i sit at my living-room window on saturday afternoon after an overnight campout with the 10-year-old and the other 10 & 11-year-old academically talented students in his school. the idea was to have a civil war re-enactment, with old-fashioned food, no electronic devices, a little hardship, etc. the teacher at one point said, "i wanted them to have a taste of hunger and hardship" but she had actually gone way out of her way to have fresh vegetables, rustic pancakes, bread-rolls roasted in the fire, etc. the other parents brought their tents out into a glade that had absolutely stunning colors; to me, this time, beginning of november, is by far the most beautiful in the year, when the bright yellows and oranges and reds begin to give way to the more subtle browns behind them; this was added to by the camp smoke and the gray drizzly overcast nature of the weekend.
the kids tore around the glade; the parents were allowed to have flashlights, and the kids then were allowed to borrow them which they did. many of these were kids i've known much of their lives, though i'd lost track of quite a few of them and there were some i didn't know at all. they had prepared regimental flags and regiment songs and were able to march around with wooden guns and flags, and follow the orders of a civil-war soldier (company march!) who at one point also fired his musket into the woods. i tried playing "ashokan farewell" (actually one ten-year-old, later, did a much better job than i had) and also played my banjo in the glade, late at night, by the fire.
the kids had been assigned, randomly, to either confederate or union battalions; my son and friends were in a union battalion that was called "Minn-Conn-Penn-V Rangers (?) and had a flag to match; one of my sons' friends said the the V was for Virginia but was corrected; it was for Vermont. We are in the second day of a faculty strike here in our small university town, so hearing the word "union" perked up some people's ears, especially mine, though i was trying to avoid any talk of the strike really (gratefully, i woke up on thurs. morning to find out that my union had settled along with two others, leaving the tenured faculty alone striking). some of the parents were involved, principally or marginally, and talked about it a little. but the big news was the kids, their marching, their costumes, their music, and what they knew and showed about the civil war.
it occurred to me, watching them tear around, that they were on the cusp of adulthood. you could still hug them or kiss them, but it was obvious that this wouldn't last for long, for any of them. the girls giggled about the boys and told stories about them in the tents; the boys ran around and spied on the girls, not quite ready really for the trials of being older.
the valley filled up with the smoke of campfires and the musket, but pretty soon it cleared up and the sky was a brilliant blue, the soft browns of november and the reds and yellow of the leaves all around. a box turtle stood in the path, withdrawn; the re-enactment was too much for it. it too was pretty though; it had a yellow design on its shell. it survived the encampment.
on the road home a huge fog sat between the state park and our house even though it's really only about a twenty minute drive. the fog varied in its thickness as we drove up and down the hills out in the country; at times we couldn't see much. close to home the fog had almost lifted when we drove past the little dirt road to the old ruins of the asylum/vivarium where it's known to be haunted, with unmarked graves around it and writing all over its walls; at this time of year, with the leaves falling off the trees, it can be seen from the road. and there was a kid heading off on the dirt driveway, purposefully carrying something, maybe a camera or computer, to document his journey.
the last couple of days, the town has been preoccupied with the strike. groups of picketers stand at every entrance to the university with signs; it is impossible to drive anywhere without going past them. many of these are friends of mine, or at least acquaintances, and it's hard to go to work past them, knowing they remain, out in the cold, demanding a contract, etc. i'll stay out of this fight on this blog, since i don't know the issues well, and hear only incomplete versions from various friends and my wife. i was grateful to not be caught up in it, but in a sense everyone in this town is caught up in it, and will be for some time to come. it's like the civil war itself: it takes in everyone, it pits brother against brother, and people will be sawing off legs before it's all over.
