Friday

It’s good to be back to school. I’m used to Kristie, Casey, and Koko caring about me, but I’m not used to the staff and students caring so much.

Dad has cancer in both lungs. The CT confirmed this. It’s also an aggressive cancer. It’s actually the same type of cancer that he had seven years ago in his hip (and which he beat with the help of radiation). However, this round seems to be the last. The lung specialist was a dear woman who sounded positive and contacted Dad’s cancer doctor who said he will put together a chemo therapy treatment to fight this new batch of cancer. But I have no illusions. It was hard enough battling it when it was just in the form of nodules in one lung. This new spiderweb type in both lungs my well spell his doom. I just hope it is a lot later than sooner. I also hope it is as painless as possible.

When Mom was diagnosed with cancer, I rode up with my brother to see her in GF. I was shocked by how he still focused on trivial things before we left - we had to let the car warm up, we had to run to the grocery store for his wife (Mountain Dew and sherbet - I still remember), and so on.

On our way home from the doctor yesterday, Dad had me run in to the grocery store and get bread and a pizza. Even though he is facing the biggest fight of his life, he still needs to eat. I ran home to attend Koko’s Christmas concert. All in the face of my father slowly dying. And this weekend Dad will come over. We’ll visit (talk about the weather, how he’s feeling, what my brother and sister have been up to, what the kids are up to) and we’ll watch football, maybe we’ll watch a “Seinfeld” or two - we’ll laugh at George’s and Kramer’s antics like we have a hundred times before - then we’ll bitch about Bush and we’ll talk about the local boy who was just killed in Iraq. All trivial in the face of what is growing and squeezing the air out of his lungs. But through all of this I realized something - - the trivial details are all we have. They are what constitute our lives.

Talk about a humbling epiphany.

It reminds me of a line one of my graduate professors said, “So many live their lives thinking they’re Hamlet, but sooner or later they realize they’re Polonius.” I think that’s apt. It also reminds me of a story by Ray Bradbury. Everyone has been having dreams that the world is coming to an end. Even though they are dreams, everyone seems to know they are foreshadowing the real end. So on the eve of the end of the world, what does the narrator and his wife do? They go to bed like every night before. It’s the trivial details that comprise us. They don’t run screaming down the street, they don’t spend all their money, they don’t do the things they never had time to do. They do what they have always done.

In the face of being without Mom and Dad, what else do I have other than all my little trivialities rolled up into one big thing called my life? Then I realize another epiphany (and I believe I wrote about this in another blog) - nothing is trivial, especially running into the grocery store for bread and a pizza.

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Two night ago I read the first “Maus” book by Art Spiegelman. It’s a graphic novel about the holocaust. Spiegelman depicts the Jews as mice, the Poles as pigs, the Germans as cats, and the allies as dogs. Kinda like “Animal Farm.”

It's one of the most powerful things I've ever read. I believe his sequel to the first book won the Pulitzer.

What I find interesting about it is that he weaves himself into the story. Book I - My Father Bleeds History (what a title!) is the story of how Art talks to his father about the holocaust and his time in Auschwitz. So really the book is two stories - his relationship with his father and his father’s experiences in the holocaust. It’s similar to what I tried to do in my thesis - only this is done in graphic form. Tonight I hope to finish the second book.

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Kristie told me last night that she read a blurb about Thomas Harris’s newest Hannibal novel “Hannibal Rising.” It’s actually a prequel - telling how the good Dr. Hannibal became “Hannibal the Cannibal” of fame in “Red Dragon,” “The Silence of the Lambs,” and “Hannibal.” Can’t wait to read it. Whenever I read Harris, I think “Things can’t get any crazier” yet they always do. That’s a must to finish over Christmas vacation.


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Today’s journal topic for my sophomores is “What is the best book you’ve ever read?” Now this has me thinking about my favorite book. “To Kill a Mockingbird” comes to mind immediately. As does “Of Mice and Men.” So does “Tuesdays with Morrie.” So now I’m thinking of my top ten list --

In no order

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (Probably my favorite book. How could you not love Scout? And Atticus? The ultimate hero. The more I read it - probably three times a year - depending on how many American Lit classes I have, the more I love it)

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (Read it in 10th grade. The first book I really ‘got.’ I understood the plot, characters, theme, symbolism, and so on. I loved it. And what happens to Lennie. That’s too tragic to believe).

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (I teach this in Sci Fi. It’s an eye opener each time I read it. What a metaphor for our world today. Though Bradbury wrote it so long ago, he got SO much right.)

Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom (This novel is a quick read. It should be a must for every member of the human race.)

Paradise - Toni Morrison (One of the most complicated novels I’ve ever read. It was my first (and only, so far) novel of Morrison’s that I’ve ever read. It’s poetic and tragic and brutal)

Winterkill - Gary Paulson (Out of print and recalled because of a lawsuit. It’s written about the town where I teach and several families who still live here. It’s the story of a real murder that happened. Even if it didn’t have all the controversy surrounding it, I’d still love it for the characters).

The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris (The first novel that I found ‘unputdownable.’ I read it as a sophomore and junior. I’ve only read it once, but I can vividly recall that world Harris created - even after all those years)

The Thief of Always - Clive Barker (A children’s book - with one of the greatest opening chapters I’ve ever read.)

The Talisman - Stephen King and Peter Straub (King’s most underrated book. It’s more fantasy than horror, but what characters. It’s his version of Huck Finn)

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (A cliché pick, I know. But every time I read it, I see more and learn more).

Watership Down - Richard Adams (I fell in love with all of these rabbits and their plight. I saw the movie as a kid and was horrified. I read it when I graduated from college. I wish I would have read it earlier in my life)

Staggerford - John Hassler (This guy captures the reality of high school perfectly.)

Striking Out/Farm Team - Will Weaver (A young adult novel that could be the story of my life. This could have been written about my home town and the people who live there.)

Lord of the Flies - William Golding (Never read this until college. But what happens to these boys is unforgettable)

A Separate Peace - John Knowles (Had to teach this when I taught Comm 10. Read it hundreds of times. Most dislike it, but I love Finny and Gene. I’ve been both of them in my life)

The Traveling Vampire Show - Richard Laymon (Came across this book this summer. It’s a cheesy horror story on the surface. But beneath it it’s a coming of age story that really doesn’t have much horror - until the last 25 pages or so. It’s like being 15 all over again)

The entire Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (The Order of the Phoenix was the first book that ever grabbed hold of me so much that I couldn’t sleep. I spent three days locked in my apartment reading it in several 8 hour shifts. I love each and every one of them. And if you’re one of those religious zealots who despise it because it is supposed ‘Satanic,’ you’re nuts and you should seek help)

The Prydain Chronicles (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle Llyr, Taran Wanderer, and The High King) - Lloyd Alexander (The first series I ever read. This got me to love reading. I read them on the bus when we moved to the country. I’d start on it as we pulled away from school and I’d only stop when the bus driver had to shout my name 45 minutes later to get off at my house. I re-read them in graduate school and found so much that I missed when I was in fifth grade).

The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien (The opening story is maybe the best story in the past 100 years. This was my introduction to creative nonfiction and postmodernism).

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde (A classic. Wilde has sucha flair for the outrageous and shocking. Some of the best quotes in the world are in here. And I think everyone has met a Lord Henry some time in their lives).

Okay - so that's like a top 30 list, but I'm no math major.