I'm Not Sure

I had my first stint substitute teaching today since before my surgery last April, and I'm not sure I have the stamina for it.

If I were a better cat-herder-- I mean, a more proficient emergency teacher of 2nd graders-- I might think differently.  But by the end of the school day I was nearly weeping from exhaustion.  And now it's almost 7:00 PM and I'm sitting here still in my work clothes starving to death because I'm too shattered to get out of my desk chair.

Except for one child, who was so obstreperous early on that he started kicking the aide and had to have Security called on him, the kids weren't malicious or bad . . .  they just didn't know how to stay in their seats quietly doing their work.  They didn't understand that finishing a test early didn't give them the license to walk around the room bothering those who were still working.  They didn't realize that the end-of-the-day leaving chaos was not a good time for them to blindside me with fundraising forms, saying they had to take them to the office. And as my limited energy ran out, so did my creativity.  By 3:00 PM I was reduced to saying, "I know nothing about that.  Ask your teacher on Monday."

I'd just say No to substituting until the chemo treatments are over, except that a) I need the money; and b) I'm on a tiny bit of Unemployment Compensation, based on the subbing I did last fall and winter, and if I turn down work it's deducted from my benefit amount.  I don't know: the full possible benefit is equivalent only to two days of work and may not be worth demolishing my health over.  But again, anything coming in helps and it seems wrong to forfeit it.

My throat is sore, my sinuses are blocked, and I need to go eat. But I'm on to preach on Sunday with a sermon still to write so I won't exactly be resting this weekend.  We'll see what my blood counts look like when I go in for my chemo Monday morning.  The way my body feels now, I'm frankly glad I can't accept any teaching work that day, whether they can infuse me then or not.

And You Wondered What's Wrong with America's Public Schools (Part 4)

Part 3 is here.

All day I'd meant to call the Castellcoch district's substitute teacher dispatcher Mrs. Rockslide* as soon as I got home. I meant to find out what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks was going on. Miss Birdsong* told me this morning that Mrs. Rockslide had called her on Wednesday to tell her to come in on Friday. Mrs. Rockslide told me on Tuesday I'd be in all week. Did she just get mixed up?

I called Mrs. Rockslide. And I was nice about it. It's not Christian or pastoral or fair to go ripping on people without cause. So I said, "Mrs. Rockslide, I was wondering what happened today . . . "

And the short version is that the whole thing was the principal Mr. Chummy's* decision. He found out after two days that I (in cahoots with Ms. Haluska--shock!) was actually expecting the students to do some work, be I sub or be I none. And, says Mrs. Rockslide, Mr. Chummy doesn't believe in substitute teachers actually teaching or getting the students to work. He thinks it alienates the kids and makes them think the Administration Is Not Their Friend. And as the new principal, his first goal and intention is that all students should know that The Administration Is Their Friend. So, "He prefers young substitutes who won't stand up to the kids and won't make them do anything."

Said I, "Is he suicidal? I talked to one teacher today who says discipline is so bad at Castellcoch, there'll probably be attacks on teachers by next May!"

"I know," and I could visualize her head shaking in perplexity. "Discipline is the worst it's ever been. A lot of substitutes refuse to come here."

"Does he have a death wish for the school? Does he really want things to get so bad nobody can learn anything?"

"I know! I told Mrs. Berlin when she called Wednesday that you were in the Biology class till Christmas break. And I had Miss Birdsong scheduled in for Mr. Chucovich* [a Social Studies teacher] on Monday. But she said Mr. Chummy wanted it changed, and I couldn't do anything about it."

Apparently she wasn't allowed to call and tell me about the switchover, either. So all yesterday I'm thinking and planning and working--?

Yes.

She was glad I called, as this has been bothering her. She knows it wasn't fair to me or to the kids. She tries to stand up for the substitutes, but feels she's alone in the battle. And what was she to do with Mr. Chucovich's classes on Monday? Mr. Chummy definitely has said Miss Birdsong is to take the Biology kids that day as well. Could I, would I?

I really wished I could have said, "I'm sorry, no." But, as I admitted to Mrs. Rockslide, I'm on emergency unemployment compensation. And if I miss "any available work," I lose not only the money I would have made, I also lose the same amount in UC benefits. I am poor and struggling. You, Mrs. Rockslide, have just offered me "available work." You have me over a barrel. Yes, I will substitute for Mr. Chucovich on Monday.

"But wait a minute," I said. "If I come in for Mr. Chucovich, I'll make his kids work as well."

"Yes, but the thinking is, it's only for one day."

"Oh, yes, right. Of course. I can't do that much 'damage' in that short a time."

"Yes. He wants the substitutes young and inexperienced."

(Let us pause for grimly ironic laughter.)

Shall I now draw an explicit moral on the egregious state of public schools in these United States? No, you may come to your own conclusions.

And You Wondered What's Wrong with America's Public Schools (Part 3)

Part 2 is here.

I hung up my coat in the Biology room, started to take Homeroom roll, then, oh, crap! in walked the ingenuous Miss Birdsong*, the substitute's substitute. So the ground is lost. I see.

But at least I could save the kids' chance to actually do some thinking during this interim period! I finished taking roll, then went over the research paper handouts with her. Nod, nod, nod from Miss Birdson. And, Miss Birdsong, here's the computer time schedule I've booked for all today's Biology classes. Nod, nod, nod.

Just then, Mrs. Berlin* over the intercom began to lead the school in the Pledge of Allegiance. No way I was going to go on talking during the Pledge; it would set a bad example. I raised my eyes to the flag and saw--

The back of Mr. Chummy*, the Principal, saying the Pledge. What the hell? Did he think I would refuse to leave and come up to throw me out? He approached and said, "You'll be taking Mrs. Evans* classes today. Miss Birdsong will teach Biology." Then he left, as the 1st period students were coming in. Seeing me with my bags and coat ready to leave, one of the kids took in the situation and made loud salaams to his version of the Deity: "You're not in here today? Oh, thank God! Thank God!!"

"Never mind," I told them all. "Your papers are still due on Monday. Miss Birdsong has all the information and will help you with them. See you around!"

As I walked downstairs, I thought, "Mrs. Evans, Mrs. Evans . . . oh, damn and blast [yes, my friends, the preacher cusses. Within good taste and reason]! That's the Choral Music teacher!"

You'd think I'd enjoy that, wouldn't you? But I've subbed for Mrs. Evans' classes before and it was the absolute worst. Combine someone like me who loves music, with a bunch of students who don't give two hoots for it and don't even want to be in there at all, with a big room with risers perfect for running amok in, with a regular teacher who thinks entertainment films and kindergarten-level busywork are enough to keep the kiddies pacified all the long day, and you have the cacophonous full score for Variations on a Disaster. Adventures in substitute teaching? More like adventures in babysitting!

And meanwhile, upstairs in the Biology classroom? I saw some of those kids last period, but didn't ask them what had gone on. Maybe I didn't want to swear in front of them. But I did ask a couple students from the one section of Human Anatomy that I'd also inherited from Ms. Haluska, whether Miss Birdsong had gone on with the Muscle Groups overheads I'd begun teaching yesterday.

"Oh, no," both of them said. "We just worked on our question packets. She didn't teach us anything, she sat back there at the teacher's desk the whole time."

"She didn't teach at all?"

"No."

("Good grief!") muttered under my breath.

Now, I have to be fair. These Anatomy students did have those packets to complete for Monday. And maybe Miss Birdsong wanted to look over the Muscle Groups material just in case things are still weird on Monday and she has to come in then, too. Maybe. But if these kids were being honest and she really "sat back there the whole time" and she didn't walk around keeping a close eye on things, that doesn't lend any strength to this possibility. And it gives me very little hope that the Biology students did any research whatsoever on the computers today. Played online games the whole time, more like it.

I was hoping I'd get less fed up as the day went on. But between the chaos of that Chorus room (complete with kids running and tackling one another, kids tipping over their chairs, and near-universal lack of attention), hearing the frustrations of other teachers vented from time to time during the day, and thinking about the chance those sophomores were being cheated out of, by the time I left this afternoon I was beating my dashboard in barely-suppressed rage.

(To be continued)

And You Wondered What's Wrong with America's Public Schools (Part 2)

Part 1 is here.

So here's what happened today:

I arrived at Castellcoch Junior/Senior High early again this morning so I could run off enough sample research paper outlines for all the Biology classes. But when I signed in in the office, Mrs. Berlin*, the school secretary, told me I wasn't to teach Biology again today, I was to go fill in for some other teacher!

Yes, my Facebook friends, it's true, I was doing my own threeping and wailing Tuesday when I got lumbered with those kids. But by today, we were making progress! By today, I had given them some real work to do and they were starting to do it! I was learning their names and who could be relied on and who should be given no slack at all!

"Excuse me," I calmly but firmly said to the secretary. "I was booked to be with those Biology students at least through Monday. We're in the middle of an big assignment. It's due Monday. I need to be there with them to see it through. I've spent time last night coming up with more material to give them."

