by Ralph Maltese | Aug 29, 2016 | Uncategorized
Button It! It’s Not Easy As It Sounds
I remember reading about a matador preparing to enter the bullring to begin the “dance of life and death” referred to in Hemingway’s stories as the “moment of truth.” The matador may have an aide who ritualistically helps him dress; tight white pants with a lime-green stripe, shirt with ruffled collar, jacket, wide brimmed black hat, blood red sash–all ceremoniously donned while the bullfighter prepares to enter the arena as the song/prayer Virgen de la Macarena plays. This must take considerable time as everything has to be just so. I imagine the bull consumes much less time in getting ready. If the matador is unfortunate enough to have Parkinson’s, it would take much much longer.
Whenever I plan to enter a social ring, a dinner engagement, an invitation to play bridge, a trip to a movie, I must plan for extra time to dress. If we have such an event to attend, and I yell to Polley “I just got out of the shower!” she knows she has time to mow the lawn, read War and Peace, and complete the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle.
Tying my shoes requires extreme concentration. My hands are actually boxing gloves, and my wrapping and tying of the laces reminds me of the first time as a young lad I learned to tie my shoes, eyes squinting, tongue projecting out of a corner of my mouth, brain totally focused on the task at hand. With the Parkinson’s I have returned to that boyhood challenge. There have been occasions when I have forgotten to put my pants on first…I stare disbelievingly at my stupidity. The shoes have to come off, and I have to repeat the ritual amidst much vocalizing of my displeasure through flowery invective.
But far more challenging than the tying of my shoes is the task of buttoning something. Anything. Putting on my shirt requires enormous effort and time. (I am thrilled that button down collars are not the rage) It is the buttons. Fairly often I misjudge the alignment of the top button, and after buttoning the entire shirt I look down to discover that. One side of my shirt is longer than the other. When that happens I really howl at the moon. The curses flow like water over Niagara Falls. That also adds an hour or so and Polley knows from the language emanating from upstairs that she has time to make a turkey pot pie from scratch (including hunting the turkey) and also watch the movie War and Peace…the Russian version. The curses flow and increase in length and include more similes unfit for polite society as my fingers fumble with guiding a button through a narrow slit. How could any item, so miniscule and yet so functional have a history of being mostly ornamental?
Archeologists have discovered buttons from the Indus Valley dating back to 2,000 B.C. Their function seems to have been more ornamental, and people exchanged buttons in lieu of currency. Buttons became faddish and fancy. As time passed, buttons became more functional. During the Napoleonic Wars when people fought to the death while observing strict dress codes, soldiers in most armies were covered with buttons. Since paymasters were notoriously late in compensating the troops for their service, a soldier might pluck a button off his uniform to pay for a pint of ale or for the chance to unfasten the buttons of a fine tavern lass. King Frederick the Great of Prussia, disgusted with inspecting his troops and learning of their tendency to wipe their noses on their sleeves, ordered buttons to be sewn onto all the sleeves. While I am certain that a few men could not shake the sleeve smearing habit and march toward the enemy with red scarred and scraped noses, Freddy was probably proud as he watched most of his men enter the fray and charge the cannons (and being blown to pieces) with clean sleeves..
Buttons have also become topics for heated debates. One of the great questions mystifying humanity is why women have buttons on the left side and men have buttons on the right side. Some chauvinists argue that the woman’s choice of button placement is another indication of female “contrariness,” and “dissatisfaction.” Personally I think the burning of bras to be a more effective protest. The most likely answer to this burning issue is that most people are right-handed. Men dressed themselves, unless they lived in Downton Abbey, while women were dressed by ladies-in-waiting, also more likely to be right-handed. Hence, for the maid’s convenience, buttons were sewn on the Mylady’s left side.
The fly on men’s pants was also fastened with buttons. Not too long after I learned of my onset of Parkinson’s, in a moment of irrationality, I wore such a pair of pants on a trip to Colorado. Somewhere in Illinois we decided to eschew the rest rooms of an Interstate rest area and wait until the next rest area 37 miles away. This is a prototype of the challenges that we invent for ourselves on long trips. Can we make it to the next gas station? Can we hold off lunch until Indiana? The rest room challenge is especially daunting because of the immense consequences. On this trip we were confident that the Rest Area would be there. What we did not forsee was the ninety minute traffic jam caused by highway construction. By the time the Rest Area with the Rest Rooms appeared on the horizon like an oasis to one dying of thirst, my legs were crossed, my eyes were crossed, my fingers were crossed. Obviously other interstate travelers had embraced the same challenge because we had to park a half a mile from the Rest Rooms. It is difficult to run in a zig-zag pattern with one’s knees together. Once inside we realized we had failed to beat the tour buses which had already unloaded the two hundred members of the Brazilian Male Dance Team. I waited behind a line of yellow, blue-striped, forest green shirts and prayed. It was the first time in recorded history that the line outside the Men’s Room was longer than the line outside the Women’s Room. When my turn came, oh mercy, there were those buttons on the fly. As my fingers maddeningly fumbled with those nasty orbs of plastic, I recited the last words of the mentally unstable Colonel Walter E. Kurtz from the movie Apocalypse Now…..”The horror…the horror….”
