P.S. 61 Revisited, or First Day of Kindergarten Blues

"You could feel the old world go, and the new one beginning."
Bob Dylan Chronicles.

They've got me seated next to this kid named Harry, who keeps asking for his mommy and checking to make sure he's still got his bus pass. I bet he's never been stoned a day in his life.

School is a room full of uptight midgets and a squint-eyed queen in charge. The queen says we have to call her Mrs. White and tell her what we want to be when we grow up. Harry wants to be president. But when I raise my hand, she acts like being a free-associating singer/songwriter isn’t a real career.

"Bobby, don't you want to write songs people can understand? How will you support a family if you sound like someone who's talking in his sleep?"

America the Beautiful where the poets have to be in bed by 8 and the transportation freaks grow up to be president. Where the inmates aren't just running the asylum. They're renting it out for parties.

In this place, if you have some ideas of your own, want to do things the slightest bit differently, they brand you as a troublemaker and write your name on the blackboard. Then if you still don’t want to sit in their circle and play their mind-control games, they'll up the ante by sticking you off in some corner by yourself, then calling home and finding out they've got the wrong last name up there on the board.

The folks will say it should still be Zimmerman. No one gave you permission to change it or knows a thing about you reinventing yourself as some kind of "modern-day troubadour."

Am already sure if I ever do meet someone interesting around here it’s going to be on the blackboard.

At recess asked if anybody was into Woody Guthrie or Big Bill Broonzy, but the kids are still listening to "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Row,Row, Row your Boat." They're the ones living in a dream world.

Top 40 is all they play is in this one-radio-station town. After lunch the squint-eyed queen has her assistant Jezebel, Miss Betsy, take out her guitar and make us sing a song about some spider crawling to the top of a waterspout.

When I said the song wasn't very different, in fact, sounded like a lot of other stuff out there and that "itsy bitsy" wasn't exactly the language of field hands or striking coal miners, Miss Betsy became all upset. She told me the song was about persistence and not giving up. I said she should really be singing about the Spanish Inquisition. Those guys with their thumbscrews didn’t give up either.

She said at least her song rhymed as if a future free-associating singer/ songwriter wouldn’t know how to do that. I said that if she wanted rhyme –

Ma, I'm too young to die of boredom
Please don't send me back.
All day at Club Inquisition
Just down from the railroad track.

That made Miss Betsy lower the neck of her guitar. So I added a few more verses: about how kids were being shoved into boxes and mailed off to Never Never Land, how Picasso and Houdini were hiding under their desks during bomb drills, how somebody had kidnapped Mary's little lamb and was keeping it locked up in afterschool detention along with the rest of the misfits:

And somewhere the Queen is smiling
While her trigger-finger is dialing
The number to say, “He won’t be home no more.
Ma, he won’t be home at four.”

That's as far as I've gotten with it, but Harry and this other kid started to cry. And after the whole hootenanny was over, Mrs. White took Miss Betsy aside for a long private talk, then came back with some news.

They're skipping me a grade.

Suburban Train Times

Suburban Train Times

“Attention Mountain Creek:

Due to downed electrical wires and slashed budgets, we may be experiencing some disruptions on our westbound lines. At this moment it looks as if the only trains affected will be the 7:59 to Pine Ridge and the 8:15 to Glenwood, which will be arriving in reverse chronological order. But in the past we have also had problems with trains switching to a weekend schedule even though it is only Monday. We thank you in advance for your patience and apologize for any inconvenience.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

The 7:59 to Pine Ridge has fallen very far behind indeed. Passengers hoping to reach Pine Ridge are now being urged to walk the short distance to West Strayton Boulevard, where it is our understanding that they can catch a cab. Otherwise, they can wait for the 9:30 to Hinleyton Arms and transfer at Little Falls station, which we are hoping to renovate someday.
Again, we thank you for your patience and apologize for any inconvenience.”