"Well, you'll have to talk to Mr. Chummy. He's on the phone right now."

"I need to run these pages off," I told her. "They need this handout."

Besides, if I went down the hall it'd give time for Mr. Chummy to finish up on the phone.

So I took care of business in the copy room. When I returned to the office, Mr. Chummy himself was behind the counter. I repeated to him what I'd told Mrs. Berlin. I said, "If we go switching around like that, it will really teach the kids they don't have to listen to subs!" The two of them went into his office. The secretary returned alone and pronounced, "Miss Birdsong* was called in to take the Biology classes."

"But I was supposed to be in there! Couldn't Miss Birdsong take the other class? She wouldn't have any idea what to do with the Biology kids!"

The school secretary was silent, thought a moment, then said simply, "Go on upstairs."

"For the whole day?"

"That's up to Mr. Chummy."

So as the morning release bell rang and the students and I tramped up the stairs, I went to the Biology room, thinking perhaps sanity had prevailed.

(To be continued)

And You Wondered What's Wrong with America's Public Schools (Part 1)

Durdy werdz, durdy werdz, durdy werdz!!!

As I mentioned last post, I probably should have been consistently recording my Adventures in Substitute Teaching. It sure would save work and verbiage now.

First, some background:

1st of December, I got called in to sub in the junior high Science classes at the Castellcoch* Junior/Senior High School. Seems the regular teacher had been kicked upstairs to become the school's principal. I saw the first day that he hadn't left them at all enough to do, so I added to it and yes, the kids did the work. When it became obvious I'd be there until a new permanent Science teacher was hired, I asked the embryo principal to give me some real work for the kids to take on. He did, and with the help of the other junior high Science teacher, we proceeded, even though I have no Science background.

We didn't get on as quickly as I hoped, though, because the classes were thoroughly undisciplined. I soon discovered it was not just Let's Be Rude to the Sub behavior. No. The kids would say, "But Mr. Chummy* always lets us . . . ("eat in class, play our iPods in class, take any seat we want, finish tests the next day if we don't happen to get finished today, use each other's notes and talk out loud during tests"-- you fill in the blank). And when I'd ask him about this, more often than not, they were telling the truth!

Too bad. Mr. Chummy wasn't their teacher any more and their new teacher-to-come wouldn't be interested in that kind of thinking. So we soldiered on, and after the untangling of some bureaucratic red tape and nine class days that seemed like half a year, the new junior high Science teacher came on board.

Ms. Haluska* is not new to Castellcoch School. She'd been teaching high school Biology and had her own reasons for wanting a transfer to the junior high. Finally approved by the school board, she started this past Tuesday.

Oh, good, thought I last Monday night. I will have a well-deserved rest. But I got called to come in anyway, because Ms. Haluska had a doctor's appointment Tuesday afternoon. Oh, all right. I'd come in in the morning to do coverage then take the 7th graders again after she left. And wouldn't it be a hoot to see their faces!

So what happened Tuesday morning? School office tells me I'm to go upstairs and take Ms. Haluska's former Biology classes! Hey, I can fake it with junior high Science, but I've done no Biology since my own high school days!

Worse, Ms. Haluska had thought her replacement would also be on board last Tuesday, and hadn't left all that much material, to give the new teacher a clear field.

But I got on the phone to Ms. H. and between us we arranged that the kids would watch a film depicting the problems with the toxic waste at Love Canal back in 1978, then write a summary of what they'd seen. For credit. That took us through a couple of days.

And having watched the film, I got an Idea. On Wednesday, I decided it'd be good for these sophomores to do a little (2 pages handwritten) research paper on the effect of the environmental chemical of their choice on human health. For a lot more credit. I ran it by Ms. Haluska and she agreed it was just what those students needed to do. And me, I don't know a lot of the details about Biology, but as an Oxford grad, I certainly can teach kids how to do research.

So I typed up and ran off an assignment sheet and gave it to the kids at the beginning of their classes yesterday. There was some threeping and wailing, but once the kids got into the computer lab (I'd also managed to arrange that), most of them actually started to work!! Woot!

Final period yesterday, one young person protested that "We don't know how to dooooo this!" I told me what he needed to do was on the assignment sheet, and I'd help him once that class could get into the computer lab today. But I got to thinking: Maybe they don't know how to write a research paper. So I went home, and on my own time, I composed a sample outline, with examples so outrageous there's no way they could copy them and get away with it.

(To be continued)

Hairy Experience

A couple weeks ago I was substituting in an area junior high school and one of my responsibilities was a study hall. The eighth graders were, um, multitasking at their studies, and besides looking at algebra and geography they had lots of attention left over for chatter and moving around the room. I came back to one boy's desk to get him refocussed on his homework. As I did he piped up, "I really like your glasses! Where did you get them?"

Well, I may be middle-aged in years but I'm young and dumb in public school teaching. Me, I didn't want to seem cold and unfriendly. So I answered him: "At the dollar store."

A little later, same kid calls up to me as I stand at the front of the room: "That's a great skirt you have on? Where did you get it?"

You see how young and dumb I really was, for I took that at face value and answered it, too: "At the Goodwill." I mean, why should I be ashamed to champion reuse and recycling?

Whereat the eighth grader grins impishly, taps his buddy in the seat in front of him, and snerks, "Yeah, I thought so!"

I was alerted to his lack of bona fides now. Awhile later, when I was walking along their row trying to keep things going in the general direction of study, the first kid's buddy pipes up and says, "Hey, I really like your hair! It looks so smooth and shiny! What shampoo do you use?"

All right, that's enough. The glasses I don't really like, they were just the ones I could find that morning that were the right strength. But hey, maybe somebody else might truly like them. The skirt was a classic challis print, not the height of fashion, but a good cut for me. My hair that day, however--! Any references to it being "smooth and shiny" had to be blatant lies. I knew good and well it was a frizzy stack of straw, because I'd had to blow it dry the day before and it was worse than usual. But my hair is naturally wavy, even curly, and what could I do?

Serendipitidous, then, that a few days ago I came across this post on Beauty Tips for Ministers on the trials of coping with naturally curly or wavy hair. In the comments I found a link to a post on the Curly Girls blog, all about how to make the best of your curls. Condition twice if your hair needs it, don't wring out your hair or towel it dry, comb out once but otherwise avoid using brush or comb, apply curl gel or mousse, dry your curls individually at high heat, high speed by laying them in the trough of your blow dryer's big diffuser. Etc., etc.

Hmm, think I, it might be worth taking a shot at that. I waited till today, when I had no summons to come in and teach. That'd give me the extra time.

Okay, hair washed and conditioned twice. Check. Excess water squeezed out only. Check. Combed through, part put in and that's all. Check. Curly hair gel applied. Check. Curls dried individually at high speed and heat in the trough of the blow dryer diffuser?

Not check. Oh so very not check, indeed.

The author of the Curly Girls blog has long hair. Maybe she can get her strands individually into the diffuser. My hair at the moment, however, is chin length. Will you please tell me how I can get any separate strand into that big diffuser? And how can I use the dryer at high heat and speed without it blowing into frizz my entire head of hair?

Maybe she could, but I can't. I reduced the speed to Low and tried a little more, then flipped my head back up. Front was dry-- in all sorts of useless directions, partularly the bangs-- and the back and sides were hanging there flatly in little curvy strands, soon to become frizz.

Phooey.

I've "set" the back and side hair in a scrunchy. I'll take it out when my hair's dry and see how things look then.

And maybe next hair wash I'll try doing everything up to the blowdry point and then just let it airdry, as I was advised by a former hairdresser when I was getting permanents. And take my comb down the basement (where my only shower is) and run it through my hair while it's still hanging upside down, before I even step out onto the bathmat. Just the lag time of going upstairs and getting dressed may have dried some of my hair out too much.

But the blowdryer? Meh. There's a reason I haven't gotten it out for years.

As for those two impudent kids, I chose to be snarky right back. What shampoo did I use? "Same as your mother buys for you!" Not the response most advisable, I now realize. Smart*ss kid doesn't call for smart*ass teacher. No, next time a student asks me personal questions like that, I'm thinking I'll have him look up the meaning of "impertinent" in the classroom dictionary. And make him copy out the entire definition, phonetic markings and all. On the chalkboard. Twenty times.

That'll larn 'im!

Wherein St. Blogwen Pinch Hits and Tries to Herd Cats

Yesterday I had my first go ever at substitute teaching at an area public school. And it was, well . . .

Actually, it was well.

We know how it's supposed to be with substitute teachers. You, as the student, are supposed to give them grief Just Because. Cut up and throw them off their game. Say outrageous things to embarrass them. Conspire for everyone to push his or her books off the desk at 2:00 PM to see how high you can make the sub jump. When I was doing the non-violent self-defense training class this past May, some of my fellow students, who had already started substitute teaching, told me how scared and shaky they were the first couple of times they got up before a class. Whoa! formidable bidznezz, subbing!

