A Fictional Dating Profile

Gwen as a child

I've known people who admitted to their having exaggerated their own good qualities on dating websites, and I've read enough of these fictionalized rhapsodies to find them quite entertaining.  I decided to create one based upon a made-up person named Gwendolyn Glossup.  I feel tempted to post it on one of those dating sites, like Match.com or E-Harmony, but I doubt that it would be worth the money to have it rejected by the sites themselves.  Still,  I wonder if Gwendolyn would receive any takers, were her profile to be posted somewhere.

before plastic surgery

after winning the Nobel Prize

Screen name:  The Purple Sex Kitten  (Gwendolyn Glossup)

Age.......39 plus

Married....four times

Height...5’7”

Body type...A bit of this and a dab of that

Religion....Unorthodox.  Worship in the pastry section of Treasure Island Foods

Music...New Age and anything else I can roller blade to

Eye color...violet (left eye), green (right eye)

Dislikes:  cilantro, cracked pepper, people who use their cell phones as substitutes for real human contact,  George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Peewee Hermann, and people who leave their shopping carts blowing around the parking lot

Hobbies:  Collecting shrunken heads and potatoes that look like shrunken heads

Pets:  Two goldfish named Laverne and Shirley

Politics:  Independent (Republicrat)

Exercise:  Are you kidding?

Children:  Something will have to freeze over first

Ethnicity:  Hawaiian/Dutch/English

Education:  Diplomas and degrees from matchbook cover schools

Drinking:  Like a fish

Sex!

Hair color:  Mauve and lavender

Smoking: Only Cuban cigars

Income:  Occasionally

Favorite pastime:  Trying to put my feet up over my head while watching OPRAH

About my date:  Someone with arms and legs, who enjoys watching reruns of THE LOVE BOAT.  A very special turn-on would be if he looked like Floyd the barber from THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW or Eb from GREEN ACRES.  Otherwise I’m not fussy and will date anyone who is not currently in an oxygen tent or iron lung.  XOXOXOXO

Our Bond With Pets

Cody at Choir Practice

Brand new puppy Dudley, first photo

Napping Dudley

Cody

In front of me is a small oak box. It sits on the piano and holds the ashes of Cody, the West Highland White Terrier I had for almost fifteen years. How strange that all that love, merriment, mischief, and courage from those wonderful years could be reduced to the meager contents of this little container. It is a feeling of astonishment shared by so many others who have lost ones they loved and who have wept over boxes and urns that held the final physical remnants of who was adored.

But the corporal remains provide only a kind of closure that creates the illusion that physical presence was the only thing. The box is no real comfort, except to remind me of the concrete reality of Cody's existence. He really WAS. His spirit, however, remains in the countless reminders of his still unfamiliar absence. It remains in his favorite tartan plaid blanket, his food and water dishes decorated with tiny paw prints, in his favorite chair, on the brick path in the garden where he loved to sun himself and play.

His spirit resides even now in the barking of other neighborhood dogs, in the white fur that is left in his brush, in his collar, and on the leather leash that made him leap with excitement, even into old age, at the thought of a happy stroll with me. It is in the nose prints on the inside of my car windows, summoning again his insatiable energy, curiosity, and love of everything and everybody around him.

Dudley

Cody

All that innocence, trust, fun and unconditional love can never be contained by a box of any size. It is all too boundless, and it is a part of me now and for however many years I have yet to live in this world. If there is a veil through which we pass into some other realm, I know that Cody will be there. Then whatever heaven there may be can be complete through the shared experience of his utter joy and mine.

Events after Cody's death made me see something remarkable in the healing process (which continues). I contacted Cody's breeder in Iowa to let her know of his passing, as she and I have kept in contact over the years. I asked if there might be any litters of Westies coming up. Her reply came as a huge but happy surprise, that she was going to retire from breeding and showing West Highland White Terriers but that there was indeed a recent litter with four pups. Three were spoken for, but there was one male left, which several people wanted. She said she didn't know why she had hesitated to sell the dog to anyone yet, despite several requests.

The pups were born the very day Cody died (July 17, 2009), and the father's name is Cody 2. Can you believe how fortunate I was in this perfect timing? And what are the odds for these things falling together so well at just the right time? I bought the puppy and named him Dudley after an angel played by Cary Grant in the 1947 film THE BISHOP'S WIFE, one of my favorite movies.

