Senior Citizens Writing II

Preface

I thank Dr. W. Ross Winterowd for the encouragement, sage commentary, and friendship he so freely endowed on me, and generously endows on all older adult writing workshop attendees. I learned a great amount about life, writing, and story from his tireless efforts during the sixty workshop sessions I attended. I also attest that the many other workshop participants, who I now know as friends, have benefited in like manner, particularly the ten other authors who worked with me on the anthology section of this book.

Workshop attendees wish to thank the Huntington Beach Union High School and staff for their support for the Writing Workshops for older adults, sponsored since the Fall of 1999 and offered three times per year. We thank in particular Dr. Doris Longmead, principal of the Coast High School and Adult School, and her able staff; Catherine McGough, assistant principal at the school, and Dr. Winterowd’s boss; Lynn Bergman, secretary; June Stark-Karaba, specialist for older adult classes; and Georgina Amparan, department secretary.

The patience and support of the anthology section authors was greatly appreciated, and I thank Paul Larkin, Joanne Simpson, and Marie Thompson for their reading, editing, and proofreading assistance on some of the contributions.

Thank you David Blakesley and Parlor Press for authorizing this second book on Senior Citizens Writing.

I give special thanks to Norma Winterowd and Tessa Reid, beloved wives whom Ross and I owe for the time we invested in the preparation of this book.

—Bill Reid

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for permission to reprint or adapt from the following sources:

Marjory Bong-Ray Liu: China map and inset: Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries. The University of Texas at Austin. Excerpts included in My Adventures in China During World War II appeared in Emeritus Voices, the publication of the Arizona State University Emeritus College. Used by permission.

Richard Wrate: Excerpts from The Aspen Times: Courtesy of The Aspen Times, Inc.

Paul Larkin: Ole George and The Paper Boy. Courtesy of TomBigbee Country Magazine.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Eddie Hasson

The Most Dynamic Class in Junior High School

Human Reproduction

Co-Ed Health—Undivided Attention

First Aid Unit

Coed Health Class House Rules

A Sad Story

Talent Shows and Other Performances at the Junior High Level

Old Mother Hubbard

Mary Ann Huisken

A City Girl on the Farm

Sleeping Under the Stars

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Mother, Where Are You?

Paul Sammy Larkin

"Ole George’’ and the Paper Boy

Amory Library

Tick

Baseball Long Toss Contest

Knockout Punch

The Ring

In the Morning

Marjory Bong-Ray Liu

My Adventures in China During World War II

QI (Chee) *

Snow in Beijing

Kathy Recupero

As I Remember It—Love at First Slight

Daddy, a Beloved Irishman

New York! New York! It’s a Wonderful Town

Our Year in Tuscany

William (Bill) Reid

There’s a War On!

Sassenachs! Go Live Among Them?

Joanne Simpson

Bubbles of Remembrance

It Was the 60’s!

Fred

Marie Thompson

Another Chance

The Norton Simon

The Scruff

The Button

An Enchanted Oasis

Sanctuary

Phan Vū

Autumn Love

A Bus Ride

Edna Woolley

One Remarkable Woman

Molly’s Folly

What Fun It Was

Ted

My Greek Vacation

Richard Wrate

Beauty in the Beast

Buttermilk Returns?

Contributors

Introduction

W. Ross Winterowd

You and I are exactly alike, you know. We both have limited time on this Earth, and we should choose to squeeze from the hours and days every possible drop of joy, every moment of peace. Even in this bleak age, with an even grimmer future. Of course, what I’m saying now makes perfectly good sense, but that sense is worthless. It adds up like two and two are four. Except that our adding machine is haywire, and good sense sometimes doesn’t make sense. That’s why all of us should lose ourselves in immensity. For every waking moment, we should try to make ourselves a part of eternity, that universe out there. When I was a boy, in summer I slept out on our back lawn, and I can remember gazing at the starry heavens and thinking that God must be there somewhere among the galaxies. Maybe when I was a boy I understood more than I do now. No one can know the infinite like you know the multiplication tables, but you can know it in your heart and soul, the joyous mystery of the whole thing. People used to talk about the music of the spheres. I think that I heard that music, more grand than any organ or choir. We all should try to hear that music again.

