I think it a week from today and 47 years ago that Marsha and I met. I won't bother to count the days .... has to be something like 17,000 days .... these are large numbers .... It's not 1-2-3 .... Getting to Play in the Last Quarter, that is.
I was at a meeting last night. There were 6 of us .... I think the group has been meeting for 30 years to discuss children at risk and issues surrounding their treatment. We never did discuss the planned reading on Trauma. Easy to take detours at this period of life. I don't think anyone was much over 90 in the group .... maybe one of the participants is in her early 60's. The men -- between them -- don't have a good set of hair. One person pointed out that using the collective noun "hair" might not be best .... with as few as we had, "hairs" might be a preferred usage ... perhaps we could even number them .... hair #1 ... hair #17. You got the picture ... too late for a comb-over for most. And like Players in the Fourth Quarter of a scrimmage .... there was no lack of wounded warriors.
Not every morning ... but this morning ... it is striking that Marsha and I are both at least a bit tired .... and our kids are beginning to look old.
....
...
..
.
I am taking a vacation in 18 days but who's counting?
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Weekend of Glees and Sadnesses
How they balance ... Glee and Sadness. A friend invited us to a very crunchy prayer service .... mixture of guitars and drums, liturgy and Scripture. A small group of people, very different than Marsha and I in their take on the world ... connected to each other and to their meditations. I have sought to learn how to cherish the excitement of others .... I suppose that exists as a goodly portion of the core of my religious sense ... the lifelong process of learning to revel in the joys of another's harvest. Ah! And we were invited to lunch with our friend and his family, afterwards.
Indeed! I think this is a part of successful Playing in the Last Quarter ... of accepting the unfoldings ... generation after generation. Children, Grand-children.
I suppose another core part is the ability to share in the sadness. An ex-student of mine -- now, I suppose, a 55'ish year old man -- wrote about the death of his Mother, at 90.
Indeed! I think this is a part of successful Playing in the Last Quarter ... of accepting the unfoldings ... generation after generation. Children, Grand-children.
I suppose another core part is the ability to share in the sadness. An ex-student of mine -- now, I suppose, a 55'ish year old man -- wrote about the death of his Mother, at 90.
Sad when we lose our people ....
My religious tradition says two different things in confronting death ....
Baruch Dayan Emes .... Blessed is the Truthful Judge (upon hearing that someone important to a friend has died)
and
HaMakom Y'nachem eschem b'sh'ar aveilei Yrushalalayim .... this one's harder to translate .... usually it's rendered as May God (literally The Place or, I suppose, The Cosmos) bring you comfort (tho, that word used for comfort has more the meaning of Bring You Around) among the rest of the Mourners of Jerusalem, etc.
Much seemed to change in my view of the World as I had to say good-bye to my Mother, even tho she had been victim of Alzheimers for many years and under the spell of both inner and outer directed aphasias. I needed to be "Brought Around" to a new place .... Later, I chose the words "NACHAMU" for my license plate ... it's the imperative form of that same verb "Y'Nachem ... Nachamu" that calls out from Isaiah 41 and begins Handl's Messiah .... Nachamu, Nachamu Ami ... Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye, My People .... says your God. Or as I would have it "Come Around! Come Around!"
May it be that through the door of deep sadness, that we do, indeed, all come around to integrate that cleansing sadness and its cousin, the welcome state of song-infused joys.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Eine Kleine Paranoia
There is a kind of paranoia that seeps in in the Fourth Quarter ... something about the manner in which some members of the younger generation feel a need to disembowel you .... to reach into your peritoneum and rip out whatever organs are still functioning. If there's anyone reading out there, they might think such a view a little paranoid, unless, that is, they've experienced similar occurrences.
Marsha and I were at a religious ceremony and party that related to the birth, one month ago, of a strapping young firstborn to his parents ... Scripture requires that such first fruits either be given over to the priestly-class or, else, redeemed. It's a charming ceremony where the parents have a special "right of return or redemption." There really isn't more than a whisper of tension as the new Father says, essentially: I've decided that I wanna keep the kid! I went through this redemption of my own first-born son 45 years ago ... it was, on balance, a good decision. Indeed, it was on the 50 mile trek to this party that that very son convinced me to take a 1200 mile road-trip with him, as our wives flew there in comfort with our youngest grandchild.
