My mountain mamas

In case you didn't know it, West Virginia is the home of Mother's Day.  (So you can direct any complaints to Anna Jarvis, Grafton, WV 26354...or better yet, to the Hallmark corporation.)

On this Mother's Day, however, I want to pay tribute to a couple of other West Virginia mothers:  my grandmother, Wilma Maude (Crow) Toothman, and my mother, Joyce Alley (Toothman) Hathaway.   OK, so they're both natives of southwest Pennsylvania--but both spent big chunks of their lives in West Virginia.

Here's a picture of me with the two of them a few months after I was born--the date on the photo is November 1965:

These are the two smartest women I've ever known.

My grandmother met my grandfather on the lawn in front of Woodburn Hall here at West Virginia University where both were doing graduate work, and the two of them embarked on a life together that was shaped by education:  they lived in Ohio while my grandfather earned his PhD at the University of Cincinnati; in southwestern West Virginia while he taught at Morris Harvey College; and eventually settled in Athens, WV, where he taught at Concord College.

My grandmother, meanwhile, finished up her master's in education at Columbia University and worked as a teacher in the coalfield town of Matoaka, west of Athens.  Decades later, her former students would still ask after "Miz Toothman."  She was a born teacher.

My mom and dad also met as graduate students at WVU, and then moved to Columbus when my dad took a job with the Franklin County schools.  My mom subbed around in the Columbus City Schools until she got a job teaching at Capital University.  After several years at Cap, she went back to school at Ohio State, earning her PhD in English about the time I started high school.

How she did all of that while raising four children and teaching four classes a semester I'll never understand.  I remember with great pride my Dad photographing her in the backyard after the ceremony, wearing her full academic regalia.

When I earned my PhD in 1998, she passed her gown down to me.  It is the best heirloom I can think of.

So today, I want to thank my mom for putting up with my shenanigans...

...and always being there for me to lean on.

Me, mom, and my big sister Pam (who really is a WV native), circa 1970.

This winter, I often tied a dishtowel around my neck before breakfast so I wouldn't spill anything on my nice clothes, just as my mom tied a dishtowel around my neck whenever I came home for lunch in elementary school.

And recently, while balancing my checkbook, I thought about how uncomplainingly my parents bought me Nancy Drew books and paid for piano lessons, voice lessons, acting lessons, tennis lessons, and who-knows-what-other stuff I wanted to do.  I was spoiled rotten.  It's a shame all kids can't be spoiled in the same ways.  What if every kid could pursue whatever opportunities or passions cropped up for them, without boundaries?  I was profoundly lucky.  And I am profoundly grateful.

So thanks, Mom, for being brilliant, and beautiful...

...and strong.

You're my inspiration.

Teacher Appreciation Day 2011

Colson Hall, home of the WVU English Department

True confession:  when I first started working with English-education majors years ago,  I openly scoffed at those who said they wanted to be teachers because they just loved kids so much! 

(Although not as much as I scoffed at those who said they wanted to be teachers so they could be home when their kids got back from school, or because they wanted to have their summers off.  Dream on, folks!)

This semester I've heard a lot of buzz about "teacher dispositions" in meetings at the college of education.  That's a fancy, euphemistic way of describing whether a student in the teacher-ed program has the personality, perseverance, sensitivity, tolerance, and sheer nerve that it takes to survive and thrive in the classroom. 

A few days after my first-grade teacher died in March, I ran into a friend from the college of ed, and we talked about how some people are just born to teach.  Even if they didn't have the official title "teacher," that's what they'd be doing in whatever setting they found themselves in.  Malayna and I agreed that in many ways, the idea of "training" teachers seems absurd.

Sure, anyone wanting to teach needs as much content knowledge in their discipline as they can get, and also needs to love learning generally in order to convey that enthusiasm to others and to keep up-to-date in their field.  In terms of practice, though, while there may be specific tools and skills to be learned and refined, the idea of "training" teachers renders what is at its best an art into something numbingly mechanical.

