This blog includes essays about life, aging, humor, inspiration and creativity. These things capture my attention and I hope are worthy of yours. Sandra Enos.
“This has been yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country. No president has ever gone through anything like it, and it continues because our opponents cannot forget the almost 75 million people, the highest number ever for a sitting president, who voted for us just a few short months ago…Our historic, patriotic, and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun. I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people. There has never been anything like it!”
It is like I have been saying over and over again. The corrupt media and radical left Democrats are out to destroy me, this great country, and by extension millions of my followers. No matter what they do; my truth will conquer all. I am like Jesus Christ, the more I am persecuted, the more the people love me – because they know the truth as I speak it. We love each other because we’ve been bullied by those coastal elites who think they are better than us. They smirk at me because they think I’m a joker and a clown but I am much smarter and more powerful than any ordinary fool. I am like a once-in-century storm, a force of nature. I’m not only a self-made billionaire; I am also a media made hyper celebrity. I’ve got the looks, the body, the presence. I am irresistible to women and men.
I can turn villains into victims and victims into villains. I’ve made heroes into the objects of scorn and heaped praise on strongmen and dictators. What the critics don’t understand is that my charm runs very deep. People always want to side with the powerful and strong, even children who have been abused come to the defense of their abusers. We may pretend there’s a place in our country for underdogs but I have never met any man – any real man – who wants to be that underdog. We all want to be on top. I am on top and people want to be here with me. We know who our enemies are and that gives us strength and purpose. This country must be saved no matter how.
I don’t feel too sorry for all those chumps playing by the rules. My father told me long ago that the world was divided into winners and losers and you never want to be a loser. We want to be the kings of our own kingdoms; we want to play the game under our own rules. The elites don’t think it’s true but I feel the pain of my people and they know it; that’s why flock to me and not to all those libs who are supposed to be their friends. My people don’t want pity or programs. They want what I have. Money and a pretty wife and the freedom to do what you want. They want what they had before other people took their jobs and power away. They know that I am working for them — to fix the mess the politicians have made of this great country.
I started my campaign in 2016 to poke fun, to play a game, to show those politicians that ideas and politics didn’t really matter. At first my people hated politicians, like Sleepy Joe and his crooked family more than they loved me but now they just loved me. To save this great country, we had to do everything we could to overturn the fake results, marching on D.C. with those patriots reminded me of our Founding Fathers. As expected, the Democrats tried to impeach me (again) but they didn’t even come close. We need to Make America Great Again, like me.
It has come to our attention that as the size of passenger seats has declined that the number of complaints about passenger behavior in those seats has increased. While not rising to the level of a terrorist threat, these complaints have been the subject of an inquiry by Her Majesty’s Commission on Good Order in Seats under the Dominion of the Empire. Accordingly, today, we are issuing draft regulations that we hope do make our expectations clear about the right order and decorum in the passenger seats. Such regulations only apply to the leisure traveler and neither to those in business nor first class where order appears to be maintained by a more genteel breeding. The timing of these regulations is a matter of urgency as increasing numbers of people all over the globe are turning to the British for guidance in these troubled times on matters of decorum and manners. How else to explain the popularity of Downton Abbey? We British simply have the market concerned on civility and good manners, despite some recent high jinks in the royal family. These simple rules can surely return to the plane cabin some of the glamour of jet travel that existed before too many people could afford to fly.
Rule #1
The arm rest
In a typical seating arrangement on a flight, there are fewer armrests that there are arms. For example, for a three-seat wing accommodating three passengers with two arms each, we would expect six armrests. However, to save money, the airlines install only four armrests, leaving an undercount of two. This is not our fault; register a complaint with Boeing and Airbus. This shortage requires that EVERYONE share. The occupant of the middle seat bears this especial burden since that individual has no armrest of his own. Despite a common belief, the first person to arrive in the seats has no right, under national law or Geneva Convention, to claim the armrest as his. Neither does membership within a racial group or religious organization constitute such a claim. Similarly, the larger arms found on most men does not bestow upon them any endowed right to the armrest. It is our policy that all the arms of our travelers have equal call and claim to armrests. Accordingly, a timing device has been installed. A small really negligible electric shock will be administered every ten minutes to assure proper sharing of the armrest. In the event that this fails to move the recalcitrant resistant arm, the cabin attendant can adjust the current. Technology has evolved to allow this system to work efficiently and effectively.