In groups of fifteen or so senior citizens huddle together, listening for a chord or a strain or a passage, and it’s surprising how often we hear it. When we read Anna’s story of the ramshackle house her father built, with varmints and bugs rustling in the walls; or the story of Michelle’s doll that never smiled; or Art’s tale about his wife’s hats; or Paul’s account of first sensing the awe and mystery of monastic life; or Phan’s story about two lovers in wartime Viet Nam. . . . We perk up when we encounter the dissonance of Gerry’s political tracts or the precision of Gordon’s explanations of technology.

The term creative writing is anathema to us, for we believe that all serious writing is creative. Every well-crafted piece gives us echoes from the music of the spheres, those symphonies that we all heard when we were youngsters.

In our association with one another, in our work, and in our responses to that work, we find a mellow, autumnal music that is more satisfying than the rollicking melodies of spring or the songs of summer—because, of course, we know that the dirges of winter lie ahead.

Ah then, how do such marvels come about?

Here’s the secret: people who want to write get together every week to read and respond to each other’s work. That’s such an arcane, mysterious concept, that I’ll repeat it: people who want to write get together every week to read and respond to each other’s work.

Years ago, a well-known scholar, one of my colleagues in the English Department at the University of Southern California, sputtered, But everyone, ahem, knows, ahem, that you can’t teach anyone to write. He was perfectly correct: you can’t teach anyone to write or to play the cello or cast flies for trout—if by teaching you mean lecturing. But, of course, Piatagorsky would not have given a student a fifty-minute lecture on playing the cello (with the purpose of enabling the student to play the instrument), nor would Lee Wolf have given me a fifty-minute lecture on fly-casting. Both masters would probably have demonstrated first, then asked the student to attempt the passage or cast, and finally would have given feedback regarding the performance.

It is axiomatic, then, that the workshop leader be a writer, preferably a compulsive writer, who week-by-week shares his work with his workshop pals. (I have submitted sections of two novels, a couple of short stories, several essays on language and others on religion, as well as my series of vegetable poems, such as this one:

Ah, parsnip, pallid winter root,

Thou symbol, yes, that very fruit

Of fallow fields and frozen ways,

I alone will sing thy praise

Before I whack thee quite in two

And pop thee in this evening’s stew.

Oh, vegetable melancholic,

When people dine and drink and frolic,

Thou liest in the basement bin,

A beetle bumbling blind therein.

Thou suffer’st yet the worst of taunts:

You’re never served in restaurants.

The wonderful thing about the workshop is that all the participants very quickly become masters, able to give meaningful feedback to their colleagues. I don’t understand what you mean here. Can you clarify? You need more detail. I want to be able to ‘see’ that living room that’s so important in your story. Gee, you’ve bogged me down in too much detail. Why don’t you cut some of it and get on with your story? I don’t see how this paragraph relates to your whole purpose in this essay. This sentence is hard to read. Can you rewrite so that it’s more readable?

A few rubrics are helpful, and as workshop leader, I slip them into our discussions. For instance: Four questions help writers with revision. "What can I add to make my story (essay, memoir) more interesting and credible? What should I delete?" "What can I substitute for this word (sentence, paragraph, image)? How can I rearrange to make this piece more convincing?"

We don’t do any in-session writing. And we don’t do much reading aloud. I know that many workshop leaders insist on in-class writing and that many also spend much of the time in sessions with participants reading their work aloud to the others. I know (and have written about) the mystique of voice, a concept that I’ve never been really able to understand. I know a lot about style (syntax, usage, figures), arrangement, the adjustment of style and form for various audiences, the integrity (believability) of the writing, but I don’t understand voice. In other words, I can comment on syntax, diction, figures, development, and so on, but I don’t know what I could say about voice. Your voice in this story isn’t authentic? Your voice in this essay is convincing? I really don’t know what remarks such as that mean.

It’s a hard and fast rule that any response to a piece of writing must be specific. This is interesting just doesn’t cut it. We all want the because.

Of course, writing of any genre is in bounds—except poetry. Participants are free to submit poetry, but I won’t comment on poems. Most of the poetry that I have received through the years has been, I’m sure, heartfelt—but uninteresting as poetry. All of us are able to provide constructive feedback regarding fiction, memoirs, persuasive essays, and writings in other prose genres, but we’re at a loss for useful feedback on poems. The poetry that workshop writers produce has, in my experience, almost inevitably been gushing in rhyme.

For the nuts and bolts about organizing and conducting writing workshops, I refer you to the long introduction to Senior Citizens Writing (Parlor Press, 2007).

