There’s a particular smell to a working man’s truck: dry, dusty, hot paper, and sticky leather. I associate the smell with my grandfather, who did landscaping and gardening, and would drive my sister and me to the water park on hot summer days when we visited. It’s a smell that I didn’t realize could come attached to other people, to other men who did the same thing that Papa did.
I encountered the working man smell yesterday at the Eastlawn Memorial Garden. I showed up halfway through class, as per the agreement, and set off in search of the class. I walked all the way to the back of the cemetery down what they called Gardenia, a quarter mile or so. I heard dogs barking and trucks driving, and I saw statues and monuments and brightly colored flowers moving in the breeze, but I saw neither hide nor hair of my classmates and heard no voices on the wind.
I walked back to the east side of the cemetery to where I had seen two men working. One was rummaging in the back of his truck, and I stopped and asked him, “Have you seen a big group of college students?”
“Yeah,” he said. “They were back over there.” He pointed back towards where I had come from.
“Well, I thought I had walked all the way back there, but I didn’t see them. You’d think twenty kids or so would be easy enough to find!”
“Hop in, and I can drive you around to look for them. Their cars are all still here, so they can’t have gone too far!”
“That’s what I thought, too. Thanks.”
I opened the door, and it was an immediate recall to my childhood. There was dirt on the floor, wedged into the cracks on the rubber floor mat. Notebooks were in the center of the seat and next to the gearshift. Papers littered the dash, all crumpled and brown from exposure to the elements. It was just like Papa’s truck.
I pulled off my backpack and got up onto the flat bench seat. It was more comfortable that I thought it would be, especially considering that generally, one doesn’t just get into a car with a stranger who offers to drive around looking for something. It just seemed natural, as if any other progression of events would have been absurd.
He used his walkie-talkie to call someone and ask if he had seen the group. He hadn’t, not recently, but he thought they couldn’t have gone too far either. It wasn’t a long ride, and halfway back through the cemetery he spotted the class walking out of the corner of his eye.
He got as close as he could without hitting anyone, and let me out. I said thanks, and ran to catch up with the class.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Naturetainment
I don’t see what’s wrong with nature as entertainment. If we’re not going to use it, see it, or touch it, what’s the point of having it? If I have a shirt that I haven’t worn in three years shoved in the very back of the bottom drawer, why do I keep it? I should just give it to some poor person. Maybe we should just give all of our unused nature to Canada.
That was at least a little bit sarcastic. Just a little. But I do wonder: what is the point of nature if we’re not going to do anything with it? To a certain extent, I think that people should be able to go where they want, and do what they want. Kind of like bears do, or wolves, or bunnies. I don’t think that we should go out and traipse all over the habitat of the endangered wild purple-spotted buffalo spider or anything, but really-—why not build a few walkways to see the mud pits at Yellowstone? We don’t have to be able to go all over kingdom come to use the land; maybe even just seeing the perimeter or watching things from a distance would be good enough.
The ability to see something and visit it is part of what makes a thing “ours.” We, as Americans, do not define things that we cannot see as ours—that’s why, for the restoration of the star-spangled banner from Fort McHenry, the scientists left it in full view of the public. Only the places that we can visit and touch become part of America. Who cares who owns the North Pole? We’re never going to go there. The moon belongs to no one but the astronauts who have been there, or who have at least been in space.
Nature as entertainment is an idea inherent, I think, to the human race. We see this not only in America, but also in nations like France, where the reproductions of the cave paintings at Lascaux are more French than the real ones inside the cave. The real cave belongs only to scientists, not Frenchmen. While keeping things like that off-limits except to the scientific community is one way to foster an international perspective on important aspects of our heritage, I don’t think that would work for things like national parks. As a nation of consumers, we feel the need to partake in things for which we contribute tax dollars. Otherwise, it’s just so much pork barrel spending that doesn’t even benefit a minor part of a congressman’s constituency.
