Thursday, June 03, 2004

Rosie in the Morning, Rosie in the Afternoon

For as long as I have lived up Old Sauk hill, I have passed Rosie* in the morning as she helps cross school children to the other side of the street. I asked her today how long she’s been doing this and she said “40 years!” Amazing.

She has a smile and a wave for me each time I drive by – the same smile and wave that she gives to virtually anyone who may be in a half-familiar car. Of course, she knows me not at all by my face, but by my old truck (excuse me, sore subject: van]. But she has a smile and a wave even as I’m walking. And a pat on the back for the little kid traipsing off to school. Why can’t everyone be that friendly? [The crossing guard on Gammon, by Jefferson Middle School banged my car once with her stop sign because she thought I had pulled out too soon. Rosie would have never done that!]

*Technical update: not all photos are uploaded under the nifty but more cumbersome new Blogger system. No hand appears over the photo? No logo underneath the photo? That's a sign that I'm shortcutting to my old method of posting and you cannot thus get any enlargement. Shucks, right?

Nursery School and the Law

The side stairwell in the Dane County Court House smells like my state-run nursery school did back in post-war Poland. No one here can confirm this because I am 100% certain no one in Madison ever was within ten miles of my Polish preschool, especially during the 1950s. But it is true. When I worked on cases with my law students, I’d pause in the stairwell and breathe deeply to allow myself a reel back to the old times. I’m sure others thought me to be unfit, needing to pause and catch my breath every ten steps like some chain-smoking 90-year old, but I did it nonetheless.

The two years at my nursery school are a half-pleasant memory because when I was old enough to attend (4), I could finally move from the village where I lived with my grandparents, to the Warsaw apartment where my adored mother (and father, but I hardly noticed) resided. And the preschool wasn’t too bad. I had a little cubby with a picture of a little black African boy over it. I am sure it came from some horribly racist story that we listened to, but I liked him anyway, he looked after my outdoor shoes and coat and was much more imposing than the red mushroom over the cubby next to mine.

[Here is a photo of me in the nursery school. My mother had said over and over that morning: “don’t forget to comb your hair, DO NOT forget to comb your hair!” and so I remembered to comb my hair, but I forgot to take off my black flannel outdoor pants on that cold cold winter day and since the kid-teacher ration was I’m sure something like 40 to 1, no one seemed to notice, hence my odd attire.]



I liked my teacher, too, and I sucked up mercilessly, making sure that I was in place to grab her hand for park walks, transferring all my love and affection onto her during the day before I could have my adored mother in the evening again.

When I ‘graduated’ to the next level of preschool and lost my prize teacher, I fussed so much that my mother finally pulled me from nursery school and enrolled me in regular school even though I was too young. My mother is a forceful woman and usually gets her way in these matters. There began my odd educational climb, during which my parents placed me in random grades they believed were suited for me, regardless of what the Ministry of Education or any principal would tell them. By the time I finished high school in Poland, I was three years ahead of my peers and I had gaping holes in my schooling, knowing little of the history and literature that my classmates had spent time learning. No matter, my parents had lost interest by then in the education project and anyway, I made up for my rush through schools by having the most protracted university climb of anyone I know. I meandered my way through colleges and graduate schools between the years 1969 and 1987 when I finally did finish my last degree – that of the JD – which then, of course, lead me to the court house with the stairwell that smells like my old Polish nursery school.

Iris mania

I am continuing with my efforts to learn more about the tricks and gimmicks available to me for blogging purposes. Blogger has new photoblogging systems in place and this post is merely an attempt to take a photo from this week and run it through their program. There's a nice new feature: the reader may now click on the photo and enlarge the image -- a great option for the otherwise eye-squinting reader, or one who wants to study the minute details of a fried grasshopper, for example (see Nagano post last month).

It's the season for irises and these, against the ripples of a pond are reason enough to launch a new photo post.


Madison irises Posted by Hello

One Bicycle

I went for a walk last night. I roamed the streets of the neighborhood – something that I don’t often do since it is basically a suburb and I find suburbs very boring to walk in.

Inevitably, I passed the public elementary school. John Muir Elementary. It is only a block away. My daughters, grown and living elsewhere now, both went there and though my work was at the Law School, much of my off-hours energy went to the school. I was the PTO pres for two years running, I lobbied hard for capital improvements before the school board. I set up and produced with the kids a school newspaper for 5 years running (do you know what cut and paste layout was like before computers??). One May 10 years ago, when I was very very sick, the school teachers, staff, parents basically offered to take care of my family, because I could not do it myself.

Then, suddenly, it ended. My youngest child graduated from fifth grade and our attention focused on the next stage and the next cycle of people, events.

Life is that abrupt. Nothing lasts. People come and go. I am born in Poland. I live in the States. My mother lives in Berkeley, my father lives in Warsaw. I live in the Midwest, my daughters live on the East Coast. I have life-long to-die-for friends in Warsaw, Singapore, Madison, Minnesota, Texas, Arizona. All once were but a few steps away and now so many are accessible only by use of more complicated technology.

I mention this because for me, the last week of May has almost always been (coincidentally?) the period of tough and often unexpected changes. And I mean more than just adjustments in the blog template. The turn of the calendar, from May to June has had a penchant for drama, and I mean drama: illness, death, police brutality (in Poland), relationships beginning, ending, all have had their end-of-May moment.

So I suppose I should be grateful to have survived this year’s crisis-prone season. A knock here, a bruise there, but still tripping along.

And last night? Last night as I walked, now at the end of this period of high velocity, I saw one lonely bicycle standing forgotten outside the school building. One lonely bicycle. Let it be reclaimed, I thought. It should be at home, safe, protected from the elements.