Evaluating the success of a workshop is easy. If during the sessions there is much talk about the writing and a good deal of laughter, if the participants bond and become friends, if at the end of the ten- or twelve-week session the participants want to join the next session, if the workshop leader enjoys every minute of each session and cherishes his or her relationships with the participants—then the workshop has been a success.

Eddie Hasson

The lives that we in the workshop lived with Eddie were his three years as a submariner and his decades as a teacher. The selections that follow capture his enthusiasm and ebullience. Among the motives that bring senior citizens to the writing workshops are the desire to share their lives with others and to do that sharing in writing. After all, our meetings could have been bull sessions in which we exchanged anecdotes about our adventures and misadventures, but writing is a craft, and every craft gives its practitioners great opportunities for expression within the strictures that define the craft. The main opportunity and the main stricture regard audience. A personal letter to a close friend results from a set of tacit rules that would make an essay for strangers less than comprehensible. Chaim Perelman talked about the universal audience. One goal of the workshop participants was to write for that universal audience, not simply for a good friend or close relative.

—W.R.W.

The Most Dynamic Class in Junior High School

In 1965, the Long Beach school system included a new class for seventh graders. It was a required one-semester class on coed health. Prior to that year, health was taught to seventh graders as a two week unit within their physical education class: boys by their men’s P.E. teacher, girls by their women’s P.E. teacher.

The new semester course for seventh graders included many more subjects: Growth and Development, Personal Health, Disease, Individual Changes during Puberty, Human Re-production, Male and Female reproductive systems, Family composition and Relationships. Also included were the usual subjects that were taught in the prior P.E. units: Mood-Modifiers, Drug Abuse, Alcohol and Tobacco, and First Aid. All the teachers who were to teach the Health classes took a special course at Long Beach State College. A teacher who had been teaching the class at a different school district taught it. This very valuable class was to prepare us for the teaching of subjects that would make seventh grade squirrels squirm.

I found that the actual day-to-day teaching of the various units would cause many other subject to arise. Questions would be asked. You could see the light turn on in the students faces’. I didn’t know that, Wow!

Health class became the most dynamic class in school. Math class teaches math! History teaches history! Health classes . . . Wow!

Seventh graders run in age from approximately eleven and a half years to twelve and a half years, depending on when their parents started them in school. This age group is experiencing many changes, both mentally and physically—puberty. Some of the students are developing into young girls and young boys. While some of the same age students are still little puppies.

With every new class, my goal was to establish a rapport that would make the students comfortable in the subjects that were covered. They were told that they were allowed to ask questions at almost any point in our discussions. There were to be no written questions. Raise your hand and ask. Use proper words and phrases. During the unit on Human Reproduction, I would list both the male and female reproductive organs on one corner of the blackboard and leave it there during the entire unit. I don’t want to hear the words you might have picked up from a public bathroom wall, or from an off-color joke. Some students would look down at their desks or try to suppress a smile . . . Sneaky little kids!

"We will use a text book during this class. The most important part of this course is class discussion, I want each of you to participate in our discussions. I will call on you from time to time. Be ready. Oh, by the way, you will not be notified as to when there will be a test. The test will come a week or more after the unit is over. We will be in a new unit when, BANG, children, we have a test today! Do not panic, all of you were in on our discussions. Don’t panic! The system works very well!"

In the first week, I wanted my students to know the meaning of two words. The first was hypothetical. I explained the meaning and told them we would be using hypothetical situations often in our discussions. The other word they were to know was inhibitions. That word would be important when discussing Alcohol and Drug Abuse. In all the years I taught Health, only once did a student know the definition of inhibitions, and none had heard of mood modifiers.

Our first unit was about mood modifiers. Of these eleven and twelve year old students, probably 100 percent had not been involved with drug abuse. Maybe a few had taken a puff or even smoked a whole cigarette and drank the remains of dad’s drink or beer.

At this point I explain that the decision to enter into that kind of behavior is solely up to them. "You decide." You don’t ask Mom or Dad if you could smoke some pot. You know what the answer will be. Besides, they will get suspicious. Who have you been hanging around with? Dad asks, What the hell is going on—go to your room, I want to talk to your Mom, etc.