And my own reaction to the passing of Molly Davis made me reconsider whether "love" really is all you need to be a good teacher.

While I recall some of the knowledge I acquired in her classroom, what I remember most is how she made me and all her other students feel:  Noticed.  Cherished. Nurtured.  And yes, loved.  As I told several folks, after hearing of her death, I felt like I'd lost another of those very few adults who loved you unconditionally as a child.  Without that deep feeling of acceptance, would I have learned as much?  Of course not.  And for sure, having an adult who was passionate and excited about what she was teaching, and who never doubted that we'd be just as excited about it, was the best incentive for learning imaginable.

Now, I'm still enough of a realist (or a snob, depending on your perspective) to know that love ain't all that teachers need to succeed.  Teachers still need "training," but there is, undoubtedly, an intangible, essential quality that the best ones bring to the job.

So maybe what we need is a different, more specific term than "love."

Jane calls it "school love."

For lack of a better term, I might call it faith.  I really think that to be a successful teacher, you have to have a core belief that what you do matters, that all students can learn, and that education is the key to enlightenment and opportunity.  Which is not to say that teachers won't have crises of that faith.  And certainly, there will be many experiences, and students, and administrators (especially administrators!) that will regularly challenge that faith. 

In the weeks after Molly's death, I heard a couple of songs that seemed apt, not just for her, but for all the other hardworking teachers out there. This one by Earth, Wind and Fire especially caught my ear with its opening lyrics:

Through devotion, blessed are the children
Praise the teachers that bring true love to many.
Your devotion opens all life's treasures
and deliverance from the fruits of evil.

So on this Teacher Appreciation Day, let's praise our devoted teachers, and help them keep the faith.

(Oh, and if you're in Ohio, you might consider signing the petition against Senate Bill 5 being circulated by the group We Are Ohio.)

Easter treats

Somehow, we seem to have gotten into a holiday marshmallow making habit.

This time, my sister and I decided to make homemade Peeps.

We colored the marshmallow mixture yellow, and after it set up, we cut these out with a lovely old tin cookie cutter in the shape of a chick.

As you can see, some turned out better than others (which ended up looking more like teacups).  The trick seems to be to start with a very shallow layer of marshmallow, so the cutter can go clean through it.

We liked the chicks so much that we made some pink marshmallows and cut out bunnies, too.

But the best treat of the holiday was that the Pasque flowers bloomed right on schedule.  If you've never seen these, they're lovely, and the blooms continue to look interesting even after the petals fall off.

Wishing you all a very happy spring!

Blooming Pasque flower as it looked in Morgantown on April 19.  The lovely "after" photo is by Miriam Poling (courtesy of Creative Commons license).

Smoke

A few days ago, I walked out of one of the buildings I was teaching in, passing right through the unofficial smokers' zone a few steps from the door. To my surprise, one of the smokers was sitting there on a bench, puffing away on a pipe, and I felt--as I often do when I smell pipe smoke--a powerful burst of nostalgia.

For years when I was growing up, my dad smoked a pipe, most often using Middleton's "Cherry Blend" tobacco (in fact, I think I remember that getting tobacco for him was considered, back in those long-ago days, an appropriate kind of Christmas or birthday present from us kids!).

But, anyway, the smell of pipe smoke is one I just can't help associate with my childhood. To a lesser degree, I also have surprisingly clear memories of the various rituals involved in his pipe smoking: my dad knocking the ash out of the pipe by beating it on his shoe, or using pipe cleaners for actual pipe cleaning, or re-filling his Zippo lighter with fluid. I remember, too, the peculiar metallic clink of the Zippo snapping shut. But it's the smell of the smoke that has stuck with me the most. I won't say I never felt a little queasy to be stuck in the back seat of a moving car filled with smoke, and I can't say that I have any specific or particular happy memories focused on pipe smoke, but, as smells so often seem to do, the sweetness of pipe smoke gives me a brief reminder, somehow, of what it was like to be eight or ten or twelve.