at home, the gingko leaves are a bright yellow, asian-fan shaped, perching on the edge of the tree waiting to fall off on "gingko day," the day they all fall off, which could be tomorrow, guy fawkes day. i'm not sure which day this will happen but i guarantee it's coming; i can see it, and know that much. i'm exhausted (lots of tent-carrying, tent-pitching, etc.) and wouldn't mind sitting in this very chair until the last one falls. but it's an intensely beautiful day, and i'll probably be called into service at some point to make sure every child gets a dose of fresh air; there is still way too much energy around the house. i find myself thinking about union politics at the time i was growing up, around pittsburgh. you didn't find a wide variety of attitudes then, about striking, about "scabs", about unions in general, ambivalence was unheard of. the mill owners were known to kill people to get their mills back from the occupation of strikers, who were brawny, mean and violent themselves. on the verge of losing their job, they could get violent, and stories were told throughout town for years about mill-owner steel-worker conflict, and the violence that it wrought; the mountains of west virginia, southwest pennsylvania and kentucky were similar except there it was the mine-workers, the u-m-w. as i remember those stories and the collective memories of the region i come to feel that a university union is almost a caricature, like a historical account is to the history itself, like a political science class is to a revolution. but i shrink from the conflict itself. my sister, when she heard it was a civil war re-enactment, asked me what side i was on, and i answered, "parents".
being a northerner, i never actually suffered any doubt about which side i was on in that particular conflict, but as i traveled many countries, i did notice one curious thing: the closer you were to the borders (kansas-missouri, for example, or illinois-kentucky, or say pennsylvania-maryland), the more intensely people felt about it, relived it, fell hard on one side or the other. it could also be said that the southern side still felt the sting of losing, daily, continuously, and to some degree its regional economic success has been at the expense of the north which has fallen away into economic malaise, its unions staring at vacant factory shells. i heard about this a little from one of the parents who happened to be a manufacturer in the area, who had actually worked in and run manufacturing places throughout the south and now up here in illinois, where the climate is somewhat set against him. he told me of the difficulty of running a shop; laying people off, and facing the facts when someone he'd laid off killed himself the following day; choosing a location when in essence you don't want union territory, and you want tax breaks, so you tend to favor the south. we stood by a crackling fire, i with my banjo, various other parents staying warm in the cold november night, the kids running around us with their lights.
the war is over, i'd like to think, though i can tell you, the strike has barely begun. the country may still be divided north-south, confederate-union, but we are but one country in so much trouble that it doesn't make much sense to stay divided. and that's basically how i felt about the university; it had enough problems, that being riven by union problems was the last thing it needed. ah, but such things, i suppose, get lost in the fog, as it burns off on a fall day. getting drawn into a conflict can be a life-altering, or life-ending, turn of events; it can cost you a job, or a leg, or a home, or a marriage. i, however, have lived to see another day. the picture above is from traveling days; i'd always look more carefully at the maps from mountain country. they've got the most interesting-looking roads.
the kids tore around the glade; the parents were allowed to have flashlights, and the kids then were allowed to borrow them which they did. many of these were kids i've known much of their lives, though i'd lost track of quite a few of them and there were some i didn't know at all. they had prepared regimental flags and regiment songs and were able to march around with wooden guns and flags, and follow the orders of a civil-war soldier (company march!) who at one point also fired his musket into the woods. i tried playing "ashokan farewell" (actually one ten-year-old, later, did a much better job than i had) and also played my banjo in the glade, late at night, by the fire.
the kids had been assigned, randomly, to either confederate or union battalions; my son and friends were in a union battalion that was called "Minn-Conn-Penn-V Rangers (?) and had a flag to match; one of my sons' friends said the the V was for Virginia but was corrected; it was for Vermont. We are in the second day of a faculty strike here in our small university town, so hearing the word "union" perked up some people's ears, especially mine, though i was trying to avoid any talk of the strike really (gratefully, i woke up on thurs. morning to find out that my union had settled along with two others, leaving the tenured faculty alone striking). some of the parents were involved, principally or marginally, and talked about it a little. but the big news was the kids, their marching, their costumes, their music, and what they knew and showed about the civil war.
it occurred to me, watching them tear around, that they were on the cusp of adulthood. you could still hug them or kiss them, but it was obvious that this wouldn't last for long, for any of them. the girls giggled about the boys and told stories about them in the tents; the boys ran around and spied on the girls, not quite ready really for the trials of being older.
the valley filled up with the smoke of campfires and the musket, but pretty soon it cleared up and the sky was a brilliant blue, the soft browns of november and the reds and yellow of the leaves all around. a box turtle stood in the path, withdrawn; the re-enactment was too much for it. it too was pretty though; it had a yellow design on its shell. it survived the encampment.
