Clean Up America, Anyone?

Tonight I pulled into Wal*Mart to grab a few essentials, and watched the woman in the opposite space power down her window, and dump trash into the parking lot.

It really made me angry, although I didn’t say anything to her. (I can envision being less restrained as I age.) What I should have done (but didn’t think of at the time) is grab a spare bag from my car, and go over and pick up the trash. Of course, someone who isn’t ashamed to dump trash out of her car might not be shamed by having to watch a volunteer pick it up, but it would have been worth a try. Next time â€¦

David Gets me In Trouble (Again)

Our 4-year-old son [david]David has always been a “people person,” even when only 2 or 3 years old. He is typically the one to notice when Nichelle has a new dress or hair style. I get in trouble for failing to notice such things like the house being cleaned (to me it always appears clean).

So, Nichelle has been doing some finish work on our upstairs bathroom, as part of getting the house ready to go on the market again. When I got home from work, I was ordered to go take a look at the bathroom. It looked good, and I said so. I pointed out that a lighter color, perhaps a floral pattern, would improve the darker sponge-painted border Nichelle had created. David, of course, trumped me. “Oh, Mom, it’s beautiful!” That little weasel.

In Memory of Elizabeth Camplese

Note: I’ve created a second site now as a living memorial for Beth. It’s at http://camplese.wilcoxfamily.net/.

We received a phone call today from Christy-Sue Olson, a classmate I haven’t seen since junior high school, with some sad news. Beth Camplese, who lived just about across the street from where I grew up in Easton, passed away at Mass. General Hospital on May 1, succumbing to a battle with lymphoma, complicated by pneumonia and infections. (I think we all expected her to outlive us, if by nothing else than sheer stubborness.)

A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, May 7, 2003, from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., at the Copeland Funeral Home, 38 Center Street, North Easton, Ma.

In respect for Beth’s wishes (and in lieu of flowers), a scholarship fund in honor of Beth’s lifelong devotion to teaching has been set up. Donations may be made to the Elizabeth Camplese Scholarship Fund, c/o Washington Irving School, 105 Cummings Hwy., Roslindale, MA 02131 (617-635-8072).

Beth was a teacher at the Washington Irving Middle School in Boston. She was a fascinating person, with a fiercely independent spirit, a wide range of talents, a love for books, a willingness to share what she had, and a complete lack of prejudice of any kind.

She enjoyed taking care of animals, including, among the years, sheep, goats, a retried race horse, dogs, and geese. (The meter readers used to hate going to her house.)

Following are a few (of many) memories I have of her.

  • Her house was full of books. In fact, she started a book store at the Washington Irving School, and I would sometimes buy some titles of interest from her to aid the bookstore, called “The WISE Place.” One book she refused to sell to me was a copy of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, in Spanish, published in Barcelona—I kept haggling, but she never relented.
  • When I was in elementary school, I remember repeated run-ins with her sheep, especially one particularly ornery one named Saffy—Sheep can kick, and this one seemed to enjoy kicking me repeatedly.
  • My brother, Aaron, when he was only 2 or 3, had one of her geese grab his coat through the fence, and it just wouldn’t let go. (Maybe the coat was goose down?) Better his coat than his fingers, I suppose.
  • When I left for college, my parents moved to Florida. Beth let me store my things in a room at her place. I made 17 trips over, but her kindness let me hang on to many things that otherwise would have been lost.
  • One time someone snatched her purse on the subway, and she chased him down. I don’t think she caught him, and remember her friends were mortified. “What if he’d had a gun?” I doubt that would have impeded her retribution. It might have been better to ask, “What if she’d caught up with him?”
  • My favorite story regards her long-standing problem with dozens of pigeons taking up roost in her eaves and gutters. They made a terrible mess of her house for years. My wife, Nichelle, and I, when our son, Isaac, was an infant, were visiting her, when I asked, “What happened to the pigeons?” She replied with a wicked gleam and a laugh, “I shot them all.” She had done exactly that, over a period of weeks.

The world is a poorer place without her.

Nightmares About Dinosaurs—An Unusual Solution

Most children are fascinated with dinosaurs, and our boys are no exception. However, when David was three years old, he kept having recurring nightmares, from which he would awake screaming and generally require staying in bed with us, about dinosaurs.

To complicate matters, he kept begging to watch Jurassic Park, having seen the dinosaur pictured on the DVD case. Of course, given his nightmares (and having some negative leanings toward showing somewhat-violent programming to small children), we did not grant his request.

But the nightmares continued for weeks. Finally, I reasoned, he was already having nightmares about the dinosaurs, what harm could there be in letting him watch Jurassic Park? As I recall, we did skip over the scene where the T-Rex attacks the jeep with the kids in it.

After watching the film (actually, after watching all three JP films), his nightmares went away. Go figure.

24

[tv]Nichelle here: I noticed my husband has failed to mention the rather noisy incident that happened the other night. Well, I'll be nice and fill you all in. Well, Doug and I were recently introduced to a fairly new show, which is now in the second season, called 24 w/ Keiffer Sutherland. Well, the show is very addicting and extremely intense. We love it.
Well, back to the noise, which made me heave myself off the couch and bolt upstairs to find Isaac on the floor crying. He fell out of his top bunk. Well, Doug eventually made it upstairs to see what happened. I was later informed that he was trying to figure out what to do. He could only see himself needing to take a child to the hospital and missing the last half of the episode. The funny thing is we have the whole first season on DVD!!!! He only needed to pause for a moment, but I did mention that the show is really intense…LOL Well, Isaac did hurt himself, but nothing to take him to the hospital. He's fine now. Oh, we haven't yet finished the episode, but we did get another friend hooked on the show, by showing him the first two episodes.

Isaac is 8 Years Old Today

Isaac turned 8 today. It seems like so little time ago he was born at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, delivered 2 months early and at just under three pounds (due to Nichelle developing preeclampsia), after I made the still-talked-about mistake of having her read Ray Bradbury’s short story, “The Small Assasin.” I thought she would find it ironic, given the situation. Wrong!

BLOG Updates

The BLOG has gotten a bit older, too. I’ve added a navigation structure (10 entries per page, now), and the masthead.

The Fastest Computer

To quote a famous Bloom County comic strip: “Just what your four-year-old needs to compete in today’s cutthroat world of high-tech and high expectations…”

Nichelle here: We have a few people that come over to use our computers from time to time. One person, named Kherna, has used it on several different occasions. This morning David asked me, “which computer does Kherna use?” I pointed to the one on the right (we have two side-by-side), and his response was, “Why? That’s not the fastest!” I thought that was quite cute, seeing that he’s only 4 and knows the difference.

You think Boston traffic officers are tough?—Try Britain

Read this from Reuters. 🙂

I once got a parking ticket when the fuel pump died on a car I was using; I managed to coast off I-93 at the Government Center exit, and park behind the first legal parking space on the right. This was way before everyone’s dog had his own cell phone, and I had to leave the car to make phone calls, so I left a note on the dash. I thought about leaving the keys in the car so the traffic officer could verify that it really was a breakdown, but then someone would probably have taken the keys or locked them in the car. Obviously, when I got back to the car, it had been ticketed. Next time I’ll just cause a massive traffic jam.