Archive for September, 2008
Filed under: literaturePosted: September / 30 / 2008
So, they will be holding a Southern Writers conference here in the Spring, and I thought I should try to submit a paper. Travel costs are low. Off the cuff, I wasn’t sure which Southern Writers I was familiar with, so I started by thinking about Wendell Berry. It’s always nice to think about Wendell Berry, but I wasn’t getting very far since my Berry books have yet to surface from the boxes.
Then, I remembered driving past a historical marker in town here that says, “Charles Chesnutt.” It says more than that, but I couldn’t read it, so I can only assume that it says something like, “Did something really impressive on this spot, or nearby, but we tore down the house he lived in/school he attended/shop he worked in because we thought it would be better to have a dingy brake shop instead. But we put up this sign because we Southerners really care about history. We just care about brakes more.” Indeed, Chesnutt did spend “formative years” here, and many of his characters speak with the local dialect.
Anyway, I discovered that Chesnutt wrote a book about the Lumbee (the local tribe), but did not publish during his lifetime. It’s been published since: Mandy Oxendine. It deals with romance, and passing, and multi-racial identity, all questions he was interested in (He was so light-skinned that he could have passed, and referred to himself as a “voluntary negro”).
As a random side note, the recently retired chair of Native American Studies at UNC Pembroke (which was founded as an Indian teacher’s college) is a Lumbee named Oxendine. There was a piece about her in the Fayetteville Observer this weekend.
So, here they have Hardee’s, which is apparently owned by Carl’s Jr.; they both have the big happy star on their sign (but not the great big old star-shaped signs, remember those?). They, don’t, however, seem to have Western Bacon Cheeseburgers, or fried zucchinis, or the best flavors of the fancy milkshakes, so forget that craving (yep, a week’s worth of calories in one meal).
According to the sign in front of the one I drove past on my way back from Target, they do carry a pork chop and gravy biscuit. Either that’s a really big biscuit or a sad little pork chop. And, if you ask me, it seems like the gravy would interfere with the portability of the meal, which is one of the main attractions of the biscuit+meat breakfast, if you ask me.
Filed under: ephemeraPosted: September / 30 / 2008
So, tonight, I went to Target and kinda wandered around. I actually had a list that took me to nearly every department in the store, so there was some excuse. But I was a bit absent-minded, and did a lot of the picking-up-a-thing-carrying-it-around-for-a-while-then-putting-it-down-on-another-shelf-probably-in-another-section business.
The lady who rang me up could not have been more unhappy about her job. Maybe she’d been watching me on cctv or something, and was thinking, “Someone’s got to put that away, you know.” I’m not usually such a bad citizen.
Well, I went to the Obama rally this morning. I got up at 7:00, which is sleeping in for me, and found that the Little Guy was already up. My DH had promised him model trains today, and he was up early, eagerly seated at the dining table. By the time I was ready to go, Miss Baby was up, so my DH got up too. It’s a two-hour drive on two-lane state highways, fenced in by trees on either side the whole way. I saw an older fellow walking along the highway. Honest-to goodness, he was wearing overalls. I also saw a skinny black cat prowling the median — the big grassy area between the lanes (Basement cat is out, looking for souls).
Greensboro itself seems like a nice town — there’s a little LYS downtown, and a minor-league baseball stadium with a playground at the edge of right field. The Rally was in front of the train station; we were all supposed to enter from Washington and Elm; others were closed off. (Here’s a map). The line started at Washington and Elm, went down Elm, went down Bellmeade, then down Church Street almost all the way back to the Depot. It’s my impression that the Rally proper was in front of the Depot on Church St and thereabouts; the stage was right in front of the Depot. I was on Washington street, between the Depot and Davie St. I heard that some people were there at 5:00 a.m., and I heard from a policeman that they were expecting 10,000-15,000 people. The Greensboro paper suggests 18,000. I’m even more impressed that I found parking than I was. I didn’t really see Obama — I glimpsed a distant white shirt (as one fellow near me said, “You know how he always wears his shirt with his sleeves rolled up”). But I know why he wears that shirt; if he’d worn his dark suit jacket, I wouldn’t have been able to make him out at all. I could hear him though, and the crowd was congenial. In front of me, there was a tall man and a short woman. She couldn’t see a thing, and her tall companion asked another fellow standing by to help. She was embarassed, but the two of them boosted her up so she could glimpse the white shirt too. There were a few protesters — about a dozen McCain supporters, six Nader fans, and three guys holding up signs that claimed that Biden was a war criminal. The Obama folks teased them about smoking and took pictures of them.
