25 Years Ago Today...

The Challenger blew up 72 seconds after lift-off. I was teaching in Idaho, only 100 miles or so from McCall where Christa McAuliffe was a teacher. We in Idaho were so proud of her. Gay Rutledge, the librarian at the middle school where I taught, saw it on the television in the library. When I took my class down, she told us about it. We watched as the news ran it over and over. What a shock it was. What a loss. I couldn't help but wonder whether the crew were aware of it, even a split second before they were disintegrated. So frightening. So difficult. Twenty-five years ago. Seems like forever and seems like not that long ago.

Splish, Splash

Splish, splash I was takin' a bath, along about a Saturday night… A friend of mine--I'll call her Carol--can sing this song better than Bobby Darin himself. I can see her every time I hear it, at the church dance, up there singing with the band. They'd invite her up. She was one swingin' mom. And she could swing with her voice and her body.

I think of her as the song comes on at Curves, and I wonder how I can get my body into the rhythm like she can. I wonder about the transfer of rhythm from brain to body--muscle and nerves. I have a good sense of rhythm--I'm a musician. I can dance respectably. But the rhythm is not in my body the way it is in hers. Why is that? I'm thinking it must have something to do with confidence. I have never been rhythmically confident. I don't have a rhythmically confident body. I have always been a good sportswoman, playing softball and basketball and tennis. I played basketball on a men's city league team one year. That was fun--as I started dating one of the players--the cutest one. But just moving my whole body to music stiffens me right up. I think it's partly the mental example I have of my friend that I am trying to match. I can see her moving around her kitchen singing and, well, just moving to her own song. She exudes coolness. It might be practice, though I danced all through jr. high and high school and on into my adulthood. It seems I just don't have the brain rhythm-body rhythm connection that music brings out in her.

What then? Keep trying, I tell myself. Loosen up, don't think of what you think you look like to others, concentrate on the music and the rhythm and your body and making them one. I can do it. Given another couple of decades…

Javelinas--Dead and Alive

I walk down The Pinos Altos highway every other day--for exercise. If I want to get back home, I have to walk up it also. A month ago or so, on the way up, I spotted what I thought was a dead porcupine in the yellow grass at the side of the road. Then the next time, I thought it must be a dead javelina because it was too big to be a porcupine. I looked at its teeth, bared by the disintegration of the flesh around its mouth. They are not incisors. I had thought that javelinas were carnivorous. But javelina it is, or was. I keep track of its fading slowly into the roadside.

Last week, out in the back of our house, I saw four live javelinas trotting through the small clearing and into the trees. One took a detour, came down near the house where I had a big flat dish with birdseed in it, and began eating it. I knocked on the full-length window. It looked up, the narrow head and black round eyes dismissing me. I knocked again. It didn't look up, but raised the long, stiff hairs all along its back. I opened the back door, reached out cautiously, grabbed a couple of pebbles, and threw them at this bold javelina. After two direct hits, it finally trotted off into the trees.

People have told me to stay away from these wild pigs as they will charge nearly anything. The big boars have tusks. I don't let my cat out after dark. If I must go out for wood, I look around first. I also have removed the birdfood dish.

Indexing Is Fun

I have set a goal of indexing every day. So I have been doing it since the middle of December. For several weeks I have been indexing World War 2 draft cards from New York City. What a wealth of places and names! Here are a few:

John Frank Jantrisewitz born in Tschantschendorf, Hungary

Toivo Jantunen born in Finland

Anton Jancek born in Bruzin Zecko. Where the heck is Zecko, Bruzin. Or Bruzin, Zecko as they don't always get the country/town in the right order. I looked it up in Google and was asked "Did you mean, Zico, Brazil?" I don't think so, but what do I know...

And my favorite: Solomon January born in Pulaski, Tennessee. What a great name! Can't you just see him as a detective? Or a lawyer? He's a big black guy, by the way. I know this because there is a reverse side to each of the cards which has information on the physical descriptions, along with any distinguishing characteristics--stuff like scar on face, or tip of right finger missing, or wears glasses.

My favorite distinguishing characteristic so far: Mold on chin.