Owning and enjoying something does not mean that we have to go in and tear it up. We can enjoy it, the same way we enjoy a day on the ocean. Not everything, contrary to what the media would have us believe, is about finding pleasure in demolishing things. Sometimes, it’s about seeing something one time that can change a person's perspective. How do we know how important we are in the grand scheme of things without knowing that one day, we might see a thousand-year-old tree? Or a volcano that is possible of obliterating everything within miles?
And as (Disney’s) Pocahontas says, “You can own the earth, and still / All you own is earth until / You can paint with all the colors / Of the wind.”
That was at least a little bit sarcastic. Just a little. But I do wonder: what is the point of nature if we’re not going to do anything with it? To a certain extent, I think that people should be able to go where they want, and do what they want. Kind of like bears do, or wolves, or bunnies. I don’t think that we should go out and traipse all over the habitat of the endangered wild purple-spotted buffalo spider or anything, but really-—why not build a few walkways to see the mud pits at Yellowstone? We don’t have to be able to go all over kingdom come to use the land; maybe even just seeing the perimeter or watching things from a distance would be good enough.
The ability to see something and visit it is part of what makes a thing “ours.” We, as Americans, do not define things that we cannot see as ours—that’s why, for the restoration of the star-spangled banner from Fort McHenry, the scientists left it in full view of the public. Only the places that we can visit and touch become part of America. Who cares who owns the North Pole? We’re never going to go there. The moon belongs to no one but the astronauts who have been there, or who have at least been in space.
Nature as entertainment is an idea inherent, I think, to the human race. We see this not only in America, but also in nations like France, where the reproductions of the cave paintings at Lascaux are more French than the real ones inside the cave. The real cave belongs only to scientists, not Frenchmen. While keeping things like that off-limits except to the scientific community is one way to foster an international perspective on important aspects of our heritage, I don’t think that would work for things like national parks. As a nation of consumers, we feel the need to partake in things for which we contribute tax dollars. Otherwise, it’s just so much pork barrel spending that doesn’t even benefit a minor part of a congressman’s constituency.
Owning and enjoying something does not mean that we have to go in and tear it up. We can enjoy it, the same way we enjoy a day on the ocean. Not everything, contrary to what the media would have us believe, is about finding pleasure in demolishing things. Sometimes, it’s about seeing something one time that can change a person's perspective. How do we know how important we are in the grand scheme of things without knowing that one day, we might see a thousand-year-old tree? Or a volcano that is possible of obliterating everything within miles?
And as (Disney’s) Pocahontas says, “You can own the earth, and still / All you own is earth until / You can paint with all the colors / Of the wind.”
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Heritage
Old houses have always given me the heebie jeebies. I think about who lived there, and more importantly, who died there. I shiver a little to think about it anywhere, even at the house my parents built. I’ve had this problem from the time I was little. Maybe I watched too much CSI, but I can’t help but think about the history of places.
There’s a green house with a windmill next to Texas Tech campus. I didn’t realize for the longest time that no one lived there; it was just a lovely house, albeit one right next to the interstate. All through college, I thought that it was just a random house, nothing more-—until I started taking the bus out to the satellite parking lot this year.
The house is part of the National Ranching Heritage Center. I don’t know how many times I rode past it unthinkingly, until the day that something suddenly clicked. I realized that it wasn’t just any normal creepy old house: it was a tremendously creepy old house. The Ranching Heritage website tells a lot about the story of the house, but essentially what it says boils down to failed dreams. A man wanted to build his wife a house next to the train tracks, but the train went though another town after he had already built the house.
The Barton House, as it is called, has artifacts of times gone by placed inside. Some of them are from the Bartons; some of them are reproductions. I didn’t go in to see any of them. I don’t know if I think it’s disrespectful, but I don’t want hordes of people coming in and puttering around in my house after I die. Maybe, to some people, an empty high chair conveys warm memories of babies playing with Cheerios but, to me, it doesn’t. It’s like an old doll, found in the dirt—even if it’s not the ghost of a dead child, it’s the ghost of a memory of a child. In some ways, I think that is even creepier than an actual ghost; no priest can exorcise the demons of memories.