If you have Parkinson’s and, like me, struggle with buttons, you have options. I have purchased fly fishing shirts which have replaced the buttons with snaps. Snaps require some digital dexterity, but they are a vast improvement over buttons. Another option is to move to India. My daughter Meredith married Ronak whose parents were originally from India. Afternoon wedding: American, suits, ties, and, yes, buttons. Morning wedding: Indian. As the father of the bride I wore an outfit of Indian style, a kurta, I believe. A kurta is a wonderful, comfortable, and elegant article of clothing, soft silky pants with an equally soft and silky shirt that pulls over one’s head. Unfettered by buttons I could have “danced the night electric,” as Amanda Wingfield might say, and that is a lot because at an Indian wedding there is a great deal of communal and joyous dancing. I did some research on my future transplanting to the sub-continent, but, alas, they have buttons in India as well…just not as many.
Like so many problems I cope with, I blame my parents for not being independently wealthy. Thus my inheritance would enable me to, like the Earl of Grantham, hire Bates to button my buttons. Unfortunately I am left with dressing myself. Like the matador I take some time to prepare, not out of vanity, but because of the damn buttons. I would much rather Zip It!
by Ralph Maltese | Aug 21, 2016 | Uncategorized
We’re a Little Testy, Aren’t We?
It is August so the nightmares will begin. I have had these beginning-of-the-school-year teaching nightmares since my first assignment in 1970. The venues and people in the dreams may change but the themes are usually the same: unpreparedness or lateness. I am late for one of my five classes, or I can’t find the right room to teach in or I forgot my notes or my roll book or my shoes or I can’t remember the lesson. These nightmares probably originated in their form during my student years when I dreamt of missing a class or not being ready for a class or a test…..you know, the fears that drive nerds to the psychiatrist’s couch. One weird fact is that I am retired. I have not directed a class in a few years but I still get those dreams. This is another testimony to the fact that teaching is not simply a job or a profession but a life unto itself.
I remain in touch with a number of educators who are still actively teaching. Some of the younger ones have newer nightmares that do not have to do with being unprepared for class but with the possibility that half their students missed the same question on the standardized test. The teacher is called to task, the entire school staff is mobilized, and the school district spends several million dollars on purchasing books that provide interventions that address that erroneously answered question.
No Child Left Behind, the law mandating testing(thankfully defanged), was the well-spring of this newest nightmare. A veiled attempt at creating a school voucher system, NCLB was not true educational reform. If schools did not make arbitrarily devised progress, the districts would eventually be penalized. NCLB (or, as teachers using gallows humor joked, NCL—No Child Left) was like a general who told his colonel, “Colonel, I want you to take 100 men and take that hill.” The colonel and his company do their best and get halfway up the hill, but the hill is heavily defended and the assault stops. The general then orders his underling, “Colonel. You failed. I am going to take half your men away and half your ammunition and I want you to try to take that hill again.”
Some defenders of the testing mania would argue that “At least after the testing we have identified those students who need the most help.” Gosh, teachers were shocked that economically deprived minority students were having the most academic difficulty. I needed a three day test to tell me that? Duh! Worse, once the students were identified, no help was forthcoming. Imagine going to the doctor to be tested for pneumonia. “Yep. Blood tests confirm you have pneumonia. Come back in three weeks and we will test again.” Returning in three weeks, the physician says, “Yep. Blood tests confirm you still have pneumonia.” Gee, thanks. I visit my neurologist periodically who examines the progress of my Parkinson’s, but he also prescribes medication to address those changes. He doesn’t just say, “Yep. You still have Parkinson’s. Whatta ya gonna do about it?” So why don’t politicians and policy makers understand a fundamental educational principle? To wit: Testing is not reform. Oh wait! I know why!
School districts, panicking over losing federal financial aid because of low test scores, seek help through the purchase of texts and programs that promise to improve certain elements of the standardized test. From The Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss, March 30, 2015: “The four corporations that dominate the U.S. standardized testing market spend millions of dollars lobbying state and federal officials — as well as sometimes hiring them — to persuade them to favor policies that include mandated student assessments, helping to fuel a nearly $2 billion annual testing business, a new analysis shows.” Yessiree, testing is BIG business. I marvel at how many good teachers a district could hire for the amount of money it invests in test improvement. Or how many books or other media that amount could furnish. In my next life I will craft my fortune by designing a test that every high school student must take. I have already begun developing the test but my problem is where to stash it so my next life form will find it.
