandelier has five 60 watt bulbs. If you look past the chandelier out the dining room window, you can see that the sun is still approximately where it was 2-1/2 minutes ago when he arrived home.

5. Entered the family room and sat in his favorite location on the sofa, turning on the table lamp beside him. Opening his newspaper, he began to read, primarily by the light coming through the two large windows, side by side, directly behind the sofa.

By now I am sure you can see where this is going. I am the family member who opens the electric bill each month and writes out the check for a ridiculously large sum of money. Therefore, I am the one who regularly wanders through the house turning out lights. He might argue that he is the primary wage-earner in the household, which could, I suppose, give him the right to waste as much electricity as he likes.

I might counter that point with a suggestion that we use the money spent on creating migraine-inducing levels of brightness in our home to do something else, like take an Alaskan cruise. Besides, all of that light serves a dual purpose, creating not only a reading and/or computing atmosphere, but also one in which every speck of dust, fingerprint on a doorway, or smudge on the wall becomes spotlighted. The Alaskan cruise might have to give way to a cleaning service and a professional painter, unless I turn off the lights and leave the flaws in relative darkness.

It strikes me as a little odd that the behavior patterns have switched gender in the next generation. My daughter traces her path through the house by the level of artificial light she leaves behind, while my son has dutifully followed along, turning everything off. She swears she has to sleep in total darkness, yet leaves on the lights in the bathroom, den, and hallway she visits on her way to bed. My son turns everything off, so I can't find the bathroom at 3 in the morning.

Somewhere in all of this there has to be a middle ground, but I have yet to find it. I have also discovered that we who switch things off are also inevitably those who holler, "Could you please turn that down?" or ask, "Do you smell something funny?"

I am sure it is genetic, and just as sure that my daughter's boyfriend is an "off-switcher" and my son's girlfriend loves to have everything lit up. And so it goes...........

In Defense of Silliness

A woman I admire has been in the news a lot lately. She is 88 years old and going full steam ahead. I met her once, at a book signing, and the one thing I said to her that I actually remember is how much I loved her ability to be silly, and not care a bit what anyone else thought of it. You may have guessed by now that the woman is Betty White.

I remember Betty all the way back to her days on Mary Tyler Moore and Password with Allen Ludden, her late husband. I always thought she had a particularly bright sparkle in her eyes, and I really enjoyed her nutty sense of humor. Over the years she became a role model, and one that I was to carry into all aspects of my life.

For almost 20 years I spent much of my time in front of a college classroom, teaching things like English Composition, Speech Communications, Psychology, Sociology, Human Relations, Leadership, Group Communications, Contemporary Issues, and, believe it or not, a group of courses in the specific computer programs relating to Graphic Arts, Typography, and Design Principles. Oh, and I designed and taught courses in Advertising Principles and Ad Campaigns.

Because I have led a completely insane life, and dug into so many different areas of interest, I am actually qualified to teach every one of those classes. Most of them I designed and wrote from scratch. I had one prerequisite for each classroom I entered: It had to be fun.

Since a lot of my classes were for evening school or taught in a Fine Arts curriculum, they were about four hours long. In that time frame, there was no way I could rattle off some horribly dry lecture or slide show narration and keep anyone interested, or even awake. My motto in front of a classroom full of mostly strangers was simple - If I'm not having fun, you're not learning anything.

I describe my classes as four hour long stand-up comedy routines. I would climb on desks, give students bags of children's blocks to build with, and tell many funny stories (most of which had something to do with the topic at hand). I drew cartoons on the board to illustrate points and let the class play "warmer - colder" to figure out how operant conditioning worked. I honestly think my face is practically wrinkle-free because I used it in clown-like fashion to amuse and inform students about my feelings on either some of my topics or some of their answers!

I taught more than one speech class to stand up in a line at the front of the room and practice, and learn, the basic five positions in classical ballet. Of course the Academic Dean always walked in on exercises like that one. He would just smile, shake his head, and leave. I allowed students in my speech class to demonstrate "dance moves for when you're drunk on Saturday night," how to make origami frogs, and the art of the six-foot-hoagie (which we then ate).