Rule #2
The rightful allotment of seat space and its environs
Contrary to U.S. law on this issue, British law and custom argue for a circumscribed space that is purchased with a standard airline ticket. In other words, under the British system, one buys his seat but that does not allow one to claim the penumbra around the seat. This stands in opposition to American jurisprudence and practice which suggests that it is not only one’s seat that one is purchasing but the area around and into the other’s seat if one is big and pushy enough. Clearly, we see the American doctrine of Manifest Destiny still rules the American traveler. Our seats are NOT selected to accommodate your specific height and weight. For that, you buy a wet suit. Our seats perfectly fit the average male in Great Britain (determined by the British census of 1920) and so should fit women as well.
Overwhelmed by complaints from passengers that other passengers were taking up more than their fair share of breathable air and seat real estate, we are hereby providing enhanced procedures. A passenger may request from the cabin attendant a PROOD, a passenger-restrain-of-other-device. This instrument fits in between seats in accordance with British law on property and boundary rights on an aircraft. A full-body version can also be requested to guard against passengers whose body frame leaks into another’s as well as those passengers who fall asleep with their heads on the shoulders of strangers. Such activity is seriously disapproved by this airline.
Rule #3
General communication protocols
It should be noted early in this paragraph that we were one of the earliest airlines to accommodate digital devices in our cabins. This is despite our deepest reservations that this move would lead to a further diminution of civility and correct behavior. We had expected nothing better than the worst that has emerged. We have waited as long as we could before issuing guidelines.
To game players. Despite the fact that you have your earphones on, the rest of us can hear the guns, the shouts, the senseless music, the crashing cars. Please lower the volume or risk having your gaming device tased on our armed staff.
To the viewers of pornography, this should be done in your home, in your bedroom, if at all. Our cabins are full of children and people of good taste who really have no need to see what turns you on.
To traveling salesmen. Do not coyly bring up your latest website so you can cleverly poke your neighbor in the ribs, saying “Oh, man. Look what the IT guys have done. Our next Turbo Filter looks awesome. It replaces the older mode.” Blah. Blah. No one cares.
To grandparents. Only one person on the plane wants to see hundreds of pictures of your grandchild and that person has just locked himself in the restroom after seeing hundreds of pictures of someone else’s grandkids.
Our overall advice: keep to yourself. Pretend you are carrying state secrets and imagine that this is the case for your seatmate, as well. Imagine that he will have to kill you if he reveals anything at all to you. Who knows? It may be true.
Enjoy the flight. The cabin attendants will be serving refreshments if they think you deserve them. Thanks for flying British Air.
A friend of nearly fifty years died earlier this month after a long struggle with a difficult illness.
Last summer, on a visit with Marion, I asked if there was anything on her mind. She remarked that she had to write her eulogy. I offered to help, and she proposed that I wrote that eulogy, which is a great honor. But imagine the challenge of writing a tribute for someone so wonderful and so special, so dear to our hearts. I had planned on writing this sometime in the far-off future. But Marion’s death came too early. Anytime would have been too early. I do know, like so many of you, that this eulogy would have been much better if Marion had written or edited it. It would have been stronger, and clearer, maybe even poetic. She was, after all, a genius at making us all better in her kind and gentle way.
I met Marion in the fall of 1973 — almost 50 years ago. Right away, I recognized that she was brilliant — like no one else I’d ever met. She was also beautiful and stylish. The consummate conversationalist. You were never bored in her company. Unmatched intellectual curiosity. A beautiful writer. Interested in all of us and everything. In fact, you became more interesting in her company. At home with big ideas about the universe and meaning and purpose and completely delighted with the silly and inane. I used to love that raised eyebrow and the tilt of her head when something delighted her.
Since that first meeting and in all the years that have followed, I recognized the treasure that Marion was in my life. Recently, as I have met the friends and former students that I have heard so much and read the beautiful comments from her Bayview community, I realized that she was treasure to all of us — not just my dear and special friend. The lovely community she has gathered around her is testament of how much she mattered and how much she matters still. Her close friends have remarked on her ability to listen carefully with support, to always be there in difficult times, to see us as the vulnerable and irreplaceable people we were to her. We felt cherished. She was a symbol of light and love.
A great teacher will inspire you to fly and give you the tools to do just that. You can’t be a beloved teacher with just a command of content and a mastery of material. You need to be deeply present in the classroom aligned with the students teaching them about something you love. You need to be your authentic beautiful self. Parker Palmer, the educational philosopher, wrote, “Whoever our students may be, whatever the subjects we teach, ultimately we teach who we are.” And that indeed was true about Ms. Wrye. She was deeply and profoundly in love with her subject, enchanted by her students and alive with the challenge of creating a beloved community in her classroom. Her unique and lovely spirt and soul were completely revealed in her friendships, in her writing and in her teaching.
