Gier Park

I'm sitting here while the students are outside at Gym so I decided to blog.   It has finally warmed up and spring brings baseball for Phillip, who has pitched in relief 3 times now.  His team has tied 2 games but have not yet won.  The grass is growing and turning green as the tulips are budding today.  I've been busy subbing and try to get online when I can at different schools as they run much faster than at home.    I'm in Ms. Fawcett's first grade in the very back of the school.  I subbed this class earlier this year and today is pretty good with 2 specials in the afternoon.  I did a poetry lesson the other day in Ms. Byrd's class at Elmwood and we had a really good day.  May is almost here and teaching days will become few.  I better get my act together for the summer doing something.   Tonight I went to Pattengill to watch Brandon and Mandy perform some skits with their drama club.  We had lasagna provided by the school in the cafeteria.

Alexander Pratt happy 100th birthday!

  Today would have been my father's 100th birthday.  I called my nephews and nieces to remind them so they could remember him and unite family.  Friday was the 40th year since Martin Luther King's assassination in Memphis.   I was collecting for the Lansing State Journal with my friend Tom Phillips on Hume Street when we went to the Waverly Laundromat to get dollars for all the change.  As we got inside the TV was talking about Dr. King's death.  I also just finished a 13 day assignment at Waverly East Int. for Mrs. May 5th grade.  It was a real challenge with a class that has had many subs and in need of reorganization.  I did the lesson planning for the last 2 weeks and though there were students that either were suspended during my stay or pains in the butt, there were some really nice students like Corbin that helped me see the light.  Jorden Wigton, who I had at Windemere Park was in Mr. Wood's class that I had for Science as we team taught.  Phillip is in Orlando, at Disney for spring baseball with the Waverly team.  Jane and Grandma were in Florida for Easter week as she was Holly's confirmation sponsor.  The last 2 days have finally given us our reintroduction to spring as it has hit the 60s.  Happy birthday dad, my hope is someone remembers me when 100 hits me.  

January 26, 1978 Blizzard

   Today's newspaper headline goes back 30 years to the 18 inches of snow and 60 mph winds Lansing experienced.   It started snowing Wednesday the 25th and by 10pm there was 9 inches on the ground with some blowing and a prediction of a few more.   I worked midnights on the North Natco line as a relief man and the roads didn't seem that bad so I went in to work, my mistake.   As the night progressed the snow kept falling and blowing around and when our shift ended at 8:30am we walked out to streets and parking lots full of snow.   I had a hope of making it out to the street and get as close to home as possible, but ended up stranded in the lot.   I noticed a motor home at the end of the lot with some people in it so I headed up there and was accepted into the group.  They made a few attempts at shoveling out and moving but after a few hours it was decided to go to Ray Martin's house near Ingham Medical Hospital until the storm let up and the streets were better for traffic.  The group was from the block floor and we walked the mile to Ray's and his wife gave me some dry jeans and food.   We reached there about 11:00 am. and I called home to Jane to tell her where I was.   After a nap and some TV, the weather had let up enough that the group thought we could go back to the motor home and get it out on the road after shoveling out a path.   Between 2 and 4:00pm we had walked back and finally had the vehicle on Main Street and headed to our first stop the home of Vale who lived by Gier Park.  We were there from 4to 6pm, they talked and drank beer.   It was getting dark and Ray finally got us on the road and Willow Street was the next destination.   I got dropped off at the corner of Waverly and home at 7:00.    Mark and Andy had walked over and spent the night so they could shovel and play on Friday as there would be no school for a couple more days.  Saturday we were able to get to Olds but the Buick wouldn't start, so we returned Sunday and finally got the car out and home in time for work on the midnight shift Monday.   The article in the State Journal was pretty mediocre except for finding out that Craig Harris,Turkeyman lost his leg because of a snowmobile accident in front of the Pleasant Grove fire station.   Today the ceiling in the hallway is leaking from the snow on the roof that is starting to melt as the temperature is getting above the freezing level it has been all week with a daily lake effect covering.  That's about the best I can do to reflect on the blizzard of 78 that taught me to never venture out again to work if there was a winter storm warning.    In June of 78 we put out first addition on the west side of the house, to be followed by the family room and bathroom of 86.    It was February 22,  1975 when I moved into this house and I never would have believed I'd still be living here!

What about 2007

The mortgage crisis has sent the government back into bailout mode.   They said they were helping all the people facing foreclosures but they're really there for the banks and investment firms that carelessly gave loans questionably doomed to fail.   The price of oil finally hit over a $100 as it speculatively rose to new levels all year as China and India demand more fossil fuel to grow in the new economic world.   As our trade deficit is at record levels and job security has returned to compare with the Great Depression in the sense of possibility losing your employment!   There is talk of recession and a lowering of prosperity in our country's future.   Hard work still must go on even in the face of no appreciated return to loyal workers.   Immigration, terrorism, nuclear proliferation all pose challenges to be faced as we enter a year of political campaigning for a new president.   God help us and lead our decisions to complete Your will! 