For Business English, we made up a pretend product. The only guidelines were that it had to be advertised on an infomercial after 2:00 AM, and that a B-list celebrity had to be the spokesperson. Then the students had to write two letters - one ordering the product, complete with how they were going to pay the three easy payments of $19.95 and in what size, color, or including what set of attachments they wanted it - and the other letter to inform the maker that something had gone terribly wrong with their thingamajig, and how they wanted the problem resolved. Yes, there were serious writing skills involved, but they loved doing it, as the product was utterly ridiculous.

I have brought into my classroom teddy bears, Barbie dolls, and jars of peanut butter. My lectures have involved pantomime, karate and blowing things up (at least we did that outdoors).

The owner of my school has never understood why I won't wear a business suit to class. You can't blow things up wearing a business suit.

I give long, challenging essay exams, with a liberal sprinkling of Hershey's Kisses, and broad hints if a question is not understood. I encourage students to use their books, notes, to call a friend or ask a stranger in the hall if they need help. I want them to know how to look for information, and I want them to actually learn it, not memorize nonsense bits for a fill-in-the-blanks series of questions.

I am sure there are many instructors I have worked with who think of me as more than a little strange. Good! That means the method to my madness is working. I have spent a number of years working with adolescent addiction groups, abused teens, and battered wives. I have had to learn many, many methods of detecting drug use or suicidal intentions. I have personally lived through domestic violence, an addicted ex-spouse, and the murder of a close friend. In all of this I have had the good fortune to discover that people learn and understand far better when they are smiling than they do when crying.

So thank you, Betty White, for letting me know that even the most serious of topics can have a funny side. Thank you for giving me permission to be incredibly silly in front of a group who needs to learn some very distressing information. Silliness has worked its magic, over and over again, where stern lectures would fall on purposely deaf ears.

I sincerely hope that when I reach 88, I can look back at my accomplishments in the classroom and in life, and laugh like crazy!

Homage to Art Linkletter

Back when I was a young'un, I used to love to watch Art Linkletter on television. I especially liked his show "Kids Say the Darndest Things." He would line up some six-year-olds on his stage and ask them a series of questions, then sit back and let them work their magic. The replies were often priceless.

Having been a parent for over 33 years now, I have collected my own personal batch of kids' sayings, and of course I feel compelled to share a few of them with you.

One night, coming home from a meeting of some sort with my son, who was five or six at the time, we came upon a very large June bug in the middle of my front porch, belly up. He has never been much of an insect fan, but he tapped this one with his toe for a moment, then muttered, "Dead beetle." Backing away, he shook his head, stared quietly at the bug for a moment, and commented, "Must be John Lennon."

I think I realized at that point that this kid would grow up to have a wicked sense of humor, and he has.

My daughter is still coming up with quotable comments, but my favorite of hers was one afternoon, when she was about three, and I was busy changing little brother on the sofa. She appeared out of the back of the house, marched up to where I was sitting, placed her hand sternly on my knee, and intoned, "It's all right, Mom, I cleaned up the whole bathroom."

To this day I have no idea what was cleaned up. A quick check of the bathroom revealed kind of a lot of suds in a few areas, but nothing disastrous.

A later favorite of hers was a Mothers' Day card from maybe 1996, with a note telling me that she knew I was the kind of mother who would understand even if she moved a trailer with her husband and their thirteen kids into my back yard for a while. It was a lovely thought, even if she vastly overestimated my tolerance level. Happily, she has produced neither the husband nor the thirteen children. Whew!

The one thing I would caution you about when it comes to kids and their phrases is that they will forever remember and repeat anything dicey you are in the habit of saying, especially in times of stress. It took weeks for me to talk both of them out of repeating what I called that other driver after he ran a stop sign and smashed my headlight.

Some friends of mine had a difficult time with their daughter not speaking. By the time she was two she had been to every available specialist, and still had not said a word. All they heard from the professionals was that all of the equipment was in working order; she was just taking her time using it.

Then one morning her Mom had her in the back car seat, driving down one of the busiest streets in Central Philadelphia, and stuck in a traffic jam. Mom was torn between chewing out the driver who had just cut her off, and sharing some spicey verbiage with the red light ahead that refused to change. Suddenly, from the back of the car, came this little tiny voice,

"Look at all the goddam cars!"

Up until that point, I guess nothing had been important enough to mention! Those of you whose children are so far very quiet, be careful what you wish for. This kid hasn't shut up since. The last I heard she was in law school.