What and how she taught in reflected in the tributes that former students and fellow teachers have left on the Bayview Academy’s Facebook pages.
Miss Wrye gave me a voice
Inspired me and my career
My favorite teacher ever
No one ever taught me so much
Her lessons remain with me today.
She created a safe space for us.
Miss Wrye changed the way I thought.
A student wrote that she incorporated Marion’s kindness in feedback into her own teaching.
Another wrote, she believed me to be better than I was or am and I will always want to live up to her opinion. I wanted to more like her.
And directed to Ms. Wrye,
I am so grateful to you for the gift of yourself.
You opened my eyes to great storytelling and literature.
And there so many comments about how kind and loving she was after the death of a parent, or a classmate or a during serious illness or a family difficulty. One student remembers Ms. Wrye reaching out to the Alumni Association to raise money when own family couldn’t pay tuition in her senior year. Thanks to Marion, the student walked with her graduating class.
Miss Wrye also had her wonderful quirky style. A former student recollects one Christmas celebration where the school sponsored a classroom decorating contest. The students dressed up Barbie dolls as angels and hung them from the ceiling fan. When Marion turned on the fan, the angels spun around at breakneck speed. The fact that the students felt that this creative act would delight Miss. Wrye says a lot about the wonderful connection she had with her students.
Marion was an inspired path-breaking educator, as passionate and as thoughtful about teaching as anyone I have ever met. As an educator myself, I was constantly impressed by the thought, the love, the fun she brought to the classroom. How I would have loved to have been a student of hers. She published several important essays about teaching in prestigious journals. Within the past year, she wrote a well-received article about teaching the essay form. She received a national award for her inspired teaching. Many of her students received prizes for their writing. Unfortunately, she did not finish her own story, a memoir she had been working on which would have given us all another glimpse of this amazing woman.
All of us visiting Marion these past years acknowledge the beautiful caretaking of her by Jayne Martin and her close friends. To take on the responsibility of caring for someone you know will pass away in your care is the truest act of love. Because you know on some level, this story will not and cannot have a happy ending. But the kindness, patience, the daily drone of chores, the hard work of caretaking, the demands on your energy and time, the challenge of taking care of someone who is suffering, watching a loved one fail – takes immense sacrifice and generosity. Sometimes, it takes more than we have to give but we do it anyway. So, on behalf of all of us, Jayne, thank you so much for taking care of our beloved friend with all her quirks and foibles. And thanks as well to Marion’s visitors who delighted her with their company and conversation and comforted her in so many ways.
Marion was extraordinary, wasn’t she?
Of course, it is one thing to write a eulogy for Marion and to actually deliver it, to acknowledge her death means facing a bitter and unreal truth, that our friend and teacher has passed away. It is hard to reconcile any loss that is as painful as this one. Some of us have the comfort of a belief in the afterlife. If so, Marion is in heaven, starting great conversations with her favorite poets and philosophers. Maybe she is making some wonderful new friends, like us. I can picture her there in a small carefully organized room with a beautiful window view with her books, a journal and a favorite pen, some Barbie Dolls, a cup of coffee, and maybe the Bee Gees, playing in the background. A chair pulled up close for a friend’s visit. I am certain that everyone in heaven agrees that it is much more interesting place now that Marion is there. Also, I am so certain she misses us. How could she not? She loved us so much.
But even if there is no afterlife, she is always with us. I believe that we pass along some of ourselves to people we have loved and cherished. It is not genetic DNA but something as precious and as powerful – we pass on our unique way of being in the world. I also believe that we have all been written into her spiritual will. We are her legacy. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to find the strands and traces of Marion in our hearts and souls and minds – that thrill at being alive, a loving awe and curiosity about the world, the beauty of a poetic soul, an orientation toward the good and the generous, a love of our friends and family. I know that I am a much kinder, more reflective, a more full-of-life person because of her. I think you are, too.
Of course, you cannot make such an impression on people without leaving an immense gaping hole for us all to fill with love and kindness and a love of life, celebrating our great good fortune of knowing Marion and being embraced by her. How lucky we were!
Marion’s friends are working on developing a scholarship or writing prize at Bay View to recognize her immense contributions to the Bay View community. We want to develop a tribute that really reflects her legacy of exceptional teaching. More about that later.
Over these nearly fifty years, Marion and I exchanged a lot of our writing. I have folders full of her essays, reflections, and poetry. A few years ago, I wrote a poem about her and sent it along for her review. She read it carefully and kindly made it better. She urged me to publish it right away. Instead I let it sit and mature and ripen with time. I am hoping she would have approved of this new version. It is called At the beach, without my poet
At the beach, without my poet
This precious morning beach walk
You were on my mind.