Tuesday, I got my call to come in at the crack of dawn yesterday morning. I didn't waste energy being scared about being in front of the class. I was more afraid of not being out of bed and ready so I'd arrive at the school in time to fill out the paperwork and then make it to the classroom before the students did.

Because I had to, had to go over the lesson plans for the day before the first class began. Aaaagh! What if the regular teacher had forgotten to leave them on the desk, or there was too much to read, or I wouldn't be able to comprehend it all? I knew I'd be filling in for a special ed ("Learning Support") teacher; what subject I'd be expected to tackle with the kids, the district secretary who called me had no idea.

But shock and amazement! I did get up in time. And found a handy parking place. And I didn't have to fill out the paperwork right away; I could take it away and do it later. And what do you know, the regular special ed. teacher wasn't sick or absent, she was just taking a day or two to write student evaluations. She was waiting for me in the classroom and went over the day's lesson plan with me.

Too funny: The subject was 7th and 8th grade Pre-Algebra lab. Me, I nearly flunked Algebra as a 7th grader. But this was the early, basic part, and the answers were all in the book.

The homeroom kids cleared out, the Pre-Algebra lab Learning Support students filed in, the regular teacher introduced me, then gave the eight or nine students some warnings and admonitions. Then she cleared out and the classroom was mine.

And you know, standing up in front of that chalkboard presenting the material, asking questions, and soliciting answers, it hit me, I've done this before. It doesn't matter that my previous experience with junior high kids was with confirmation class or Sunday School, I'm not really new to this, I've got experience here, and I'm ready to rock and roll!

As it turned out, these were Learning Support pupils who needed extra help for various reasons, but apparently don't suffer from clinical intellectual deficiencies. I was pleased to see how well they were grasping at least the basic algebraic concepts, and even more pleased to find how well they could do arithmetic in their heads (the only calculators in the room were on the teacher's desk).

As I hit my stride, I was aware of a certain spirit of rebellion-- in me, not in the students. Before the regular teacher left, she was calling out particular pupils as "having a bad attitude" or as being "certain to cause trouble." Yeah, I know there are kids like that; I've had them before in church settings. But I also know that you get the behavior you expect and that if you go looking for kids to be a pain, they'll oblige you. Besides, it's only the second week of school, good grief already! What you want to go labelling kids like that for so early in the year?!

So I made a point of asking these kids in particular to contribute and encouraging them when they did. Youcandoityoucandoityoucandoit! And asking and remembering everyone's name. And trying to make sure everyone got called on, not just the eager beavers with their hands up all the time.

And so, woot! first period went very well. I can do this! Even with Algebra!

I wish I felt as good about the rest of the day. First period was the only chance I had to do sustained front-of-the-room teaching. Two other periods I was in with the another, regular, Algebra teacher, observing and giving assistance. I think-- I'm not sure-- I was supposed to confine my attention to the handful of kids I'd be seeing later back in the Learning Support Algebra lab. But I didn't know who they were and besides, this teacher spent most of both of these periods going over the class rules and regs. I watched for kids who weren't looking at the material and floated over to get them back on task, but otherwise I didn't have a hell of a lot to do. Which was a letdown.

The other three periods I had back in the math lab were just glorified study halls with many of the same students returning two or three times. Whether it was the kids I'd had first period or the Learning Support pupils whom I'd first seen in the other teacher's class, they had the same Pre-Algebra homework and I was there to help them with it. But it was hard to keep them on task when I couldn't fix all of them with my eye. As I was at one student's desk, two or three others would be up wandering around. And it was always for some ostensibly good reason. I need to sharpen my pencil! I need the pass to go to the bathroom! Teacher! I need to go to the nurse! If I say No, am I being needlessly strict? If I say Yes to everything, am I being a pushover?

It was grimly amusing 4th period to have one of the kids from the 1st period accuse me of being "mean," unlike their regular Learning Support teacher. Yeah, the same teacher who had jumped on kids earlier before they'd done anything wrong. Oh, yeah, I recognised that for the emotional blackmail it was. I wasn't falling for it, or for the temptation to contradict him with my impression of their regular teacher's "meanness." Solidarity, solidarity.

Still, I was sorry that she and I hadn't had the time to go over what was or wasn't permissible. It felt like going on a childminding job and having the parents forget to go over the rules. Such as, is it really ok for the kids to toss around the Math Ball when they say they're done with their book work? I knew any kid had to have a medical pass to go to the Nurse's office; where the dickens were they? And that if a pupil misbehaves and disregards an initial warning, the next step in discipline is an after-school teacher conference with the child. But as a substitute, how could I do that? I wasn't about to send my particular problem children (two boys from the other math teacher's room) to the Principal's office; how lame is that? So all I could do is try to distract and channel the annoying behavior, and write a note to the regular teacher when the day was over.

For that matter, shouldn't there be a Batphone button on the class telephone to connect me to the Principal's office directly? Final period, it was essential we come up with some medical passes (one young lady had ripped her feet to shreds with some new shoes, and the bandaids I supplied her 1st period weren't making it). One of the students had to find me the phone list, and the blinking Principal's office wasn't even on it!

Last period, all the kids insisted their homework was done and I gave permission for them to play with the Math Ball, as long as they left the teacher's swivel chairs out of the game. But I'm not satisfied that we used the time as well as we might have.

From talk I heard, the Learning Support teacher may be taking tomorrow off as well. If I am called in again, I've got some ideas on how to get some more structure in the later periods. I imagine she imposes it, and I need to, too. Kittehs is nice, but I don't want to have to herd them.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Sixteen

Wednesday, 21 December 1988
Dijon to Autun and back to Dijon

Last night as I was getting ready for bed a scene from Hector’s L’Enfance du Christ kept running through my head. It’s the part in the Flight into Egypt section where Joseph is trying to find lodging for the Holy Family in the town of Sais.

"Ouvrez, ouvrez, secourez-nous!
Laissez-nous reposer chez vous!
Que l’hospitalité sainte soit accordée
À la mère, à l’enfant!
Hélas! De la Judée, nous arrivons à pied!"†

Mon Dieu! did that fit! I about felt like I had come all the way from Paris on foot!

Train to Autun this morning. Was onboard and rolling before it occurred to me to see when I’d have to return.

Oh, great. I had just under two hours there, total, or else not be back in Dijon till 10:00 PM. Not quite.

Day was acting rather like the one when I went to Conques, but the fog settled into Autun and stayed. Meaning I couldn’t follow the steeple to St. Lazare because I couldn’t see it. And the signage wasn’t as good as in some other towns I’ve visited. I knew where the cathedral was supposed to be, generally, and kept walking up and up through the fog. I soon knew I was in trouble--I was exhausted and it was not my arms or back, it was my legs. First sign of rebellion there.

Finally made it and thought I’d come to the wrong church. Hadn’t realized how Gothicized the exterior is, especially the east end. But I proceeded around and down to the west front and, fanfare, please! there it was: Gislebertus hoc fecit. Good.

I was able to spend seventy minutes or so, only, with Maitre Gislebertus’ work, and of course there was no way I could absorb or commit to memory all of it. It must be fun sitting there on Sunday mornings, contemplating those capitals during Mass. Though of course the best ones are towards the side aisles.

Climbed up the tower stairs to the Salle Capitulaires to see the originals of many downstairs. I love that Adoration of the Magi, with the Baby Jesus reaching out to touch the one gift. It’s sweet in all the best ways.

And of course there is the wonderful tympanum, with the otherworldly Christ disposing all and the angels sheltering and aiding the little saved souls, who hide in their skirts like children.

What must it be like to live in a town that has such things in it?!

Milk run back to Dijon. Beaucoup des estudiants again. So odd looking at them. Miniskirts on the girls, long hair on the boys; they could be my crowd sixteen years ago. I feel as if I were caught in a time warp.

Back in Dijon, I found that the train I wanted to take Friday to Bern is booked solid. And that the only possibility of my getting there before 11:00 PM is to get up for one that leaves at 5:58 AM. Ouch.

And that the train and bus connections to Cluny are impossible, considering how eartly I’ll have to get to bed tomorrow night. Never mind the way to Vezelay. It’s only by bus and I could never discover which ones.

So regrettable as it may be, I think tomorrow we are going to punt. We do not want to be the world’s worst bitch with Lukas’s* family.

Took myself to dinner this evening. First time I’d sat down for a meal since Toulouse; about time I did. After wandering around a bit, I came back and ate at the restaurant across the street from the hotel, the St. Jean.‡

75F menu. Had escargot for the first time ever; I recalled Miss Manners says you order escargot for the sake of the garlic butter, but the butter for these had parsley. Oh well. I learned it is expected that one will dip bits of bread into the melted butter and thus get it all.

As for the little boogers themselves, in that juice they’re just another mollusk. I prefer oysters but they’re good enough.

