Fall LC Thread: Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing
Going for a round of vaccines today. We old guys aren't taking any chances.
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Glad I read the whole thread before replying, “house sitting for friends with a cool dog sounds awesome!” Sorry John, ugh.
A close friend’s parents had the perfect retirement planned and his dad died of cancer seventeen months into it. My mom got about ten great years, three good ones, a bad one, and two horrible ones. My Dad did something disastrous with his Postal Service pension and he & my stepmom had two extremely unhappy years before his suicide. Jack Straus told Alvarez he was profoundly affected by his father’s death shortly after retiring.
Fortunately, I’ll have no choice but to work until my kyphoscoliosis & (presumably) dementia gets too bad, so I don’t have to worry about it.
Glad I read the whole thread before replying, "house sitting for friends with a cool dog sounds awesome!" Sorry John, ugh.A close friend's parents had the perfect retirement planned and his dad died of cancer seventeen months into it. My mom got about ten great years, three good ones, a bad one, and two horrible ones. My Dad did something disastrous with his Postal Service pens
I pet sit for this dog at least a couple times a year. I like him. He follows me all around the house.
I keep working because my job is easy (mostly), and I really won't have much to do if I retire. I know health problems are inevitable, but I still have this feeling that the inevitable will happen sooner if I do retire.
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Sorry to hear of your loss, John.
Unrelated: walked by the AT&T store this morning, noticed a note on the door:
Card payments only. Cash system is down.
I was never in retail, but I can't imagine what a "cash system" is, or how it could possibly go down. Lost the key to the drawer?
It has become challenging to find regular old vanilla & chocolate ice cream in certain brands. This was the last vanilla & second to last chocolate. There were at least thirty French vanilla, Vanilla Bean, Chocolate Fudge, German Chocolate cake…
No Blue Bell available, I assume
french vanilla or vanilla bean >> old fashioned vanilla (at least with Tillamook).
An old HS buddy got these sweet bastards at a garage sale for $100 total. Said they were lightly used, edges still sharp, bindings work perfectly. Couldn’t believe it, said they’ve been great conversation starters in the lift lines. Should be as they would’ve been about a $2000 package thirty odd years ago.
The Kastle’s are 190’s, he gave them to his 17yo son. +1M Cool Dad Points to the Silly Boy. He’s also been DMing for his son & his friends, and has begun painting miniatures again.
July 4, 1982. He’s in the black shirt, I’m up front. The other two guys and the photographer are all still alive & well enough too, though we all lost contact with blue shirt over thirty years ago for various reasons. Those four cases of beer (plus the bodabag) didn’t last very long, so we drove home a day early lol. 16 & 17yo. I’m sure I’ve posted this before, but it certainly captures an era & demographic very well.
Yummmmmm! The champagne of bottled beer! Still great in a can 😀
this bit of the rockwell painting gives me flashbacks i can almost smell
Great pic
I noticed this too. I had a friend in college who used an identical one to sneak some Mateus into the movies. He didn't realize how loud the sloshing and gurgling it made was. We didn't get caught, but as I remember it, his date drank most of it and we practically had to carry her out when the flick was over.
similar experience, but with boones farm
I noticed this too. I had a friend in college who used an identical one to sneak some Mateus into the movies. He didn't realize how loud the sloshing and gurgling it made was. We didn't get caught, but as I remember it, his date drank most of it and we practically had to carry her out when the flick was over.
Mateus? The bottles has changed a bit. But I still drink that ****. Old habits die hard 😀
With the new bottle, what do they decorate dorm rooms with?
I had a long conversation with one of my students after class last week. She spent a couple of hours doing the essay portion of the exam and apologized for taking so long. (I wouldn't have cared if she took five hours.)
She's 16 years old and skipped two years of high school. She said she was bullied constantly throughout high school. She also told me she's on the spectrum, perhaps autistic, perhaps Asperger's.
