Vocal Fry: So Interestaaaaannnngg....

This is similar to what we discussed in class on Monday, 1101.

Hey 1102: Hint, Hint

I think I feel a quiz coming on. Might look over those literary terms and see how they might apply to the play.

Blue and Yellow Guys

Here's the link to the original article about those "odd and weird" guys I made you write about today.

Crazy Blue Elephant Thing

Meagan makes me laugh.

Lovely, Tony

Thoughts from a student on what it means to be a man....

Women: thoughts? Anyone want to represent with a "Being a Woman" blog post this week?

Who's Got Two Thumbs and Needs to Stop Grading?

Poor last five students who won't get your papers graded tonight. For the rest of you--grades are on Vista! Overall, excellent job. The average for all four sections of 1102 comes out to a 82. Not bad. I'll return all of these next week. Enjoy your weekend!

Almost Done!

65/75. I'll finish tonight. Grades will be posted to Vista before I go to bed. I SWEAR IT. This has been a marathon day, but I've learned some crazy/wild/wonderful tidbits from your papers, 1102.

Paper Grading Update

16/75 done. Still no one has failed. Lowest grade so far = 79. Highest grade so far = 99.

I've learned it is impossible to grade papers about food at anytime close to a mealtime. I'm either hungry or disgusted or both.

#as if I Needed Another Toy

Y'all. I figured out Twitter. Sorry, but you guys in 1102 are never gonna get these papers returned to you. #gottoreadmyfeed

Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die

"Did you know that Willie lives in Hawaii in a complex with Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson?" The blue glow of her pet device lit her face in the back seat as I glanced at her in the rearview mirror. She sat next to my older boy, Anderson, who was steadfastly looking out the window, thinking his teen thoughts, until she said this.

"Wha--?" he turned to her and sat up.

I was skeptical. "Are you on Wikipedia with that thing?"

"It says right here," she continued, sensing that she finally had both boys' attention. "Willie Nelson, Woody Harrelson, and Owen Wilson?!" asked the younger boy, Noah, clearly imagining some kind of Zombieland/Hangover playland.

"All they need is Bill Murray," I added. And then, "we're here."

Willie Nelson had played the Forum in Rome once before, and we missed it. I wasn't going to miss this one, even if it meant putting aside an electronic stack of research papers, essays, blogs, and showing up to my faculty meeting on Friday morning looking like a Hawaiian zombie from Willie's complex.

My love for Willie descends down my mother's line back to my grandfather, Colonel P. C. Smith. On the day the man retired, when I was about ten or so, he left for a few hours in the middle of the day and came back in a brand new white Ford truck. His wife, my gracious and dignified grandmother, responded as she often did to his unpredictable behavior. She said "Why, Percy—what in the world?" Not challenging him, mind you, but gently and obviously questioning his choices in life.

He said, "Well. Lela. I'm retired now. Retired people drive trucks. So I bought myself one." 

He had gone up to the nearest dealer in their town of Warner Robins, Georgia, picked one off the lot, and paid cash for it. 

Willie was truck music. When Percy drove up to the Piggly Wiggly to pick up hamburger meat for dinner or ran a letter up to the post office, I would clamor up into the cold, blue vinyl bench seat and carefully strap myself in. Percy drove slowly—not like old person annoying slow—but like a man who had finished all of the hurrying he had to do in his life and didn't feel particularly rushed to get to the end of anything. We usually listened to Willie:

Get your coat, and grab your hat.
Leave your worries, on the doorstep.
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the street.

I know my mom understood the connection to Willie and why it felt important to go see him in Rome on Thursday night, but the kids clearly did not get it. They reduced the average age of the Forum crowd by about forty years; in fact, we did witness groupies on the front row of the place waving their canes in the air during "Whiskey River." While Willie ran through the old standards with a sense of duty, skipping words, dropping syllables, the boys tried to find a place in row to angle their long legs and started punching away on their devices. They tuned out. I questioned my parental choices (something I do more often than I like to admit) and wondered if I should have left them at home instead of dragging them out on a school night to a geriatric concert with an arthritic crowd. 

Then Willie started in on a few new songs. He mentioned he had recently had surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome, and the experience generated a new song. Anderson glanced up from his iPhone as Willie struck the first chord and started singing in his clear, strong, familiar voice:

Too many pain pills, too much pot
Trying to be something that I'm not
I ain't superman.

Anderson chuckled and nudged Noah, who sat up and started watching the man on stage. Husband and I exchanged glances, communicating in the silent way of married people. My look said, "Hurray! They are liking it!" His look said, "They are enjoying an old man sing about his drug lifestyle. What have we wrought." He really is the better parent.

Willie finished his set with "Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die," a song that fits a man who was once caught getting stoned on the roof of Jimmy Carter's White House. He still sounds like Willie, and I still love him for his independent nature and his desire to please no one as much as himself, even if I did wish he'd give up his illegal habits. Plus, when I hear his voice, I still see the rows of peach trees in Houston County, Georgia, lined up like teeth in a comb, flicking by one by one as we mosey past in Percy's white truck.

 

You Are All Smarter Than This Person

New Favorite Meme Combines Two of My Personal Favorites: Friday Night Lights + English

Favorite New Blog on Tumblr: Academic Coach Taylor

More Gross Food Stuff (I know--I'm sorry! I'll stop soon)

Lean Cuisine, anyone?