Coach – Mary Robison

Mary Robison January 14, 1949

I found it interesting that as I read about Robison, I discovered that she had a severe case of writers block during the 1990s.

I’m not a writer – well, I guess I am in a sort of way – but it’s not my profession, and I have trouble with my writing from time to time.

One good thing about this project is that it almost forces me to get something down on “paper”. I do have a handwritten journal –I’ve been struggling through several physical journals that could be grouped together and read as one document, for about 7 years now. I find time to write in it about once a week.

I’ll have short bursts of writing that can last a few days and then...nothing, pretty much the pattern that I have here on this blog.

There are so many things going on in my life right now. Some of which I wish to commit to paper and others that I’m not comfortable with sharing just yet. I have a marathon on Sunday, and my morning reading and writing time has been taken over by my training for that. I’ll take an extended break after the race (about a week) and I’ll be able to finish off this volume and hopefully finish my posting.

Currently, my step-father is pretty sick and my head has been distracted with everything surrounding his illness. Well, illness and the fact that he is just really old and things aren’t going too well for him right now. My mother is having difficulties adjusting to her new life with him, and we (the rest of the family) are attempting to help her along this journey.

That’s about all I wish to share as far as my excuses go for my inability to focus on this project.

It’s funny, because as soon as I opened this document and started to get words down on the screen, things started to flow.

So, “Coach”.

I enjoyed this story. Robison’s skill as a writer has spanned the years since she wrote this and Gardner recognized her talent early.

There were so many ways to look at the different situations that arose in this story that it’s a bit difficult to decide on just one to see as a lesson.

I suppose the one lesson that I would take away is the one that reinforces my nature of being cautious.

I have developed over the years the habit of not taking someone’s word for anything. I have to see physical proof or hear something directly form someone (rather than secondhand) in order to believe it.

I don’t think that I developed this through being turned down or being denied a position that I was seeking, I just think that I am cautious by nature. Perhaps I have seen others burned before and vowed to myself that I would suffer their pain.

Does this hinder me in my pursuits in life?

I don’t think so.

I think that I have a pretty good measure of what I think is realistic and I know when to jump and when to hold back.

Right now, in my life, I’m half-way through a jump...I’m suspended in midair - I can see where I’m going to land, and it looks wonderful.

Shelter the Pilgrim - Fred Licht

Fred Licht - June 9, 1928

I can still remember his name –

Brian.

It still chokes me up. I can see the incident repeat itself over and over again.

I don’t remember the exact age that I was – or the grade but, my best guess was the 4^th grade.

I attended one of the crappiest public schools in Norfolk during the early 1980s. Grades 3-6.

Third grade wasn’t that bad – I had a decent teacher Mrs. Clark(e). I was very happy with the class, and even had a little girlfriend – Jenny London. It was a good year.

Forth grade was where the problems began. Fifth grade was a disaster and 6^th grade was the icing on top of the shit cake.

The school was a physical mess. Dark halls, paint (lead), chipping off the radiators – broken wooden chairs and desks – just a general nightmare.

I attended this school, JEB Stuart (yes named after the Civil War Confederate General) with a group of students that entered public school with me in kindergarten, and graduated high school with in 1990. We were black, white, yellow and green kids.

I was a little guy back then (well... still am) and being such, the bigger kids didn’t see me as a threat – so I was spared the beatings that others received. Beating me down wouldn’t move them up in the social ladder in any way.

Everyone pretty much left me alone. I was different, but not that different.

Now that I have sufficiently wasted your time with nonsensical memories of my inadequate education -

Back to the incident I started this post off with –

His name was Brian, and he was VERY different.

In the 1980s, there was an educational movement to place children with physical disabilities into a normal classroom setting.

He resembled – as best as I can describe – a baby bird –

He drooled, he walked with a limp, had brown hair, held his hands up next to his chest in two clutched fists, like a praying mantis – like he was constantly ready to strike out at the world.

He wore brown corduroys and a red and white striped shirt - that day – and there was a constant stream of snot hanging from his nose and plenty of crusty dried snot around his mouth - most days.

He spoke...but we couldn’t understand what he said – or we didn’t want to – most of his speech was accompanied by a spray of saliva and snot.

That day, I was lined up with half of my class on one side of the hallway.

It was after lunch.

Brian was with the other half of the class directly across from me.

Because of his disability, he aroused curiosity in some of us, and when he was around, we usually would hold him in a stare – as you would expect most children to do.

There was some sunlight coming through the window of a door just behind me and shining on the wall just to the left of Brian- he was slightly outside of the spotlight in a dim hallway.