The other factor in the faux-reform testing craze is our obsession with data. ALL data. Newman, the mail carrier from Seinfeld, says it best. “When you control the mail, you control information.” We measure information about students simply because someone has developed a test to measure that information. Here is an example of how it works, changing the names of the actual skills to preserve their innocence. Reading, that wonderfully complex intellectual activity, is broken down into 600 mini skills each of which is now identified by a test. Say one of those skills is Sub Skill 509, Reading while Blinking. “Oops. Johnny is below proficient on Reading while Blinking,” notes the school statistician. “Johnny is one of my best readers. His comprehension is off the charts and he constantly relates what he reads to his personal experience,” retorts Johnny’s teacher.
“Does not matter. We will have to bring that score up!” So Johnny is plucked from his regular class and dropped into a group of other students with low Sub Skill 509 Reading While Blinking scores. Books are bought, programs are purchased, courses initiated all to address Johnny’s deficiency.
Why do we even bother to assess a student’s ability to Read While Blinking? Because we can. I suspect that you may be one of those contrary types who also expect relevance. Sorry. Imagine if your physician tells you, “We now can test for toenail damage due to exposure to the sun.” You reply, “Will this help me with my Parkinson’s?” “No, but we can test for it soooooo.”
A wise educator once told me that any test is only a snapshot. “It gives a small bit of information and its advantage is that it gives it quickly.” But the snapshot is not the whole picture. And any test contains the test-maker’s agenda. I talked to a person on a committee developing tests for teachers. “I believe there should be at least five questions on Finnegan’s Wake on the English teacher exam. I can’t imagine an English teacher never having read Joyce’s greatest novel!” I can. The SAT’s are designed only for one purpose: to project what a student will do his freshman year of college. (And the validity of that projection has been called into question.) Yet districts and states use SAT scores to evaluate high schools. That is equivalent to performing triage in an Emergency Room based on knitting ability. “Yes, I know your gunshot wound hurts, but, based on the fact you dropped a purl, you are last in line.” Teachers know that there are several forms of intelligence, but the SAT’s focus on only two: linguistic and mathematical. So if your child’s primary intelligence is visual or kinesthetic, he or she has some seriously prepping to do. And, yes, despite the ETS’s protestation that the SAT’s are above and beyond preparation, students and schools spend a great deal of time prepping, especially students who can afford to.
When I administered my first state mandated test, the PSSA, I noticed that there was a section on technology. As an educator interested in using computers in the classroom, I was intrigued. Obviously the test-makers realized the burgeoning role of technology in education. I examined the section. “Here are the contents of 2 CD-ROMS. Answer the following questions about where you would find information on these CD-ROMS.” I remember that all the content on the CDs was related to shoes.
“On what track of this CD would you find places to buy shoes?”
I laughed out loud….during the test! This was not an exam to determine a student’s computer literacy. The only thing it measured was a student’s ability to read a table of contents. This is important because it recognizes another failed effort to “measure” skills through bubble answer sheets. In graduate school one of our friends worked toward her advanced degree in music, specializing in piano. The college evaluators did not sit her down with pencil and paper to evaluate her skill. They put her on the stage and asked her to play the piano! We could do the same thing in our schools—the two obstacles are a lack of will in the citizenry and those powerful testing businesses.
From what I have learned, the tests have improved, leaning toward better measurement of skills, but there is still the tendency to teach skills (and test them) the way we teach and test for content. While conducting a project based learning workshop for teachers a few years ago, a young teacher melted right before my eyes and began crying. My first impulse is to ask myself what I did wrong. “What did I do or say to make you cry, Ms. Jones?” “Nothing. I like this whole concept of project based learning, but when I go back to my school, we have to do this program the district bought: 39 skills in 38 days.” 39 skills in 38 days? Imagine coaching basketball to novice players. “Okay, team, we are going to become proficient in dribbling on Monday, passing on Tuesday, shooting and rebounding on Wednesday, and Thursday is our first game.” Ludicrous, yes, but it is not funny. We are losing teachers. 65% of Pennsylvania teachers leave the profession before their fifth year. Number one reason given is “lack of support.” Another reason is the emphasis on test scores. As one young teacher confided in me, “I didn’t enter teaching to spend most of my time drilling and killing kids to improve test scores. I wanted to educate, to help kids grow intellectually and emotionally.” You cannot teach a million skills in a school year. A few skills are learned, very few, and they are learned over a period of time with lots of practice. Education 101.
Testing IS important. I administered thousands of tests and quizzes over my teaching career, and they usually provided me with the necessary snapshots, but they were not the most important element in my evaluation of a student. Effort, intellectual curiosity, perseverance, collaborative skills and a number of other factors were much more important….though not necessarily measurable. My analogy is the quest to obtain a driver’s license. The written portion of the driving exam is relevant and important. But the onus is on the driver, not the evaluator, and we do not blame the Department of Transportation if our cherub fails. However, the written test is only a snapshot. The actual skill of driving the car is most important. We have to ask ourselves as a society, do we want a nation of good driver’s test takers or do we want a nation of good drivers? They are not the same.