All this is to say that I was feeling a degree of ebullience as Marsha and I arrived ... and almost everything, indeed, was wonderful. I don't get to see my cousin very often ... or his wife, 4 kids (one of whom was the 'new Father') and their 11 grandchildren ... running around and being kids. Other folk in that part of the family were equally "gifts to see" ... one, in particular, another cousin's child, had always treated us with such dignity when we'd attend her kids' weddings. Family is -- or so we wish for in our dreams and waking fantasies -- a safe place.
As we were getting ready to leave early (I had early work to do, this AM), there was that other couple. They are 40'ish and have adorable kids and practice another form of the craft which I practice and have, as well and as many members of the family, stayed connected to different forms of our faith-practice. There are many ways to live and they seem to be living one form of the Good Life and practicing ethically and as they see fit.
Still and all, every exchange with this couple has the form of challenging the worldview that informs my form of the craft that we both practice. It wasn't violent ... more mocking, than violent. More like:
We came to a seminar with so and so. He's brilliant. Do you know A, B and C? You don't? But
they're neighbors of yours, practicing in the same city and very well-known, No. You really
must know them (smile, smirk, ....) I mean, they are your neighbors ... your professional neighbors.
They're world-known. ... 'etc., etc. and so forth.'
We took our leave.
I promise. I am, indeed, Playing in the Last Quarter. I and my style of thinking will inevitably and soon be gone and, yet, I leave such encounters with a sense of being rushed out the door.
In the Babylonian exile, there were codes of law. Among these laws were one that stipulated: if A has pleasure and B has no loss, there is no legal loss. So that if a man is walking in an orchard and sees an apple on the ground and knows that the farmer is overseas for the season and not going to return to harvest this apple, eating it incurs no liability. The reverse, though represents another general principle of ethical thinking: If A has no gain and does something that incurs a loss in B ... gratuitous enmity, it might be called ... is, indeed, a crime.
And it's a crime that left me with glimmers of paranoia in the 50 mile trek home.
Marsha and I were at a religious ceremony and party that related to the birth, one month ago, of a strapping young firstborn to his parents ... Scripture requires that such first fruits either be given over to the priestly-class or, else, redeemed. It's a charming ceremony where the parents have a special "right of return or redemption." There really isn't more than a whisper of tension as the new Father says, essentially: I've decided that I wanna keep the kid! I went through this redemption of my own first-born son 45 years ago ... it was, on balance, a good decision. Indeed, it was on the 50 mile trek to this party that that very son convinced me to take a 1200 mile road-trip with him, as our wives flew there in comfort with our youngest grandchild.
All this is to say that I was feeling a degree of ebullience as Marsha and I arrived ... and almost everything, indeed, was wonderful. I don't get to see my cousin very often ... or his wife, 4 kids (one of whom was the 'new Father') and their 11 grandchildren ... running around and being kids. Other folk in that part of the family were equally "gifts to see" ... one, in particular, another cousin's child, had always treated us with such dignity when we'd attend her kids' weddings. Family is -- or so we wish for in our dreams and waking fantasies -- a safe place.
As we were getting ready to leave early (I had early work to do, this AM), there was that other couple. They are 40'ish and have adorable kids and practice another form of the craft which I practice and have, as well and as many members of the family, stayed connected to different forms of our faith-practice. There are many ways to live and they seem to be living one form of the Good Life and practicing ethically and as they see fit.
Still and all, every exchange with this couple has the form of challenging the worldview that informs my form of the craft that we both practice. It wasn't violent ... more mocking, than violent. More like:
We came to a seminar with so and so. He's brilliant. Do you know A, B and C? You don't? But
they're neighbors of yours, practicing in the same city and very well-known, No. You really
must know them (smile, smirk, ....) I mean, they are your neighbors ... your professional neighbors.
They're world-known. ... 'etc., etc. and so forth.'
We took our leave.
I promise. I am, indeed, Playing in the Last Quarter. I and my style of thinking will inevitably and soon be gone and, yet, I leave such encounters with a sense of being rushed out the door.
In the Babylonian exile, there were codes of law. Among these laws were one that stipulated: if A has pleasure and B has no loss, there is no legal loss. So that if a man is walking in an orchard and sees an apple on the ground and knows that the farmer is overseas for the season and not going to return to harvest this apple, eating it incurs no liability. The reverse, though represents another general principle of ethical thinking: If A has no gain and does something that incurs a loss in B ... gratuitous enmity, it might be called ... is, indeed, a crime.
