A light in the attic

Growing up, attics were pretty much the stuff of books. We had a shallow attic space you could peer into after you pulled down the ladder steps, climbed them, and then balanced your hunchbacked self on the rafters. I figured if you couldn't walk in the attic space, it must be a fake. But it was all I had.

Grandmomma Stapleton lived in an apartment. No attic there. 

Grandmomma and Grandaddy Gibson lived in a trailer. No attic. (But the day the shed came was almost as good!)

So pretty much everything I knew about attics came from V.C. Andrews.

Probably not the best source of all-things-attic-y. 

My sons, on the other hand, know attics. They have Mammaw's attic. When we go home, they beg her to take them up there to dig through the boxes of old toys she's stored from Curt and his sister's childhood. Even in the dead of summer when the temperature must hover at 150 degrees. 

And she agrees. 
Every single time. 

Bless her heart.

Curt's sister and Benjy strung this contraption a couple of years ago. I had no idea till I came snooping with my iPhone camera. 

Check out the wallpaper. Attics were wallpaper-worthy. 

Curt's mom can tell you the history of every square inch of their house, including the attic.  Curt will simply tell you that the attic fan is the way to go. It's the poor man's air conditioner. 

This room was once a dance studio with a mirror across one wall and a piano propped to the side. Little girls twirled to its tunes during the depression. It also once served as the maid's room. There's even a little sink in the corner. 

In the roaring '80s, Curt slept here and hosted some mean Dungeons and Dragons games. He brought the first ever real air conditioner home to this room and his parents found themselves hanging out in their son's room much more than was necessary, according to Curt.

This is the room that hides the boxes that fascinate my boys. (And, if I were totally honest, me, too.) 

There's an old English broad sword of Curt's that Benjy dreams of hanging in his room. This is also home to various Air Force pieces of Papaw's that Benjy simply MUST HAVE.  I'm rather attracted to the vintage Little People doll house. 

I think of all the things hiding up here, though, the windows have to be my favorite.

From what I recall of my childhood vision of attics, they all had dormer windows. 

Just like this.

There's something secret-y about the space that leads to the window, the light that shines a good 10 feet away from where you stand. That light in the attic beckons. I'm glad Mammaw lovingly keeps it burning. 

From 5 till 10, what a way to make a living

I've held this folder close since Dad died. It's filled with pictures, letters, postcards, even Dad's resume from when he applied for the town manager job with Coeburn in the late '70s and his letter to the town council 30 years later announcing his retirement. His obituary from the Coalfield Progress is even here. It's a folder I turn to again and again when I need a dose of Dad.

Let me just say that there's a year's worth of blogs here, my friends. 

Tonight I am loving this.

Dad. At 10:00 a.m.

Dad. At 5:00 p.m.

Dad, shirtless, cigarette dangling from his mouth, working at the typewriter in the office of the Coalfield Progress. I can only assume that air conditioning was not a luxury the newspaper could afford. 

My own recollections of Dad working at the town newspaper include visits to the back room where the giant presses churned out freshly inked papers. The smell is potent. To this day I am drawn to the scent of newspaper print.

 I don't now if this picture was a joke or seriously shot on a deadline. But for whatever reason, Dad was half-naked at 10:00 a.m. He's working at something. Many of the papers in the Dad Folder I have are typewritten. The capital C hangs up slightly above the line in many the documents I read. 

And then at 10:00 p.m., he's still there. Typing away. That C must be hanging up.  He's not stopped smoking. Where's the smoke? What's he typing? Is it really 10:00 p.m.? Were the Norton street lights really that bright in the '70s? 

I'll never know. What I do know is that Dad had a work ethic that could not be topped. Apparently, this wasn't lost on the photographer of these photos. 

No picture, though, could capture what Dad taught me. You could work from sun-up till sun-down and never get the job done if you didn't put your entire heart and soul into your work. 

You had to work with integrity. You had to know that when you took a job, you gave your word that you'd accomplish it. Frankly, it didn't matter if you loved it or not. If you promised to do it, then, by golly, you'd better do it right. 

Oh, how I have failed.

Like when I worked at Hardee's during college and quit the night before the Spring Formal. Or the time I quit being a bank teller after maybe a week because a better job in human resources with a competing bank came along. 

It's been some years since I quit a job willie-nillie like that. I like to think that the job I have now is the one God has called me to do. I teach. I teach with a sense of urgency. I think of it from the time I wake up till the time I go to bed. (Except, perhaps, during summer vacation.) I don't teach half-naked, and I don't smoke. But I do keep the work I do in mind every moment of every day. 

Thank you, Dad. Thank you for the work ethic you gave me. Thank you teaching me that my job requires my heart and my soul and that it all belongs to God. 