Unless we address two issues we will find ourselves in the midst of an educational nightmare. Schools are still operating on an antiquated structure built in the late forties when most students were prepping to work in U.S. factories. The game has changed, and we must have true educational reform by rethinking what schools must look like. (Hint: repetitive testing is not the answer). Secondly, most districts boast that they follow the data. Then let’s really follow the data. The data tells us that the most important factor which determines whether a child learns or not is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. A poorly prepared teacher will stumble through any course, while a talented teacher will make something good out of a bad program. Radical idea: Sink our efforts into teacher preparation and teacher support.
Unfortunately, American culture would have to develop a radical change in its view of educators. But I can still dream, can’t I?
by Ralph Maltese | Aug 14, 2016 | Uncategorized
Unfit to be Tied
One result of my Parkinson’s is that my brain has replaced my two hands with oven mitts. Surprisingly the oven mitts are still adept at certain things like tying small flies (an eighth of an inch), wielding the mighty dvr remote, and typing this blog (although that is becoming more difficult). Using the oven mitts to accomplish other tasks like dressing oneself is very problematic. It is like trying to use those two flame retardant gloves to thread a small needle.
For most of my tenure teaching, I wore a tie. I did this for three reasons which may be puzzling to non-teachers. I took the time each morning to create a Windsor knot out of respect for my students, to reaffirm that I was their teacher and NOT a friend (they had friends who knew only as much as they did. They needed adult perspectives), and as a legacy of my Villanova days. My esteemed alma mater required that students wear jackets and ties to all classes and meals. By the time we were sophomores we realized that financially we could not afford the thrice weekly visit to the Campus Cleaners (who cleaned us out, all right!), so we tended to use the same jacket and the same tie for all classes and all meals. At the end of the day these accouterments find themselves on a mountain of clothing in the corner of the dorm room shared with my roommate who did his part in adding to the pile.
In my junior year developed the protest against the cafeteria food (to go along with the protests against the Vietnam War, civil rights abuses, the wearing of a bra, Lyndon Johnson’s abuse of beagles, and whatever decision Dow Chemical made). Before I continue, I must pay homage to Villanova which taught me to think critically and to ruminate on how best to serve humanity. I should also take this moment to remind people that the Villanova Men’s Basketball team won this year’s NCAA Championship. But excellent academic institution and home of champions Villanova was and is, it had a fault, a fault which affected growing teenagers who consumed vast amounts of sustenance (and non-sustenance) where they were most vulnerable. Food. Through investigation by the campus paper, The Villanovan, it was later discovered that there were suspicious dealings between the supplier and procurer of our daily bread (always stale daily bread, I might add) but all we students knew was that we were tired of our color coded meals. The Yellow Meal sported corn, yellow grits, and yellow crusted mystery fish that had washed up on the Jersey shoreline, and a banana for desert or, if the bananas had thrice ripened, banana pudding with dark spots. The Brown Meal featured brown rice and brown mystery meat (we noticed the lack of road kills along Lancaster Pike) and for dessert a brownie that was useful in stabilizing a dorm room desk by placing it under one leg. I will spare you the details of the Green Meal. Protest at Villanova, considering the era, was a relatively peaceful affair—no throwing of rocks or Molotov cocktails or cafeteria brownies.
Villanova was primarily a “Men’s College.” The students of the nursing school were housed away from the main campus. So our protest of the color coded meals consisted of several hundred males showing up for dinner with jackets and ties…….and nothing else. Why should we dress for meals that included spaghetti sauce which looked and tasted suspiciously like the red stuff we plopped on hamburgers? We may have been inspired by that noted jokester, Edgar Allan Poe, who as company leader at West Point on Gloves and Swords day, showed up on the parade ground leading his company wearing only gloves and a sword. Unlike poor Edgar we were not thrown out for our hijinks.
Without any research to support me, I suspect that the quality of food on campuses has dramatically improved. When my children were accepted to the colleges they applied to, we had fun visiting those schools to help them make their choices. They had done the hard work of studying and learning to earn them the right to engage in “Shopping for Colleges.” All the cafeterias sported a cleanliness and an ambience that tempted Polley and me to consider reservations. And the menus!! The young, pretty college guides who led us on the campus tours pointed out the choices to accommodate every palate. Chicken Kiev, Beef Wellington, Moldovian mamaliga (porridge), Shri Lanka kottu (stir fry), Mongolian buuz (steamed dumplings), tofu flavored a hundred ways, more varieties of rice than cereal choices in a modern supermarket. “And,” the young pretty college student guide added, “to pay for any meal all you have to do is swipe your identity card which you can also use in the campus store and your purchases will immediately be charged to your parents’ account.” Much happy buzzing and smiling amongst the candidates as the parents looked up and stared at the ceiling anticipating bankruptcy.