The entree was trout in a wine sauce with whole mustard grains. Waitress did a decent job of deboning the fish, though of course eating trout is always an ossic adventure-- which I always forget.

Service was attentive, almost too much so. Server kept wanting to talk but I disliked feeling that my eating habits were being inspected.

Ordered a demi bottle of white wine with the meal, of the same sort as was in the fish sauce. An aligote, I think it was called. I probably didn’t need 35cl of wine but I drank it anyway. I can’t say I was drunk thereafter but I was glad I only had to cross the street to return to my hotel.

Dessert was pears in cassis juice, aka the omnipresent blackcurrent. Pretty and nice.

So. There, I have Dined.

Back to the room and wrote postcards, including one to Prof. Kay [my Medieval history professor] at KU.

And listened to French radio. They played a new cut of The Band’s "The Weight," which I’ve been singing in my head, among other songs, since Moissac:

"I pulled into Nazareth,
I was feelin’ 'bout half past dead.
Just needed a place where I could lay my head.
‘Hey, mister, can you tell me
Where a man might find a bed?’
He just grinned, shook my hand,
‘No’ was all he said."

Sounds familiar!
____________________________
†Roughly translated, "Please open the door! Help us! Let us come in and rest in your house! For holy hospitality's sake, be kind to a mother and her infant child! Alas! all the way from Judea we have come on foot!"
‡This establishment continued with a good reputation presumably till sometime after the turn of the millenium, and was reopened in 2007 as "Pourquoi Pas?"

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Eleven

Friday, 16 December, 1988
Toulouse to Moissac to Toulouse and on to Paris

Found out last night I’d have to skip Souillac-- the train schedules were impossible. So I spent the typically-gray morning getting traveller’s cheques changed, picking up my Youth Hostel pass at the Poste Restante window, buying a new battery for the Olympus, and trying to find 36-exposure slide film. Very difficult-- and very expensive when you do find it.

I've got enough French to clearly ask a passerby where the nearest camera store was; my deficiency was in understanding the answer. In France they don’t tell you to go right or left so many blocks or streets. No, they tell you how many meters away the place is. But I've got no ear for high numbers in French. And even with me being an architect, I'm a lousy judge of distance. So I'd go whichever way the person was pointing, walk down that street to the next intersection, ask someone else the same question, and repeat and repeat till at last I made it to where I needed to be. No hope of comparison shopping at more than one camera store under those circumstances! I had to take what I could get.

As I was on my errands I noted something worth mentioning. It’s odd how you’ll see different sides of a town on different days. Last couple of days it’s seemed as if the streets of Toulouse were populated by nothing but tres chic upper-middle class types, but today, it seemed as if I noticed a homeless or impoverished person lying in two or three doorways per block. Of all ages and both sexes, too. I never know quite what to think of people my own age or younger who do that. You’d think they’d be able to find something . . . but maybe they’re too depressed.

At the last I decided to go say goodbye to St.-Sernin. When I got there I realized I’d never gone round behind the basilica and looked at the chevet. So I did and mon Dieu, it’s the prettiest thing! Those cylinders just build and build in that rose brick with the white trim, up and up to that fabulous tower. And I hadn’t brought my camera this time!

After that, back to the hotel at Place Wilson, picked up my luggage, and snagged a taxi. I was running close on the time for the train at 1:50 to Moissac.

At la gare Matabiau I put my baggage except for the cameras into a locker and caught my train. Not a terribly long ride. Arrived; followed my nose and the signs to the abbey church of St.-Pierre.

Saw the cloister first. As is becoming customary, I was the only one there, except for the nice young man selling billets at le guichet.

Sun did not cooperate aujourd’hui. Still, I took my time going around and examining each and every capital. It’s much easier recognising the ones with the parables or other Old or New Testament themes. I’m afraid I’m not as firm on church-age iconography as I should be.

The sculpture is in various stages of preservation. There’s obviously been some restoration work done in some cases, in materials with worse wearing capabilities than parts that look to be original. The plaques of the apostles, which I take to be 12th C., are in very good shape.

It was pretty cold there and I got to thinking about the monastic vocation. I could see how you had to have one, a vocation, I mean, to put up with reformed Benedictine conditions (the refectory† didn’t even have a door on it! At least, not fitted into the doorway arch, since that had been frescoed, which I hadn’t expected to see, and there was no sign of hinge mortises in the stone surface). And I could understand how the Cluniacs‡ could slide into luxury. The alternative was there, and not particularly attractive.

As for me, I haven’t much endurance at all. I spent some time figuring up how much more time I have to go on this exile and wasn’t too pleased to find I wasn’t even halfway through. Twenty-three more days.

Well, I can always kill time looking at late Romanesque capitals.

Around to the south portal of the church after that. Discovered it’s on one side of a southwest corner porch. There is a west door, too, but I suppose it’s not as often used. I think the porch does go most of the way across the west front of the church.

Anyway, everybody was there in that portal just as they were supposed to be: Jesus in glory with all the Twenty-four Elders of the Apocalypse around Him (I love it when translations put that as ‘old men’) and Isaiah and Jeremiah and the lionesses (they are all lionesses) on the trumeau and Peter and Paul on the jambs. It wasn’t exactly St.-Denis but it’s getting there.

There’re even little bits of carving up the outer jambs and continuing into the archivolts. Mostly naturalistic, shells and flowers and things.

Inside, the church is-- different. Very mural, no side aisles, and it’s all been frescoed-- so that it looks as if it’s been wall-papered.

(I was amused by the big furnace installed in one of the side chapels, with its blower aimed into the nave.)

One of the main streets of Moissac extends out of the plaza in front of the south portal. There was a little shop just a few yards up from the church where I finally fulfilled my craving for some jewelry. Bought some earrings with abalone shell inserts for 40F. Trouble was, when I looked at them outside, out of the warm showcase lights, I saw they were vermeil and not the silver I thought I’d gotten. Almost wish I’d gone back and spent the 10F more on the ones that were.

The town seems pretty lively. Wandered around until time for the train, which wasn’t due till 7:10. They have an exhibition hall donated in 1930 by the city of Paris, all decorated in Art Nouveau. Too late to get any decent shots of it, though.

Cold, so I ducked into a salon de thé and had some hot chocolate. Bought a pastry (a jesuite) and a piece of pizza to take with.

Only 5:30 by then so I took my time heading back to the station. Moissac’s streets are all strung with Christmas lights, too. Into a bookstore for a minute and glanced at a French news magazine. More on Armenia, but I’m not sure what the problem is there. Surely the rioting hasn’t broken out into civil war!

About three blocks from the station I stopped for another hot chocolate. Interestingly, here in France they serve that with the sugar on the side. It comes somewhat bitter, more akin to coffee than to a dessert drink.

To the station a little after 6:00. Ate the piece of pizza (turns out "pizza nature" means without meat) and waited for the train. There were a number of children in the station, too, and the father, as I supposed, of two of them was saying something about Montauban (an intermediate town) and Toulouse. So it seemed the kids were going there.

It seemed odd, then, that everyone but me went out on the platform along about 6:20. I began to wonder, so at 6:25 I went and asked the counterman. He told me, as far as I could make out, that the 7:10 train to Toulouse wasn’t running and that one had to get the 6:30 to Montauban and change for Toulouse. Well, that wasn’t what the printed schedule or even his departure board said, but I guessed I’d better take his word for it.

So I did.

The station at Montauban was really full of kids, of all ages. I’m not sure if it was the usual weekend exodus from country boarding schools or perhaps the beginning of the Christmas holidays. They all had their nylon duffel bags and backpacks in tow and occasionally a parent or two. Too many of them were smoking but they all had that cocky, confident look that thinks it can go out and lick the world. I don’t say they made me feel old, exactly; just as if I’d taken a wrong turning someplace.

I know, they’re all just as insecure as I was at their age (and still am!). But I could never fake the opposite like that. It all comes down to wishing I’d been born pretty . . .

The next train to Toulouse was listed at 7:04. When it came it was two cars, period, for all those kids and a few stray adults. I ended up standing all the way to la gare Matabiau.

I can’t say much for some of the kids’ manners. They strewed their gear all over adjacent seats, depriving others of a chance to sit down. But the way the seats were arranged, tête à téte, it might have felt odd to sit there anyway. Like horning in on someone else’s conversation. And they did have to courtesy to get up and fight their way to the smoking car when they wanted a cigarette.

The train was a milk run and stopped at every small town between Montauban and Toulouse. I noticed there was a first class section at the front of the car where I could at least stand without being subjected to the smoke emanating from the vestibule immediately behind me, but I decided not to be such a frigging capitalist and stayed where I was.

It was around 8:00 when we arrived back in Toulouse. The train to Paris wasn’t until 11:00 so I set off back to the basilica.

Yes, they do light it up at night. Shot the rest of the roll on the chevet and we’ll see how those come out.