Mrs. Barton bequeathed the house to the Ranching Heritage Center, so perhaps she didn’t feel the same way. I just can’t get past the history of what has happened to an object. I don’t even like to buy used clothes, because who knows what has happened in it, to it? If these walls could talk-—I wouldn’t want to hear them. All they would say would be words of disappointment, of abandonment by the humans that they took care of for so long. How could I possibly stand the grief that emanates from each of those silent, empty houses?
There’s a green house with a windmill next to Texas Tech campus. I didn’t realize for the longest time that no one lived there; it was just a lovely house, albeit one right next to the interstate. All through college, I thought that it was just a random house, nothing more-—until I started taking the bus out to the satellite parking lot this year.
The house is part of the National Ranching Heritage Center. I don’t know how many times I rode past it unthinkingly, until the day that something suddenly clicked. I realized that it wasn’t just any normal creepy old house: it was a tremendously creepy old house. The Ranching Heritage website tells a lot about the story of the house, but essentially what it says boils down to failed dreams. A man wanted to build his wife a house next to the train tracks, but the train went though another town after he had already built the house.
The Barton House, as it is called, has artifacts of times gone by placed inside. Some of them are from the Bartons; some of them are reproductions. I didn’t go in to see any of them. I don’t know if I think it’s disrespectful, but I don’t want hordes of people coming in and puttering around in my house after I die. Maybe, to some people, an empty high chair conveys warm memories of babies playing with Cheerios but, to me, it doesn’t. It’s like an old doll, found in the dirt—even if it’s not the ghost of a dead child, it’s the ghost of a memory of a child. In some ways, I think that is even creepier than an actual ghost; no priest can exorcise the demons of memories.
Mrs. Barton bequeathed the house to the Ranching Heritage Center, so perhaps she didn’t feel the same way. I just can’t get past the history of what has happened to an object. I don’t even like to buy used clothes, because who knows what has happened in it, to it? If these walls could talk-—I wouldn’t want to hear them. All they would say would be words of disappointment, of abandonment by the humans that they took care of for so long. How could I possibly stand the grief that emanates from each of those silent, empty houses?
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Vernacular
Wompyjawled |wämpijôld| adjective
1.To be off-kilter or askew, to be messed up and not in order: when you sleep like that, it’s not hard to see how your sheets get so wompyjawled.
I have said words that I have never seen written down. I say things in a way that would make Henry Higgins spin in his grave. I have spoken to strangers and had them look at me like a tentacle had suddenly sprouted out of my forehead. It doesn’t bother me too much, though, because that’s just how I grew up speaking.
My first realization that I even had an accent was in seventh grade, when I made friends with a girl who moved to Arkansas from Chicago. In English class, we were reading Huckleberry Finn. Oh, how she struggled. She had to read all of Jim’s words out loud, and even then she couldn’t always understand. She would say things just as they were written. “P’simmon. P simmon. Pee simmon. What could that be?”(1) Me? I had no trouble. All those words were just written the way that I said them. It was the same with The Grapes of Wrath—I had no language barrier with those Arkies and Okies.
However, language barriers with other people were more pronounced. I visited New York City once, and at a deli counter, neither the server nor I had any idea what the other was saying. Once I realized that I had a potential situation on my hands, I tried my hardest to eradicate the accent. I’m not ashamed of how I used to (and sometimes still do) speak; I was more ashamed of how people treated me once they heard me say something. Inevitably, no matter how educated my vocabulary was, my diction was a signal to others that I was slow and dimwitted. I tried to cultivate a nondescript American accent, with no harsh sounds or drawn-out syllables. It was hard, and I still slip up sometimes, especially if I’m tired or upset. The main reason I even try is that I hate to be judged based of something that has no real bearing on my intelligence.
