I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.


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Saturday, April 14, 2018

Testing Teacher


April 14, 1973  (I was 28)

            Testing Teacher
Don’t hold your bated breath teacher
this student is not interested in your colored paper
your film strips records and tapes
He will not plot your graph nor find his point
not even search at his own speed
Tell him who owns the legs at table 2
and you’ll have given what he needs

Let’s put up a front of educational freedom
Let’s offer alternatives within the scope of our goals
Let’s give our charged subjects choices
Let them assume we care even if we cannot
(After all we know we should)
If we let them truly choose
they may shock us with their acumen
They may find us unaware
They may leave us holding our IQ tests
and run off to measure the air
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