The story we'd always heard was that my mom had encouraged him to switch from cigarettes to the pipe for health reasons (this had to be around 1960, and she might have gotten it wrong, as it turns out), and I can't say I ever remember him smoking a cigarette. Certainly, cigarette smoke doesn't smell good to me.

My dad quit smoking sometime when I was in college: I remember being home during a summer or winter break, and saying, "Hey, I haven't seen you smoke your pipe for a while," and he said he'd quit. To me, it looked like quitting had been no big deal, since I never saw him going through it, but I had a summer job in the factory where he worked, and I was looking in his toolbox for something at some point and I found a half-empty cigarette pack. Cold turkey it wasn't, I guess.

It's been strange to think back on all this: if he started smoking in high school, he probably smoked for less than thirty years, and it's been almost that long now since he stopped. And so it's been almost thirty years since I saw--or smelled--him smoking. And while I certainly am glad he stopped, and I don't want him to take it up again, I'd be lying if I didn't say there was a part of me that misses it.

And that I wouldn't have expected, until I smelled that smoke the other day.

Her price is far above rubies

Lavish salaries and benefit packages, work days that end at 2:30, summers off...man, those teachers sure are living the good life, at least according to some conservative pundits.

But this is not a blog about them.

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, in September of 1971, a beautiful fairy princess walked into a first-grade classroom in Bexley, Ohio.  She spent a full year working her magic on the twenty-nine children in the class.

Years later they would be astonished at how much they remembered about that magical year:  Amos pounding out the opening chords of Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World" on the classroom piano and belting the opening line, "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog!". Singing "Sweet Gingerbread Man" for a holiday program and receiving personalized styrofoam gingerbread men as gifts. Mounting a presidential campaign for classmate Michael Meckler. 

Here's the non-fairytale part of the story:  our princess was killed in a car accident last week, just a couple months shy of retiring after forty years of teaching.

Even the collective wish-making of those former first-graders and of the hundreds of other students who'd been touched by her magic couldn't bring the fairy princess back to life.

On the other hand, the tributes to Molly Palsgrove Davis that have poured forth since are a testimony to the paradox that even in death, she lives on.  Here are just a few examples gleaned from comments on Facebook and entries in the Columbus Dispatch's online guest book:

She was as inspirational a teacher as I have ever encountered, from "Dick and Jane" to the 5th grade Soul Train parade around the room with Michael Kaplan on the pencil microphone. How lucky some of us were to have her twice! I still hang my gingerbread man on the tree every Christmas. 

I had her for a couple of classes in fifth grade, and would've sworn I was one of her favorite students.  Reading other people's comments, though, it's clear she made every child feel that way.

One of my favorite memories of her class was when she brought in a basketball with these huge hand prints outlined in black marker. Those hand prints were from none other than Dr. J. She was a terrific teacher and person, and I am saddened, as are many of my classmates, to learn of her passing.

Miss Palsgrove was my 5th grade teacher in 1983. She will be deeply missed by all of us and especially for her great laugh, loving smile and her huge hugs of encouragement. I still have the Palsgrove Cookbook that we made and smile every time I read it to my children!

Miss Palsgrove was the finest teacher I met. She was also one of the finest persons I've ever met. She came into my life when I was a fourth grader (1974) and deeply encouraged me to higher heights. She was one of those persons who are simply indispensible. God doesn't create enough Mollys. Thank God for her. All my love and sympathy to the family--she is being missed by whoever knew her. 

Miss Palsgrove was the teacher one never forgets. Her enthusiasm for education and life was infectious. Fond memories of her striped knee socks, and learning “the Hustle” in her classroom will always be cherished. She inspired me when I was 11 and has continued to do so for another 34 years.

Miss Palsgrove was one of my favorite teachers ever. I remember her argyle kneesocks, sunny disposition, and genuine interest in her students.

