Wishes, Fairies, Achenes, and Clocks
Mamacita says: I will never understand why people will pay out the wazoo for lovely nursery-bred flowers to plant, and then pay out the wazoo for someone to kill the lovely golden blossoms that are already growing.
Is it because dandelions are so common, and grow so easily, that we take them for granted and prefer flowers that really aren’t all that much prettier but which are harder to grow, expensive, and are a bit less common? If dandelions weren’t sprinkled everywhere, turning plain green lawns into starry universes, common, easy, beloved by children, would they be more popular?
Whenever there are too many of pretty much anything, we tend to take them for granted and consider them less than first class. Take a look at our overcrowded classrooms, for example. But I digress.
If we examine each individual child flower, we will see that it is wondrously made, unique, adds to the quality of the universe, and is worthy of attention.
No florist’s creation will ever rival the Dixie cup with a few short-stemmed 
dandelions plunked down in it.
Nothing store-bought or paid-for will ever rival the dandelion even in its death, turned into a white fuzzy clock that will tell a child the time, according to the number of breaths it takes to blow all the fuzz away. And, of course, FAIRIES love to ride on the soft, fluffy achenes, granting wishes right and left. Every child knows that if you can blow ALL the achenes off with one breath, your wish will definitely come true.
How sad, to be a child without dandelions on the lawn, to have nothing but plain green landscaping that he can’t even play on because of all the chemicals, to have expensive blooms and blossoms that he can’t pick. How sad the house containing children but no Dixie cups of short-stemmed dandelions all over the countertops. My heart actually breaks over the thought of children living in a house where blowing dandelion clocks is forbidden, lest the seeds take root and ruin the “look.” No wishes or fairies dare come near such a domicile. There’s a big difference between a house and a home, and to people like me, who believe firmly in fairies, wishes, and stubby little bouquets in paper cups, a house has a green, chemically-treated velvety lawn, and a home has grass, sprinkled with tiny golden stars. And, if the children are especially lucky, lots of little purple violets, as well.
I believe that dandelions are flowers, in the same way that those expensive hybrid roses are flowers, and every bit as beautiful, especially when they’re thrust in our face by a grubby little child, put in a Dixie cup, and placed where everybody can see and admire them.
Dandelions represent summer, and childhood, and the love of a little girl or boy for a parent, and a Dixie cup of stubby dandelions means more to me than anything delivered by the florist’s truck.
Put that Dixie cup on the coffee table between two cereal bowls containing floating periwinkle blossoms and catalpa blooms, and House Beautiful can go blow. I prefer the individual touch when it comes to home decor.
I also welcome the fairies. Heaven knows I can use all the wishes I can get.
What’s that? You’re afraid of the bees? Sissy.
Dick Clark and Our Sofa
Mamacita says: Dick Clark has died.
This will make little difference to most of you, save that your New Year’s Eve will be hosted by someone else now. But to me, this is another one of so many things, lately, that I call “The end of my childhood.”
When my sister and I were little, my parents used to roll up the rugs and dance to American Bandstand. Other Sister and I would sit on the couch, the buckles of our Mary Janes catching on the upholstery and pulling out long oval threads until we kicked and broke the thread. Our couches always had long threads waving about in the breeze from the two open, “screened-in” windows in summer or the breeze from the registers in winter. Our sofas, when OS and I were little, always looked like something that had been rescued from the sunken Titanic, infested with tendrilled sea creatures.
We loved watching Mom and Dad dance. Occasionally they had friends over, and all of them danced. We had records and a player at home, and a radio, but they didn’t dance to those; they danced to American Bandstand. I overheard Mom say to a friend once, that “American Bandstand makes me feel like I’m at a party.” I think it had that same effect on a lot of young people back then.
Mom and Dad would have been in their twenties during this period; two twenty-somethings with two little girls, and I know now that those two little girls were the reason Mom and Dad did their dancing at home, and not at a real dance.
Except that, watching them laugh and dance, whirl and twirl in our living room, rolled-up rugs leaning in one corner, rock and roll music blaring from our black and white TV, I realize now that these not-all-that-long-out-of-their-teens young parents WERE at a real dance. As for my sister and I, sitting on that couch, legs so short they were sticking straight out, picking upholstery threads with our shoe buckles and breaking those threads right and left with our wiggles, we were like old-time movie children watching the ball from between the bannisters.
It was as if those dancers were someone else, not Mommy and Daddy, someone from the TV dance, laughing and jiving like real people who weren’t parents at all.
Like American Bandstand people. Magic people on the TV screen, only in living color ahead of its time, not black and white.
Dick Clark made that happen. It wasn’t just on TV that he encouraged young people to dance, and exposed them to new music. He did those things for people in living rooms, too.
Our living room. Our southern Indiana living room, where the American Bandstand theme music caused rugs to be rolled up, Mommies and Daddies to kick off their shoes and rock the casbah, and little girls to turn a sofa into a mess of fringe.
Thank you, Dick Clark. In my heart you’ll always be young; you know, like you appeared to be even when you were old enough to be a grandfather, like the Picture of Dorian Gray. To me, you’re not a New Year’s Eve host, or a game show host. You’re Dick Clark, of American Bandstand, teaching the world to cut loose and dance, and encouraging us to listen to new and different music.
I’d tell you to rest in peace, but I know you never wanted that kind of peace. Crank it up to eleven, angels, Dick Clark is in the building now.
Self-Esteem is EARNED. So Is Shame.
Mamacita says: I wanted to put a picture of dysfunctional, misbehaving students here, but I got so angry as I searched for a freebie, I had to stop.