Then she said her goal was to make a friend because she didn't have even one friend. Talking with her, I realized how much she has to offer. She plays chess online with a couple people. She reads science fiction. I asked her what's her favorite, and she said one short story in particular but that I probably wouldn't know it because it's a "niche" story. I said try me, and she began "I Have No Mouth . . ." Then I filled in the rest: "But I Must Scream." She seemed a bit surprised.
She told me she does seek help from her calculus teacher, a guy I know well who does good work with students, but she doesn't talk to anyone else.
She asked me for advice about how to make friends, and I offered the best advice I could. She's afraid she'll be bullied again if she talks to other students. I told her that I have never seen a student bully another in my thirty some years teaching at the college, which did seem to encourage her a little.
Later that night she emailed me to apologize for taking so long with the essay, and said she would try to "mitigate her blunders" on the objective portion of the test.
I'm glad I took the time to talk to her, but I feel a little heartbroken that here's a kid with so much to offer, yet doesn't have one friend. I really hope she does make that one friend who will appreciate her for her curiosity, wit, and intelligence.
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Yeah, I'm always astonished by these kids, John. Every semester there are a handful that are dealing with stuff I can't even imagine. This semester, I've got an 18 year old dealing with an unexpected pregnancy, another who missed half the semester because she a virus and went half blind, and another who was kicked out of his house for being gay. And then they apologize for being a day late on an assignment. I always tell them my job is to help them, not judge or punish them.
My last class of the semester was yesterday, and I always tell them, as my last lecture, that they are all rockstars, they belong in school because they are all smart enough to do the work - if they want to. And - for those who aren't going to pass my class - that it's not really a big deal. lol I tell them how I got kicked out of my first college for not going to class at all, and that I just went to a different school the next year and got it right.
I mean, it's Freshman Comp. They'll just have to take it again and I tell them that sometimes life gets in the way, and that's ok. Just next time? Do the work that is assigned.
And the last thing I tell them is to not let anyone ever tell them they can't do whatever it is they want to do.
A 16yo telling a 60+ yo college professor I Have No Mouth is a niche SF short story is kind of adorable, the poor dear. Like saying You Really Got Me is a niche rock & roll song. Being a 16yo in college has to be tough.
“Let me tell you about hate. Imagine a copper wire stretching out forever. If the word HATE were engraved on every micro-angstrom of that wire, it would not equal one trillionth of the hate I feel for you at this precise nanosecond.”
I’m not very well read, but my favorite SF short story is Here There Be Tygers. It makes a nice pairing (and possible paper) with Al Sarrantonio’s The Ropy Thing.
Between Mouth and Harlequin, published a year and a half earlier, Ellison really nailed that LBJ Era Fear & Dread (pace HST), didn’t he?
Favorite Ellison stories: Strange Wine, The Deathbird, Shattered Like A Glass Goblin (being upset at Greatest Hits omissions is my passion, but I was speechless Goblin wasn’t in the recent Ellison compilation).
Stephen King naming a Dark Tower character The Tick-Tock Man is one of the countless cutesy-clever-stupid-wearisome things he’s done post editors (he’s always been sans proofreaders).
However, at one time:
Spoiler
Along with the then unknown four Bachman books and some not yet collected short stories, such as The Monkey, It Grows On You, and Survivor Type. Ranting about King after 1985 is like ranting about the Rolling Stones after 1978.
I loved Ellison's Dangerous Visions books and his appearances on the Tom Snyder late note show.
Dom, I kinda say the same thing to my students. Trouble is these days I have lost about half the class in every class I teach. Life dies get in the way, and community college students certainly have their troubles. It's not unusual for them to have court appearances and other sorts of problems with the basic necessities.
Most bad students are usually good people though.
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Dangerous Visions is a great collection...also have read a few of his novels
Bills vs Patriots, Dom.
Still can't believe Pats in 1st place.
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Colleges in Rhode Island closed today for exams and final day of classes. I regret not being able to meet my students in person for the last day of class. I've asked them to come in on Wednesday if they are able to.
Such a sad few days all over the world.
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