I entered her classroom a painfully shy child who was struggling with a learning disability, and she took me under her wing. She encouraged me to speak up in class, even if I didn't know the answers. And she created a special "secret" signal for me: I'd tickle my nose when I needed something repeated, and she would happily oblige.

Molly Davis was a gift to all of us. My daughter, Haley, is in her 2010-2011 5th Grade class. Haley has truly blossomed in Molly's classroom and under Molly's care. Molly was a wonderfully bright light that touched all of us. Her smile, her warmth and her one-of-a-kind hugs will always be remembered. 

I, too, remember the wild socks (toe socks, with each toe a different color), the dancing (to the Osmonds' "Down By the Lazy River"), and the music (I can't hear that Three Dog Night song without thinking of her...and Amos).

Like all well-crafted stories, this one has a couple of ironic and bittersweet twists.  On March 15, the day she died, Molly hosted her annual luncheon for her former 5th grade students who are currently high-school seniors.  And on that same day, the Superintendent of the Bexley City Schools received her official resignation letter, which he was to read at a special school board meeting on March 17th.  Instead, it ended up being read the following evening at a candlelight vigil in Molly's honor.

I wasn't there, but a friend forwarded the text of the letter to me.  It is so quintessentially "Miss Palsgrove," and I am so happy that she was able to leave us these words:

March 17, 2011

Dear Bexley Board of Education, Dr. Johnson, and Barb Heisel,

It is with a fulfilling sense of accomplishment and completion that I write this letter.

1971:  Having completed all my college course work, I was "waiting around" to graduate from Capital University.  Bexley City Schools hired me as a "teacher aide" for Cassingham School and Bexley Junior High.  I was hired with the understanding that in "the fall" I would begin my career as a teacher.  That's right.  Bexley hired me before I graduated from college. I graduated that spring with my Bachelor of Science Degree in Education, Summa Cum Laude.

I taught twenty-nine first graders my first year of teaching.  I loved my boys and girls.  It was such a special, magical year, even though I had student taught in fourth grade and had wanted an intermediate teaching position.  At the end of that school year, my sister, who was also a Cassingham teacher, and I did the unthinkable.  We left the Bexley City Schools. I treasure my three years at Edwards Elementary in the Groveport-Madison School District. I taught fourth grade and had thirteen students my first year there. It had a Little House on the Prairie feel to it.

At the end of my third year at Edwards, I received a call from Mrs. Beebe, Cassingham's Assistant Principal.  She wanted me back.  My sister had been rehired, and now it was my turn.  Did I want a fourth grade or a fifth grade?  I chose fifth because it would be a new experience for me.  I loved American history and could now teach it, and I would get to teach my first graders again in fifth grade after having been gone for three years!  That was 1975, and grade five was the perfect fit.  I had found my niche.  For thirty-six years I would be teaching fifth graders at Cassingham Elementary School.

After working hard at The Ohio State University, I received my Masters Degree in Early and Middle Childhood. (After that I continued my education, earning forty-nine more semester hours.) In 1983 my first/fifth graders graduated from Bexley High School. That started my "reunions." In 1983, with braces on my teeth, I got married and was honored by being named Bexley's "Outstanding Young Educator of the Year" and the 1984 "Ohio Teacher of the Year."

In reflecting upon my years of teaching fifth grade at Cassingham, I feel blessed. Because of teaching in departmentalized and team-teaching situations as well as the self-contained classroom, I have taught over fifteen hundred students. For the students in my homerooms, I will forever call them my own.

Now it is time to close this chapter of my life. There will be tears of sadness and tears of joy.   One of my favorite celebrations is sure to be on June 12th of this year when my first/fifth graders are throwing a reunion party for me.  How perfect.  How heart-warming. They were there from the beginning--and now the end.

