Profiling

Dennis and I returned home Saturday night after our long road trip/vacation which took us through the midwest, Utah and the south. It was great to see our son, Derek, who's attending violin making school out in Salt Lake City, good to see my old college haunts, Traverse City and the upper peninsula of Michigan again and we had a brief but great visit with a couple of AT hikers who both my husband and Derek know, presently living in North Carolina near the Smoky Mountains.

But we did have one disturbing incident - one that made us realize how the victims of racial profiling must feel. As we were heading east on I-80 through Nebraska, we glimpsed a series of notices on the digital signs over the interstate announcing an amber alert for a missing 15 year old girl, Melody Gibbs. In case you're unfamiliar with this term, an amber alert is posted for abducted children. We also caught the notice on the radio a few times. The abductor was driving a red Hyundai Accent with New York plates, was about 30 - 35 years old and could be heading either east toward NY or south in the direction of Alabama.

Dennis laughed and said, "Hah, that could be us." My car is a red Accura with New York plates but we could see somebody who hadn't paid close attention mistaking it for the perp's vehicle. No more than half an hour later, I noticed a state trooper following us with his lights flashing. I wasn't speeding so I suspected it had something to do with the amber alert. I was right. The state trooper took one glimpse at Dennis and I, kind of laughed and said they'd received about 10 calls on our car (mostly from truckers, I suspect), mistaking it for the abductor's car. It only took him a nanosecond for him to realize he had the wrong vehicle. He didn't even bother to check our license and a minute later we were on our way again.

An hour or so later we headed southeast on 129 through Missouri. It was a route that took us through lots of local traffic as it wound its way past countless small Missouri towns. We hadn't been on the road more than half an hour before once again we noticed a police car following us, lights flashing. This time Dennis was driving. The police officer introduced himself as sergeant somebody. "You were going a little fast back there." Yeah, but everybody else was passing us like we were standing still. This wasn't the reason he stopped us. "There's an amber alert," he told us, "for a car matching your car's description."

"Wasn't that a Hyundai Accent?" I asked.

"Uh, yes, but it had New York plates."

"And wasn't the driver a 30 something guy?"

Instead of answering me, he asked Dennis for his license. Obviously we were not child abductors. Instead of admitting he'd made a mistake, however, he asked us a ton of questions. What are you doing in Missouri? Where are you coming from? Where did you stop for the night? Where are you headed now? Whose car is this?

We started feeling that we were the victims. About this time, we noticed two other police vehicles pulling up behind him with reinforcements. What the #$#*^! They asked Dennis to open the trunk. In retrospect, perhaps I should have opened the trunk, since it's my car. Perhaps they would have backed off. Our trunk was jammed with camping equipment and duffle bags. No dead bodies or hidden weapons. Finally they let us go. As if that wasn't bad enough, a few miles down the road, again we noticed the police following closely behind us. This time 2 cars were right on our tail. This was within the same county, the same town where the police should have been in touch with each other. The two police cars continued to tailgate us for the next 10 miles or so until finally we drove beyond the area of their jurisdiction. Now we were upset.

Our car and its license plate number did not match that of the abductor's. And neither Dennis or I matched the description of the perpetrator. It was as if they just wanted to give us a hard time for being New Yorkers. It made us realize how minorities feel when they're harassed simply because of their race or the color of their skin. The only thing we were guilty of was driving a red car with NY plates.

It will be a long time before I set foot in the state of Missouri again.

One Door Closes...

The end of my teaching career is in sight - in 10 days, to be precise. Although I'll miss my students -at least most of them - and of course the books and many of my colleagues, I will not miss the increasing demands that the administration has placed on us. Every year, they want an extra ounce of our blood. Their demands are draining, leaving me pressed to find time to do much else.

I'm looking forward to having time to pursue my other interests - drawing, painting and writing. I also plan to make time to do some traveling with my husband. We've been so busy raising our kids, then scrimping to put both our boys through college, that we haven't had time to see much of the world, outside of a few ski slopes. Skiing is s fun way to spend a winter day, but I'd like to see other places, too - Venice, Florence, the Greek and Roman ruins, the castles of England, Wales and Scotland. I'd like to go to Australia and New Zealand and see something of South America.

So, in August when those annoying Staples commercials air - you know them ("It's the most wonderful time of the year..." ) - I'm not going to get stressed or anxious about the advent of a new school year. I'm not going to wonder if I should go in early to look over the new books, contemplate decorating my bulletin boards or think about buying new clothes or planning new lessons. Instead I'm going to enjoy September - take a morning bike ride or run, do some writing in my pajamas and go to art classes. I'm going to savor the soft days of late September and not think about stepping into the role of teacher again.