“Attention Mountain Creek:

We deeply regret if any Pine Ridge passengers have already set out on foot for West Strayton Boulevard. It has just come to our attention that the distance is a good 4 or 5 miles and cabs are expensive.
More gloomy news is that the 9:30 train to Hinleyton Arms does not seem to be going there after all. Or if it is, it is taking a very roundabout route, making none of its usual stops. We will let you know as soon as we have more information.
One last time (we hope) we thank you for your patience and -- well, you know the drill.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

In a development that has even surprised us, the 9:30 train to Hinleyton Arms, if that's what it ever was, has gone AWOL, taking with it the 9:24 train to Morris Plains. If anyone has seen either of these in the last ten minutes, we would appreciate a text. The good news is that the 7:59 train to Pine Ridge is catching up to up to the 8:15 to Glenwood. As of now, they are both due to arrive at the same time on the center track.
We thank you for your inconvenience and apologize for your patience.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

No status change. The 9:24 train to Morris Plains has been reported in the vicinity of Tyler Springs. We are actively investigating.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

A train is now boarding on the center track. We will not bore you with all the details. We will only say this. It may be going to Pine Ridge or even Timbuktu, for all we know. (Hey, sometimes we get frustrated too.) But we would be pretty surprised if it were Hinleyton Arms or Morris Plains.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

False alarm. There is no train boarding on the center track. We repeat: no train that we know of is boarding on the center track. Passengers boarding on the center track do so at their own risk. Passengers are advised only to board on a track where they see a uniformed conductor. And a train. That is important too.”

Rules of Engagement for the Purple Room

1. The purple room is not the green room. Nor after last year's renovations is it the blue room anymore. We all need to recognize this and move forward.

2. The purple room has its own code. Here we raise our hands -- and only our own. To raise somebody else's hand is disrespectful.

3. We don't take someone else's toys. And we especially don't take them if we're planning to sell them on eBay.

4. It is not assumed that everyone can read or tell time. We should all, however, be able to figure out which way north is without relying on a GPS.

5. We celebrate our diversity – but each of us on different days. This is not confusing but a source of strength.

6. Any dangerous toys that find their way into the purple room will be confiscated and sold on eBay. The proceeds will go to the scholarship fund.

7. Construction paper and crayons are examples of acceptable media for arts and crafts projects. Clay is also available on Mondays and Thursdays. Toilet paper glued to the door of the snack refrigerator is NOT art.

8. The bathroom is not for casual use. Only go when it is an emergency.

9. If during the day you become confused about what to do next, look for someone who is facing north. Then help the next person to orient him- or her-self.

10. In the event of damage to something, the last one to have touched it will be held responsible.

11. Don’t even think about touching the glass wind chimes.

12. FYI, the ceiling is not about to collapse. We just haven’t finished all of our renovations yet. So if you see something up there that worries you, don’t go around reporting it. Ssh. Keep it to yourself.

Dad's Blogging

"My dad can't come to the phone right now," I heard one of my kids tell a caller. "He's blogging."

Wow, I thought as I finished another post, we as a society have come a long way. Time was when Dad had to have a much better excuse for not doing things than expressing himself online. Dad had to be out chopping wood or killing whatever animal was going to be on the menu for dinner.

Now I know several dads who blog, and the consensus seems to be that it is a highly reputable and valuable activity for men, like playing golf or fishing. In an effort to test this theory, I tried it on my wife.

"Are you finally going to get around to moving that table to the garage?" she asked me the other day.

"I'm sorry but right now I'm blogging."

"Come on! I've been asking you for weeks."

"I'm also pretty far behind on my blog," I said in a grave voice.

As our eyes met over the screen of my laptop, i wondered if things were about to change between us. I also couldn't help but wish that the internet had been around during the early years of our marriage.

Then, however, her own tone of voice turned grave, even ominous.

"Ok, but just wait until you see my blog. I've devoted several posts to you."

I was up off the couch in no time.

Love Letter from Shakespeare

“You’re a writer. Why don’t you do a Valentine’s Day piece about how to write a love letter?” my wife suggested to me the other day.

“Oh, is Valentine’s Day coming up?”

I could see why she had thought of me for the job. Actually, I am not much for composing letters of any kind. What may have been the last one I wrote went like this:

"Dear Aunt Sylvia, thank you for the baseball mitt you gave me for my birthday. Fifth grade is fun. Love David"

Now technically this could be called a “love letter” since the word “love” does appear in it. But it didn’t seem quite the right model for an expression of feelings on Valentine’s Day. Some spark of romance was still missing.

“If music be the food of love,” I murmured to myself as I turned on the radio to help me concentrate. The collected works of a certain famous playwright happened to be on my desk, and in the midst of deep thoughts about how to begin a love letter, it occurred to me that “if music be the food of love” wasn’t half-bad. But if music be the food of love, then what? Then “you will always be in my top 40”?

No, that didn’t sound quite right either. Still, maybe if I tweaked it a bit, I might have something.

