we remember him

 

Bob Winton

I am at an age

where death is not a distant reality,

like low thunder from far away,

it is more the nearby flash,

quickly followed by a bone-shaking reality,

slapping me that my next moment is not guaranteed,

I just heard that one of the great lights

with whom I have shared too few moments,

is gone now, 

his body reeled from the quick flash

that had his name on it,

at least they had the time

for family to gather and work to say to him,

however they could, how much he is them,

how much they honor him as best they can,

with the smile on their own faces,

the boyish gleam in his eyes reflected in how 

they mirror that gleam with their own eyes,

to mirror his excited curiosity in life itself,

in their sureness to live their lives well,

to be as true to themselves as Bob was,

to keep him alive in their memories

and in how they touch the world,

the days are darker now,

as the sun slips to the south,

and Bob slips away, too,

when the sun comes up tomorrow,

I will think of Bob

and celebrate the light he was, 

and still is for us,

who remember him.

by Henry H. Walker

November 13, ‘22

image of Bob courtesy of his obituary

I need a partnership

 

a secret of teaching

I am a much better teacher

when the students are carrying much of the load, 

when they come to class hungry to learn,

ready to take a risk,

to open themselves to

first expressing who they are,

and second to letting themselves grow,

despite how difficult the birthing can be,

then I can release the higher qualities of my leadings,

the right call, the right response,

the good question, the connection of threads.

instead, I can be working more than the students

when I have to slip into being the disciplinarian

who tells a student not to talk to a friend

and who has to then deal with the student’s

denial of what is observably true,

in a better world it’s just a simple correction,

and we move on to more important work,

a far better use of my time, of their time,

of the class’s time,

than my having to be conscience to their impulsivity,

that’s an overt problem,

even worse is the covert problem

when the students can be so socially anxious

that venturing an opinion, even reading the textbook aloud,

is too much for them,

and so the whole class suffers from their verbal absence,

and so do they,

how tragic to have ideas and to be afraid to share them,

how tragic to settle for fear instead of for hope,

how tragic to not let one’s self attempt to soar.

by Henry H. Walker

November 4, ‘22

our new car! and . . .

 a nightmarish drive

we go to get a new car,

and spend almost 3 hours at the dealership,

even though they had the car for us

and they were expecting us,

about 45 minutes of good information shared,

necessary paperwork done,

a short test drive,

within 2 hours of down time,

nothing happening but the afternoon turning into night,

and countless employees moving from here to there

with no purpose discernible to us,

by the time we get the keys and the vehicle,

the salesman, nice as can be, hurries through

what he knows of the practicality of driving the car,

but I cannot hear it,

I can not learn it,

since I have nothing left after hours of waiting,

at the end of an already long day,

I start to drive away, stop,

and figure out the controls to defrost the foggy window,

the car purrs and would be wonderful

if it were not raining hard and the sun were still out,

30 miles of rush hour traffic on the interstate toward home,

visibility more a hope than a reality,

the lines on the road but hints,

I feel best when I follow a car’s red lights in front of me,

trucks pass with the arrogance that size and height can allow,

throwing their discarded water across my laboring windshield wipers,

the rain increases, many cars before me flash their blinking hazard lights,

I don’t yet know how to turn mine on,

I won’t even distract myself to figure out the radio

the salesman turned on to some station,

no intelligible comfort and distraction to the sounds,

just one more input into my overworked sensorium,

my wife somewhere ahead of me in our other electric car,

the challenge of darkness and rain even harder for her,

as I approach our house, I see lights on,

then her car in the carport,

then her outside, waiting for me, hoping for me,

I feel the joy of being back together,

with each of us surviving this nightmarish drive,

the joy of a new plug-in Prius Prime

awaits a new day to be savored.

by Henry H. Walker

October 31, ‘22

the pandemic, the social, and our students

 

the social calls

the pandemic reverberates:

much of who we are as a species is social,

and much of the social was just denied to us,

we need to learn other people

so that we can truly learn ourselves,

we need context, interaction,

the clarifying of who we are

by who we are not,

and then by an expansion of who “we” can be,

we can be physically born in to a family,

the air both literally and metaphorically 

colder than the embracing womb,

yet the family can still hold us, protect us,

then we need the other, not our family,

against whom to interact, with whom to interact,

and the pandemic denied much of that trial by fire,

 the relationship with friends, with acquaintances, 

can support the best in us

there is give-and-take as we figure out the other

and maybe then we can figure out ourselves,

in our schools we have lost time and opportunity for the academic,

yet what our students need even more

is time, opportunity, and guidance for the social evolution of ourselves,

most obvious for the pre-schoolers,

then for the elementary grades,

intensely in the middle grades, and profoundly in high schoolers,

academic skills are vital, but the social is even more vital,

the pandemic reverberates:

we need to answer that driving rhythm 

with the call and response of our own social drumming.

by Henry H. Walker

November 1, ‘22