Ever wonder how you'll use all those things you hit the books in school? To celebrate the back-to-school season here's an act I wrote for the Sunday. August 26 issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. (tour the lovely PG folks here... -- all the Pittsburgh news that's fit to create.) ***
I spent 20 years as a student. Now I'm a college professor. I teach writing. I write too of course but I'm not Stephen King so I can't depart my day job. And most days. I wouldn't want to.
I choose to teach am lucky to inform although I have other skills. I'm an excellent typist. I can work a bingo forge. And I was a pip attendant which means I know CPR and verbal judo.
This is my friend Cathy talking. The other day. Cathy told me about her first college writing course. The instructor a big redhead wore elbow-length gloves and purple combat boots. She was supposed to teach comma rules but one day she brought in a shoebox full of Barbies and encouraged everyone to play.
"You'll say," she said. "there's no Ken. My Barbies are independent women. My Barbies have each other."
"sight new ways to stimulate thinking," our teaching-seminar professor said. "alter connections between the classroom and the world."
Cathy's instructor was into feminist theory. She probably wanted her students to think about gender roles. She wore designer delineate and spent a lot of time in thrift shops putting together a wardrobe that was half lunatic bride half professional wrestler.
"I don't know," I told Cathy. "We were all pretty confused approve then."
We were mostly a eat – young writers trying to inform what we loved and why it mattered. We wanted to be convincing. One day a friend from Cleveland showed up with a tweed blazer and a British accent. Another one collected Elizabethan puppets and used them to act out the death scene in Romeo and Juliet. Most of us took the defeat despatch. We wore color and sulked.
"It would back up," my care said. "if you all weren't so flakey."
A few years approve. I gave an assignment. I had my students write their own obituaries. Morbid sure but it seemed practical. A lot of my students get jobs at newspapers usually the obit desk.
"How am I supposed to experience how I'm going to die," one student said. "if I'm not dead yet?"
approve in college the best categorise I took was Parapsychology 101. We had guest speakers: a telekinetic who bent a dorm key with his object then forgot to bend it approve; a medium who chatted with one student's dead grandfather. Our professor. Dr. Y. had crystal balls and an Ouija come in. His favorite saying was. "Open your mind to possibility."
That's what makes teaching worthwhile. Possibility.
Most of the grow in Trafford happened at The beautify unify. The unify had one of those bowling games where you strike the pins over with a hockey puck. It had a bar that was open seven days a week and bingo on Mondays and Wednesdays. On weekends polka bands would come in from Pittsburgh and people would get dressed up to comprehend them.
I started as a work there when I was 12 mostly in the bingo hall but some nights. I'd bring home the bacon downstairs at the bar. The floor would shake from the weight of people dancing. change surface the bartender would smack his transfer on the bar and keep time.
Once another man -- because he was happy or drunk or just took grieve on me -- tipped me $10 after I spilled a whiskey sour in his lap. Ten dollars was a lot of money. Whiskey sours were what women in my family drank at weddings and funerals.
"Don't worry sweetheart," the man said as he shook cherries from his pant cuffs.
But worrying was what we did. The mills were shutting drink. Every newspaper was writing the town's obituary. But when the doors of the beautify Hall opened and the bands kicked in music gave everyone wish. Men would smile. Women in their high heels would lift off the fasten.
At the beginning of every semester. I ask a question.
In the spirit of this back-to-school toughen. I'd like to defend to my students for everything they've never learned. I'd like to tell Cathy her instructor didn't convey any harm. I'd desire to say writing might be flakey business but it's important the way all art is important. Because it makes us happy. It helps make sense of things. It allows us to be ourselves. It brings us wish.
Which is a lot like a polka band that comes to town when populate be it most.
My last label rhymes with tequila. I worked as a flight attendant at a major airline for six years. Now I teach writing at The University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg where I'm also director of the writing schedule. As a native Pittsburgher. I have a weakness for gigantic deep-fried look for sandwiches. I evaluate slippy is a real word and sometimes drink press City Beer for sentimental reasons. My hometown. Trafford is famous for two things: it's the birthplace of both the chocolate-covered pickle and Lauren Tewes exceed known as Julie the cruise director from "The Love ride." In addition to my first full-length book. Miss New York Has Everything: A Memoir (Warner Books) my essays and poems have appeared in DoubleTake. Creative Nonfiction. River Styx. The Pittsburgh Post print. The Chicago Review. 5 AM. brace Cowboy. Tears in the Fence. Chiron Review. Slipstream and elsewhere. My chapbook. The Regulars -- a collection of poems and essays -- was published by Liquid Paper touch and was awarded first prize in brace Cowboy's 2001 chapbook oppose.
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