A Little Unplugged

Summer vacation is hard when you have a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old, and the owner of the house we rent says NO to putting up the redneck pool. It's hard to entertain this age without 4 feet of water.

Today was Day One of summer vacation. Technology time limits were in place. Even for me. I was content to sit in the back yard and read my latest freebie from the Take-It-Or-Leave-It shed at the town dump. (Dennis Lehane's thriller, Sacred). Benjy was happy to play with his 43.6 billion Legos. Camden couldn't close the 5th Harry Potter. All was well. 

Lunch was easy, pizza - freezer-to-oven. Then I dragged the boys to Aldi's with me just to get us all out of the house. Once home, technology times were burned. Then boredom set in. 

NO, I said, to computer time. 
NO, I said, to iPods. 
NO, I said, to X-Box. 
"You need a hobby," I offered. 
I could hear the eye rolls.

Nonetheless, Benjy started the first Lord of the Rings book, then went back to his Legos. Camden drifted back into Harry's Order of the Phoenix. I slipped out back to my thriller (oh no, nobody can be trusted in this book!).  Whew, the day was salvaged. We topped it off by watching one of the Lord of the Rings movies while I crocheted the blanket that I hope to finish by 2020. (Yes, a movie is technically plugged in, but we were all four together plus the cat. That counts for something.)

I think we'll take this summer thing one day at a time. With any luck, we'll actually be able to talk about a few novels when school starts again. I'll settle for anything but Mine Craft.

One thing I'm sure of, at least we won't drop a book in the pool.

I Will Not

     Tomorrow morning
I will not
crawl out of bed at 6.
I will not
iron a skirt.
I will not
prop open the door to Room 3.
I will not
hold it till 11:15.
I will not
count children.
I will not
give homework.
I will not
nurse boo-boos.
I will not
say "I love you" at the door 
when it's time to go.
I will 
miss that.

"The Top Ten Reasons We Like Working With Wendi" - by Em and Jodie, analyzed by Me

I found this the other day when I was going through some old folders and flash-backed to Fallon Park Elementary School.   I was in the 2nd grade trailer, the room in the middle between Em and Jodie. The trailer with  a sweeping view of the parking lot where we had recess. My desk with a Macintosh SE and a flower pot full of markers was shoved against the wall to make more room for the Story Tower Curt built. Posters and bulletin boards and words lined the walls and the carpet was littered with pencil shavings but NOT head lice. The kids were gone, and we three were hanging out laughing about something Em heard on the radio that morning. The memory was palpable. I could practically taste the Snack Pack pudding I kept stocked in the tiny fridge. 

I read through the list and almost remembered everything. 

10: Yes, I did have perfect hair. I worked hard on my Big Boy sweep permed up-do. God help us if it rained.

9: I don't recall what this dirty work was, but I'm sure I found a way to get out of it. I probably went to the restroom or the mailbox in the main building.(I would have picked up their mail, too, just so you know.) I might even have gone to make a copy if I could rummage up some paper. 

8: I always, without fail, volunteered to stay inside with the kids whose behavior was so lousy they managed to lose recess. But only if it was too cold or too hot outside. I love this about me. I'm perfectly medium.

7: Pudding Time. Ah, yes. Snack Pack chocolate. 

6: Spinners? Jodie? Em? Huh? Did we play probability games after school???

5: Bus stations - ugh! Kids messing up my room! Kids who didn't belong in here moving my things to places where they don't go while waiting on their bus number to be called? Ridiculous. 

4: OK, I can easily see this happening, but I don't remember it. Switching with a reason just seems so predictable. Not switching for no apparent reason sounds downright intoxicating. We should all do it.

3: My aversion to field trips began here in this trailer. Leading a group of 7-year-olds on a tour without losing one is a weary task. Riding on the bus with them on the way to and from the tour is sanguinary. You just want to poke your eyes out and call it a day. But you can't because you have to count children when you get back and verify that everybody is safe and sound because of your diligence. To this day, I would gladly stay back with the kids who were too naughty to go on the field trip. I'd even combine them with the no-recess kids. That's how I feel about field trips. 

2: I might be a tiny bit OCD about my room. I might bite you if you don't put a book in the right bin. 

1: "Where's George's book? I can't find George's book!" 

This one is vivid. I'm storming around the room, doped up on the hormones of pregnancy. George wrote a book at home all by himself and I cannot find it. I simply must find it! David Duchovny is in that book - a beautiful picture of FBI agent Mulder gracing the cover of TV Guide is on page 7! Then, out of Jodie's room comes the strains of Bono: I stiiiiiiiiiill haven't foooooound, what I'm looking foooooooor." We laugh and laugh and laugh. My manic melts. I eventually find the book and get my Mulder fix. I go home to Curt a happy wife and a happy teacher, thankful for friends who truly get me.