And it's a crime that left me with glimmers of paranoia in the 50 mile trek home.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Oh! And then the painful recognition
Primus inter Pares ... uh, oh! and then the painful recognition that the Last Quarter brings that one is no longer Primus ... in one's Prime, if you prefer ... at all. Went to see a wonderful play, yesterday, by Annie Baker ... something about body image. It hit home on many levels. An older-younger couple ... one of their sons, an odd -- according to story line -- Asperger's 21 year old and a visiting photographer-in-residence for Body Awareness week at the local crunchy Vermont College where the younger of the couple works. The photographer was White and Male and Older and Greek and travelled about taking pictures of naked women of all ages. The younger of the women was in charge of body awareness week and prepared to disembowel the photographer and his male gaze. The older woman, the mother of the porn-loving Aspergery fellow, was ready to experience disrobing. That same younger woman spoke disparagingly about the older woman who only taught high school. It was still more complex. The Greek photographer turned a Tuesday night into a Jewish Wine-and-Candles Sabbath. A farce with serious undertones.
Any case, I thoroughly enjoyed it and afterwards Marsha, I and our 70+ year old forever friends went out to a tony sort of Italian restaurant. That was good, too, even if the husband was on the verge of zinging his wife of 49 years. At 46 years married, Marsha and I must be newlyweds for we haven't given up our need to "zing" each other only in private. Any case, all was well with the four who had met in 1968 ... It was a great day and, before the play, Marsha and I got to see our oldest's project ... a cafe ... come alive for the first time. I talked to his young customers and friends (he's 45 and still on the cusp of the 2nd to 3rd Quarters) and this business could keep him from travelling 150,000 miles a year in his other business.
Well ... all was well, indeed, till I spontaneously went into atrial-fib, just as the waiter was asking about dessert. .... chances are a bit too much fatty food ... but frankly, I'm not certain I have a clue. Whatever! or Primus? My Ass, I could say. Suddenly even walking up the ramp to the parking lot was difficult. How the Young have grown Old! By the top of the ramp, my heart rate was 4+ times what it typically is under such circumstances ... pushing 190. A patient had called during the play .... I needed to wait to call them back, at least till my heart rate went down nearer 100. It was all I could do to glance occasionally at Eli Manning and the Giants outplay the New England Patriots.
Ach du lieber ... My task for my remaining years will be, at least in part, to vicariously enjoy those who can maintain the notion of being first ... of Primus. And not Primus in the Land of the Senex , as maybe I can convince myself at moments that I am .... Primus amongst my senile, senescent and sunsetting peers.
Janis Joplin said: "Get it while you can." She didn't stick around long enough to offer her youthful wisdom on the question of "Whaddya'do when you can't!"
Any case, I thoroughly enjoyed it and afterwards Marsha, I and our 70+ year old forever friends went out to a tony sort of Italian restaurant. That was good, too, even if the husband was on the verge of zinging his wife of 49 years. At 46 years married, Marsha and I must be newlyweds for we haven't given up our need to "zing" each other only in private. Any case, all was well with the four who had met in 1968 ... It was a great day and, before the play, Marsha and I got to see our oldest's project ... a cafe ... come alive for the first time. I talked to his young customers and friends (he's 45 and still on the cusp of the 2nd to 3rd Quarters) and this business could keep him from travelling 150,000 miles a year in his other business.
Well ... all was well, indeed, till I spontaneously went into atrial-fib, just as the waiter was asking about dessert. .... chances are a bit too much fatty food ... but frankly, I'm not certain I have a clue. Whatever! or Primus? My Ass, I could say. Suddenly even walking up the ramp to the parking lot was difficult. How the Young have grown Old! By the top of the ramp, my heart rate was 4+ times what it typically is under such circumstances ... pushing 190. A patient had called during the play .... I needed to wait to call them back, at least till my heart rate went down nearer 100. It was all I could do to glance occasionally at Eli Manning and the Giants outplay the New England Patriots.
Ach du lieber ... My task for my remaining years will be, at least in part, to vicariously enjoy those who can maintain the notion of being first ... of Primus. And not Primus in the Land of the Senex , as maybe I can convince myself at moments that I am .... Primus amongst my senile, senescent and sunsetting peers.