Some students are nodding their heads in agreement. (No way!) I was often accused of sounding just like their dads. (As long as you live in this house, you’ll follow our rules!) If you ask your friends (peers) who are involved in that behavior, their answer will be. No problem, I’ve been smoking grass for a long time. It’s great, it’s fun! If you ask your older brother or sister, they will probably say, You shouldn’t, you’re too young. Then they’ll talk to Mom and Dad. "You better keep an eye on Jimmy. He asked me about smoking grass. I told him to stay away from the kids he’s running around with. Some are really screwed up."

So you should make those decisions your self. You alone! In this class you will learn about the things that can happen if you become a smoker. How the excess drinking of alcohol can lower inhibitions, reduces reaction time. How doing drugs can alter your lives, becoming addicted. You will hear of many examples of successful people who get caught up in the drug scene and eventually ruined their careers and lives.

Each of you is the most important person in your life. You are number one. Not Mom, not Dad. No one is more important than you! So, after knowing the results of smoking, drinking, and drug abuse, you will sit in your room all alone, and make decisions about your life. Not all at once.

"Do I want to do this to myself? Do I want to please my peers or lose them? If I don’t smoke pot they probably don’t want me around. What should I do? Can I get new friends? As seventh graders they all state that I’m not going to get involved."

I tell them "I will know if I’ve been a successful teacher if I can quiz you ten or fifteen years from now to see how each of you are getting along in your lives. Be strong. You are Number One."

I taught one class of Health and four classes of Physical Education per semester, for many years—I actually got paid for it!

I got a backhanded compliment from our counselor. She pretended to complain that she had to change certain students programs after a parent phone call: My oldest daughter had Mr. Hasson for Health. I want my seventh grade daughter to be in Mr. Hasson’s class.

It made me feel that I was doing a good job of teaching Health. I was very pleased.

Human Reproduction

The most rewarding subject in teaching the seventh grade co-ed Health Class, is Human Reproduction. It is rewarding to the teacher to see the students getting information about something they know something about, but are not sure if they’ve got it right. A few of them have been told by one or both of their parents, a few are not sure because they got bits and pieces from their peers, older friends or from hearing off color jokes. On such subjects, in many cases, they confess they are reluctant to ask questions, even to parents. At the start of the unit, there is a tendency on the part of the students to be walking on eggshells! In many cases, they are not familiar with the vocabulary of the male and female reproductive organs. They definitely are uncomfortable in listening to or discussing sexual intercourse!

My job first was to make the class comfortable with the subject, and to use proper words in our discussions. As I’ve mentioned in previous papers, I would write on the blackboard the proper names of the male and female reproductive organs and leave them there during the entire two-week unit. The class was given a booklet on the subject to study. The major part of the class was discussion.

My opening statement was Everyone in this class including the teacher, has a belly button. If there is anyone in this class who does not have a belly button, he or she must be from Mars!

That would set the stage for the first day. The fact that we were all born was because of a mother and father’s union. The first thing in our discussion was about the umbilical cord. In beginning with that subject, the students started thinking and asking questions.

At all times I used the expression When a husband and wife decide to have children. Little by little, the students felt more comfortable with the subject.

One of the more interesting reactions was when we talked about when females began to menstruate. I explained that girls around their age start having their period at different times, not all exactly at the same age. It varies with each person. Also, that normally females menstruate approximately every four weeks between puberty and menopause. What most of the students didn’t know, and were very surprised to hear, was that a rich layer of blood formed on the walls of the uterus every four weeks in preparation for receiving a fertilized ovum (egg cell), so that it will develop into a baby.

Shock! Mr. Hasson, do you mean once a month this happens?

Yes, and when there is no fertilized egg, the body gets rid of the blood. That is what menstruation is all about! The girls knew something about menstruation; very few knew the reason for their monthly period.

When I told them that when a wife missed her period, there was a possibility that she was pregnant. You could see their minds processing this information. Hands were raised, questions asked! No time to be timid! Stories about moms missing her period, a false alarm! These seventh graders wanted to know more!

Co-Ed Health—Undivided Attention

When the subject of Sexual Intercourse was discussed, I had the complete attention of the class. Everyone alert. Every ear was tuned in, although many eyes were looking down at their desks. (In all the years that I taught Health, only two or three families had their child excused from that particular unit.)