Because I’m going to lay it on the line here, so stand back, bleeding hearts.
Disruptive people are bringing us all down.
Outside of a diagnosed problem, there is no excuse for acting up in public, whether that be a classroom, a mall, a store, a restaurant, a post office, or any other public place. Or, for that matter, a private place. Nice people behave at home, too. (I am NOT speaking of SPED.) When someone has a problem or condition that can’t be helped, I’m full of compassion. But when someone chooses to behave in ways that hurt, hinder, or in any way keep a child from feeling safe and able to learn freely, my mother grizzly bear instincts spring into play.
I am not picking exclusively on students here, either. Adults need to shape up as well. Shame on any of you who chooses to behave poorly in public.
Nobody should be afraid to venture outside his/her own home. That there are public places in this country that are not safe is a disgrace, and whose fault is it?
It’s the fault of all of us, for not speaking out and insisting that any and all disruptive, violent, dangerous people be removed from the premises and put where others can’t be harmed by them. Why do we allow bullying? Sure, there’s a lot of talk about anti-bullying policies, etc, but the bullies are just getting better at it. There are children in our country who are afraid to go to school because of other children who are torturing them every day and getting away with it.
Back in the day, as George Washington might have said if he’d had to, except he DIDN’T have to because in his day, violent people were dealt with promptly and in a way that mightily discouraged repeat performances, a teacher’s problems consisted of gum, untucked shirts, spitballs, and the occasional talking-back, all of which were dealt with swiftly and firmly. The teacher was in charge; the parents respected the teacher; the principal usually backed up the teacher, and since decent people were respected back then, the student knew that to be a decent person, he/she needed to shape up or look forward to five to ten in the pen. At the very least, to be deprived of any further free public educational opportunities, because frankly, those belong to learners, not destroyers.
Said shaping-up to be done by the student, mind you. Who else can do it? Nobody, that’s who.
Now, of course, we have no place to put these youthful destroyers of our children’s educational and social opportunities, because there’s nobody home. Even when a dangerous student IS – miracle of miracles – expelled, he/she is soon back in the classroom with a crap-ton of paperwork for the teacher, because, apparently, the welfare, peace of mind, self-esteem, and learning opportunities of the nice majority mean nothing compared to the self esteem, placement, and rights of the mean minority.
Remember, I am not speaking of SPED here. I am speaking of students who, of their own free will, have chosen to be bullies, creeps, jerks, disrupters, and pretty much anything else as long as it keeps YOUR children from a safe, wonderful, creative, artistic, did I mention SAFE, learning environment. These are kids who want what they want and they want it NOW. You know, like any kid, except that these kids DEMAND it at any cost, that cost generally paid by someone else.
People have criticized me for wanting dangerous students out of the building and as far away from genuine students as possible. “Where will they go?” “Where else can we put them?” My answer was “I really don’t know nor do I care, as long as they’re away from the good kids who have rights, too, but you’d never know it because all the attention seems to be focused on the lowest common denominator.” And people said, “Shame on you! These kids need help!” To which I say, “Yes. Yes, they do, and I hope they get it, but NOT at the expense of the rest of the children of the nation.” I want these violent kids to get help. I want that help to be kind, sincere, and thorough. And I want it to be given to them away from the other children, because children should not be exposed to violence in the first place, and especially not from other children. And, violent children should not be given access to our children as targets. Get the violent people AWAY from our children. (Again, I’m not speaking of SPED here.)
But no. Good, kind, creative, artistic, dreamy, sweet, intellectual kids are pretty much ignored, day after day, year after year, because everybody’s focused on the violent, dangerous, bullying kids whose self-esteem is apparently more important than that of a good child.
And so it continues: dangerous, disruptive kids sitting next to resigned, frightened actual students who would love to learn but who can’t because of the dangerous kids.
I don’t know the solution.
Too many ignorant people are breeding, and leaving the care and feeding of their kids to the system, maybe.
Too many silly, hormonal teens are breeding, and leaving the care and feeding of their kids to their elderly, tired grandparents, maybe.
Or could it be that our schools have somehow, and for some reason, given up any and all authority and have become yet another victim of student bullies with enabling or non-existent parents?
I’m kind of thinking a mash-up.
Just as I am a great believer in getting rid of mediocre teachers, I am also in favor of turning our schools back into halls of learning for serious students, not institutions where people dump their kids for free daycare and sue if there’s discipline.
Then again, I might just still be traumatized by the children in the post office today, running wild, screaming at the tops of their lungs, throwing everything in sight, bumping into people, and drawing on the walls, while their mom argued with the clerk because she couldn’t mail her gaudily gift-wrapped and be-ribboned-and-bowed birthday package as-is, without paying for a box.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it.
Quite frankly, I am of the opinion that a little shame – if someone has behaved shamefully – does more good than harm. After all, self esteem means less than nothing unless it’s been honestly and personally earned, and if a student does something shameful, he/she ought to feel ashamed.
And don’t try to argue with me that shame and humiliation are the same thing. They are not. Buy a dictionary.
Shame is earned. Humiliation is inflicted. We get what we earn. Or should, anyway.
I need caffeine.
P.S. Dear sweet well-behaved out-of-the-box conscientious questioning curious children who love to learn, I adore you, even when you pull the occasional shenanigans, and sometimes especially when you pull the occasional shenanigans. Stay safe. One day, those bullies – the ones who are employed, that is – will be sweeping your office floors and unclogging your toilets. Until then, try to avoid them. And by all means, tell someone when they scare you.
I’m so sorry you have to endure them.