I always wore a tie to the Shopping for Colleges escapades as I did in the classroom, but with less chance of mishap. In the classroom the tie was a handicap. In a strong wind it had a tendency to flop over my shoulder which I failed to notice as I conducted a lesson on The Great Gatsy, and there were several times when, while energetically directing a class, I straightened up abruptly after fishing for a piece of chalk in the top drawer of my desk only to realize painfully that my tie was firmly stuck in the closed drawer. My students found this activity to be immensely comical as I reenacted the Ox Bow Incident.
In one class we actually had a discussion about ties. It started with my referencing our lesson from the day before. “Remember yesterday when we discussed Othello and Shakespeare’s reinforcement of the Great Chain of Being?”
Blank stares.
“Othello? Great Chain of Being?”
Silence.
“Okay. Who wrote Othello?”
The students turned and looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.
“All right. Who wrote William Shakespeare’s play Othello?”
Silence. This class was not going to jump into the First Folios.
“Hey, Mr. Maltese, you wore that same tie last Tuesday.”
Non sequitur aside, I was curious that they remembered my pattern of clothing choice over a month’s span but completely forgot yesterday’s lesson. I tried to steer the conversation into how much of our modern culture is indebted to cultures from centuries ago. Our clothing, our customs, and why reading Othello was a good thing.
I started this diversion (always with an eye to returning to my main lesson) by sharing this historical footnote. Scholars agree that ties evolved from the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), when the French were impressed by the article of clothing worn by their Croatian mercenaries. Croat became cravat and the cravat attracted the eye of that noted creator of fashion trends, Louis IV, the Sun King. Ties serve no apparent purpose other than decoration. I forget how the class discussion ended although I remember asking them to identify, based on character, what kind of tie would Othello wear and why.
Alas. My fun-filled days of Tie Wearing are mostly at an end. Fewer social occasions require them. For example, I wore a tie during my first few airplane trips, but I gave that up about the time airlines decided peanuts was a main course and the width of each seat to be the width of a tie.
And the oven mitts make it much more difficult to flip one end of the tie under and over the other end. I usually finish with a tie that extends only two inches below my collar. But I am a stubborn cuss. I try again. I stand in front of the mirror and order my paws to create an accouterment that would make Louis IV proud. It is one of the few reasons I have to wear a tie.
by Ralph Maltese | Aug 7, 2016 | Uncategorized
I Want to Stop and Smell the Roses, But
I think I first noticed that something was wrong with my sense of smell when my English Leather didn’t smell right. For those of you young men raised on Prorosa or Truefitt & Hill Trafalgar and Dr. Carver’s Aftershave and other post shave “balms,” (how are young boys going to become men by applying balms instead of after shave which, when splashed on, sets the face on fire?) English Leather is a shaving lotion whose aroma wafted through men’s dormitories on Saturday nights in the sixties. A totally unscientific study by me came to the conclusion that ninety percent of college males used English Leather. The other ten percent grew beards and didn’t go on dates but stayed in the dorm listening to “Go Ask Alice” by The Jefferson Airplane. There may have been other after shaves, French Leather or Bulgarian Leather or Uzbekistan Leather, but almost everyone used English Leather.
But forty something years after drenching my face on weekends in English Leather, I noticed that it did not smell the same. The odor of “rich Corinthian leather” had changed to smell more like stale beer puddling on a metal card table. I also developed screwy smells. On a car trip out west, we stopped at a diner in Missouri which featured good burgers but awful French fries that had seemingly been cooked in rancid oil first used in preparing the “Today’s Special—Crusted Halibut.” You know how far away from fresh halibut is central Missouri? For the next week or so, I could not remove the smell of that rancid grease from my nostrils. I thought it odd, so I asked several doctors. “As you age, some loss of smell (hyposmia) is common.” In my case, my hyposmia was followed by anosmia—the inability to detect any odors. Years later, checking out my shaking left foot and learning that I had Parkinson’s, my neurologist confirmed that loss of smell was a symptom of Parkinson’s. Now before you become worried because your chicken noodle soup smells like your kitchen mop after cleaning up from your spouse’s Beer and Polka Night, you should know that other things cause loss of smell—allergies, nasal polyps, viral infections, and head trauma. Also check your chicken noodle soup.
As my anosmia completely erased any stimulation of my olfactory lobe, I began to miss things: the earthy odor of a campfire in the woods, the wafting of honeysuckle in the spring, the warm, embracing, red-rich aroma of Italian gravy (sauce) simmering on the stove, the rustic whiff upon entering an Italian deli, the scent of a newly bathed and powdered baby. I read once that one of the strongest memory recoveries is triggered by smell. Before anosmia, I would walk past a bakery and into my brain would pop the experience of accompanying my parents as they purchased cannoli’s and pignolo and pizzelle and sfogliatelle and zeppole from an Arthur Avenue bakery in the Bronx.