Sometimes, though, I put words into my writing or my speech that confuse the heck out of people. I’ll say that I’m all stove up today (2), or that my britches are too loose. Sometimes I waller on my sister’s bed, ruck up the sheets, and haw on her pillow (3) . I forget that other people didn’t grow up with me, and that maybe they don’t hitch their socks up or mash the buttons on their remotes.
However, sometimes a little drawl is good for getting things done. Maybe it’s the teensiest bit dishonest to do so, but from time to time I’ll play up my accent to get someone to help me with things, or to get what I want. Southern girls can be a mite helpless, especially when it comes to getting heavy things off of high shelves. A slow and cultivated Southern accent can be quite helpful for getting people to answer questions and to help me out with something. What I’ve discovered, though, is that it’s best to use my accent and hometown vernacular judiciously, and not to waste its impact. To add just a word or two in an entire paper is enough to convey a sense of “otherness” in my writing, but not enough to distance the reader from the content. It’s a fine line to tread, and it doesn’t take much to knock it off-kilter.
(1) A persimmon.
(2) My back is tight.
(3) Roll all over it, mess up the sheets and breathe on her pillow to make it hot right before she goes to sleep.
1.To be off-kilter or askew, to be messed up and not in order: when you sleep like that, it’s not hard to see how your sheets get so wompyjawled.
I have said words that I have never seen written down. I say things in a way that would make Henry Higgins spin in his grave. I have spoken to strangers and had them look at me like a tentacle had suddenly sprouted out of my forehead. It doesn’t bother me too much, though, because that’s just how I grew up speaking.
My first realization that I even had an accent was in seventh grade, when I made friends with a girl who moved to Arkansas from Chicago. In English class, we were reading Huckleberry Finn. Oh, how she struggled. She had to read all of Jim’s words out loud, and even then she couldn’t always understand. She would say things just as they were written. “P’simmon. P simmon. Pee simmon. What could that be?”(1) Me? I had no trouble. All those words were just written the way that I said them. It was the same with The Grapes of Wrath—I had no language barrier with those Arkies and Okies.
However, language barriers with other people were more pronounced. I visited New York City once, and at a deli counter, neither the server nor I had any idea what the other was saying. Once I realized that I had a potential situation on my hands, I tried my hardest to eradicate the accent. I’m not ashamed of how I used to (and sometimes still do) speak; I was more ashamed of how people treated me once they heard me say something. Inevitably, no matter how educated my vocabulary was, my diction was a signal to others that I was slow and dimwitted. I tried to cultivate a nondescript American accent, with no harsh sounds or drawn-out syllables. It was hard, and I still slip up sometimes, especially if I’m tired or upset. The main reason I even try is that I hate to be judged based of something that has no real bearing on my intelligence.
Sometimes, though, I put words into my writing or my speech that confuse the heck out of people. I’ll say that I’m all stove up today (2), or that my britches are too loose. Sometimes I waller on my sister’s bed, ruck up the sheets, and haw on her pillow (3) . I forget that other people didn’t grow up with me, and that maybe they don’t hitch their socks up or mash the buttons on their remotes.
However, sometimes a little drawl is good for getting things done. Maybe it’s the teensiest bit dishonest to do so, but from time to time I’ll play up my accent to get someone to help me with things, or to get what I want. Southern girls can be a mite helpless, especially when it comes to getting heavy things off of high shelves. A slow and cultivated Southern accent can be quite helpful for getting people to answer questions and to help me out with something. What I’ve discovered, though, is that it’s best to use my accent and hometown vernacular judiciously, and not to waste its impact. To add just a word or two in an entire paper is enough to convey a sense of “otherness” in my writing, but not enough to distance the reader from the content. It’s a fine line to tread, and it doesn’t take much to knock it off-kilter.
(1) A persimmon.
(2) My back is tight.
(3) Roll all over it, mess up the sheets and breathe on her pillow to make it hot right before she goes to sleep.
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