Dudley was not be ready to travel to Colorado from Iowa until late September, as he was at the time only three weeks old. Jim drove me there to bring Duds home. I was so grateful that all this happened. It was almost as though Cody's spirit had somehow been involved and perhaps even resided in that puppy that I was meant to have. My priority continues  to be accepting and nurturing of Dudley’s personality and traits without comparing him with Cody (a very tough act to follow).

People sometimes feel a strange kind of guilt at mourning their deceased cats and dogs.  I don’t know why.  Our bond with pets is extremely powerful and fulfilling. The extraordinary and unconditional love we receive in return for meeting their simple needs is surely one of God’s greatest gifts in this life.  The most important thing, as it is in our bonds with the humans in our lives, is to appreciate and love our pets, giving all the care and attention we can, before the time is up, and we are parted.  If you are lucky enough to have a cat or dog, embrace the gift of that wondrous bond in every way you can.  Celebrate it every day.  If you don't have a pet but are willing and able to love and care for one, there are animal shelters everywhere with loving creatures waiting for your visit and ready to enrich your life beyond what you can even imagine.  JB

Preface to a Work-in-Progress

Here is the preface to a book I'm writing about being a public high school teacher in Indiana from 1969-2004.  I hope that it will entertain as well as inform.  Those years were among the best of my life and taught me as much as I ever taught my students.  Though the world continues to change at an alarming rate, there are some universals that remain, no matter how much technology we may have in schools.  To some, the world of a public school may seem like something extraterrestrial, but the human dynamic is very strong there, providing both pathos and humor.  I expect the final manuscript not to be finished until the fall of 2012, but I believe it will be worth the wait to anyone who has ever been a teacher or a student in any high school in America.  From time to time I may share chapters here on my blog.  JB

         COME SEPTEMBER,  The Journey of a High School Teacher

                                                                             PREFACE

     The fall of 1969 I met Bel Kaufman, author of UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE (released in 1964 and later made into a film starring Sandy Dennis).  Ms. Kaufman was the feature speaker at the Hammond Civic Center that year for Teachers’ Institute, the two-day series of meetings and workshops attended by all public school teachers in Hammond, Indiana in late October in those years. As someone who admired her, I wanted very much to speak with her, even if briefly.  By winding my way after the program through two security guards and crowds of other school teachers, I came upon the stalwart lady, whose hair was swept back on one side as though she had just come inside after an encounter with a strong wind.  She was wearing a smart tweed suit and a sumptuously patterned silk scarf. 

     She looked at me as I approached her before the next person could accost her.  Ms. Kaufman was even more gracious and charming than I had hoped, and what I remember still from our brief exchange of words is her telling me that as a first-year teacher I had ahead of me a journey filled with more wondrous things than I could at that time imagine.  She was right.  No one, despite his having completed practice teaching for his B.A., could have conjured up images of the cast of eccentric characters to be encountered, those awful faculty meetings, open house for parents, PTA meetings, cafeteria duty, club sponsoring, planning lessons, grading mountains of homework papers and tests, or even standing before that first group of staring freshmen in my own classroom.

     Looking back, I can see now that for the first couple of years I was a pretty terrible teacher, dependent upon soul-shrinking teachers’ manuals, standardized tests, and the empty conviction that one size fits all.  Methods classes I had taken in college proved of little use in what gradually revealed itself to be the “real world” of public education, which over time would become my world, the center of my life, and the corps of my identity for thirty-five years, years upon which I look back with affection and with a sincere hope that now in a time of turmoil and financial stress, public education in America will find its way again through the dedication of other teachers, parents, and students themselves.  I want this book to reflect the love and respect I have for the teaching profession, but I want also to show the light side of the years I spent instructing kids in English and French classes and helping them to discover who they were and of what they were capable.

     One confession I must share with the reader is that COME SEPTEMBER was not my first choice for a title.  The first one came from an experience I had teaching English in summer school during the 1980’s, when one morning during ten o’clock break, I stood in the hallway outside my classroom to help maintain a sense of order while students congregated around locker bay C.  Unintentionally, I found myself eavesdropping on a conversation between Eric, one of my students, and another kid whose voice I didn’t recognize.  The sentences I heard Eric speak, which will remain forever in my memory, were,  ”No, man, you don’t understand.  Skeletons ain’t got no tits.”  The two boys were obviously unaware that I was listening, and I was so stunned by Eric’s words, that I was immobilized until the bell rang for classes to resume.  I never asked him about what I had heard him say to his buddy.  During the years that have elapsed since that summer morning, I have regretted over and over again not asking Eric what the hell he was talking about.  Now, I suppose it will remain one of those mysteries that stay on one of the back shelves of my mind, with my question forever unanswered, unless Eric reads this book and manages to contact me so that I may some day go peacefully to my grave through the simple resolution of what he meant that day.  More than one of my friends has told me that SKELETONS AIN’T GOT NO TITS may get people’s attention but may not necessarily sell books.  I have, therefore, opted for the more docile title of COME SEPTEMBER, even though the book promises to share many equally irreverent anecdotes about my years in the classroom.