The other children were all chattering with each other so I have no idea what Brian said to the boy beside him as I held him in my obvious stare.

The boy struck Brian directly in the center of his chest with a quick hard fist and laughed and Brian collapsed.

Right in his heart – if Brian’s heart didn’t stop, mine did. Brian crumbled to his knees, and fell over - the boy laughed and stood over him...I just froze.

Brian inhaled – I was sure I heard it. He glanced up with his twisted face, snot, saliva dripping from a painful - smile – and looked right at me.

I wanted to rush over to him and place my hand on his heart – to protect him, to take away the pain.

It was the cruelest thing I had ever witnessed up to that point in my life – and ranks at the top of the cruelest things I have ever seen.

As I write this the lump in my throat has grown, and yes, I’m holding back tears.

Why did that boy hit Brian?

I’ll never know.

I do know that I went home that night and cried as my mother held me. I explained to her what I witnessed, and she did her best to explain to me the cruelty of others. It was senseless- she said – but something that humans do to one another.

What happened to Brian?

Is he a 38 year old man now? Does he have a family? Is he even alive?

I know it is so cliché, but the fact that a story like “Shelter the Pilgrim”, can bring the memory of Brian back means that yes, someplace he is still alive. Brian will always be alive for me – to remind me of a bitter truth – of the cruelty that we all can inflict on each other.

The courtship of widow Sobeck - Joanna Higgins

Joanna Higgins- February 20, 1945

In an interview with Contemporary Authors – Higgins describes how she rediscovered writing, and in the excerpt below, her relationship with John Gardner.

A few months later, I learned that John Gardner, the writer, critic, and medieval scholar, was teaching writing at the State University of New York at Binghamton, where I'd done my doctoral work. My husband and I had been renting out our hillside farmhouse near there and were lonesome for those windy hills, the woods, the 'seasons.' I gave up a tenure-track teaching position, and we came back to start over again. When I overcame my fears enough to send a story to John Gardner and to ask to sit in on one of his fiction workshops, he--unfailingly, unstintingly generous with all young writers--consented. I studied informally with him for the next three years, eventually helping with the literary magazine, MSS, he'd started up again. John Gardner died in a motorcycle accident on September 14, 1982, on a warm, brilliant fall afternoon. The horror of that day nearly broke us--his students and friends. The only thing that helped at all, then, was knowing that we had to keep writing, to prove that his faith in us had not been misplaced.”

So we see once again Gardner using his position as the editor to push forward one of his students/friends.

I would think back in 1982, that the greater reading public would not have a clue that the two were friends – but to those in “the know”, I wonder what they made of the selection of this story.

I read this story before I knew of the relationship, and honestly, it didn’t do much for me. It was pleasant enough, but as a story to educate...well, perhaps I will have to wait a bit longer for the lesson to appear.

Dancing Ducks and Talking Anus – James Ferry

James Ferry – ???

It was observed by reviewers of this collection that John Gardner picked authors for this collection that were not necessarily “known”.

Well- second story in, and I have a nobody!

I can’t find ANYTHING about James Ferry.

In the bio section located at the rear of the book, Ferry’s bio indicates that this was his first published story.

I have to wonder if it was his only published story.

In the intro, Gardner claims that he almost set this story aside into the “not chosen” pile based on the title alone. Then after the first sentence, again, he felt a stronger inclination to toss it away.

The first sentence reads:

“I suppose you’ve heard that Renée douched herself with sulfuric acid.”

Gardner pushed into the story a bit further and discovered a beautiful piece of art. I’m glad he decided to include it.

What did I get out of this story?

Well- it’s difficult.

-It caused me to think about love and the lengths we’ll go for it. It caused me to think about how it alters our perception of the world – both for the positive and the negative.

-Our positions in various stages of our lives – and the various lives we all lead throughout our time on earth.

-Just as it is thought that our taste buds change every seven or eight years, I feel that we make changes in life – of course, sometimes not of our own will.

Travel, changes in cultures, births, deaths, marriages, divorces, career paths, addictions – so many factors that can cause our little ship in this violent ocean to be swept under.

With everything I’ve been through in my life, I’m lucky – I’ve never felt the need to douche with sulfuric acid-so to speak.

Now, a mental douching from time to time can be healthy – perhaps not with something as strong as sulfuric acid – but close.

Ingest thoughts and ideas, music and visions that shake you up. Reset your mind from time to time.

These stories do that for me - The words, sentences and stories that pass through my brain – traveling across all the lightening fast connectors – forming new ideas and actually growing my brain – swelling it, I envision a bit fat pulsating mind.

-good stuff in here – really good stuff.