Some people would argue that a loss of smell can be a good thing in certain situations. I am not certain. I am spared the olfactory childhood recall of driving down Route 1 in northern New Jersey past the Secaucus pig farms, and, years later, the assault on my nostrils when checking the boy’s lavatory for smokers, but even losing bad smells can be a bad experience. Natural gas is odorless and colorless. An odorant is added so people can smell a leak before the whole house suddenly becomes smithereens. Big help the odorant does us afflicted with anosmia! And there is no way to automatically spot a person that is hard of smelling. No canes, sun glasses, seeing eye dog, hearing aid or similar gadget shoved up one’s nose. We don’t have a sticker planted on our foreheads with a picture of a nose with a line diagonally through it. Friends will say as we enter a garden, “Oh wow! Smell those flowers, the lilacs especially.” I just shrug my shoulders. Usually Polley leans over and in a half whisper to them, “He can’t smell.” I give my clown smile, turn the palms of my hands up and say, “I am hard of smelling.” There are other moments pregnant with embarrassment. Imagine a nice, high class restaurant with low light, dark polished wood, and fragrant flowers which I cannot smell on the table. I order wine. The sommelier arrives with the bottle and pours a drop (quarter of a drop in a French restaurant) of wine in my class. He becomes a statue that could adorn Versailles and waits for my approval. Now, if truth be told, I cannot tell the difference between a four thousand dollar Chateau Lafite 1865 and a six dollar Harry’s Basement Burgundy Vintage Last Friday, 8 PM.
Smelling the wine and tasting it for acceptability is a relatively modern custom. In earlier times, Italians topped their bottles of wine not with cork but with olive oil. The host had the first glass to make certain that the oil was siphoned off. In the medieval era, the host took the first sip to demonstrate to his guests that the wine was not poisoned. So even though I cannot smell, I can serve those two functions. Besides, I like the seeking of my approval, the ritual, so I swirl the drop of vino in my glass and stick my nose in it. For some reason Polley believes that it is absolutely necessary at this moment to tell the sommelier and dinner guests, “He can’t smell. He lost his sense of smell.” The jig is up. Exposed as a fraudulent smeller, I just sheepishly grin and nod my approval. The sommelier pours and slowly and deliberately cracks a smug smile. I employ my thought net and capture his thinking. “I knew all along zis Amereecan peasant iss eh phony. He iss a non-smeller! Merde!” When Polley does not give me away, I go through the motions, and, unless the drop has shards of glass in it, I approve. The nodding of my head to the sommelier signifies that there are no traces of Bertolli Extra Virgin and that my dinner guests will not topple over dead on the table from arsenic. And, yes, people with anosmia do not enjoy the full flavors of food. For example, sometimes wine just tastes red.
There are other dangers. On a day scheduled for a major test, my honors class entered the room prepping and cramming for the exam. Five minutes into the period, there is a fire drill. This wreaks havoc with the administration of the test as kids gather in lines outside the building and discuss questions they have just seen. I wish administrators would schedule these necessary drills on non-testing days, but there are plenty more things I wish for in education.
My honors class reenters the classroom and most of them recoil as if Bull Connor had turned a fire hose on them. “Mr. Maltese, it really stinks in here!”
I ignored their protests. I did not smell anything. “Please take your seats and sit down and continue with the test.” Five minutes went by.
“Mr. Maltese, I really can’t take it. It smells awful in here.”
These were all good kids, the least likely to furnish an excuse for not taking a test. I called the main office and asked for an assistant principal to stop by. Mr. Jones opened the door of my room and promptly shut it. I left the monitoring of the test and joined him in the hallway.
“Ralph, what died in there?”
I shrugged my shoulders and we moved the entire class and tests to an empty room. More opportunities to exchange answers. We found out later that day that the company which empties the lavatory storage pits scheduled an emptying during my class period, and there was some “ordinary spillage” outside my room. The school’s air conditioner sucked in the fumes from the spillage and sprayed them into my room. Did not smell a thing. Why the company did not schedule this activity for after-school hours is another of those great educational mysteries.
In my more reflective moments I try to recall smells. My father taught me that one can find luxuries in nature if one only seeks them. We were camping on a lush forest-encircled pond in the Adirondacks, the Madonna blue water icy cold from spring melts. We had spent a long sweaty day portaging the canoe and equipment to this spot. After washing my face, my father brought me over to a large spruce tree. “You want refreshment? Rub these spruce needles in your hands and then rub the oils on your face.”
I did so. The scent lifted my spirits, filled my brain with a realization of the transcendent joys that nature offers us. The air in my lungs seemed sweeter, energy coursed through my body. I was not only looking at the pond and the forest and the dark blue sky. I was a part of all of it. I would love to re-experience that fragrance.
But I am afraid that once anosmia sets in there are no restorative powers that can retrieve my sense of smell. Perhaps someday someone will invent such a restorative power. Until then I am left with fantasies of training a Smelling Nose Dog or some such critter, maybe a trained squirrel, that could convey to me the odors that I am missing. Somewhere in my medicine cabinet is a ¼ filled bottle of English Leather. I reach out to it at times with outstretched arms like Gatsby reaching out to Daisy’s dock, wishing to recapture the redolent past that recedes from memory.