New Snow/New Year 2008

I awoke to a new year with fresh snow covering the trees,driveways with 6 inches.  There was a New Years when we had an ice storm and our power was off for hours and tree branches hung low and many broke.   The world continues on regardless of the weather or global warming some just suffer more.   It was a quieter Christmas celebrated on the Eve at Ybarras with food and small exchanges.   Everyone appears to be doing well in school and relationships.   I've been working a lot at Waverly East and subbing steadily.    Maybe constant change of schools and grades is better for me than to be in the same classroom.   I seem to be getting more distant in my older age and dealing with people too often is uncomfortable.   Looking for hope and peace is still a great ideal for the new year but age brings doubt of attainability.  I am becoming the skeptic I once disdained as bitterness dims optimism.  Hope can live on with the new generation who I teach with as much gentle encouragement as I dare express.  Time goes on and waits for no one.

Poetry Scraps Saved

9-4-07  Jason Tribute   Buried in a junk pile   His former existence    Cries for redemption          Like many souls wandering    Long before him   No justice is revealed.          The haze may soon clear   But no peace survives   A silent tragic emptiness.                    9-4-07   Nothingness      Scratch numbers     Disregard letters     Dust covers up     Past thoughts     Deftly added     Wordy confusion     Carefully scented      Covering nothingness.                     9-4-07   Lines Crossed     Foggy mountain morning     brings a breakdown of sight     No two hour delay to help     World weary travelers.          Postponed advancement     Freezes computer students     Blue glare stares blindly     No place to go, without shutdown.                    2-19-07    Cyberspace Man     Call dial up connection     Volume on welcome     View e-mails, delete     Sign off, shut down     Blank screen with only     Recorded music background      Fade to nap time      All passes by quickly.                2-19-07   Passing Cat Thoughts     Funny how poems     Slip away inkily     Cats roll across     Floors stealthily     Preying upon passersby     As thoughts preserve.                  7-22-07 Voids     Collapsed laughter     Propels tidal waves     Wandering aimlessly     Around creative processes     Validating memories     Universally transmitted     Across empty circuits     Left to be reclaimed.                    7-11-07     Out There     Thought drought    leaves us wordless     Sniffing stale air     Humidly stifled.          Our idiosyncrasies     Balanced against     creative essence     Of internal turmoil.               We had our 32nd anniversary yesterday.   Gloria and Mario are still here as they came for Lisa nd Tim"s wedding.  They are leaving today so last night we had chili dogs over to Ybarra's.   Luke is taking 3 classses at LCC and Phillip started school Tuesday and likes most of his classes.   On 7-5-07 Cyril McGuire died, he had been president of Local 652 and lived 3 houses from me on St. Joseph St.    His family was the first blacks to move on the 1500-1600 block in the fall of 1958 and by 1960 there were only a handful of whites.   I went to his son Kent's birthday party and I shoveled their drive way once.  Later in life when Cyril was our union president he came late at night to the hall as we were there protesting an unfair issue concerning change over job assignments.  He was a good and well respected man who worked hard for justice for all. 

Detroit 40 years July

   Forty years ago July 23, 1967 six days of rioting began in Detroit.  Looting and vandalism resulted in a police state leaving 43 dead, 2000 injured, and 7000 arrests.  I was 16 and had been in Detroit only for a couple of Tiger games, seeing it only from the expressway and the poorer area near the stadium.   Here in Lansing I had lived in a neighborhood that from 1960 to May of 1963 was mostly black.  I still had a fear of rioting and did not fully understand the reasons behind social injustice and prejudice.  I believed anarchy had to be stopped by any means necessary, and prayed the rioting would not happen here.   As time and life experience change perceptions you realize all is not black and white.  Though I can't justify violence, the riots did bring about a better society and changes that had been slow to come.  Some change has to be forced and pushed in order for it be more timely, when waiting only stretches out implementation.  Many more riots followed and societal inequality still exists, but have been addressed with the need to fix defeatist attitudes a priority.  We will never have a totally equal society, but so long as effort is rewarded and opportunity is given to those who work hard, then we can be on a fair playing field.  Race is not the definition of a person or what they are capable of achieving.  Our society is not as white dominated and that should make for a more universal people.  I have been back to Detroit and it no longer is the huge city it was when it had over a million white majority in 1960.  It has and still struggles now as a smaller black majority city facing the need for better education, housing and good jobs.  In 1701 Detroit was settled by the French with Fort Ponchartrain and their struggles with the British.  306 years later it still has potential to remain a great city, and racial equality is the only way it can get back to that state!