I can hardly wait.

Poetry

After several years of sending batches of poems to the Carus Group (publishers of Babybug, Ladybug, Spider, Cricket, etc.) they finally accepted one of my poems for publication - "The Termite". I almost didn't include this one in my last batch because some members of my critique group had been so critical of it. But while some didn't like it, others did - including me. I read it, and two others termite poems, to my class of second graders and they only laughed out loud at mine. So I followed my gut and sent it off to Carus. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Good thing, too. I am thrilled! I know it's a little thing, but Spider Magazine is a high quality, literary publication and getting a poem accepted by them is a small affirmation of my writing skills.

Alas, I wish it had been a story or a fiction piece. In a few months, I'll have more time to craft fiction. For now, writing poetry satisfies my creative yearnings and keeps me writing.

todd rundgren - bang on the drum all day

Forty five days left before I can retire. After spending two hours stuck in traffic going to and from work today, this is how I feel. I want time to write and paint.

Friday Five

1. I recently realized something I didn't want to admit. The weather affects the way I feel about writing or painting - even teaching. Here it's only April and lately it's been feeling more like the middle of May with temperatures in the 70s and 80s and the tree and flowers bursting into blossom. After several days of this weird weather we're almost back to normal. Thank you very much, weather gods, because when it's warmer or colder than normal, I am too distracted to concentrate.

2. I have 54 more days of teaching left. I'm getting anxious about the big changes in store, yet looking forward to my new life, too.

3. My sisters are both going through a very tough time now and my hearts go out to them.

4. After some problems with exhaustion due to a change in my medications, I'm finally back to running - though still slowly. Sometimes a good workout is one of the few positive things I can salvage from a bad day.

5. My husband will be running The Boston Marathon next weekend, for his second consecutive year, and my son, Derek, will be running his first marathon in Salt Lake City where he's studying violin making at the Violin Making School of America.

Torn

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I am retiring in June from my job as a school librarian. Over the years, I've met thousands of wonderful kids and had the opportunity to hold many lovely, outstanding books in my hands, books which I have in turn shared with my students. For me, there aren't too many things more important than connecting kids with great literature, in making readers out of them. But in recent years the administration has changed and instead of working in one library where I had an opportunity to get to know the kids and the staff well and to build a collection responsive to their needs, I'm now working in 3 different libraries. I feel like a vagabond traveling from school to school. It is not the job I once loved and I am exhausted from trying to keep up with everything.

As the economic conditions have deteriorated, so has the job. The administration will not be replacing me, at least not this year, leaving 3 librarians to cover 6 schools. I can't imagine how they will manage. It also means that each of the libraries will be closed several days a week.

What will you do? people have asked. That won't be a problem, I assure them. The bigger problem will be trying to decide how to divide my time to pursue my interests. Robert has informed me that he's going to expand his full time atelier program - maybe in time for the summer. I want so much to study art full time. His students have turned out some amazing work in the year since he started the program and I long to be a part of it, to see how far I can push myself.

Alas, I also want to devote more time to writing and do some traveling with Dennis. Like art or any other discipline - even running or baseball - you have to practice it nearly every day if you want to improve. The atelier program is for three years - certainly not forever - but that's three years of my life. And time is precious. That's one of the reasons I'm retiring.

I guess I'm fortunate, in a sense. When some people retire, they feel lost without their jobs. Some people, in truth, define their very existence by their jobs. Teaching was one facet of my life, not all of me, and while I will miss most of the kids and the books and my colleagues, I will not miss the bureaucrats who seem to hold Smart Boards in higher regard than school librarians.

So, onward! I have exactly 57 days left. Never thought I'd be counting down the days like this but now that I've made a decision, I want to push forward with it.

Our Book Cover and More

It's official, Marshall Cavendish, the publisher of The Poets' Garage anthology of spooky poems, has a cover, not to mention interior illustrations. Can't show you the inside but, since they posted the cover on their fall list, I think it's okay to post it on my blog. Our illustrator is the enormously talented Johan Olander, author and illustrator of The Field Guide to Monsters and, the upcoming The Field Guide to Aliens (also being released this fall).

We Garagers are ecstatic and so pleased with the whole project. The illustrations are quite spooky - yeah, downright creepy - and we're hoping kids will love them - and our poems - as much as we do.

Many many thanks to our wonderful moderators and editors, Laura Wyncoop and Jennifer Cole Judd, for never giving up in the face of rejection after rejection.

Please wish us luck!