Excuse me while I blather on...

[getting old in mke]

My mom passed away peacefully last night, age 82. She was a high school English teacher for forty years and served on the board of the public library for many years as well.

In our neck of the woods, in the latter part of the 60s, there was a movement away from "Grade 10 English, Grade 11 English, Grade 12 English" into a variety of English courses with different themes and focuses. All the teachers in the department developed courses that they then shepherded for years.

My mom's was "Individualized Reading". Basically students were encouraged to read pretty much anything, and then discuss with her. She would then make suggestions for what they might follow up on, and that way guide their learning experience. Somehow, she'd move kids from magazines to some pretty good books step by step and with infinite patience. I can't imagine doing it myself. I DO remember her often reading or at least scanning two to three books in a night to be prepared for the next day's meetings. At least for the first couple of years--eventually she'd read most of anything that a mid-western high school kid was likely to read and it would tickle her when someone came up with something fresh.

She also purchased many of the books for her classroom library, as the school budget didn't cover nearly enough, to her mind.

She also had her subversive side. She once wanted to use a chapter of Erica Jong's _Fear of Flying_ in an AP-track English class, the chapter of the discovery of the amphitheater/stadium up in the hills that had been used by the Nazis and the silence that surrounded it. This was at the height of _Fear of Flying_'s notoriety, so she knew there was no way she could assign the reading from the book. Instead, she had me type (because she didn't--she only learned to type when she got her first Apple II) the entire chapter without attribution onto stencils so she could have it read by the students. I still don't know--and now never will--if she ever told anyone where the reading was from. She was never one to restrict any kind of reading for any age based on assumption. If she thought the text was useful for someone, she'd find a way to get it to them.

She taught at a fair-sized high school--my graduating class had about 750 members--with a significant African-American population. We had, in the early seventies, hosted a couple of "race riots" that were serious enough to close the down school for a couple of days. But the English department was all white. So my mom helped develop a class (see second paragraph) for African-American literature and its inclusion in other courses. One summer during college, when I was at home, she made sure that I read _Native Son_ and _Invisible Man_ and _The Man Who Cried "I Am"_. The makeup of the department soon changed. This from a staid, lily white, midwestern preacher's daughter, who one would think should skew conservative. But didn't...

She called herself a Republican for a long time. She voted for Ike a couple of times. An early argument I remember between her and my dad was about Kennedy/Goldwater. She called herself a Republican...but supported racial equality. She called herself a Republican...but supported abortion rights. She called herself a Republican...but supported gender equality. She called herself a Republican...but supported income fairness.

After about 1970, she stopped calling herself a Republican

But back to the reading front, and why I'm posting this in fiction: her first and foremost goal was to get friends, family, and public reading anytime and anywhere. She introduced me to unabridged audio books when they were pretty uncommon and you often had to make a special request at the library for them. Now, that accounts for about 40-50 books a year for me.

She'd read anything and recommend anything, but she had a soft spot in her heart for the classic traditional British mysteries, like those from Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey, and that generation. She also loved Ohio-and-California's gift to the British mystery, Elizabeth George, and had autographed hardbacks of hers.

We saw "Richard III" at Stratford, Ontario, all the way back in 1967. She told me then about Josephine Tey's _Daughter of Time_ and encouraged me to read it. She encouraged me many times over the next 45 years to read it and somehow, I never got around to it. I knew what it was about and even the ending, but never actually read the pages. Beats me why not--I average about 130 books a year, so I could have slipped it in somewhere along the line.

Well, when she stopped eating and drinking last week, I started spending time just sitting with her in her room. She both was and wasn't there--Alzheimer's had taken much of her essence over the last eight years. But last Saturday, when out taking a break, I wandered into a used book store and picked up a copy of _Daughter of Time_. I read it at her bedside, finally, finishing Sunday night and told her about it.

I guess that's what she was waiting for.

Here, Mom, this book--and all others--are for you.

Namaste.