If you were here, my poet, we would toss out lovely names
Of what we see
And hear
And feel.
Like scattering bread for the birds
Our words taking aim at the truth in this very moment.
Faced with budget cuts and a rapidly changing landscape in higher education, I have made the painful decision to lay off, to outsource and to redeploy, my entire imaginary staff. As the leader of myself, I have to show a good example. A college professor, I am aligning key resources with a refurbished messaging strategy. Understanding that my most valuable resources–my three-pound brain–needs to be positioned to take maximal advantage of emerging opportunities in the sector, I aim to make those tough decisions to guarantee that my inflection point does not drain anticipated resources in the final quarter of the reporting period. Relying on the guidance and management principles that served many well, I can point to the scholar who wrote, “I just stopped in to see what condition my condition was in” as my dashboard measure here.
In an effort to enhance transparency, I am announcing the following realignment of my pretend staff and faux advisors. There has been plenty of carping and snarky comments about my assistants and advisors so let it be known today that these staff members are being realigned, maybe more consistent with their horoscopes.
Complaints and criticisms about grading, my mood, my haircut, my expectations, and administrative responses to my response to unreasonable demands will no longer be fielded by my Special Assistant for Grievances. Instead, these will be outsourced to our regional office in a far away land taking advantage of the fact that well educated people will work for pennies if they have to.
Appointments, conferences, meetings, Skyping, Instant Messaging, Instragramming, Tweeting and all the rest will be managed by the Roomba robot, which will be assigned in a dual appointment to vacuum my office floor as well. This eliminates my Special Assistant for Filling Time.
The Special Projects Office will also be eliminated. This, as you may remember, was the unit assigned to keep our division on a clear path to strategic distinctiveness. These duties—formulating mission statements, zeroing in on strategic directions, creating actionable acts, fashioning wordy words— are being reassigned to the Ministry of Future where promises are made and deadlines forgotten.
The impact of so much administrative change in a non-existent staff will be harder for some to adjust than others. Jettisoning levels of mid-level managers means that underlings can make many bad decisions on their own without the interference from above. This will allow me, Professor Decider, to manage my own time and resources in a more efficient effective way.
My door is always open to you, of course, but I most likely will not be in my office. No need.
Let me say right off that I am not what people consider a classic beauty. I have, despite my best efforts, been appreciated more for my wit and intelligence than loved for my beauty or body. Not that I’ve resented this. I remember my mother told me that it was a good idea to develop your mind because even if you were good-looking, it was very likely that your looks would fade with age. She neglected to tell me that even if you developed keen intelligence and a wonderful memory, chances are that these would fade with age as well. If you grew up in the sixties, you can hear your mother saying about your lovely average-looking friend, “Well, she has a lovely personality.” That always meant that the girl in question was a girl like me. I do have to admit that in my family anyway, we weren’t supposed to be beautiful. That was reserved for movie stars. I would hate to be young these days when your image is plastered on Instagram, posing for glamor shots at 10 years old when the pressure is on young women, especially, to be beautiful and desirable.
Those of us not endowed with classic looks spend the first thirty-five years aching to look like someone else and the next fifteen years searching for our own style. This roughly translates into trying make the best of the assets you have. These are personal characteristics that are not recognized by the rest of the culture but of great comfort to one’s mothers and aunts. For example, while good looks don’t run in my family, my mother and aunts applauded themselves for having very thick dark hair, none of that stringy blond stuff some women have to deal with. We are also blessed with strong nails, a characteristic that I’ve used to attract legions of men to myside. And, best of all, we have very wide hips which make it very easy to us to carry children in our wombs. My Aunt Mabel reminded me all the time that when she’s at the mall and sees
these slim girls with long legs and slender hips having babies, she pities them. Well, lucky me.
So, in my fifties, I began to investigate my own personal style. I did this very deliberately. I stared at every one who might look a little bit like me and determined whether they looked better or worse than I did. My measure was very generous. If they looked worse, I maintained my haircut, style of dress and lack of makeup. If they looked better, I try to catch them on another occasion and see if they still looked better. If they did, it planted an idea in my head. Hmm. Maybe I needed a new haircut? A tattoo? Colored hair?
