WHAT’S FOR SUPPER?

With so many residents still gone on holiday, tonight my table of three regulars had a visitor with us. Jean had dined at this spot once before and I knew she was a fascinating personality. She volunteered the information that she had played her piano for two hours in the afternoon. I asked; yes, she has a piano in her apartment. After more typical female chatter, she asked me what I had been doing lately. I told her I had started reading a new book but it hadn’t “taken” yet, but I had recently read THINGS THAT MATTER. Guess what. That is what she is reading now! I told you she was fascinating.

The other two diners finished their meal and excused themselves. Jean and I sat there talking for another half hour. Take a guess at what we talked about. Right!

When I got to my apartment, I turned on the telly to get a little news. Guess who was talking. Right!

You made a 100 on your quiz. ♥

GREAT TEACHERS ON THE ELEMENTARY LEVEL

A note from a great granddaughter who started college just this year, reminded me of something I told her and anyone else who would listen to me. If you are planning to become an elementary teacher, I beg you to study the fewest courses in the Education Department as you can get by with. Please choose your electives on a higher level, in the Liberal Arts Division, such as art, architecture, music, history, drama, a foreign language, or even boating or horsemanship (other departments, of course).

Let your little charges, once you have then in your classroom, see your art work (not all of it at one time), your blue ribbon for horsemanship (not a sport, but an art), or bring your violin and teach them all the parts. Call catgut—catgut. Let them have their laugh over that. Their parents may think you’re teaching them biology. So what? Be careful now, don’t play the violin for more than “Twinkle, twinkle, little star,” for it takes years to play a violin well. As for singing, do that only with them singing with you. A vocal solo will not go over well, unless you’re ready for Carnegie Hall. And if other classrooms hear you sing that way, they will think you’re showing off, especially the teachers will.

Why, for all this? Let me give an example. A retired teacher, who had always taught at the junior high level, was elected president of a writers’ organization. What a shock at her first time presiding at a meeting. She treated us as if we were junior high students or even younger. She had cut out a magazine photo of an airplane, had it on a board down front, and she explained it was an airplane. I nearly went through my chair. Someone had a talk with her before the next meeting.

I have met numerous retired elementary teachers, and have found few that could discuss adult subjects, such as the latest best seller like Krauthammer’s. Usually we find nothing we can talk about.

So, I maintain students learning the teaching profession must not leave yourself out of real life. Study as much as you can outside the field of Education. Show your pupils what you can do beside teach arithmetic. Bring a photo of your motorcycle, if you don’t play a piccolo. Dismiss class with a goodbye in a foreign language. But my guess your knowing something special about art will be the biggest hit, for while the little fellows can’t steer a boat, speak Japanese, or design a cathedral yet, they can draw. And you can inspire them in that endeavor as you keep improving your own art talent. ♥

BOLTS FROM OUT OF THE BLUE

My current reading of any book languishes for a lack of time, temporarily I trust, for I am also working on completing a short story of my own. This is an initial experience of writing this type of story but I will not explain further. It’s just something new to have five minutes to spend with it and come away, knowing that I’ve made it better. Better in fiction writing means more detail, if the mechanics are learned in elementary school. But the amazing aspect of this short session is an additional detail that appears out of the blue, with no real work, sometimes a gorgeous simile or metaphor. I never know when these five minutes may show up, but they won’t now, for I must finish breakfast and get ready for my day. Another point: I never think of the story unless I’m working on it. I think it’s nearing completion but one can’t be sure of this when bolts out of the blue might strike again. ♥♥♥

97 MORE TO GO

Well, he did it! Krauthammer has passed that #2 on my hit parade. He has only 97 more to go to become #1. Of course, that #1 can pick up more readers too. We could keep this going a very long time. Not quite as fascinating as chess, however. I don’t suppose the author himself knows anything about this blog of mine, but I’m having fun and am rooting for him. As for talking more about his book, I just want to reiterate, read it. I’m not about to tell you everything he says, even if I could.

Now if those of you who have not read MAN’S UNCONQUERABLE MIND, but want to read some more really good stuff, read it. Smaller book than TTM. And as I have already said, Krauthammer could have written it, but he didn’t. Gilbert Highet did. ♥

WHERE THE READERS ARE

You might be interested in knowing where my most readers are located. By far and at any time the most are in the United States. No big surprise. But currently, the second in this line-up is Poland, second for the day, for the week, and for the month. Not back to 2010 though. That tells me something in the blog at this time is particularly interesting or fascinating to the Poles. I wonder what that might be. ♥

THE HOLIDAYS

The past two days our large dining room here has fed few residents, for most seem to have gone to visit their relatives. Several eat all their meals in their own apartments and others take only one meal a day downstairs regularly. All my tablemates were gone, their families living right here in this town. So, early on I learned to take a book with me. One resident reads every evening in the dining room about thirty minutes before being served. She says she might as well read there as upstairs alone. She reads humorous books, nothing serious. As a student of human nature, I wondered about her proclivity for only fun books.

She was absent the past two days. My guess is she is Jewish. She might have had family in Europe during the Nazi regime. She could have been a small child then. Or even a young adult as I was. If she is Orthodox, she might have gone away just to miss the Christian Christmas celebration here. She might have been holed-up in her apartment rather than in her usual corner in the dining room that from one angle is well hidden from view. This lady is well-liked, a friend of everyone. But a private conversation with depth is not likely.

And so, I have taken up her habit on the rare occasion of eating alone in the dining room: I take a book with me and my magnifying glass.

Oh, you might ask, where was my family during this time. One son and his wife enjoyed our Christmas luncheon here as my guests on Saturday before Christmas. Since then, they have a house full of the younger generations, some of whom traveled some distance to get there, two hours from here. My other son and his wife were busy getting settled in their new location in Los Angeles, where he was recently hired as CEO of an engineering company. But they surely took time to fly to Texas where three of their children live, and where their oldest grandson is getting married on the 29th. They wouldn’t miss that. I haven’t heard exactly their schedule of this busy time for them. I just don’t envy them. ♥

IT AIN”T BASEBALL

Bill O’Reilly says when he introduces Krauthammer on his show that THINGS THAT MATTER is a huge run-away best seller. I think it pushed O’Reilly’s KILLING JESUS off the first-place position. Both books are excellent but not the kinds to compare with each other. Perhaps to contrast would be a better game. But for someone else, not me.

O’Reilly has an advantage of advertising his own books on television twice a day for five days a week and perhaps on other outlets. But I am surprised by some stats on my own blog. In just about three weeks, Krauthammer’s book has gone from zero to 206 pageviews while O’Reilly’s remains at a steady 11. In the top three from my all-time “hits,” my blog with the title “Krauthammer, the Smartest Man on Television,” lacks only 14 pageviews to tie with the second place called “Man’s Unconquerable Mind” and then has a ways to go for first place with my top blog. I’m sure Krauthammer will soon pass No. 2, and then it remains to be seen if he can outdo Hitchcock. ♥