TERRE HAUTE —
I have been busy of late. In the short-sleeved afternoons, after I get home from work, I am in the tidy groove of trading a pair of dress slacks for grungy blue jeans and an old T-shirt, and my boots, of course. I have been raking and cleaning and chain sawing and weed eating like a possessed man, hoping that I can get my yard in passable shape, that I can get our mums in the ground, a little firewood stacked, and our now-empty flower pots tucked away in the barn before it turns cold for good. Like that industrious ant I often heard of as a boy, I go about serious business before the snow flies, before I need gloves and overcoats and wool socks.
I am tired in a satisfied way by the time I head to bed, my papers graded and my belly full, and despite the fact that I now sleep the sleep of the slightly worn and middle aged, I usually get it fixed in my head about this time of night that I have a promise to keep, a promise that I made to myself years ago: that on even the latest of evenings, I will read a while before I shut my eyes.
My habit is often a guilty pleasure, one I steal from time with my family and the diversion of dreams. I read as though I juggle, trying to balance a bit of history with a novel or a pinch of poetry with a journal article, and I do so in a curious way, with a reading light clipped to my book or magazine. Of course, we own lamps — we do have electricity here in the sticks — but the tiny light makes me feel like I am once again tucked away under a childhood quilt, reading with a flashlight in a room darkened too early, or in a campsite tent, the flickering of a small candle lantern supplying just enough light to follow a sentence across a page while the crickets do their thing just a few feet away.
Tonight, I plan to get after the last pages of James Swanson’s “Bloody Crimes,” a most-excellent account of the death and burial of Abraham Lincoln and the corresponding search for the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, who went on the lam just after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. It is a great book, not just because I am interested in the times, but because I am interested in people. The author is entertaining me and teaching me, the best kind of reading I can imagine. I have balanced its reading with Hal Borland’s “Homeland,” a wonderful old book that I have read before, while Bill Bryson’s “At Home” sits in my literary on-deck circle.
What has happened to the nation of readers we once were? I have a vested interest in that question. I am an English teacher, and it is a difficult time to be one of those right now. If we believe the latest pablum about school reform, we are living in an age in which most schools are doing poor jobs. They are filled with poor students and even poorer teachers, most of whom sit back in the comfort of the school lounge while Rome burns about them. Surely, another standardized test, another bar of accountability to jump, perhaps even giving schools letter grades, these are our saviors, our answers.
In my little corner of the educational world, I often see students who are bored, not just with my subject, but with every subject. Although there are exceptions — I was encouraged to see one of my kids reading “Oliver Twist” last week, and another asked about “Robinson Crusoe” — many of those who sit in my classroom don’t read much of anything, but, then again, why should they? Our standardized tests cover little more than excerpts from mostly mundane bunkum. To most of our kids, reading means choosing the best option on a multiple choice test, their only goal, to score a passing grade.
I took it upon myself to read a slice of “Reading at Risk: A Survey of Reading in America.” It was conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2004, and although its data may be a bit ripe, it is telling and frightful.
As of six years ago, the rate of decline among American adults who read literature for pleasure had tripled in just 10 years. All age groups saw a decline in reading, but the three youngest groups in the survey saw the steepest drops. The rate of decline for young adults, ages 18-24, was a staggering 55 percent greater than that of the remaining population.
So what, you might say. Dana Gioia, who chaired the NEA when the survey was undertaken, said it best, I think. As she put it, just after the results were released, “Reading develops a capacity for focused attention and imaginative growth that enriches both private and public life … to lose this human capacity — and all the benefits it fosters — impoverishes both cultural and civic life.”
I’m not suggesting that simply getting books into kids’ hands will solve all of our educational problems; I am not that naïve. It sure couldn’t hurt, though. Despite all the effort, all the dollars, all the hot air we hear about state-mandated testing, national reading scores for 17-year-olds have virtually flat-lined since 1971, and that’s according to the National Report Card’s latest data compiled in 2008. How many books could have gone into classrooms, into school libraries, with a fraction of the money we've spent on testing?
We can blame the Internet, and we can blame television and video games, lazy parents and lazy teachers, but it is more than that, I think. So many of our children no longer seem to understand what good books do for us — to us. Michael Dirda, who has written several great books about books, says that a good book, no matter what genre or age level, is one that “makes us see the world or ourselves in a new way.”
I don’t think that what we are asking our kids to read these days does that. If we must test, then let’s test them after we’ve given them the opportunity to read Robert Louis Stevenson or Emily Dickinson, Willa Cather or Jack London. Test them, but let them use their imagination — give them something that enriches their lives.
Well, it is too nice of an evening to stay as mad at the world as I am. Tonight, after supper, I will be riding a mournful train to Springfield; I will be in the Carolinas on horseback, searching for Confederate gold. I will flick on that tiny reading light, and I’ll keep a promise.