Or I may have looked at old pictures of myself to see if I’ve ever looked better than I did then. This is an insane thing to in late middle age and can be a depressing experience. In my search, I found a picture of myself with a very short haircut and that idea of cutting my hair really short lingered in my mind. Mind you, this photo was of me when I was six years old with a pixie cut and missing front teeth in a class picture. My aunt had just kidnapped from school and taken me to my first haircut at a salon. She did this because managing my too curly hair was driving my mother insane. She was tearing her hair out because she was tearing out mine, trying to comb through it. So, with no solutions sight, no conditioner, no hair management tonic, the only thing was to chop my hair off. When she saw with this tiny little hairdo, my mother was outraged on the outside and delighted on the inside. It seemed that usually, she was the opposite, pleasant enough on the outside and raging within.
So, with that image in my mind, I summoned up my courage, found a new stylist and resolved to get a really short do. I had to change stylists because my Beverly, my previous haircutter would never allow to me to do such a crazy thing at my age. Too radical! If it was awful, how would I show up at work? What would this do to my social life, to all of a sudden look like Joan of Arc on her way to the stake? Beverly was a worrier and my haircuts reflected that. Twenty years of the same style was enough. Time to go bold and beautiful! I could always wear a wig.
So, I submitted myself to the whims and caprices of a 21-year-old beautician named Tami. A recent graduate of beauty school, I figured she would have state-of-the art training and be completely up to date with all the cosmetology literature. All the women who were working at this new salon were about her age, and all spelled their names ending in ‘i’. That was a nice touch; it felt casual and cute. Tami and her fellow stylists were wonderful because even though I was a college professor from a very good school, had won several awards and published well reviewed books, she clearly held the floor, decidedly more confident and more knowledgeable about life and beauty that I would ever have been.
I entered the salon Hair Today and checked in the front desk. By the looks of the receptionist, I was clearly underdressed and undergroomed for an appointment. I had the feeling I should have entered through the emergency room or the back door which they reserved for hopeless cases. Nonetheless, we agreed that I was there for a cut and styling; the receptionist was clearly thinking, “Coloring. Highlights. Eyebrows. Make up. Facial mask. Manicure. Surgery is not out of the question.” She waved me into the waiting room.
I sat patiently waiting for Tami. She eventually called me to her chair and clicked the cape around my shoulders. I looked at myself in the mirror, with that big mass of hair, unruly and unkempt, curly and a bit of grey. She asked, “So what are we doing today?” Before I could answer, she pulled my hair back closer my head and then up and asked, “Let’s try this, shall we?” I had no idea. She came around to look at me from the front with a clump of my hair still in her hands and nodded, “This will be wonderful.” I nodded too, putting myself completely into her hands. I was wheeled into the shampoo bay where I got some important information about shampooing just my scalp, not my hair, about harsh detergents in the shampoo I was using at home and how I’d been neglecting my grey hair. How do these young people know so much? Why didn’t I learn any of this in college?
After my hair was treated with something God made on the first day of Creation so it wouldn’t be contaminated by other things, we returned to the stool where the clipping began. Well, after thirty minutes of intense clipping, my face began to emerge. This was frightening enough, but soon after, my neck began to surface, bare to the world. And, before I knew it, I had a new haircut, a radical pruning down of a concealing canopy of hair. I commented throughout the session while she was trying to concentrate. I tried to ask questions that would help guide her in a Socratic way. “Do you feel this is a bit much”, I asked? She just smiled. She told me to let her know immediately if I crossed my legs. She would stop cutting right away. She informed me that this sort of careless action could cut the line right out of the haircut. She warned me that it would be readily apparent to anybody that saw me that I had a very crooked haircut. She wanted no part of that. Besides, she said, her mother got varicose veins from crossing her legs. I guess she had me pegged. I nearly did it a couple of times but was too terrified of the consequences.
So, ninety minutes later, I emerged with a biodegradable bottle of biodegradable gel and a little cap of a haircut. With a great short haircut, I really saw the shape of was skull. It was very reassuring and comforting to rub my nearly bald head. Many of my friends asked for that opportunity; other people just rubbed my head for luck, I thought.
Overall, the haircut was a great success. One man at work came up and said to me that if my boyfriend didn’t take me to a fancy restaurant and dancing and that if he didn’t tell me how gorgeous I was, I should dump him immediately. Then, he wanted to know if I was married. Every time, he passed my desk, he whistled but, his whistles sounded like bird calls.
And, everyone else has been just as complimentary. One woman told me it was the best thing I could have done. Quite an assessment. So, Tami was right on target. She led me to the promised land of a great haircut entirely out of my own comfort range. Even now at the age of seventy-two, I think, maybe it’s time to go see Tami again. She’d be middle-aged by now, probably still a genius.
not drain anticipated resources in the final quarter of the reporting period. Relying on the guidance and management principles that served many well, I can point to the scholar who wrote, “I just stopped in to see what condition my condition was in” as my dashboard measure here.
Delight/ Awe and other things 