Of course, kids are great at one particular thing - they can win your heart in a second with a few choice phrases. A few months ago I had a chance to get together with five of my nieces and the eight children (7 girls, one boy!) they had between them. Their ages are between eight months and nine years, but the majority are toddlers. As I was saying my goodbyes for the afternoon, one of them, a two-year-old, ran across the floor and threw her arms around my knees. Looking up at me, she burst out with a heartfelt, "I love you!"

There is nothing else to say.

Ceremony

Last night I attended my former employer's annual graduation ceremony. It is not long-winded, and the graduating class wasn't huge. Nobody went on forever about the opportunities awaiting everyone. We were not in a gigantic formal hall. Nobody famous received an honorary doctorate. It was still a spectacular success, reflecting the hard work and dedication of a group of incredible human beings, who overcame, in many cases, life circumstances that might have stopped stronger folks.

We met in an old, stone Lutheran church in the middle of a small, suburban town. Faculty and students gathered in the basement and created some chaos climbing into caps and gowns, getting group and individual photos taken care of, and having their flowers (in school colors, of course) pinned on each left lapel. As always, there are only one or two people capable of pinning the flowers correctly, so they will neither fall on the floor nor stab the wearer.

There is something inherently awkward in the design of academic "caps," which end up at a rakish angle, or creating an iconic halo, or dangling its tassel in one's eyes. There will never, I am sure, be a year where everyone's cap is just right, no one's flowers have fallen off, and no one is wearing flip-flops in the front row of the annual photograph.

This year was only the second in the history of the school where we were not at the ready to march at the allotted time. We were almost five minutes late. Our President is a stickler for time management, at least as it pertains to graduation. In other areas, not so much, but that can be discussed later.

We were actually ready to go at 7:04 and 30 seconds, heading upstairs in two lines, on two separate staircases, meeting at the top and heading down the aisle. I was given the honor of leading the faculty, and carrying the school's mace, being master of teachers. As the most recent retiree, I felt pretty special.

Ah, but then came the graduates, 103 of them, to be exact. There were more than that who had finished their programs, but some chose not to participate in the ceremony. I don't understand why.

It was a diverse group, from places like Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Sudan, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Cambodia and other parts of the world, as well as many towns local to the school. As a faculty member, I got to sit in the choir loft of the church, looking forward at the sea of bright blue caps and gowns in the front pews. Every year of the fifteen years I have taught at this school, I am awe-struck by the stories behind those graduates.

There is one this year who is fighting the AIDS virus, another in the throes of MS. One is a refugee from a terrible civil war in his home country, another haunted by the sight of soldiers tearing her grandmother from her family home and beating her in the back yard. One has an ex-husband so dangerous that the school has a standing order to call 911 if he is seen anywhere near the campus. Many are young, single mothers fighting for a better chance to care for their families.

All of these students have taken the plunge into higher education, not sure of themselves at first, but gaining in confidence as their knowledge grows. Last night we graduated paralegals, accountants, medical assistants, web and graphics designers, office managers, and specialists in criminal justice. We graduated young and not-so-young, all ready to dive in to new or expanding careers.

Sure, the ceremony is simple. The whole thing never takes more than an hour. Our guest speakers are warned to take no more than ten minutes. Once it's over, there is a mob scene headed back to the basement, this time including families. Joy is everywhere. I get to meet husbands and wives and children and moms and dads, and even a great aunt or two. All are bursting with pride at the new graduate in the family.

Yes, the ceremony is short, and the evening punctuated with an amazing and enjoyable amount of hugging and photos-with-my-favorite-teacher moments. There is not a lot of pomp and circumstance here, but the message is powerful. These grads may not remember much of what was said at the ceremony, but they are permanently reminded of what they have accomplished. To go from a faltering, nervous new student to a gleefully confident new grad in a few short years: that's worth celebrating!

By the way, I will probably go back in the fall to teach one course. I love being a part of this ceremony.

Witnessing a Miracle

For about twelve years I wrote one or two human interest stories per week for a local newspaper publishing company. Each week I would be responsible for finding someone doing something fascinating, interviewing (and often photographing) him or her, and writing it all up for publication. There were weeks where I banged my head against the wall, trying to figure out who the heck I could find, and there were other weeks where little pieces of magic would just drop into my life.