Mike Lunsford can be reached by e-mail at hickory913@aol.com or by writing to him c/o The Tribune-Star, P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. Read more of Mike’s stories at tribstar.com/mike_lunsford, and visit his website at www.mikelunsford.com to learn more about his writing, speaking engagements and book signings.
Mike Lunsford
The Off Season: Each night before sleep, he keeps his promise — to read
- Mike Lunsford
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MIKE LUNSFORD: We’ve created a honey of a problem
The Dutch clover is making its appearance in my yard this week. A cooler-than-usual spring has slowed its arrival by a few days, but it is here for now, bringing the honeybees and bumblebees with it.
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A walk in the woods
I went for a walk in the woods one day last week after work. It was a warm and green afternoon, and a fresh blue breeze blew in from the west like a new spring friend.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘Dowsers’ provide hope more than science
My grandfather was a man of God. Many times I saw him, his right hand held high in the air at his Wednesday night “prayer meeting,” praising the Lord before weeping at the altar on his knees. And yet, he was a “dowser,” a “diviner,” a “witcher” who, as a favor, would grab a forked sassafras stick and find water for some poor unfortunate whose well had gone dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: As of today, it’s unofficially spring
Despite the calendar telling us not to rush things, I think it is all right to go ahead and say spring is here. The Ides of March has passed, Easter is coming soon, and I have already been out in my yard with a rake, getting my boots muddy. It looks like spring to me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Twain’s Sawyer helps us yearn for ‘wilderness of childhood’
My cousin, Roger, stopped in one day last summer for a glass of tea and a little conversation. Rog has lived an hour’s drive away for years and now, and besides summer reunions, I don’t see him nearly often enough. He’s a good man who has raised a good family, and he owns a healthy sense of appreciation for not only the life he has now, but also the lives we had years ago as kids.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Cheerful green of wheat fights winter blahs
There is a light drizzle of freezing rain tapping at the door of my cabin today. It is little more than a week before the words I am writing are due to appear on your breakfast table or work desk with your morning coffee and scrambled eggs. But I write when I can, and today, despite a full schedule of televised football games, and the stacks of ungraded papers in my briefcase, and a good book lying open on my nightstand, I am clacking away on a keyboard to the whir of a heater and the steady drip of my gutters.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On the simple joys of watching it snow ...
It began to snow about 20 minutes ago, as I write this, light, wind-driven flakes that fall silently into my woods as I watch from a window.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On this day above all, ‘Peace on earth, good will to men’
More than a year after his wife’s death, the great American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote in his diary on Christmas Day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Remembering a Lefty Frizzell-kind of Christmas ...
My brother and sister and I sat around a Thanksgiving dinner table a month ago, shifting in our seats just enough to make our yet-to-be digested turkey sit a little more easily, and, as we often do when we get together, we reminisced about our childhoods for a while.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The wonders of wading in ‘The Iridescence of a Shallow Stream’
I have no idea how many times I have written a story that begins with the wistful phrase, “When I was a boy. ...”
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Little man who came to dinner changes feel of household
My 7-year-old nephew, Carson, came to visit us last week. That in itself isn’t earth-shattering news, for he often drops by with one of his parents or the other, the last time dressed as a ghoul for Halloween. But for a couple like Joanie and me, whose youngest child is now nearly two decades past Carson’s age, having a little guy like him in the house, even for a few hours, takes a bit of adjusting.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Reflections: a bit of red glass and our daily thanksgivings
I sat in the half-light of my old desk lamp a few nights ago, a chilly wind blowing in from the northwest that made me appreciative of my long-sleeved shirt and purring heater.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Growing up — and ‘old’ — with many mouths to feed
At our family reunion last summer, I asked my brother if I could borrow a pair of photo albums he had put together. Over the past couple of years, I have committed quite a few of our family’s old yellowing snapshots to newly cropped and digitalized lives, and I wanted to do the same with some of the pictures John has collected for himself.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Violets in October – a pleasant surprise
I guess I don’t pay much attention to the weather forecasts these days because it surprised me a bit when our furnace kicked on a few nights ago.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A library is a good thing — even a little, homegrown one
I grew up with libraries, and I can’t imagine there ever being a time when I won’t want to wander one exploring it like some bookworm-Balboa, finding an author or title that I never really knew existed before. Creating those “Eureka” moments seems to be a dying interest now that so many of us download and digest books electronically without ever really considering that there just might be some hidden gem we’d have liked even more had we simply stumbled upon it on a shelf by accident. I think those moments of discovery are not unlike kicking up lost treasure a mile from where X marks the spot.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The ‘soothsayer’ who came to dinner
I’ve had a good time opening my mail these past few weeks. Sure, I still received the usual junk about lower credit card rates and satellite television packages, but the genuine letters made me smile; most were about a story I wrote in late August.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The agony of de‘feet’ has this writer on his heels
I don’t know if I can electrocute myself by using a computer and soaking my feet in a pan of warm water at the same time, but I am contemplating taking the risk. My feet, particularly the right foot, have staged a 10-digit rebellion over the past few months. After a half-century of commendable service, my pods are screaming to be taken in for repairs, a big inconvenience for a guy who works on his feet all day and whose “sole” form of serious exercise is putting one foot in front of another walking the local roadways.