I seemed to recall there being a concert tonight at 8:30 but couldn’t think where. I knew there was a poster over by the Capitole so I made my way there. Yes, at the Eglise St. Etienne, which could be reached by the rue Alsace-Lorraine, where I was. So I headed down to the church-- and after about ten minutes discovered I’d turned the wrong way and was back to la rue de Strasbourg! It was 8:40 by then so I decided to chuck it.

So I went into a café there at the rue Bayard for their 35F poisson plat du jour. Sorry, pas de poisson, pas des plats du jour ce soir. But as by then I’d already consumed half a carafe of their water I felt obliged to order something. So I got a "steak-frites" which comes garnie with nice greasy fries, even though I wasn’t really hungry, I just wanted some fish. Oh well. Got some protein into me.

Back to the station around 10:00 to sit and wait. A good complement of winos and weirdos to keep things lively. But the oddest thing was a mezzanine overlooking the waiting room, where a dance was going on. You could see the couples waltzing by through the half-curtained windows.

About fifteen till 11:00 I decided to go retrieve my stuff, but noticed that there was something on the board about the Paris train being twenty minutes late. So I checked on the platform and they told me the one sitting there was the one my reservation was for. Went and got my bags and had my reservation confirmed at the proper guichet, though I still wasn’t utterly convinced that this wasn’t the train scheduled to depart at 10:55, not 11:00. But they all said no, this was it.

And I guessed it was. Found my couchette compartment, first one in. After Carcassonne I was a little leery of being in with some strange man, as I hear sometimes happens. But there was only one other young woman. Locked everything down even so, as recommended.
_____________________
†I've recently read on a website or two that the refectory was demolished in the 1800s to make room for a railway line. Huh. I wonder what large room attached to the cloister it was that I saw!
‡Actually, at Moissac it was the ordinary Benedictines that went flabby and undisciplined, and the Cluniacs who came in in the 11th C. to knock them into shape and build the new church.

"We Have Heard the Joyful Sound!"

This morning I had the fun of supplying the pulpit of a little church over the border in the wilds of West Virginia. Their regular pastor was away, they needed a Real Ordained Minister to preside at the Lord's table on World Communion Sunday, so they brought me in from miles away, under hill, over dale, to be there.

I arrived in good time, met up with Ralph*, my elder contact, and began get settled.

The organist is an elderly and honorable lady who knows not a great many hymns and is no longer capable of learning many more, so the selection is always left up to her. The hymn numbers were on the board at the front, but not in the bulletin. Hmm . . . what do we have? First one was an unmemorable but innocuous devotional number . . . second was "Beneath the Cross of Jesus," a good one, though in my experience it's generally used in Lent . . . . But the third and last . . . oh boy, here's my jolly old hymnodic bête noire, "In the Garden." On World Communion Sunday, we're going to sing, "And the love we share, as we tarry there, none other has ever known"? I do not think so.

I said to Ralph* (who also happens to be the son of the organist), "Do you think your mom might be willing to substitute a mission hymn for "In the Garden"? It's World Communion Sunday, and that hymn's a little inward-looking . . . I'd like to send us out with something a bit more mission focussed . . . "

He thought that could be done, but as we moved towards the sanctuary doors to get a hymnal, we were greeted by the members of the adult Sunday School class, just dismissed, including a very ancient old gentleman leaning on a cane.

"So you're to be our preacher today!" he exclaimed, grabbing my hand with his free one. "I'm a retired Church of God minister, but I've worshipped in this congregation for over twenty years! You know, the Church of God has a mission in Kenya, and there the Church of God and the Presbyterian Church are like twins in Egypt! They get along so well! Just like twins in Egypt!"

As he spoke I spared a piece of my brain to rummage around for the source of the "twins in Egypt" analogy. No luck; maybe he'd give me a clue himself? Nope, and I couldn't wait for the happy event-- we still had the hymn issue and other arrangements to deal with. So as I excused and extricated myself, Ralph* handed me a hymnal and steered me to his mother, Ilene*-- though not before I was once again waylaid by old Rev. Goodheart*.

Ilene* and I looked through the "Mission" section of their hymnal: Neither she nor the congregation knew any of them. (Oh, dear!). "Let's try 'Evangelism'," she said. Not much more success there. But she knew "We have heard the joyful sound! Jesus saves! Jesus saves!" though she doubted all of the congregation did. I told her I knew it-- mostly-- and it was a good, rousing, outward-looking hymn to finish up with, so let's do it. I'm thinking, "Anything to escape C. Austin Miles' rank and unweeded 'Garden'!"

With one thing and the other, we didn't get everyone in and seated till twenty minutes past time, but nobody seemed to care. Ralph* began with announcements, and as he spoke, it hit me, "My sermon's too conceptual as I've got it written. These people are going to need some specific, bright-colored application, or I'll fly right over their heads. Holy Spirit, help me have the right words when the time comes!"

I didn't have to come up with the right words for the children's sermon-- it was taken in hand by a woman of the congregation. Bearing a globe, she called the large band of kids to shifting and tenuous order at the edge of the platform. Two or three erratic toddlers found the platform more interesting than the talk, so I came and joined them to lend a steadying presence, sort of.

Teacher asked if anyone could find the United States on the globe. One girl about nine or ten tried and tried and tried . . . Good grief, don't they teach Geography in the public schools anymore? Teacher finally put her out of her misery and showed her where America was.

Our own nation fixed and established, the teacher asked, "Can any of you name any other countries?"

"WalMart!" volunteered one tyke, and of course the congregation just howled. As the teacher tried to recover from that one, the discountenanced little boy turned his back on the assembly, trying to draw a couple of his little friends away with him.

Ilene* the organist and I tried to get him to turn around and pay attention.

"No!" he said, "I'm not going to! They're all mean!"

Oh, dear, again. The child probably thought the teacher had asked if the children knew the names of any companies, he'd given a perfectly good answer, and he got laughed at! That was mean! I can just see it, years from now: "I gave up on religion when I was four years old and the congregation laughed at me during the children's sermon!"

(Well, I've heard equally silly excuses for turning one's back on Christ and His salvation!)

The children's talk proceeded, and was wound up with the announcement that the Peacemaking Offering they'd been contributing to for the past few weeks would go to help poor and needy people around the world. So now would they bring their offering boxes to a certain table below the platform, the one where the flowers are?

The boxes were already there on the front pew, and the children picked them up and took them . . . back to their seats . . . to the edge of the platform . . . around and around the sanctuary . . . and finally, to the designated table. And may the denomination be half so effective and organized in getting the money to the people who need it!

My sermon began with lines like, "It's all up to us to bring peace to the world, right? God's sitting back in heaven waiting for us to do it. So we'd better get busy!" And from the congregation I'm hearing, "Amen!" "Yes!" O noes! That was meant to be satirical. Good grief, we human beings fight over the best way to bring peace, and that includes us in the church! No, people, not Amen, not Yes! That is a great big NO! Only Jesus Christ the Son of God can bring true peace, not us, not even our human version of His peace. Christ alone!

Lord, help me turn this ship around before we end up on the rocks! Whew! by the end-- with the help of the added applications-- they were Amening the sound doctrine, not dodgy cultural misconceptions. Though it's not because I cut any impressive figure in the pulpit. Hey, I had to make things more interesting by having assembled my sermon text booklet with some of the pages in backwards and in the wrong order! That long awkward pause? I meant to do that!

At this church the Communion table is very small, and their set of Communion ware is very large. There was simply no place to put my Book of Common Worship, as I had noticed when I arrived. So for (I think) the first time since I was ordained eleven years ago, I said the Eucharist impromptu, from memory: Great Thanksgiving, Sanctus, Words of Institution/Consecration (always do that from memory), Epiclesis, Acclamation, Attribution, and all. Who knows, I may do it from memory the next time and the next. Saves me fighting with the small print in the worship book!

Some of the same peripetetic toddlers roamed the sanctuary during the administration of the Lord's Supper. I being a stranger, they wouldn't come to me. Sob!

The time came to sing the substituted final hymn, and Ilene* was right-- Maybe half the congregation knew it. It doesn't help that the tune features some very wide and acrobatic intervals that not even I was nailing. But we muddled through with little or no damage to the ship, and I dismissed the people to a fine fellowship hour featuring a large repast of leftover pastries contributed by a local bakery. Enough and to spare to take a few home.

And back in the little narthex-hall, I was again accosted, taken by the hand by my old friend Rev. Goodheart*. He'd loved my sermon. He was so glad I had come to be with them. The Church of God and the Presbytery Church are like twins in Egypt! The Church of God has a wonderful mission in Kenya! He was so happy to hear my sermon! Twins in Egypt! Etc., etc.

I listened to him patiently. There is honor due his years and calling, and when-- if!-- I ever reach my ninth decade, I hope people in the church will listen patiently to me, too.

But then he looked at me and said, "God gave us the night time for a blessing."

Yes?

"God wants us to use it to rest."

Uh, yes?

"You should take the blessing God gives you. The darkness is for rest."