Like Odetta. I won't use her last name, but she was an amazing lady. She was 84 years old when I met her, and had been in the United States for about three years. She was barely five feet tall, and couldn't have weighed more than 100 pounds. She was nearly on her way back to Romania when I heard about her, but a friend of hers called and told me I needed to meet her. The caller didn't say why, just that there was one heck of a story to be had.

So, intensely curious as I am, I met Odetta, her younger brother (in his sixties), another Romanian-American family, and a local family who lived about 2 miles from me. We gathered in a beautiful old stone house on farm land that contained a large pond full of geese, and the house had a wall of windows so you could watch the birds' antics. I would have moved in immediately, no invitation needed.

Anyway, there we sat, about eight of us, with me doing the listening and furiously taking notes, while an amazing story unfolded in multiple versions and about three different languages. Odetta spoke no English, but she found out I spoke a little French, and she was off, chatting away in complete fluency. I think I got most of what she had to say, so here goes:

A few years previous to when we met, she had received a disturbing letter from her brother, who had emigrated to the U.S. with his wife. Evidently, once they had established residency she had no use for him any more, and left him. He had written to his big sister in distress, feeling very abandoned and alone. Odetta, wanting desperately to help, started the papers in motion to come to the U.S. and help in any way she could.

She arrived in New York, and was terribly frightened of the hustle and bustle of the city. It didn't help her much that her eyesight was very poor, and she had trouble with directions. Her angry sister-in-law had told her she would be arrested for coming here, so when a friendly policeman took her arm to guide her through traffic, she panicked. She was eventually able to find her way to Philadelphia, and she and her brother were happily reunited.

Shortly after her arrival, Odetta and her brother were in a small local grocery store, and were overheard speaking Romanian by another family who had emigrated ten or twelve years before, and who befriended them immediately, actually having them give up the brother's apartment and move in. The friendship flourished, and the brother found new employment, a new apartment, and was doing a good job of getting his life together. At this point Odetta felt she could go home.

The family who had taken her in decided that they wanted to give her a proper going-away gift and set her up with a local optometrist to get a brand new pair of glasses. Things did not go well, and the optometrist told her (through her friends' translation) that she had advanced glaucoma and was very close to losing sight. It was determined that her left eye was irreparable, but the right eye could be saved if she had surgery immediately.

Here's where they story started to get complicated. The "adopting" family had a son with severe cerebral palsy, who attended a nearby university. He had a scribe, a young man who came to all of his classes with him and took his notes. Since the two had become quite good friends, the Romanian lad shared the story of this tiny lady and her vision emergency.

The scribe went home that evening and sat down with his father. "Dad," he explained, "do you think it would be all right if I called my sister and asked her husband, the ophthalmologist, what he thinks of the situation?"

Of course the ophthalmologist was interested, and arranged to see Odetta at his office very shortly thereafter. He agreed with the original diagnosis, and set her up for surgery, with all of his services free. The hospital agreed to admit her as a free patient, and in she went to repair her right eye. That part by itself is pretty remarkable, but it doesn't end there.

About two weeks after the surgery Odetta and her translation team (the second family) went back to the doctor's office for a post-surgical check-up. Through her friends' halting English she told the doctor that she was pretty sure she was seeing things with her left eye.

"No," was his reply, "we talked about the left eye and the fact that it couldn't be helped. It's the right eye you are seeing with."

She insisted that her left eye was at least perceiving lights and shadows, so he sat her down and tested it. Sure enough, the left eye, the hopeless one, was starting to see. Within six weeks after the surgery on her right eye, the left eye had all but healed itself. Her vision in both eyes was, with glasses, almost perfect. To this day her doctor swears he has no medical explanation for the returned vision in her left eye. It was, to him and all of his staff, nothing short of a miracle.

So, Odetta eventually went back home to Romania, but did so with new glasses and and a smile ear to ear. I met her a couple of weeks before she was due to leave the U.S., and I have never seen so much energy in such a tiny package, wearing a huge grin and newly styled pure white hair. The story came out in English, choppy Romanian, a good chunk of French, and a lot of waving of hands. The mix of people from different parts of the planet and different walks of life was fascinating, and through them the story made perfect sense.

This little lady was determined to help her brother. The second family was determined to help both of them. The young scribe and his family were determined to make a generous gesture of friendship to someone from a different part of the world, and somewhere in there was the perfect mix for a miracle.