I took video, which I will link to tomorrow; it’s still processing.
Anyway, after that, I had a hard time finding my way out of the town, but eventually I made it to I-40. I decided to take a different route home, so I could go to the Trader Joe’s just south of Raleigh (it’s the nearest one). I know now where all the yuppies are. I stocked up on cat cookies.
This morning, my DH and Miss Baby were stacking blocks. He was counting: “…four, five, six…” and she jumped in with “seben!” She repeated the trick several times, and, in fact, spent the whole morning counting, from what I hear.
Tonight, when I tucked her in, after she blew everyone kisses, I gave her the Elmo doll. She smiled, picked him up, danced him a bit, and chattered in a high voice. She’s doing an Elmo impersonation. So cute.
Yes, really. I’m trying to ignore her, because I think she was brought in as a Straw (Wo)Man, and I don’t want to take the bait. But this NYT columnist analyzes Palin as symptomatic of a larger problem in American popular thought — the idea that Americans are “special.” As he points out, there are some pretty cool things about the American experiment, but this belief that the nation as a whole is “exceptional” has led us into some tricky corners, where we behave as though the rules –the law of nature, the laws of economics, international human rights agreements — don’t apply to us. Not only do we behave abomidably, we think that it is our special privilege to do so.
The Little Guy’s teacher tells the class that they live in the best country on earth. To his credit, he’s actually asked us if it is, in fact, the best country. We tell thim that we like it, and that we have lived in other countries but choose to live here. We also tell him that other people feel pretty great about their countries, too, and that every country has something that they do better than other countries (first-grade Hegel). He wanted to know what America did best, and we gave him a basic rundown of the Bill of Rights.
It starts early.
Filed under: DodgersPosted: September / 26 / 2008
The Dodgers are going to the playoffs! Hooray for Manny! Hooray for Joe! Hooray for nationally televised ballgames!
Well, I had planned to do more unpacking and cleaning and sorting this weekend. There are still boxes stacked all over. But on Saturday, Barack Obama is speaking in Greensboro, about 2 hours away. I could get up early (actually, getting up at 7:00 consititutes sleeping in for me), drive up, and be back before dinner.
So, what do you think: what should I do? clean house, or go see the candidate? (not the blogger, the politician).
The other day I was in Michael’s, buying sweater yarn, and there was a lady in line behind me with a triangular shadow box, the kind used for folded-up flags from funerals. Time was, I would have thought she might be sorting out her heirlooms, but in this town, I kinda assume that it’s for her husband, or her son, or her daughter….
So, I picked up the Little Guy from school today, and he was telling me about “Reading Comprehension,” in which they read stories and then draw pictures to indicate that they understood the story. He says everyone always does it wrong (whether they misunderstand the assignment or the story is unclear) except him. “So I guess I’m the smartest kid in the class.”
Well, I know a few kids in his class, and I suggested that Jason seems pretty smart, and Trevor is always reading (Trevor is very into the whole AR thing, where the kids read books and then take computer quizzes about them). “Well, I don’t know about them. But I know Aubrie….” and he proceeded to tell a long story in which he and the cute red-headed girl flirted over his yoghurt at lunch today. It’s nice to see him actually having a conversation with someone, and I’m only slightly worried that he doesn’t realize what a flirt he can be.
I should point out that Trevor sits at the same classroom table with Daniel all day long. Him, he doesn’t know. Cute redhead? He even knows her name.