     Bel Kaufman celebrated her 100th birthday in May of 2011.  This is just another reason for me to feel inspired by someone who taught high school and survived.  It gives me the hope that I may celebrate my 100th too, only my celebration will not occur until March of 2046.

John Bolinger

A Do-It-Yourself Job for Inept Household Taskers, Like Me

cherry dining chair

There is not really a long list of do-it-yourself tasks at which I show any skill.  Plumbing and electrical jobs, however small, I leave to those who know what they're doing, but there are some little jobs around the house that I enjoy doing, however slowly, with the result that I save a little bit of money and can tell my friends, "Yes, I did that myself."  One of those tasks is simple upholstery of chairs.  I'm not talking about complicated wing chairs, car seats, or sofas, but simple desk chair, or dining chair jobs for which a staple gun and scissors are all that is required.

The book that I believe is the best for instruction of beginners, like me, is SIMPLY UPHOLSTERY written by the editors of SUNSET BOOKS.  If you go to Amazon.com, you'll see the book at under $10 and can read eleven reviews by other readers.  I like the book, because it gives easy steps to easy upholstery jobs and then some information on more complex challenges of more advanced upholstery tasks. 

19th century French chair

It's surprising how a new piece of fabric on an old chair can change the character of a room through color and pattern.  It's very easy to go on line to purchase fabric at good prices, and with a staple gun, you can finish a chair in no time.  I'll include here some photos of chairs that I have done, but I'll start with the most complicated challenge I tackled, which was a 19th Century French arm chair given to me by an old friend.  I chose a grey silk striped damask material and measured the surfaces I would be covering, bought the roll of material, and the nails and trim.  I cut the material for each surface, folded it under just an inch as I went along and used many dozens of small upholstery nails to attach the fabric to the wood.  I did this for the back, the arms and the seat, and then took the trim, which covers the nails, and sewed it on.  That's the part that took the longest, but the result was a chair that looked very respectable, so that when friends found out I had done the job, they were wowed.  By the way, stripes are one of the most difficult patterns to use in upholstering, because they can shift easily if not placed properly from the beginning and tightened well.

silk upholstery

The other chairs I have done are simple, because only the seat had to be covered, and the material was folded under so that no nails or trim were necessary.  The seat part of the chair can easily be removed with a screw driver in most cases and covered by the fabric, folded under, tightened, and stapled as you go along (checking the position of the fabric design along the way too), and finally putting the seat back and tightening the screws.  I have used stabalized silk for all the upholstering I have done, mainly due to its strength and sheen.  Its being "stabalized" just means that for upholstery purposes, the silk has been adhered to a cotton backing, which makes it easier to work with and adds strength for long wear.  The 19th Century French chair I upholstered in 1987, and it has worn quite well.  The other chair photos here are from very simple jobs that required no complicated folding around corners.  Anyone can do that kind of upholstery, as long as you have a staple gun, because you fold, tighten and staple until you've gone all the way around the seat bottom.  Paying someone to do even that simple job can be rather expensive, but aside from the savings, It's just fun to tell people that you did the work yourself.   JB

Writer's Block

I've taught enough writing classes to know that we all have writer's block from time to time.  It's a frustrating experience to have ideas that have been flowing nicely suddenly come to an abrupt halt for no apparent reason.  Of course, every writer is different, and there may be individual remedies to bring back the magic, like standing on one's head for two minutes, drinking a cup of coffee, looking at old family photos, staring into a lit candle, or banging one's head against a soft wall.  The solutions are probably as varied as writers themselves, but I'd like to share some of the methods that have worked for me in kick-starting my brain to restore some kind of productivity.

When I feel the ideas shrinking, I usually just stop writing.  My method of writing is quite old-fashioned and involves spiral-ringed notebooks and a ball point pen.  There's something about ideas bubbling in my brain and then flowing physically down my right arm through my fingers and pen onto the paper that works best for me.  There's an immediacy that I just don't feel at the keyboard, the sensation that, like blood flowing through my veins, the ideas will reach the paper in an organic way.  The computer screen never feels part of me.  There is no emotional connection as there is with pen and paper. I know there are writers who feel the opposite and would be bogged down by using an ink pen.  That's fine.  Whatever produces results is what one has to use.  I wouldn't dream of criticizing any method that works for another writer.