Uh, what? Sir, I perceive you are a prophet! How did you know I was up all night Friday night-Saturday morning working on my sermon! And up till 2:00 last night making Welsh cakes?

Very strange! Sermon preached; will it now be applied?

Another member of the congregation invited me home to lunch with his family, but I couldn't take him up on it and still make a previous commitment I had for this afternoon. The invitation is open for the next time I come, however.

Which may be a long time, since I live so far away and it costs the church a lot in mileage to bring me. Still, it was a fine thing to get back down there to the little church way down at the bottom of the Presbytery Over the Border*. And if I got them thinking a little ways past their hilltop in West Virginia, past the once-a-year Peacemaking Offering, that would be a fine and worthy thing.

We have heard the joyful sound: Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Spread the tidings all around: Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Bear the news to every land, climb the mountains, cross the waves;

Onward! 'tis our Lord's command; Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Field Trip

A couple-three weeks ago I got a phone call. The caller ID said it was from my friend Hannah*, but when I answered I heard was a little voice saying, "Hi, this is Letty.* Will you come to a field trip at my school?"

Somewhat mystified, I asked her to put her mother on. Hannah* explained that Letty's* kindergarten class was making a fall excursion to a large nursery, but she's back to work full time so she couldn't be a parent-chaperone. Letty* was extremely disappointed; would I mind going along as an adopted aunt?

I would be honored, I said.

And today was the big day.
I arrived at the school by 8:30 AM and was sequestered in the library with the other chaperones until the kindergarten teachers had their charges in hand. When I came to the door of Letty's* classroom, I found that she and I were going to lead the dance. She was waiting expectantly at the front of the line, along with two other five-year-old's who would also be in my care. "Letty*, Buster*, and Rosalind*, you're all going with Letty's* aunt," the teacher announced, and I resolved to do my best not to be an "aunt" with quotation marks.


My little flock and I ended up in the back of one of the busses. When staring out the back window flags, you can get miles of entertainment out of your "aunt's" digital camera, especially when she lets you use it.

Even before we set out I was disabused of the notion that this trip was to be a five-year-olds' fall frolic, all about pumpkin carving and hay rides and corn mazes. No, the venture was educational: The pupils were to learn about apples and cider making.

I have to wonder a little what the kids made of it. They were all very well-behaved and attentive, considering their age, especially. They raised their hands and volunteered answers and showed their cheerful intelligence. But due to the size of the classes, the children were broken up into smaller groups and taken off the various points as they were available.

Thus our group saw the cidermaking equipment before they'd learned about apples, apple picking, apple sorting, or apple storing. More awkwardly, the cider mill wasn't actually going today. So as we stood in the room with the pulper and presser and so on (we chaperones a discreet distance to the side), the orchard worker wrangled a TV into place and showed the kids the process on a video! At least it was awkward to me. The kids, it didn't seem to faze. When we moved on to the shed to learn about apples, the worker there asked, "Did you see the cider mill? Were the machines going?" Oh, yes, the children assured her, they had! And maybe for a lot of modern children, seeing something virtually on TV is as good as seeing it in real life!

My three charges continued to behave themselves, considering, though Rosalind* just had to poke at the weird pumpkins and gourds they showed us, and I had to exert myself to keep all three of them together. I was haunted by one teacher's saying "We haven't lost a child on one of these trips, yet." No way were they starting with me!

The nursery-orchard is situated in a very hilly spot, and to reach the various storehouses and sheds you had to walk up or down short ramps or slopes. More than once, Letty*, holding my hand, complained, "This is really steep! My legs are tired!"

"Well, you should get more exercise," I told her.

"That's silly!" she retorted. "I'm a little kid! I don't have an exercise coach!"
At last, in the picnic pavilion, the children (and we chaperones) were given samples of the apple varieties the orchard grows. The kids received and ate them eagerly-- except for this one boy at Letty's* table who sat staring at his apple slices as if he were waiting for them to transform into robots or race cars or at least a Snickers bar.

After lunch, there was time for play in the miniature frontier village and a visit to the petting stable. The consensus in my little crew was that it'd be a fine thing to have a goat-- always assuming the goat wouldn't eat them.
By noon all the children were collected and on the busses and heading back over hill and dale to the school. A lot of little spines and legs seemed to have turned to spaghetti over the morning, for somehow the kids just couldn't help sliding off their seats. I chaperoned with the best of them: "Sit up, please!" and "Sit down properly before you get hurt!" and if any kindergartners remained as pools of protoplasm on the floor of the bus when we got back, it wasn't from my lack of vigilance.

Hannah* called me this evening to find out how it went. She said, "I asked Letty* if she'd had a good time, and she just said 'Yeah.'" Next time we're all together I'll have to prime the kid a bit, and see if she can tell her mom what's the difference between a bruised apple and a rotten one, and what it means if your apple is calling for sunburn salve!

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Fourteen

Thursday, 30 March, 1989
Fitz to Shrewsbury to Caernarfon
Day Fourteen

Whole party assembled at breakfast in the main dining room in the morning, including Ted* and Susanna's* 17 month old baby, Timothy*. Intelligent child, even if not speaking intelligibly yet. The baby’s tone of voice and inflection made it sound as if he had something important to say, if only he could get his tongue around the syllables. Reminded me of the children at Coverdale*.

I thought about mentioning the mice, but refrained because I was only there the one night and Mr. and Mrs. Baly probably couldn’t do anything about it at the moment anyway.

After breakfast Harry* and Elspeth* and I adjourned to the sitting room to see a video on Shropshire the Balys had. It was a little boosteristic in places (I kept my mouth shut, though appallingly I was tempted to make cynical comments) but it did me the favor of showing me what Shrewsbury Abbey looks like.

Went upstairs thereafter and took a bath and all the rest of it, then packed up and was ready to go by 11:00.

I never know how it is with people. Last night Mrs. Baly was very kind and even motherly with me; this morning she was perfunctory and mainly concerned that I pay my £12.50 and let her get on with her business. I suppose that had something to do with it, since Fitz Manor is a working farm and they had had some Welsh sheep pastured on their land this winter, since Shropshire had grass while Wales (NE part) didn’t. And today the Welsh shepherd was come to collect his flock.

Still, my hostess’s change in manner had me wondering for much of the rest of the day what I could possibly have done or said. Maybe I’m oversensitive . . . but I’m afraid that if I blow that sort of thing off all the time, I’ll be in danger of being inconsiderate of someone I really have hurt. [I've recently learned something about the practice of overwintering the young mountain lambs on lowland farms and what a major undertaking it is to gather them all in to return them home. So yes, I was being oversensitive.]

Took off for Shrewsbury along the not-so-well sign-posted lanes. Arrived there from the north, driving in from the castle side and went round and round from awhile, trying to find a carpark. No luck, till I found myself on the Wyle Cop (familiar name, that), going eastward across the bridge over the Severn, and heading up the Abbey Foregate towards the red sandstone front of the formerly Benedictine abbey church of St. Peter and St. Paul. I haven’t read all those Brother Cadfael mysteries for nothing.

Located a free carpark south of the church, reflecting ruefully that this expanse of broken tarmac and its attendant fenced-in spare parts yards were once part of the abbey grounds and gardens. The Meole Brace, which still exists under a different name, was completely obscured among the jumble of decaying modern buildings. The millpond still exists as a stagnant pool next to some archeological diggings sponsored by the University of Birmingham, but looking long unworked.

The abbey church is a stout Norman building with a Gothic choir and narthex added at either end. Along the south side you can see the jagged masonry where the demolished abbey walls and buildings used to join its fabric.

The interior is of three storeys, with round piers with plain banded capitals supporting no-nonsense rounded arches at the nave arcade and triforium levels. Above that the clerestory is a mural surface pierced by round-headed windows.

As I passed through the nave, I constantly had to stop myself from saying things to myself like, "This is the part that Brother Cadfael knew." He is, after all, only an invention of the writer Ellis Peters. Still, it was helpful to think of his character as I walked through "his" church. Though sometimes perplexed by them, the sins and foibles of man do not shake his faith in God. Whatever evil man can do, Cadfael is assured that God can do greater good still, and he rests in the confidence that God can make right, here or beyond the grave, whatever messes we make of our lives and the lives of others. Only a fictional character, true, but when so many evil fictional characters are influencing people to the bad, why not rejoice in the fact that an author has seen fit to invent one who can confirm one in the good?

It was funny-- they had a supply of the Brother Cadfael novels for sale in the little postcard shop. I peeked in one or two just long enough to look at Peters’ sketch maps of the abbey and its environs to reconcile them with the 20th century cityscape outside. Actually, that’s why I stopped in Shrewsbury in the first place.

There’s a road running south of the church as well as to the north, now. It’s called the Abbey Foregate as well.

They had a little pamphlet there, locating the places around Shrewsbury that Peters features in her novels. But it cost 60p and that seemed a little steep for a mimeographed sheet that would only serve to satisfy a literary fancy.