Janis Joplin said: "Get it while you can." She didn't stick around long enough to offer her youthful wisdom on the question of "Whaddya'do when you can't!"
Monday, January 30, 2012
Rambling on the notion of FIRST AMONG EQUALS
Indeed, when we were young some of us may have had (was this the title of the recent movie) The Sherman Show fantasy wherein the world was created as a playground and/or testing ground for "me" ... whoever that "me" may be. God put parents here to birth me, siblings -- and later friends -- to play with "me," a spouse to pick up my shorts or fill the gas-tank, and a whole lot of others to act as background, as extras-on-the-set, as "I" go through my various trials, mischiefs and incarnations.
Perhaps, such a fantasy became necessary when our ancestors developed the capacity to reflect on their own conditions, ..., to be aware. It's not so easy to accept that we're not the Center of the Cosmos. After all, when I twirl around? The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars (young Joseph's dream in Genesis) have all alligned themselves about me. When I listen? All sounds come to my ears. Do we ever get out of the crib where all come to visit "the star" whom the Good Doctor from Vienna called His Majesty the Baby (she-Babies, need I add, are no less Royal).
As we age, moments do begin intruding on this fantasy that "the world was created for me" ... perhaps, first in the recognition that Mom and Dad are not only preoccupied with discussing how best to raise their little Monarch ... "Oh, my gosh ... they have a relationship of their own. They eat, they sleep, they make love, and they may even make other babies." The youngster fights this recognition "toothless but nailed" for years -- some fight the fight for a lifetime. Certain people, those that we think of as ill, create elaborate fantasies in which many are preoccupied with their successes and failures ... we call such fantasies paranoid delusions when they're believed as factual and frighten the 'believer' as potentially destructive to their very being. When they remain just fantasies, we may even be amused by them.
The flip side of this tune (I know CD's don't have flip-sides ... but I'm assuming that all potential readers on this page remember the relationship between the two sides of a 45 rpm) represents folk who are equally self-absorbed. "I'm of absolutely no value. I am the only one, indeed, of absolutely no value." No. Sometime, maybe while Playing in the Third Quarter, we recognize that while we see our joys and pains (Freddie Mercury famously noted that "pain is so close to pleasure") as of great importance in the Universe, our co-travellers have the same experience.
I have used a notion of First among Equals ... Primus inter Pares ... in my own way. I noticed how long a time it takes even for the healthiest among us to recognize that -- while we see our views, children, parents, etc. as Special -- our friends along their own journeys see things similarly -- but with themselves cast in the leading role. I don't know, by the way, if we human-folk could make it as far as we do if we didn't go through phases in which we saw ourselves as the only special ones.
Still, I pause each time I see it in myself and in others. In the playground where fights can break out over who is right. On the playing field. In political and theoretical disputes.
In Latin, in Greek, in Philosophies and in rifts in religious doctrines that caused at least one major split just shy of 1,000 years ago between churches on the position of the Vicar of Rome, the notion of a First among Equals ... a Primus inter Pares ... has been used in many ways, it seems to me. I use it as above, as a means of paying homage to the human inclination to begin life seeing everything related to me ... and a uniquely human capacity to reach a stage in which I recognize that my Firstness ... my Primus state ... is really among Others ... among Pares, among my Peers and Equals ... who see things just the same way.
Perhaps, such a fantasy became necessary when our ancestors developed the capacity to reflect on their own conditions, ..., to be aware. It's not so easy to accept that we're not the Center of the Cosmos. After all, when I twirl around? The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars (young Joseph's dream in Genesis) have all alligned themselves about me. When I listen? All sounds come to my ears. Do we ever get out of the crib where all come to visit "the star" whom the Good Doctor from Vienna called His Majesty the Baby (she-Babies, need I add, are no less Royal).
As we age, moments do begin intruding on this fantasy that "the world was created for me" ... perhaps, first in the recognition that Mom and Dad are not only preoccupied with discussing how best to raise their little Monarch ... "Oh, my gosh ... they have a relationship of their own. They eat, they sleep, they make love, and they may even make other babies." The youngster fights this recognition "toothless but nailed" for years -- some fight the fight for a lifetime. Certain people, those that we think of as ill, create elaborate fantasies in which many are preoccupied with their successes and failures ... we call such fantasies paranoid delusions when they're believed as factual and frighten the 'believer' as potentially destructive to their very being. When they remain just fantasies, we may even be amused by them.