Again I say it is with a fulfilling sense of accomplishment and completion that I write this letter.  (And did I mention the smile on my face?), I, Molly Lou (Palsgrove) Davis, do hereby give notification of my resignation as a Bexley school teacher to take effect at the end of this school year, 2010-2011. My first official day of retirement will be July 1, 2011. Thank you so much, and may God bless you.

Truly yours,

Molly Davis

I was moved to tears to read Molly's words about the specialness of our first-grade class, and her observation about how our June gathering would provide the perfect matching "bookend" to her long and distinguished career.

And it made me realize how she, too, had "bookended" my entire elementary school experience.  I had her as my teacher in first grade, then again in fifth grade, and in sixth grade one of my teachers was Molly's equally gifted and loving sister, Mary McMullen.   How blessed I was, and am, to have had that warm, enveloping web of connection and compassion throughout my primary years.   

To those who say that public-school teachers are underworked and overpaid:  I pity you, because you clearly never felt the deep caring of a teacher as beloved and inspirational as Molly Palsgrove Davis or Mary McMullen.  You never knew the unconditional love of a teacher who nurtured you not just as a learner, but as a human being. 

There are many other gifted teachers out there who are up before dawn, working well beyond 2:30, earning a fraction of the salary of CEOs and bankers.  Those teachers earn every penny of their "lavish salaries."  Their real price is far above rubies.

See an earlier post about Miss Palsgrove, and other memorable teachers, here.  And yes, the photo at the top was taken earlier this school year, when she was 60.  Clearly, teaching was good to her, too.

Pepperoni Rolls

Pepperoni rolls are a local foodway here in northern West Virginia (and they come with a long origin narrative about having started out as food for guys working the mines).

Rose has had pepperoni rolls on the brain since talking about them in her folklore class recently. So when we saw some pre-packaged ones up on Shopping Mountain today, we thought about buying them to have during the Buckeyes basketball game. Before we even got them in the cart, though, I said, "Hey, why don't we just buy a big pepperoni stick and make our own with the pizza dough I've got thawing out?"

(We often have pizza on a Friday night, making enough dough one week for two weeks' worth of pizza, with the extras frozen and defrosted. We had missed our regular pizza night this week, so it was thawing for tonight.)

Of course, the big pepperoni stick was actually a good bit cheaper than the whole bag of rolls, and the pepperoni itself was good and spicy.

It was easy enough to cut it to length and to mix in some equally lengthy mozzarella (in the distinctly non-foodie-approved form of 'string cheese' that we had left over from a visit from Justin, Rose's nephew).





I rolled 'em up in small bits of pizza dough, sealed on the edge and at the ends; Rose brushed them with some olive oil and sprinkled on a few spices; and then we baked them until they seemed done. They came out of the oven looking pretty much like you would expect.




Served with a spinach salad and dipped in tomato sauce, they came out more like tubular calzones than the traditional local pepperoni rolls (which have more of a dinner-roll crumb, as they would say on tv), but they were quite tasty, for all that.

B+, I think, and better than the Shopping Mountain ones, I'm pretty sure.

The "stylish blogger" I sort of knew, wish I'd known, and hope to grow up to be

Beth over at the Daily Devil recently posted about the death of the writer of webdeb90, a woman in hospice care in Columbus, Ohio who decided, at age 90, to start a blog.

I followed Beth's link to her site and was delighted to get an "adult content" warning before I was allowed to read the blog itself.  At first, my amusement was at a 90-year-old posting adult content.  But on perusing her entries, I chastised myself.  After all, what on earth is more "adult" than openly, truthfully discussing aging and end-of-life issues?

When I got to this post, however, I did a double take at Ms. Greene's description of "the city's finest food: Rubino's pizza, City Barbecue, [and] Block's bagels."  Folks, those are my go-to spots when I'm in town (Tom's written about Rubino's here before, in fact).  Clearly, she lived on the east side.