Headed for the Severn, and walked a bit in a little garden that marks the approach to the Gaye. The Severn is a little river here, like most English rivers I’ve seen (when they aren’t estuaries).

The English Bridge as it stands is an 18th century production, reworked and widened in 1924.

Crossed it and walked up the Wyle to the main square and ye olde tourist information office. Needed to know where the local NatWest is so I could cash in some traveller’s cheques, and learn where I could find Butchers’ Row, to see the 15th century house I’d read of in Margaret Wood.

While I was there at the tourist office I, quite lazily, decided to make use of their "Book a room ahead" service. The man told me they’d find me a place in Carnarfon and would tell about it if I’d come back in a half hour. £1.50.

Found the NatWest, got the cash, and remembered to ask about the check I’d discovered missing the other day. The computer had a record of the amount-- £45--but none of the endorsee. I’d have to call Oxford for that.

So I went and found a phonecard booth and had the Cornmarket branch on the line, when it came to me that the check is one I wrote out of order before I left Oxford. So all is well.

Found Butchers’ Row. It has 15th century timbered and jettied houses at both ends, dragon beams and all.

Bought a cheese savory and a cream pastry at a baker’s shop and returned to the tourist office by 2:30 or so. They’d gotten me a place at a Mrs. Hughes’, in a house with a Greek name-- Pros Kairon-- and the man wrote out the directions for me.

Sat out in the square then and wrote the Mackintosh postcard to Jim* and Annie* [our brilliant furniture makers back in Kansas City]. Shrewsbury’s a pleasant town but could do with fewer agglomerations of foul-mouthed pre-teenaged boys. They’re on school holiday, too, and were hanging around the square trading insults and voicing threats of what they were going to do to some other gangs of boys, their chorus sometimes augmented by solos from one or two local drunks who found the square a convenient place to pass the time as well.

Posted the card, then went to the street leading to the Castle and stopped at Boots, for some vitamins. I’m out. And got some shampoo, as well.

Didn’t go into the castle keep (it’s a military museum now, which didn’t particularly interest me), but you can come into the walls and admire the garden and climb the tower all you wish.

The neck of land that falls between the two sides of the loop of the Severn in front of the castle is spanned now by the BritRail terminal and its platforms. It’s disappointingly, monumentally ugly.

Walked back to the carpark another way, more or less. Took note of the Norman south door on St. Mary’s. Then a little later, turned off the Wyle to follow the lane of St. Julian’s Friars. No remains of a friary to photograph, though, so I just walked along the Severn north to the English Bridge and back to the carpark.

Pulled out around 4:15. Back across the Severn, around the southern bypass (or what passes for one in this town), across the Welsh bridge and through Frankwell, and thence to the A5 and Llangollen.

Into Wales at Chirk. First thing you notice is that the Welsh are very serious about Welsh. I determined not to get into any accidents along these twisty roads-- I could never cope with an argument in such an unintelligible tongue.

But I had the fun of seeing the region for which so many Philadelphia suburbs are named. Passed by the turnoffs for both Bala and Cynwyd.

For one stretch I had the exquisite pleasure of forming part of a parade behind a very wide house trailer that was being moved. Police escort and all. They occasionally had to stop oncoming traffic so the trailer could go by.

After awhile the mist set in and it began to rain a little. Along the A4086, before the rail line for the top of Snowdon, I passed through a valley that was grand even in its grim bleakness. There was no vegetation to be seen, and great black rocks lay in tumbled heaps and spills along the mountain faces, below nightmarish crags. I said to myself, "Mordor. It's Mordor. This is where Tolkien got it for Lord of the Rings. It's Mordor!" And the mist made it seem bleaker-- and therefore more romantic-- still.

Into Carnarfon by 6:45, fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. Directions were fine-- to a point. Said take the second right after turning left at the firestation. Second right was a One Way Do Not Enter onto the motorway. Went back to the Shell Station near the firehouse, to ask directions.

Filled up the car while I was there, since the radio had said Texaco would be raising their petrol prices to £1.878, up by 7p a gallon, and I could just see Shell following suit.

Inside, everyone was speaking Welsh. Momentary fear: what if they’re so militant they’re not bilingual? But they were. I started to explain what my directions had said but the woman cut me off with a perfunctory "Listen!" which brooked no nonsense from idiot foreigners. In her opinion I was to turn left after the left by the fire station.

Tried that, and it ultimately worked, even if the street had no name plate, in Welsh or English, and I had to ask a passerby if I was in the right place.

All this is giving me an entirely new insight on Jonah 4:11. I used to think that bit about the people of Nineveh not knowing their right hands from their left was a metaphor for a kind of moral blindness. But now I see it simply means they couldn’t give accurate directions! It’s a good thing for them the way through the city was obvious, for if Jonah had had to rely on the directions of such people as around here, he’d’ve been preaching only in one small corner of the city those three days, not enough people would have repented, and Nineveh would’ve been destroyed.

Found "Pros Kairon" by parking the car and walking down and then up the street till I spotted a B&B sign. Mrs. Hughes, a little elderly Welshwoman, was ready to answer my ring; she said she’d been looking out for me.

Room was upstairs at the back, overlooking a bit of garden. Small, but nice, with an electric blanket on the bed and a space heater.

Since it was relatively early, I decided to be reckless with my cash and get a pub meal in the town center. The Hugheses directed me to a pub they recommend and I set off.

They live in a part of Carnarfon outside the Edwardian [Edward I--13th century] walls. The houses here are all pretty modern: Victorian or newer than that, marching in mostly-gray ranks up and down the hills.

To get to the town center you have to go down the hill, across the motorway via a pedestrian underpass, along a street or two, and then you’re in the castle square. The city still focusses there, it seems.

The castle, which I cannot do better than describe as a formidible pile (though Carcassonne on its hill is more aesthetically impressive), lies at the point where the River Seiont empties into the Menai Strait. The boats moored in the river mouth looked, in the mist-filled drizzly twilight, as if they were sitting on a water preternaturally calm.

There were many people about, even though not a lot of places seemed to be open. Everyone was speaking Welsh and most of the signs were in that language, or that and English both. I am beginning to pick out words here and there, written, but have no idea how the grammar works.

The directions I’d received at the B&B didn’t work too effectively, for lack of street signs. I finally found the pub, The Black Boy (and was it a racist act to go there?) via the offices of another pub, who weren’t serving evening meals but were happy to direct me to one that was-- the aforementioned B. B.

Ordered a plate of garlic mussels and sat down at a table to wait for them. The TV was on, showing some BBC evening soap opera, which soon ended. Then a program about some British man’s travels in Arizona came on. And I confess that the sight of all those cars driving on the righthand side made me a little queasy.

Pretty soon, the set was turned off and the juke box came on. It was highly incongruous, hearing the pounding background of those English rock songs laid beneath the general flow of Welsh conversation. You’d think they’d have some Welsh pop bands by now. Even funnier was when a Welsh tune did come on-- it was obviously meant to be some heart-stirring romantic or nationalistic ballad, and was sung dramatically by the Welsh version of Lawrence Welk’s inevitable Irish tenor-- and amongst the Welsh in the pub you could hear the very English expression from the brave young men of Wales: "Squelch it! Squelch it!!"

Some people don’t got no culcha.

One of the guys at the next table asked me, in English, what I was reading. At first my impulse was to give him the cold shoulder-- as in "I don’t talk to strangers"-- but decided not to be such a jerk. So we had a mild amount of chitchat, until he was called to join a darts match with some of his mates. The reason I felt odd about it is not that here I was an American in a Welsh pub, but that here I am 34 and surely he took me for someone closer to his age (mid-20s), or he wouldn’t have spoken to me . . . But why should I assume that? Maybe because I’m that way myself. Anyway, I felt odd, as if I were sailing under false colors.

The mussels were good, though they could’ve used a bit more salt. I had a half pint of Worthington’s bitter to go with them. Not the best combination, but the ale itself was palatable and not bitter to the extent of Guinness dark, say.

Satiated my chocolate craving with a bar bought at an off-license on the way back to the B&B. Went back without loitering or rubbernecking, because although it was hardly 9:00 PM, with the mist the streets were a little surreal.

Pros Kairon has a guest sitting room downstairs so I brought my journal down there to sit in front of the nice electric fire and work on it. But instead I talked to the other guests and let myself be distracted by the television. The others were a couple from Australia. They’d already been to Israel and Egypt before coming to England, and were labelling their photographs. We told trip stories, not neglecting ones about driving around the UK (especially in those winds last week), until they retired about 10:00.

I followed shortly, to work on the journal a little more but more to read Walter Scott.

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Seven

Thursday, 23 March, 1989
Glasgow to Iona
Day Seven, Maundy Thursday

It was snowing this morning when I woke up. Lovely.