"If music be the food of love, then it shouldn’t matter that I forgot to pick up the pizza for dinner."

Now we were getting somewhere.

All of a sudden I knew what advice to give about writing a love letter. Borrow from Shakespeare, but add enough words of your own so as not to arouse suspicion. Sure, I dimly recollected that Shakespeare had said something about being neither a borrower nor a lender. But then again hadn’t he also borrowed most of his plots from other writers?

Figuring he’d understand, I sat down to work. I was going to write a love letter from Shakespeare that was also from me.

"Hark! What thing through yonder window breaks? Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it – what ho! Arise my love and kill the moon."

Clearly, he had as much to gain from our collaboration as I did."

“Why are you reading Romeo and Juliet?” my wife asked when she came home to find me still at it.

“It’s the one with all the romantic lines in it. At least in comparison to the other plays. I mean ‘my kingdom for a horse’? ‘First let’s kill all the lawyers’? You can’t send those to someone – not unless you’re trying to break up with them.”

It dawned on my wife what I was doing.

“Isn’t there something in Shakespeare about looking into your heart and writing?” she hinted.

“’To thine own self be true.’ Great sentiment. But as a Valentine’s Day message, it almost sounds suspicious. Like you’re saying, ‘At least I hope you’re being true to yourself because you’re incapable of being true to anyone else.’”

We both pondered my project for a moment. Papers were strewn everywhere on the top of the desk. Stuck to its rim were several post-its with lines of iambic pentameter on them. Peeking out from behind a coffee mug was a plastic figurine of the Bard that we had brought back as a souvenir from England.

“Next time just thank me for the kids,” she finally said.

How to Act Old

With all the advice out there about acting young, staying hip, etc, you’d think the other thing was easy – acting old, that is. But few of us are born knowing how to do this. It’s a learned skill, like whittling your own furniture or tying an Alpine butterfly knot, and like these it will soon be a vanishing art.

Yes, that’s right. We may soon live in a world where everyone is young. This will be because no one knows how to be the other thing anymore. The dignified pause as one struggles to remember what one was just saying; the peace and freedom that come from accepting that one can no longer keep up with the internet; these are becoming obsolete. So too are references to popular songs that one’s children and grandchildren have never heard of. How is today’s aging population supposed to make such dated references when a fabulous foursome whose heyday was fifty years ago are once again back in vogue?

But a world in which everyone goes around humming “When I’m 64” is a world where no one does. The very essence of hipness is to distinguish one generation from another, but, if “social climate change” continues, the pundits report with alarm, it may no longer be possible to do so. By 2050 not only will the polar ice caps have melted, but, right before being washed away, the trendiest clubs will be full of seniors dancing the Macarena along with their grandchildren.

In an effort to avert some parts of this apocalyptic scenario in the little while that remains, I have decided to revive the lost art of acting old. Here are a few secrets I have picked up over the years:

1. People acting old go to sleep early and wake up early, in fact, just in time to greet their teenage children as they try to sneak in after breaking curfew. At this point, the early riser does not wink knowingly at the late-nighter, as if to say, “Oh yeah. I get you. Out studying with some friends, huh? I did plenty of that too when I was your age. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” Ok, that last part was acceptable old-speak, but better is “If you were studying, where are your books, young lady/man?” This will give the youth in question the opportunity to groan at your ignorance. “Books? This isn’t the 1990s. We study on our phones, Dad…”

2. People acting old regularly embarrass their kids. They could almost seem to take a malicious delight in doing it. Or so any well brought-up child will think. If intergenerational phenomena like the Beatles and the TV show “Glee” make an air of being awkwardly out-of-step harder to achieve, the determined oldster does not give up. No, these oldsters go back as far as it takes – to the show tunes of the 1890s if necessary – for their cultural references. “Knocked’em in the Old Kent Road” is a guaranteed eyebrow-raiser, one that, for all his own favoring of hits of the past, Mr. Schuster will probably not be introducing to New Directions anytime soon.

3. People acting old are nostalgic. “Remember the restaurant that used to be
on that corner? I had a great BLT there in 1989.” That sounds old, not “I’m glad they tore it down and put up the bistro instead.” This applies to people as well. “I liked her first husband” is preferable to “third time’s the charm” just as “he used to have such a wonderfully explosive temper “ beats “the therapy has done him a world of good.” Just remember not to overdo it with the slang of yesteryear. Like songs, words and expressions have a way of coming back into circulation so that by the time you get around to saying, “Attaboy, ducky, don’t take any wooden nickels!”, you might well run the risk of sounding like a hipster.