Suddenly the pieces fell into place:  Phyllis Greene must be the mother of writer Bob Greene, in which case, she lived just a couple blocks down from my parents on Bryden Road.  Her late husband, Robert, was a WWII vet who'd served in Italy, as had my dad, and in fact, Bob Greene interviewed my dad for his 2001 book Duty: A Father, His Son, and The Man Who Won The War.

My clearest memory, though, is an anecdote that Robert told my dad about his wartime experience, and which my dad also liked to tell occasionally. 

At some point during Robert's service, an order came through saying that someone from the division needed to pick up the entertainers who had arrived to put on a USO show.  Among them was Jinx "The Body" Falkenburg, a B-movie actress apparently better known for her legs than her talent. 

Happily, when the call came in, Robert realized he outranked everyone else, and so insisted that he was the only one who could take on this onerous task.  After making a beeline in his jeep to pick Jinx up before anyone could stop him, he then proceeded to take the longest, most roundabout route back to base with his precious cargo.

Somehow that story rooted in my head:  I could just imagine the presumptuous young officer chauffeuring the leggy showgirl back to camp, thinking, "If I die tomorrow, it'll have all been worth it."

Well, all I can say is, Robert made the better choice in Phyllis.  I'd like to have half her grace, smarts, and eloquence at the age I am now, 45.  I hope I can approximate it when I'm twice that. 

But it's her words that matter here.  Read her blog, and watch this interview she did for the BBC.

So much for the Commonwealth

So, there I was, teaching Thomas More's Utopia today in my BritLit Survey--probably the longest work of the semester and a pretty tough sell to college students, unfortunately. But it's really a fascinating book in a lot of ways.

But anyhow, there I am wrapping up class, asking them all to think about how More claims that there can be no justice as long as there is private property, and how Utopia takes literally the notion that the best path to a true commonwealth is to make all the wealth common.

And I tie it all together by saying something like this: "More wants us to ask ourselves whether our self interest, our desire to own our own things, comes at the cost of impoverishing our fellow men, and at the cost of justice. He wants us to think about what we do for our own gain, and what we do for the good of us all. And I find that kind of philanthropic thought really wonderful--but I still like the things I own, and I don't want to have to switch houses every ten years by lottery. So I work for a salary--but I work cheap, and I try to do good work for the world by being a teacher."

I told them to go, packed up my bag, and headed for the door. In front of the door to the very next classroom, I saw a dollar lying on the ground. I picked it up, waved it around for a few seconds to see if anyone would claim it, and no one did. So I looked around one more time, shrugged my shoulders, and stuffed it in my pocket.

So much for the commonwealth.

Who, us--"Stylish"?

That was my reaction when I discovered this morning that my friend Beth nominated Romantoes for the "Stylish Blogger Award."  As she notes, it's a chain-letter type of award:  you get nominated, you nominate others, they nominate others, and so on and so on and so on...

As Beth says, "Appreciation is best shared out loud," so I'll thank her for the nod, and pass the award on to those whose work I enjoy.  The meme asks you to list 15 blogs, or however many you think are deserving.

I read too many blogs (or more accurately, I subscribe to more than I can keep up with).  So for me, it's about the ones I can't delete, even when Google Reader tells me I have 300+ unread posts.  As for the others:  sorry.  Sometimes hitting that "Mark All As Read" button just feels too satisfying.

Many of these are listed in the Blogroll to your right, so I'll give a blanket award to them all.  But several of those deserve special mention, including Beth's beautiful and witty photo blog, The Daily Devil.  Beth also nominated another photo blog to which I'd award the Stylish Blogger crown, Spines' alt.tedium.* 

When I want thoughtful, insightful, and drop-dead gorgeous prose, I turn to two others on that list:  Christy's Neighborhood Watch and Jane's Leaf-Stitch-Word.

Christy is a friend of mine from way back (high school), and I loved her wit and brilliance then, and I appreciate those qualities even more now as she directs them toward questions of what makes a struggling urban neighborhood in Chicago work, and how to face its challenges.  Reading her work always makes me think more critically and sensitively about how I live in my own world.