on the road home a huge fog sat between the state park and our house even though it's really only about a twenty minute drive. the fog varied in its thickness as we drove up and down the hills out in the country; at times we couldn't see much. close to home the fog had almost lifted when we drove past the little dirt road to the old ruins of the asylum/vivarium where it's known to be haunted, with unmarked graves around it and writing all over its walls; at this time of year, with the leaves falling off the trees, it can be seen from the road. and there was a kid heading off on the dirt driveway, purposefully carrying something, maybe a camera or computer, to document his journey.
the last couple of days, the town has been preoccupied with the strike. groups of picketers stand at every entrance to the university with signs; it is impossible to drive anywhere without going past them. many of these are friends of mine, or at least acquaintances, and it's hard to go to work past them, knowing they remain, out in the cold, demanding a contract, etc. i'll stay out of this fight on this blog, since i don't know the issues well, and hear only incomplete versions from various friends and my wife. i was grateful to not be caught up in it, but in a sense everyone in this town is caught up in it, and will be for some time to come. it's like the civil war itself: it takes in everyone, it pits brother against brother, and people will be sawing off legs before it's all over.
at home, the gingko leaves are a bright yellow, asian-fan shaped, perching on the edge of the tree waiting to fall off on "gingko day," the day they all fall off, which could be tomorrow, guy fawkes day. i'm not sure which day this will happen but i guarantee it's coming; i can see it, and know that much. i'm exhausted (lots of tent-carrying, tent-pitching, etc.) and wouldn't mind sitting in this very chair until the last one falls. but it's an intensely beautiful day, and i'll probably be called into service at some point to make sure every child gets a dose of fresh air; there is still way too much energy around the house. i find myself thinking about union politics at the time i was growing up, around pittsburgh. you didn't find a wide variety of attitudes then, about striking, about "scabs", about unions in general, ambivalence was unheard of. the mill owners were known to kill people to get their mills back from the occupation of strikers, who were brawny, mean and violent themselves. on the verge of losing their job, they could get violent, and stories were told throughout town for years about mill-owner steel-worker conflict, and the violence that it wrought; the mountains of west virginia, southwest pennsylvania and kentucky were similar except there it was the mine-workers, the u-m-w. as i remember those stories and the collective memories of the region i come to feel that a university union is almost a caricature, like a historical account is to the history itself, like a political science class is to a revolution. but i shrink from the conflict itself. my sister, when she heard it was a civil war re-enactment, asked me what side i was on, and i answered, "parents".
being a northerner, i never actually suffered any doubt about which side i was on in that particular conflict, but as i traveled many countries, i did notice one curious thing: the closer you were to the borders (kansas-missouri, for example, or illinois-kentucky, or say pennsylvania-maryland), the more intensely people felt about it, relived it, fell hard on one side or the other. it could also be said that the southern side still felt the sting of losing, daily, continuously, and to some degree its regional economic success has been at the expense of the north which has fallen away into economic malaise, its unions staring at vacant factory shells. i heard about this a little from one of the parents who happened to be a manufacturer in the area, who had actually worked in and run manufacturing places throughout the south and now up here in illinois, where the climate is somewhat set against him. he told me of the difficulty of running a shop; laying people off, and facing the facts when someone he'd laid off killed himself the following day; choosing a location when in essence you don't want union territory, and you want tax breaks, so you tend to favor the south. we stood by a crackling fire, i with my banjo, various other parents staying warm in the cold november night, the kids running around us with their lights.
the war is over, i'd like to think, though i can tell you, the strike has barely begun. the country may still be divided north-south, confederate-union, but we are but one country in so much trouble that it doesn't make much sense to stay divided. and that's basically how i felt about the university; it had enough problems, that being riven by union problems was the last thing it needed. ah, but such things, i suppose, get lost in the fog, as it burns off on a fall day. getting drawn into a conflict can be a life-altering, or life-ending, turn of events; it can cost you a job, or a leg, or a home, or a marriage. i, however, have lived to see another day. the picture above is from traveling days; i'd always look more carefully at the maps from mountain country. they've got the most interesting-looking roads.
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