I started with when a husband and wife love each other and decide to start a family, they have sexual intercourse. Sexual intercourse is usually done in bed, that the man is usually on top, etc. (All through the discussion, I keep an eye on the class members to see if they are coping with the subject.) The words penis, vagina, and sperm, are used. When the explanation is over, there are very few questions. Much thinking. On the days following, there are many questions. Always, the question, Do you only have sexual intercourse if you want children?

No, a married couple love each other and enjoy sex. It is a very intimate showing of how much they love each other.

In one class, a boy asked, Do you have to go to a hospital when you have sexual intercourse? He was completely serious.

On the following days, we talk about pregnancy, the changes in the mother that take place in the nine months, give or take, for the baby to be born. When it’s close to the birth time, mom and dad will make a dry run to the hospital. That is to make sure they know where to go and park when it is time. Things can get hectic, and time saved can be important. Mom packs a suitcase with things she will need at the hospital and has it ready. When the labor pains start, there is no time to waste!

One time I was explaining about labor pains. When the baby is about to be born, it will be in a head down position in the uterus.

A girl in the front row raised her hand. Mr. Hasson, Mr. Hasson.

Yes, Laura, what is it?

"When I was born I was a butt first baby." Out of the mouths of babes! I started to laugh . . . I had to hold on to my desk. (The class loved it when they would say something to make me laugh—which was often.)

Now Laura, how did you know that?

My mom told me. I knew her mom, and later she confirmed the story.

During the explanation of male sperm cells and female ovum (egg cells), I stated that the male sperm cell determined the sex of the newborn—boy or girl. I was continuing on the subject and heard someone talking near the back of the room. I stopped and saw that it was Nancy P. She wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, she was actually grumbling to herself. Nancy, what seems to be the problem?

Mr. Hasson, you just said the male sperm determines the sex of the baby!

That’s right, Nancy.

"Well, I just saw the movie about King Henry VIII this weekend. Two of his wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon, gave birth to girls, not boys, so he had them put to death. It was his fault, not theirs." Nancy was furious! I explained that in those days, medical science didn’t know about sperm and ovum. They didn’t know about chromosomes and genes. Nancy couldn’t be placated. (I loved those kids.)

We talked about the unfortunate situations like stillborn or miscarriage, when a woman had to visit her gynecologist to have a D&C. Mr. Hasson. Mr. Hasson, hand waving frantically in the air. (This was the usual reaction when a student, usually a girl, knew the answer.)

Yes, Leslie, what is it?

I know what a D&C is.

Tell us!

My mom said it’s Dusting and Cleaning."

How can you not love the enthusiasm and spontaneity of that age group?

These are just some of the many great moments in teaching Co-Ed Health to seventh graders.

First Aid Unit

Surprisingly, seventh graders were very interested in the two week First Aid unit. Starting with the definition of First Aid: The Immediate and temporary care given a victim of an accident or sudden illness until the services of a physician can be obtained. We covered wounds, severe bleeding, injuries to bones, joints, and muscles, poison by mouth, burns, and artificial respiration.

It was interesting and amusing hearing from the students as to how they convinced their parents to put together a First Aid Kit for the house or the family car. In class, we practiced with bandages, splints, triangular bandages, and discussed how to carry victims and when not to move them.

When we came to First Aid for a drowning victim, I would demonstrate the back pressure arm lift method. We then discussed the method using mouth-to-mouth to resuscitate a victim. That it was the best method of artificial respiration . . . clear victims mouth of any foreign matter . . . tilt head back . . . chin pointing upward . . . open your mouth wide . . . place tightly over victim’s mouth . . . pinch victim’s nostril’s shut. For an adult, blow vigorously about 12 breaths per minute . . . For a child, take relatively shallow breaths at the rate of 20 per minute.

Okay, students, tomorrow we will practice the mouth-to-mouth method of artificial respiration. You will practice on each other! So pick a partner. Boys ask girls—girls ask boys—or girl a girl, or boy a boy. In any case, have a partner. If not, I will pair you up! This will be a big part of your grade. If you are absent, you will practice when you return. There was stunned silence! Students looking down at their desks. Some boys grinning, some boys terrified! Most students in a panic mode! (Hasson, you’re mean!)

The next day, the class came in quietly. Not a peep! I took role, then reminded them that we were to practice the mouth-to-mouth method of artificial respiration. It is important that you learn this. Who knows when you might be called on to save a little boy or girl, or your mother or father. Quiet throughout the class.

"Oh, by the way, class. I want to introduce you to a