4. A certain number of years should bring with it the worry that life is not a cycle, just a bumpy road with a sudden drop at the end. This is of course not good news. The old, however, take their consolation from the fact that, if they are lucky, they will not be around to experience the worst of global warming.

But if we as a country are willing to wake up fast to looming catastrophe, we may at least be able to reverse social climate change before it is too late. We can return to a world where elders are met with looks of utter incomprehension whenever they address their juniors, where to those over 50 the singers on “Glee” seem to be heading in some very “new” directions indeed. It will not happen overnight. Democrats and Republicans will have to put aside their differences and work together on this one. But I think we can all agree that a large and sustainable generation gap is a bipartisan issue.

So go to it, one-hundred-and-twelfth congress. Attaboy!

Survival of the Fittest: Renewal Letter from Men's Health Magazine

Dude, it has recently come to our attention that your subscription to “Men’s Health” has lapsed and a suspicious glossy with a certain charismatic, middle-aged African-American woman on the cover has been showing up in your mailbox instead. Now if this is what you really want, we will be the first to wish you a hearty “bon voyage” and leave you to your quality time with Dr. Phil.

But first, bonehead, there are some points you might want to consider:

1. We were on the verge of revealing our best sex tip ever. (Hint: it involves peanut butter, several boxes of Kleenex, and a large tuning fork.)

2. We were about to send you an advance copy of our Christmas CD, “Hark! (And Stop Procrastinating)”, where our very own “Abs of Titanium” chorus joins forces with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to sing yuletide favorites.

3. You will no longer be eligible to compete in the 30-mile, rough-terrain “fun run” we have scheduled for next Saturday. It is for guys as chiseled and cut as the faces on Mount Rushmore, guys who can calculate their BMI index in their sleep but wouldn’t be caught dead reading about their own mother’s “Aha! Moment.” Does this sound like you anymore? We didn’t think so.

Now here’s what we would like to think. We would like to think that this magazine is not really coming to you at all but to the live-in, supermodel girlfriend we helped you land with our series of articles on “better personal grooming.” No, don’t thank us. We were just doing our job.

But don’t think it is over yet – no , not by a long shot. From what we have seen, you still have a lot to learn about the opposite sex, and we have a lot more to teach you. Dude, the answer to the question, "Does this dress make me look fat?", isn't “I can't tell." You would know this if you had more carefully read our spring feature on “Things to say and not to say if you don’t Want to Blow it with Her.” Not to toot our own horn, but we were proud of this article and are only sorry some of our readers seem to have been paying more attention to the ad for potency vitamins on the opposite page.

If the magazine in question is not hers, we are going to assume that you dropped a free weight on your head and that ordering this magazine instead of “Men’s Health” isn’t the only sign of some major screws being knocked loose up there. Have you noticed yourself slipping up at work lately, making the sort of rookie mistakes that even the lowliest intern wouldn’t make? We thought so. If you don’t watch out, the Fortune 500 company we helped you build with our article, ”Jump Start your Career Today!”, will be gone and so, along with it, will your supermodel girlfriend. Then who are you going to turn to for advice? Dr. Phil?

Ok, we would be the first to admit that some of Dr. Phil’s relationship advice makes sense. He may not have the credentials of our “sex professor” – if he is a professor, at what university does he teach? – but we can connect with all that stuff about how each one of us should “love smart” and open up to intimacy. Haven’t we been pretty much telling you the same thing all these months? We would just like to see more emphasis on surefire ways to make guys like you totally irresistible to women they meet in bars. Even the smartest love has to start somewhere, and that somewhere can’t always be a MENSA convention.

Speaking of which, did you know we're even now working on an article about how stomach crunches can improve your IQ?

In the end, though, this one's a no-brainer. On the one side is the chance not only to achieve your best triathlon time ever but also to gain all the self-confidence you will ever need in life. That’s right. You heard us: if you had any more self-confidence than we’re prepared to give you, you’d be unbearable. On the other side are knitting patterns and a lot of “ho-hum moments.”

Of course, we're not really worried, just a bit concerned. In fact to show you just how concerned-but-not-worried we are, we have enclosed a convenient renewal form for you to fill out and return to us in the attached envelope. Or if you lack the stamps but think you might have the cojones, try doing it online. Either way we'll see you on the other side.