If you are a smeller, for those of us who are not, take the time to stop and literally smell the roses. Inhale and enjoy.
by Ralph Maltese | Aug 1, 2016 | Uncategorized
Blog8_2_2016
Sherri With an “I”
Parkinson’s has definitely affected my ability to argue, and that is a shame because I love to argue politics and ideas and ethics. That is a legacy from my four years at Villanova. I am certain this occurred on other campuses, especially in the sixties, but Villanova was big on questioning things, on finding the truth. It was not enough to make a statement. I had to back it up with some sort of evidence because, if I did not, the other five guys in the dorm room discussion would eviscerate my whole position. My classmate (and still good friend) Stan once walked into the middle of a bull session and he heard the term “U.S. Army.” Stan put down his text and notepad and said defiantly, “What’s wrong with the Army?” “Nothing. We were complimenting the Army.” Stan looked down at the floor. “Oh yeah?! What’s right with the Army?!” We just enjoyed intellectual jousting.
And there was so much to dispute. The Vietnam War, race relations, exploitation of migrant workers, communism and capitalism, the ethics of all of the above, whether it was more expensive to date a girl from Rosemont as opposed to date a girl from Immaculata (hands down, Immaculata—the train fare alone emptied pockets), and the argument as to who would win a match between the then reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics and the Harlem Globetrotters. You know. Important stuff.
One of the high school courses I taught was debate. This experience taught me that my method of argumentation was fading from popularity. I was fortunate to teach many fine young people who grasped the essential concepts and tactics of good debating and performed very, very well. Yet there were a few who did not see the need to learn any concepts or tactics. Usually these students were in my debate elective because their first course choice, The Visual Cliff Notes—Literature Summaries with All Graphics and No Text—was filled up. Research a topic? “Why bother?” Find the truth behind a declaration? “Seriously, I have homework in other courses.” Employ the Rogerian argument to anticipate the opponent’s cross examination? “Who has the time?” Scrutinize your opponent’s logistical weaknesses? “Hey, Mr. Maltese, you mean we gotta listen to the other guy?” The “method” employed by these students is best exemplified by Sherri. That is, Sherri With An “I.”
One of my less stellar tasks as a teacher was to supervise a cafeteria study hall. A study hall in a classroom was fine, but a study hall in the cafeteria with a hundred or more students meant spending the whole forty five minutes not marking papers or planning lessons but monitoring signing of lists of students who wanted to go to the library or the bathroom or their lockers or their cars (forbidden). When all that was finished I had to address students trying to sneak out, phone calls from counselors and principals who wanted to see certain students, etc. In study hall I was a babysitter rather than a teacher.
There were several types of passes. One pass to the men’s lavatory. One pass to the women’s lavatory. One pass to the locker. All these passes were to last only six minutes or the abuser would lose pass privileges. Three sign-up sheets. MEN’S LAVATORY, WOMEN’S LAVATORY, LOCKER. (Of course, modern schools will not require separate lavatory lists.) First come, first to get the pass. This protocol was an attempt to account for the whereabouts of all students. The last thing we wanted was for groups of students to wander the hallways, especially those with reputations for not grasping the purpose of academia.
Sherri With An I had such a reputation. Often caught by hall monitors aimlessly wandering the corridors or sneaking a smoke in the stairways or bullying girls with more academic intentions in the lavatory, Sherri With An I was well known for her meanderings. Sherri With An I’s prime directive was “socialization.”
She arrived about two minutes late to my study hall, thus already committing an infraction. She nodded at her friend Crystal who was lurking in the hallway, and my experience told me that Sherri With An I was anxious to join her friend in misadventures.
Her voice was loud and forceful as if her vocal cords had devoted her sixteen years to lifting weights. She marched up to me and planted her face six inches from mine. In a voice whose decibel level exceeded the landing of a 747 Jet in the cafeteria study hall and in a shrillness that would be the pride of a screaming banshee she began her “argument.”
I-AM-SHERRI-WITH-AN-I-AND-I-WANT-TO-GO-TO-THE-BATHROOM.
“Well, first you are late, but I’ll let that go. Sign your name on the lavatory list and take your seat. You are number three on the list, so it won’t be long.”
I-WANT-TO-GO-TO-THE-BATHROOM-NOW!
“I’m sorry [I really wasn’t sorry], but you have to wait just like everyone else.”
She turned and gave a half smile to Crystal who was peering in through the door.
What followed is hard to capture in print. In writing dialogue one person speaks, then the next, and so on. But in my disputation with Sherri With An I, my comments were simultaneous with her shouting so imagine my comments on top (or behind) hers. Imagine both of us talking not point-counterpoint but concurrently.