Breakfast was interesting, as the hostel seemed to have been taken over by a gang of junior high-aged boys, who made a terrible din-- and who insisted on using the women’s bathroom, despite the sign. I’m not sure the food was worth the £1.85-- it was all rather soggy from having languished too long in the bain-marie.

Only 93 miles to the Port of Oban, but I got out of town around 9:30, and good thing I did, too.

First, of course, I have to get lost trying to find the A82 out of Glasgow. But once that was located, I was fine the rest of the way. When the town was cleared you could see the snow-covered foothills of the Highlands, and it was so beautiful! It was "Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen" over and over, and thank goodness I had some decent top notes to sing it with!

The A82 goes along Loch Lomond and where I wasn’t crawling along the queue due to construction work I was hopping out to take pictures. Scotland doesn’t make it easy on you, though . . . No nice designated overlooks as in Nova Scotia.

Got the A85 at Tyndrum and thereafter the weather grew entertaining again. I’m afraid I was becoming thoroughly tense and white knuckled, especially as most of the other drivers were zooming along around the curves as if it were a dry, sunny day. The landscape is beautiful, though, all bathed in mist, and I began to wonder if maybe I should’ve taken the train.

Arrived in Oban a little after 12:00. The ferry to Mull left at 1:00 and I needed every bit of that time to find the ferry pier, buy my ticket, learn where to park the car and park it, assemble my bags, and stagger with them back to the gangway and onto the boat.

On the ferry, I bought a cup of tea and, establishing myself on the upper observation deck, I drank that and ate a bun and a bit of stottie bread. There was a slight swell, though nothing unpleasant. The sea was a beautiful green color under the overcast. You never get out of sight of land on that run . . . I went out on deck despite the flecks of rain and watched the islands with their lighthouses and castles drifting by.

The bus journey across Mull is about 37 miles and takes a long time, along a one-lane road. I couldn’t see much, as the windows were all fogged up. I should’ve brought something on to read. There were a couple of boys, ten or eleven years old, in the back singing popular songs in flat, tinny voices-- they nearly got a paper was bounced off their noggins. Fortunately they were not coming to Iona.

It was raining in earnest at the ferry pier in Fionnphort (pronounced more like "Finnafort"). The Iona ferry is a little thing and I elected not to try to cram into the diminuative cabin with everyone else, but remained out on deck. The sea was indulging in the most lively of leaps and arabesques and making its presence emphatically known over the sides. My umbrella had rather the worst against the wind, so pretty soon I took it down, moved my bags to where they wouldn’t get quite so soaked, and resigned myself to a total-immersion baptism by salt water and fresh.

It’s really a pity my camera isn’t waterproof. The swells were hilarious. And again, that jaw-dropping combination of sea-green and grays and muted blues . . .

The people from the MacLeod Center had brought a blue van down for us and we all piled in. They said the magic words-- "Tea" and "Fire"-- and after a blind journey along a narrow road between rock walls, they made good on the promise.

I suppose the first thing to say is that the Iona Community is not Roman Catholic. After a few questions put here and there, I learned that it’s fundamentally Church of Scotland, which is to say Presbyterian, and was started by the Duke of Argyll fifty years ago [I've since learned that the Duke of Argyll and the Rev. George MacLeod were two different people with different roles in the founding]. But it currently has an ecumenical thrust with emphasis on peace and reconciliation. The members and staff are a mixed group, men and women, singles and marrieds. I’m still not straight on how people join, what sort of commitment they make, or how the community is funded.

The second thing is that the MacLeod Center (named after the aforementioned Duke of Argyll [my misconstrual--see above]) is a brand new building, a replacement for some derelict huts of an old youth camp across the road and up the hill a bit from the abbey, all not far from the Sound of Iona. And unlike a lot of other retreat centers, the owners got an architect to design it. Christine MacLean, the woman who is the Center’s director, told me it was someone named Joe Green, but that sounds highly unlikely in Scotland . . . The detailing of doorframes, pulls, benches and other built-in furnishings, as well as the general proportions and disposition of the spaces, shows a good eye for line, space, and detail. The building isn’t quite finished, as is obvious by the lack of curtains on the windows and all the hooks that aren’t where they should be. But it’s all on order, from what I hear.

The dorm rooms have six berths apiece, with nice new mattresses on the unfinished pine bed frames. Oh, yes, the woodwork still needs to be stained.

After tea and biscuits in front of the fire in what they call the Combination Room (I’d tend to call it the Common Room or the Great Hall), the first order of business was a shower, to wash the highly-evocative but not entirely amenable smell of sea water off my person. After that, I found the drying room (the only warm room in the place) and hung up my wet things. Tempting just to stay in there-- the wind was coming in through every crack and the hardware was not keeping the doors closed at all and the central heating wasn’t working worth a poop. Nothing wrong with that building a little caulk and some revamped hardware wouldn’t solve . . .

Dinner, aka tea, was at 5:30. And I don’t know why, but it bugged me a little that it was vegetarian. Maybe because I associate that kind of thing with political and religious views I’m not entirely in accord with. In fact, I get the strong feeling the whole thrust of this place is a little--ahem--liberal . . . but I’ve learned since coming to Oxford and Coverdale* last October not to automatically brand people heretics just because they have this or that view on isolated topics that happen to be shared with frankly syncretistic or cultish groups. So I’m going to hang loose and see what happens around here. But I really don’t like the ambivalence and find it very hard to relax.

There was a recital down at the Abbey church at 7:15. Goodness, the things I’ll do for music! I have never been out in such wind and rain before in my life, especially not after nightfall. It was sheer labor to make any headway against the gale and the rain was driving so everyone was soaked even before we reached the MacLeod Center gates. And no one in this little group had brought a flashlight with them. You get out in a wild cold dark wet windy blow like that and you’re likely to forget everything except getting in out of it. And it didn’t help that the cloister door down at the abbey has no light over it.

All got in, though, and sat in the choir stalls trying to keep the teeth from chattering while the recital was going on. Various people played: pianists, flautists, a violinist, singers . . . The wind players were rather good but the violinist needs to work on his tone.

Lukas* was not there, but I’ve never known him to be a diehard music lover. There’s time enough to see him and to do that wasn’t the point of coming here, anyway.

The MacLeod Center group had a session in the library over the chapterhouse afterwards. The purpose was to catch us up with what the abbey group has been doing all week, following in Jesus’ footsteps as He moves towards the cross. The avenue to this seemed to be more that of imaginative projection than of direct Scripture-study. And I’m afraid I was rather a вопреки† and inwardly refused to do the ‘quieting’ pre-contemplation exercise, since although quieting is probably just what I need, I associate the prescribed technique with New Age idiocy.

By the time the Maundy Thursday service started in the Abbey refectory I was feeling really out of it. I couldn’t find any of the people I was sharing the room with and Lukas* didn’t come in till the very last and sat quite far from me. And I decided I was going to wait for him to greet me first. It was his prerogative, under the circumstances. He's established his turf here since last Monday and it wouldn't be right for me to push in.

The service proceeded, featuring a bit of drama that may be ok if you know the actual New Testament story but which needed to be taken with a large grain of salt anyway. And a lot of singing. They have a highly skilled a capella choir led by a woman who seems to have perfect pitch. And the acoustics enhance the voices very effectively.

For that matter, I wish I could have gotten my camera down to the abbey without drenching it. The chinks between the stones of the refectory walls were filled with little candles that made a myriad points of light all over the long room.

After the Communion bread (leavened, wheat) and the wine (real, but golden) had gone around and some more singing was done, a chant was begun and everyone proceeded through the cloister for the ceremonial stripping of the church. And behold, Lukas* was holding the door as everyone went out. I saw it would be terribly rude not to acknowledge his presence when face to face with him. So I silently saluted him as I passed . . . he gave me no response . . . and now I’m beginning to wonder if it was a misjudged thing to do. . .

He had his part in the stripping of the church, carrying out the great silver Celtic altar cross. As a recording of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries played, one of the women danced out with a piece of the altar plate in a way that was so effectively barbaric it was almost appalling. How should that sort of thing be done? As if we were mourners ceremonially donning our black clothes, or as impersonators of the despoiling powers of darkness? I’m not sure at all.

There was tea and biscuits back in the refectory thereafter, the cold wind still howling at the windows. Lukas* made no effort to come and greet me, at which I was beginning to be a little irritated. To counteract this feeling I wanted to do something nice for him, like see that he got a cup of tea. But I couldn’t even accomplish that. When he came round to the tea table someone else had the pot and besides, he stated baldly, he was already getting tea for someone else. And that’s all he said to me.

Got wet again coming back to the Center. Stood around with some others in the Combination Room feeding the fire with bits of odd construction wood and cardboard boxes. There’s no proper firewood around here, it seems.

But the heater in the room was beginning to come on, which was encouraging.
_______________________
†"Вопреки" (vopreki), Russian preposition meaning "contrary to"; transmogrified by the characters in my high school Russian class into a noun signifying someone who willfully does the opposite of what's expected of him. It's been part of my personal vocabulary ever since.