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Mike Lunsford: Summer’s hidden beauty worth the wait
The great naturalist John Burroughs once said that nature teaches more than she preaches. I can’t recall a summer where that rings true more than this one, for that old sun of ours truly taught us a thing or two these past three months.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time to redefine the concept of ‘assisted living’
Although it has been nearly two months now, I can’t forget the few afternoon hours I spent on a hot June day this summer at a local “assisted living” facility in town. I had been asked to speak to a group of men there about Father’s Day, but for most part, the wonderful old guys who came to listen certainly made my day more memorable than I did theirs.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Observations on smooth stones and blue-green water…
It was raining when I began to write this. Although no one could rightfully call what we got this afternoon a “downpour,” it was nice to have my windows open to hear the steady drops of a passing shower tapping on my dry-as-dust deck and hard-as-concrete yard.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: This summer has us recalling the heat of ’36
It was “only” 99 degrees one afternoon last week when I decided to work on a backyard deck. With a jack and a drill and a little more sweat than I wanted to invest in the project, I went about the business of leveling its sags and dips a bit. The sun pounded down on my head and shoulders like a thug’s blackjack, but as I packed my tools and drank a glass of cool water under a big maple tree a few hours later, I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I’ve been these past few dusty and drought-stricken weeks. I have worked under this summer’s heat lamp for only a few hours at a time, but God help the roofers and utility linesmen and firemen, and so many others, who are out in it day after long hot day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: We had no better friend than Andy Taylor
The world is a sadder place now that Andy Griffith has died, but at least we still have Andy Taylor.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Wading deeper into the subject of Blue Herons
Like a relative who has worn out his welcome, the hot, parched weather of this young summer has already overstayed its visit with us, so my wife and I have found ourselves walking our road later in the evenings to keep our feet cool and our backs dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Thanking two dads whose gifts have never stopped coming…
It is nearly a week until Father’s Day, but I have had my dad, and my father-in-law — a second dad to me — on my mind today. I wrote about both men just a few weeks ago, but I have set my mind to write about them again anyway. I don’t want this story to be sad; they both loved to laugh and wouldn’t want that. No, I just wanted to tell them hello, and to thank them again for what they still do for me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Raising a flag for my father, veteran or not
My daughter, Ellen, and I stood at my parents’ graves on Mother’s Day a few weeks back and talked about how it couldn’t possibly have been so long since we lost them. My dad, for instance, has been gone for 16 years, and that is nearly unimaginable
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Time to become one of the boys of summer again …
Besides writing for a living, I teach school, and I’m not ashamed to tell people that I still love my classroom. I’ve been a teacher for 33 years, all of them in the same school district, and virtually all of them in the same building. But I also have to tell you that if the next few weeks don’t slide by pretty quickly, I may just let loose of the last thread of sanity from which I have been dangling for a while now. There are a lot of teachers out there who feel the same way.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time for us to get the real lowdown on dirt…
I have had my hands in the soil as of late. Two Fridays ago, I planted a viburnum bush, three chrysanthemums and a yellow poplar, not because it happened to be Earth Day, but because it was sunny and warm, and I had the whole afternoon to myself. The dirt I scraped out of and back into the shallow holes I dug near a backyard picket fence smelled good, and when dampened with a few sprinkles of water, it soon found its way into the deep wrinkles of my knuckles and under my fingernails. For the most part, I have nothing but good things to say about dirt.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Make big money: Raise worms at home for fun and profit…
When I think about all of the crazy things my brother and sister and I did just to make a few dollars when we were kids, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for teens this summer as they try to find jobs in what is supposed to be a very tight market. Money, to say the least, was a rare commodity when we were growing up, but you have to at least give us credit for trying.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d…’
Had white lace curtains been hanging in the west window of my cabin, I would have had a perfect Wyeth painting to watch last Thursday. A gentle breeze was wafting through my screens, and the sunlight of a warm late March day was fractured by the window sill as it poured onto my legs and feet. I could catch the scent of lilacs as it was carried in by that wind, and it and the subtle melody of the chimes that hang just outside made me as lazy as an old cat.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A report from the country as a new season brings sense of renewal
Regardless of what the calendar may yet say, spring has happened. It couldn’t have come too soon, and it wasn’t just last week and its windy 70s that have convinced me. I have been keeping a journal of sorts in my head for a fortnight now, stashing away reports of birds and buds and sounds in the crammed cabinets of my mind, all in a file marked, “The New Season.”
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