The flip side of this tune (I know CD's don't have flip-sides ... but I'm assuming that all potential readers on this page remember the relationship between the two sides of a 45 rpm) represents folk who are equally self-absorbed. "I'm of absolutely no value. I am the only one, indeed, of absolutely no value." No. Sometime, maybe while Playing in the Third Quarter, we recognize that while we see our joys and pains (Freddie Mercury famously noted that "pain is so close to pleasure") as of great importance in the Universe, our co-travellers have the same experience.
I have used a notion of First among Equals ... Primus inter Pares ... in my own way. I noticed how long a time it takes even for the healthiest among us to recognize that -- while we see our views, children, parents, etc. as Special -- our friends along their own journeys see things similarly -- but with themselves cast in the leading role. I don't know, by the way, if we human-folk could make it as far as we do if we didn't go through phases in which we saw ourselves as the only special ones.
Still, I pause each time I see it in myself and in others. In the playground where fights can break out over who is right. On the playing field. In political and theoretical disputes.
In Latin, in Greek, in Philosophies and in rifts in religious doctrines that caused at least one major split just shy of 1,000 years ago between churches on the position of the Vicar of Rome, the notion of a First among Equals ... a Primus inter Pares ... has been used in many ways, it seems to me. I use it as above, as a means of paying homage to the human inclination to begin life seeing everything related to me ... and a uniquely human capacity to reach a stage in which I recognize that my Firstness ... my Primus state ... is really among Others ... among Pares, among my Peers and Equals ... who see things just the same way.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Shrillness
I finished the writing I was doing ... fondly reminiscing about running a school in the 1970's ... when an online discussion began over someone posting a news article about someone who moved out of the area and became involved in unethical -- maybe even unconscionable -- behavior with a patient. Comments began flying about
-- How wrong it was for the person to post this article ...
-- How both the Dr and the patient required our concern ...
-- How we should be primarily concerned about the patient ...
-- How this was wrong to attack the messenger ...
-- How no one was attacking the messenger ...
-- How 'yes, they were' ....
-- How it was wrong to criticize the person who criticized the messenger --
-- How nobody did ...
-- How this was a gender thing .... men taking advantage of women ...
-- How this wasn't a gender thing, necessarily ....
Geez ... And I thought taming the playground at my school was a job. Reading the postings gave me an itch! Ah! Maybe it's just Winter dryness?
I would think the average age of posters to this discussion was >60 and the average number of years of education held by participants to the kerfuffle was >25. People who spent half their post-kindergarten lives in school and the next half "helping" people deal with a difficult world and are now Playing in the Last Quarter? I think they're playin' too hard.
What struck me was the shrillness of the discussion ... So much like the playground.
Before I took over the school in 1976, I recall an incident:
Randy says -- in code -- to Keith who's looking out the window: "Yo'Motha &^%%^$#@^*&"
Keith throws a chair out the 2nd floor window (no Juliet at the window was he).
Randy runs upstairs.
Keith discusses Randy's Mother.
Fight! Fight!
Teacher enters ....
TEACHER IN FIGHT!
And, by the way, pretty much everybody knew that Keith's Mother hadn't really indulged in solo horizontal aerobics with all of the hometown's National Football team!
In any case .... age, grandchildren and school-bought wisdom don't seem to act as proof against acting shrill ... hey! ... I mean acting like a horse's sphinctor magnum.
WHY AM I PULLING PUNCHES. Age and wisdom don't act as preventatives against acting like a horse's ass.
Lee Hayes in the many years before he grew old, died, and was composted (at his own request, as I recall) ... used to sing a song (How Do I Know My Youth is All Spent) that had some lines in it about gittin' old (something like): Each morning I wake up and dust off my wits/Roll outa bed and read the obits/If my name ain't there, I know I'm not dead/So, I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
Think if I told my colleagues they should give it a rest they'd thank me?
-- How wrong it was for the person to post this article ...
-- How both the Dr and the patient required our concern ...
-- How we should be primarily concerned about the patient ...
-- How this was wrong to attack the messenger ...
-- How no one was attacking the messenger ...
-- How 'yes, they were' ....
-- How it was wrong to criticize the person who criticized the messenger --
-- How nobody did ...
