Grumpy Melissa

The only reason I'm using this blog at the moment is because I don't know how to delete it. I imagine that no one looks here anymore so I can put up pictures of Melissa without her getting mad at me.
Melissa doesn't like when I take photos of her, so most of the photos on my iPod look like this:

The Layout of Most Books by Retired Teachers

Once upon a time I was a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Republican from a large farm in the suburbs. After graduating at the top of my class at the extremely reputable college of (obscure college that no one has ever heard of) I moved into the city to fulfill my lifelong desire of teaching underprivileged children. My first day of class the students were extremely rude but I saw through their rudeness to the wonderful children within and decided to become hip and cool so they would like me and begin to love reading more than video games and swearing. For the rest of the year I was in punching fights with unjust parents, principals, and gang members to protect my precious children who would laugh at every joke that I told them and respond to my nicknames that I had lovingly given them and cry when I talked about sensitive issues like coming from broken homes. Somewhere along the way I fell in love with a beautiful female White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Republican who also taught in the inner city school and we had a lot of fun picnics together while we saved the education and lives of many children under our care. Many years later I retired and every single student that I had taught for thirty years came and cried and applauded for me for many hours. There was a funny and emotional powerpoint and when I gave my speech everyone cried and the scene slowly faded into darkness like the end of all inspirational movies. The End.

Things I Accomplished Freshman Year

1.) Wrote many, many poems, including a 16 stanza Spenserian sonnet sequence (that sounds like a poem itself) for Nicole and a poem for each one of my professors.

2.) Read many, many good books. Some of the wonderful books that I read were assigned by good professors, but most were ones that I had been wanting to read for a long time anyway.

3.) Bought a classic car. (1993 Toyota Camry)

4.) Ate Garlock food for the entire year without throwing up once.

5.) Became an uncle for the third time to little Liam, who bears the honor of being the second L Smith.

6.) Attended the RPO with the Reverend Scott Caton Ph.D.

7.) Bought clothes all by myself.

8.) Filed my taxes for the first time and managed to get money back from both the State and Federal Government.

9.) Landed a sweet gig as a student telecounselor, raking in the big bucks despite the constant terrorizing of a short and tyrannical boss.

10.) Avoided failing, debt, substance abuse, STDs, murder, and Astronomy.

Recently Reading

War in Heaven &
The Place of the Lion by Charles Williams
What I Saw in America by G.K. Chesterton
Population: 485 by Michael Perry
The Essays of Montaigne
Quentin Durward by Sir Walter Scott

Great Meetings

Some people have been blessed with enormous personalities. Whether their personalities are overbearing, goofy, bombastic, ridiculous, or wonderful, these people remain in one's mind long after a conversation like the taste of garlic remains in one's mouth long after a lunch of mashed potatoes. The silly expression or the outrageous claim keeps popping up again and again in one's mind to cause either a smile or a grimace of remembrance. Occasionally I have the pleasure of seeing great personalities meet one another and observing how well or terribly they get along. This study gives me so much enjoyment that I often find myself thinking up all sorts of hypothetical combinations and imagining how their conversations might ensue. For instance, I've always thought that Lucas Allamon and Father Ox would be a real delight to watch together. Or perhaps Hayden and Buttons from Anamaniacs.
I have just finished reading War in Heaven and The Place of the Lion by Charles Williams. Both books were certainly the products of a man with a marvelous imagination and personality. Both novels were filled with Romance and incredible descriptions of both beauty and terror, and characters that were just as memorable as the man who had thought them up. As I was finishing up the second book, I kept thinking about the letters that C.S. Lewis had sent to Charles Williams in the second volume of The Collected Letters. I reread the correspondance between the two afterwards, and witnessed the great meeting of two men who each had such remarkable personalities. Isn't it wonderful to have read what someone else has read, and thought what someone else has thought? Reading C.S. Lewis praise the author that I have praised is like introducing two separate friends for the first time, and explaining to each how wonderful each one is.   

Bill (For Professor Hayes)

Bill sits writing in his office

For days, and even weeks.

You'd notice, if you sat with Bill,

He writes louder than he speaks.

To write one book is wonderful,

To write two books is splendid.

Bill begins to write his next

Before his last has ended.

But Bills across all history

Have always been prolific:

Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Thackeray

Were copious and terrific.

So Bill keeps writing everyday

And I suppose he always will

Until the world runs out of ink

Or the world runs out of Bill.

Dr. Ziegler (A Lucasorical Parkathos)

Ziegler Parkathos.

The commendation of Dr. Ziegler must be said

Lucasorically.

Professor Ziegler

Emerged from the energy of elementary

school to educate

Exhausted eggheads.

Tired teenagers tipping towards their tables in a trance

Of total torpor.

First Year Seminar

Summons sweet sleep swifter than a strong sedative or

Some soft satin sheets.

He must play Pan's pipes

To we freshmen shepherds while we count our sheep and drink

Warm milk with Hypnos.

But Dr. Ziegler

Remains bright and chipper despite his lugubrious

And sleepy students.

For what he teaches

Is the most mundane of classes ever to have been

Conceived by a school.

When Rip Van Winkle

Stumbled into a cave, most likely he walked in on

First Year Seminar.

But Paul Ziegler,

Like the Apostle in Acts 20, always heals those

Who are bored to death.

Poor, poor Eutychus

Was undoubtedly in Paul's First Year Seminar class

When he hit the hay.

But the fault is not

With Paul or with Paul Ziegler or even with Freshmen,

But with this crash course.

I suppose that this

Class was made to give students a chance to hit the books

With their poor foreheads.