Sometimes I brew a cup of hot peppermint tea as a break from any writing that seems to be growing stale.  Other times, I may walk around the block with the dog, put on a piece of music to take my mind elsewhere, phone a friend to chat for a few minutes, do a crossword puzzle, or even take a nap.  When I return to face the blank page, I may ask myself what I'm actually trying to do and how a reader might see what that is.  I pretend to be the reader and wonder if I'm including what is needed to keep interest or to inform.  Am I trying to be humorous, informative,  objectively descriptive, or all of the above? If I'm writing fiction, I may focus on characters to try making them seem real with a host of details.  Looking at pictures, smelling scented candles, going on the treadmill for ten minutes, imagining a conversation between two portraits or paintings and always asking "What if...?" can recharge the writing batteries too.  A lot depends upon mood and the level of energy at any given moment.  There are also times when I simply hurl the notebook across the room and go back to it later.  There are marks on the wall in my study to serve as memories of those times.

Maybe the most important thing is to remember that writer's block comes to every writer once in a while, and the more he worries about it, the stronger that block becomes.  Try not to take it too seriously, unless of course, you are in the middle of a timed college essay in one of those notorious blue books, in which case the most expedient solution, if you are on at least the third floor, is to leap out the nearest window. Otherwise, chill a bit and create an alternative activity to get your mind away from the clog until you can find something that acts as a plumber's plunger for the brain.  Always try to see writing as a pleasure and an opportunity to blow your horn and show your skill and creativity.  When you see it merely as another task, it will become just that.  I like the idea of creating the Pavlovian effect of eventually being happy when I see a notebook or a word processor.  No need to salivate.  Just write.

JB

A Happy Note for Yuletide's End

This was sent to me by my good friend Charlotte, one of the funniest and wittiest people I know.  Her appreciation of this wonderful message is probably shared by all my good friends.  Enjoy.  JB

A Sentimental New Year Digression

Yesterday I spent almost three hours taking down and storing all the Christmas decorations, which included the balsam tree with its hundreds of ornaments, the fiber optic tree in the sun room, the five wreaths, the miles of garland on the staircase banister and elsewhere, many china Santas, sprigs of holly, branches of balsam with pine cones, and displays of seasonal greeting cards received for 2011.  I guess the house looked something like a gorged gift shop that would send anyone with an aversion to Christmas into some sort of mental breakdown.  I admit it.  Christmas makes me more sentimental than any other time of year does.  I get emotionally high during the season with all its warmth, visual beauty, and fellowship with friends and family.  When it ends, and I put away the last ornament, I feel a temporary emptiness that has to be eliminated through endeavors like giving dinner parties for those gray post-holiday weeks until spring.

The end of the season is especially tough this year, due mostly to my sister’s death in May of 2011.  She was the last member of my immediate family besides me, the last who would remember all those shared family experiences, not only the yuletide ones from childhood, but a past of fifty-eight years of shared joy and grief that still make me want to pick up the phone to call Connie to laugh hysterically from her wonderful sense of humor or just to remember past events from a point of view that is also mine.  It isn’t a feeling of actual depression, because there is always something to take my mind and heart to other projects and goals, but it was nonetheless painful this year to put ornaments my family had had since the 1940’s back into boxes and onto shelves in the basement.

There is one ornament in particular that is sad to store away.  It’s a Father Christmas figure made for me in 1988 by my Indiana friend Ronee Luttringer, the sister-in-law of my good friend Linda Luttringer.  Ronee poured the plaster-cast Santa and then painted it.  There is something melancholy in his face that seems to say, “Well, another Christmas is over.  Time to go back into my box until next year.  It’s been fun, and I’ll see you again next year.” I know how irrational that must sound, and I am aware that he is made of plaster and paint, but as the years roll by, the chances of my being here decrease, as they do for everyone else.  That fact doesn’t bring a sense of fear or dread, only deep feelings of the temporary quality of life.  The good part is that there is each year an increased appreciation of life as a miraculous gift along with the knowledge that if I’m still here for Christmas of 2012, I’ll be happily unpacking all those reminders and symbols of a season that never fails to energize and inspire, despite inevitable goodbyes along the way.  So...I’ll be planning a dinner party soon.  There will be good food, wine, good friends, lots of laughter, sharing, and the kind of good cheer from Christmas that need never really be packed away on shelves for the rest of the year, but enjoyed whenever we wish.  JB