Jane is a friend from college--well, from a very brief but troubled moment in my college history.  We lost touch and reconnected through Facebook a few years ago, and it's no exaggeration to say that the re-acquaintance has gone a long way toward healing some of the old scars from that experience. 

My memories of her had always been positive:  she was so smart, so funny, so level-headed, so curious and kind and unassuming.  And so she is in her writing, too.  It never fails to move me, and now she's added an additional blogging venture focused on her adventures with Type 1 diabetes at sweetlife.org, so I get a double dose of her goodness.  Both Christy and Jane's work helps me take more risks with my own writing.  Thanks to you both!

Then there are the blogs that make me laugh--I never delete those.  Among them are Retro Recipe Attempts, which chronicles "Retrochef's" fearless preparation of such culinary delights as Jellied Bullion with Frankfurters and Veg-All Pie Plate Salad.

I also love Better Book Titles, in which people submit Photoshopped covers of well-known books with titles that more accurately reflect their content, such as this one for Robinson Crusoe, this one for Walden, or this one for Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

In a similar vein, there's Awful Library Books, which features, well, awful library books that submitters--mostly public librarians--have found while weeding the stacks.  This "best (i.e., worst)-of 2010" post provides a taste of the blog's flavor.  But be warned:  this Burt Reynolds book is just plain unappetizing.

Random weirdness:  Scanwiches, which is just what it sounds like:  scanned images of sandwiches in cross-section.  And Running from Camera, which features a guy, well, running away from a camera, usually somewhere in the Netherlands.

Gotta give a nod to some of the work-related blogs that I read, too.  There are about 1.5 million young-adult literature blogs, but among the many that are must-reads for me are the following:

Lee Wind's I'm Here, I'm Queer...Now what the Hell Do I Read?
Pickled Bananas, written by a ten-year-old bibliophile
The Graphic Classroom, a blog that reviews graphic novels and passionately and persuasively argues for their inclusion in the K-12 curriculum
Guys' Lit Wire, which recommends books for those reading-resistant boys in your life.

I'm also gonna put in a plug here for my friend Erin McCahan's blog, Beach Notes.  Erin is a young-adult writer whose first book, I Now Pronounce You Someone Else (2010), was one of seven finalists for this year's Cybils, the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards.  Erin is a bit of a reluctant blogger, but I love to read her stuff, so let's urge her on, OK?

So...I'm up to fourteen now, right?  Let's see...what do those Hollywood types do when they're blanking out on names, and the orchestra strikes up the get-off-the-stage music?  Oh yeah:  they apologize for leaving anyone out, and reassure those they unintentionally overlooked that they're appreciated and loved just as much as those who were mentioned by name.

*I might note here that the title of Spines' blog was inspired by a running joke that a group of us had almost 20 years ago in grad school about what we'd call a Usenet newsgroup of our e-mail conversations.  We were old-school internet nerds, baby!

More Valentine's Day ephemera

A roundup of the new old Valentines we've added to our collection recently:

 Can't tell the exact vintage of these, but I'm guessing 1930s?

This back of this one is dated February 14, 1942.  How many Valentines are you likely to find these days with verbs like "compel" and "dispense"?

This (and the two at the top) have moveable parts--here, when you move the tab on the right up, the "Do Not Disturb" sign and the boyfriend appear.  I love the flapper-ish look of the girl here (a Betty Boop prototype, or perhaps knockoff?)

And another mechanical Valentine.  I just love the detail on this one, with the portrait of the adoring girl gazing down at her football hero.

And here's another Valentine's item that's going to be even more ephemeral:  peppermint-flavored, heart-shaped marshmallows.  Marshmallow-making seems to be turning into a Valentine's weekend tradition around here.  (Which is not to say that we haven't made, or consumed, other batches since last February...urp.)