-- How this was a gender thing .... men taking advantage of women ...
-- How this wasn't a gender thing, necessarily ....
Geez ... And I thought taming the playground at my school was a job. Reading the postings gave me an itch! Ah! Maybe it's just Winter dryness?
I would think the average age of posters to this discussion was >60 and the average number of years of education held by participants to the kerfuffle was >25. People who spent half their post-kindergarten lives in school and the next half "helping" people deal with a difficult world and are now Playing in the Last Quarter? I think they're playin' too hard.
What struck me was the shrillness of the discussion ... So much like the playground.
Before I took over the school in 1976, I recall an incident:
Randy says -- in code -- to Keith who's looking out the window: "Yo'Motha &^%%^$#@^*&"
Keith throws a chair out the 2nd floor window (no Juliet at the window was he).
Randy runs upstairs.
Keith discusses Randy's Mother.
Fight! Fight!
Teacher enters ....
TEACHER IN FIGHT!
And, by the way, pretty much everybody knew that Keith's Mother hadn't really indulged in solo horizontal aerobics with all of the hometown's National Football team!
In any case .... age, grandchildren and school-bought wisdom don't seem to act as proof against acting shrill ... hey! ... I mean acting like a horse's sphinctor magnum.
WHY AM I PULLING PUNCHES. Age and wisdom don't act as preventatives against acting like a horse's ass.
Lee Hayes in the many years before he grew old, died, and was composted (at his own request, as I recall) ... used to sing a song (How Do I Know My Youth is All Spent) that had some lines in it about gittin' old (something like): Each morning I wake up and dust off my wits/Roll outa bed and read the obits/If my name ain't there, I know I'm not dead/So, I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
Think if I told my colleagues they should give it a rest they'd thank me?
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Neurotics suffer from reminiscences?
A doctor in Vienna, a long time ago, famously claimed that 'neurotics suffer from reminiscences.' It strikes me, this morning, that his statement is ambiguous. I don't think he meant that reminiscing is -- in and of itself -- a cause for psychological disturbance.
No. I think it is quite clear what the Good Dr. Freud meant. It is not the reminiscences that cause depressions and anxieties. Rather, it is the manner in which these memories are utilized to judge and to criticize and to decry the horrors of one's past.
The past week, I had the pleasure of writing a chapter for a series of books to be published on Psychoanalysis and Education. I was asked to think back to the two years that I spent -- nearly 40 years ago -- as a young principal in an inner-city school for disturbed high schoolers. By no means can I recall only positive interactions.
When I took over the school, it was a mess ... with fights, verbal aggression and very poor attendance. But what a wonderful opportunity to think back to a brilliant group of colleagues and a bunch of kids (now in their 50's) who were healthy enough to subliminally realize that the schools they attended before ours was impossibly violent, angry and dirty. The kids figured out a way to get kicked out of their parent schools and come to our safer and -- thanks to the teachers -- loving environment.
Last week, I also got to eat with Marsha and Maxine the Math teacher; Maxine had turned 90 the week before our luncheon.
Perhaps, no one better than Freud realized that we can also pleasure from reminiscences.
I'll write a bit about this ... I hope, tomorrow.
No. I think it is quite clear what the Good Dr. Freud meant. It is not the reminiscences that cause depressions and anxieties. Rather, it is the manner in which these memories are utilized to judge and to criticize and to decry the horrors of one's past.
The past week, I had the pleasure of writing a chapter for a series of books to be published on Psychoanalysis and Education. I was asked to think back to the two years that I spent -- nearly 40 years ago -- as a young principal in an inner-city school for disturbed high schoolers. By no means can I recall only positive interactions.
When I took over the school, it was a mess ... with fights, verbal aggression and very poor attendance. But what a wonderful opportunity to think back to a brilliant group of colleagues and a bunch of kids (now in their 50's) who were healthy enough to subliminally realize that the schools they attended before ours was impossibly violent, angry and dirty. The kids figured out a way to get kicked out of their parent schools and come to our safer and -- thanks to the teachers -- loving environment.
Last week, I also got to eat with Marsha and Maxine the Math teacher; Maxine had turned 90 the week before our luncheon.
Perhaps, no one better than Freud realized that we can also pleasure from reminiscences.
I'll write a bit about this ... I hope, tomorrow.
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