I-AM-SHERRI-WITH-AN-I-AND-I-GOT-TO-GO-TO-THE-BATHROOM-AND-YOU-CAN’T-STOP-ME-BECAUSE-I-GOT-TO-GO-AND-MR.JONES[assistant principal]-IS-MY-FRIEND-AND-I-DON’T-HAVE-TO-WAIT-IF-I-DON’T-WANT-TO-AND-I-DON’T-WANT-TO-SO-JUST-GIVE-ME-THE-PASS-TO-THE-BATHROOM…
“Please sit down and wait until your turn like everyone else.”
I-AM-SHERRI-WITH-AN-I-AND-I-GOT-TO-GO-TO-THE-BATHROOM-AND-YOU-CAN’T-STOP-ME-BECAUSE-I-GOT-TO-GO-AND-MR.JONES-WILL-GET-IN-YOUR-FACE-IF-YOU-DON’T-LET-ME-GO-TO-THE-BATHROOM-AND-I-AM-NOT-EVERYONE-ELSE-I-AM-SHERRI-WITH-AN-I-AND-I-GOT-TO-GO-TO-THE-BATHROOM.
“Please sit down, Sherri. Oh, look, Margaret returned with the pass. You are next.”
I-AM-SHERRI-WITH-AN-I-AND-I-GOT-TO-GO-TO-THE-BATHROOM-AND-I-CAN’T-WAIT-AND-I-AM-GOING-TO-TELL-MY-COUNSELOR-ABOUT-YOU-AND-YOU-WILL-BE-IN-BIG-TROUBLE-IF-YOU-DON’T-LET-ME-GO-TO-THE-BATHROOM-YOU-CAN’T-STOP-ME-THAT’S-THE-LAW-I-KNOW-MY-RIGHTS
Of course, every student in the cafeteria study hall was watching her explosion when suddenly she just left. I watched as Sherri With An I and Crystal stomped away from the lavatories and toward the gym. I followed protocol, called the office and alerted a hall monitor to the whereabouts of Sherri With An I and Crystal.
I spent the rest of the study hall period monitoring the sign out lists and keeping the room quiet so students could, well, study.
With five minutes to go in the study hall, Mr. Jones appeared with Sherri With An I who sported a smugness that had not taken very long to cultivate.
“Sherri told me you would not let her go to the bathroom.”
HE-WOULDN’T-LET-ME-GO-TO-THE-BATHROOM-MR.JONES-AND-I-NEEDED-TO-GO.
“Shhh, Sherri. I will handle this.”
Jones was basically a good guy, but like everyone else he had his favorites.
“First, she was late to study hall. Second, she needed to sign up for the lavatory on the lavatory list which she refused to do. Third, she would not take her seat when I asked her to. Fourth, she cut study hall and did not go to the lavatory but to the gym with her friend.”
HOW-DO-YOU-KNOW-WHERE-I-WENT-MR.JONES-HE-IS-ALWAYS-PICKING-ON-ME-LIKE-EVERY-DUMB-TEACHER-IN-THIS-SCHOOL-AND-HE-SHOULD-BE-FIRED-FOR-NOT-LETTING-ME-GO-TO-THE-BATHROOM.
“Sherry, sssh.”
“Ralph. Let her slide on this one.”
“In front of all the study hall she wouldn’t follow my directions and wouldn’t sit down. And she wandered the halls the whole period.”
Jones took my elbow and led me away from Sherri With An I. Whispering, “She has a tough home life.” I hated that argument. So what? Far too many of my students had tough home lives and most of them were good students and civil. Besides, how did allowing the student to get away with murder help the student or the student body as a whole?
“So you want me to allow her to go whenever and wherever she wants?”
Jones looked down at his shoes. “I know she gets in people’s faces with that shouting act. She has done it to me.” Jones lifted his eyes to mine. “But you know, really, you cannot deny a student from going to the bathroom.”
Really? And that was it. Not quite. During my next supervision of cafeteria study hall two days later, Mr. Jones visited me in the middle of the period, visibly upset. He wanted to know why I had issued nineteen lavatory passes simultaneously. That conversation is for another blog entry.
Looking back over the experience with Sherri With An I, I think she was, in the argumentation department, way ahead of her time. Because, in the current adult world, shouting out loud, shrilly and forcefully, platitudes and promises and falsehoods, invoking emotions ballooned with fear and hate, cultivating bluster and me-hood have replaced true intellectual exploration of ideas and energetic and insightful dialogue that would benefit us all.
Parkinson’s has drained my ability to project my voice. The development of ideas in my brain is still operating, but the physical shaping of words to express those concepts comes hard. And I have learned that the method of disputation I learned at Villanova and taught to my debate classes is outdated. Debate is one form of argumentation, one in which the participants try to score points. In everyday life with everyday people, scoring points is not as important as resolving the issue that caused the dispute. In a democracy especially, the ability to compromise is a keystone of progress.
Intellectual exchanges and disputations that lead to understanding and growth have faded from the public eye, residing perhaps only in academe. In far too many “debates” being true or untrue is not a priority. Shouting fast and loud is the tactic which seems to reign. In today’s social climate, Sherri With An I would stand a good chance in the political arena.