As the reporter, I was challenged by the language differences, fascinated by the people involved, and thrilled that they had called on me to be a witness to it all. It still stands as my all-time favorite piece of news gathering. I can't imagine a better story.

Hair - 2010 Version

No, I'm not talking about the Broadway Musical, although I was around for its first run. I'm talking about the spikey, or curly, or flat, or thinning, or multi-colored, or totally shaved stuff that comes out of the top of one's head. I know it comes out of other, maybe less desirable, places, but for right now I'd prefer to refer only to the hair on top, or that which used to be there.

By far I am not one of those women who is obsessed with her hair, but on this occasion I have something to celebrate. I have finally found a stylist I want to go back to, over and over again. I must say this very quietly, as the last person I said this about almost immediately moved to Costa Rica. I hope it wasn't to get away from my hair.

I am certain that most, if not all of you are at this point cheering silently for me in some manner. We have all had at least one nightmare experience at a hair salon. I may have been lucky enough to have more than one. In fact, it was many, many more. I do believe it goes all the way back to sophomore year in high school, when my mother (I like to think she meant well) took me to the only hair dresser in our little town, and told her to cut my hair, short.

Do you remember what Mia Farrow did to her hair after the legendary fight with Frank Sinatra? Well, mine was shorter than that - approximately one inch long, everywhere. It took me over ten years before I was ready to even trim it again, and then it was with a hair stylist I was dating. He knew the consequences of screwing it up, and was extremely careful to take off exactly the desired amount. He wasn't the only one who knew where the scissors were.

Now my hair is short, again. It happened somewhere around the time my second child, my son, turned old enough to grab large fists full of my waist-length tresses and yank, hard. He was one of those babies who liked to be carried around a lot, and I guess he figured my hair to be some type of handle he could hold for extra stability. His, not mine.

However, the moment I decided it was time to take the plunge, I quickly realized I was diving into something else: an enormous pool of infinitely variable skill-leveled and personality-clad artisans who ranged from gum-snapping twenty-somethings with magenta spikes on their heads to elder lasses whose perms had gone out some time in the 1950's. It was actually a gentleman who somehow talked me into a perm, about 25 years ago. He burned the entire front of my head, then tried to tell me it was the most current of styles. Only if one lived in the middle of an electrical power grid, and liked to step in puddles.

Another young lady opened up our first conversation by clipping a piece off of her index finger while starting to cut my hair. I might have brushed that off if she hadn't exclaimed, "Oh, I am always doing that!" Obviously she had chosen the wrong profession, and it showed in the lopsided cut I received. At least she was able to get the blood out of my oddly-shaped "do."

Then there was the gal who decided that I needed to be a blonde. I had started out as a blonde, from birth to about age three, but slowly became a rich brunette, tinged with auburn. Her decision came as I was visited by my first substantial batch of gray, which I was wearing as a badge of courage. She announced to me that she would be all ready to pick out a color for me the next time I came in. She is still waiting.

There seem to be a considerable number of stylists who love doing the most current cuts, like the Jennifer Aniston or the Courtney Cox, or the Cindy Lauper or Lady Gaga. It doesn't matter much who you are or what you would wear well, you will leave the salon with something trendy and completely inappropriate for your looks, age, or profession.

I got so fed up that once in a while I would put off my search and cut my own hair. I do have some experience, and know more than a little about techniques, but there is one problem: the back. Even if you can arrange twelve or thirteen mirrors in your bathroom so you can see your whole head, you can never get exactly the right angle of scissor precision, and the end result is far from perfect. At least I had the satisfaction of knowing I hadn't actually paid someone to make me look that bad.

After a sustained bout of self-pruning, I finally gave up and went to a salon nearby. I knew nothing about the place except that it was a few shops away from my favorite shoe store. It was nice, quiet, friendly, and full of women. Not girls, mind you - women! Many ages, many styles, but all of whom looked well groomed and happy. Nirvana!

My personal pick is a smart, attractive, easy-going young lady, young enough to not retire in six months, but old enough to know how to listen to a client. She actually does what I ask her to do - her own very talented version, of course, but it is still what I tell her I would like. I would have her bronzed and made into a monument of some sort, but she would probably have a tough time with the scissors.

If you are hoping for a name or number, dream on! For now, anyway, I like to think she's all mine.