Front porch swing memories

"Porch Swing Afternoon," 5 x 7 watercolor, 140 lb. cold press paper

"Come sit and visit a spell," said the neighbors long ago, smiling from their front porch swing.
Remember front porches and swings? I hope you do.
They've been scarce in my life because there weren't many in New Mexico when growing up, but they're symbols of good times, of slower times, of simpler times when we spent summers visiting kin folk in Comanche, Oklahoma and East Texas, of an old house in Waurika, Oklahoma.
Thinking about them, they bring memories of an un-airconditioned world--the slam of a screen door, of  sweet tea, of fireflies in the cooling evening, of adults sitting in the swing, of wasps buzzing around, of kids playing on the porch. I have specific memories of sitting on a porch swing in East Texas, talking to a summer girlfriend, as the soft rain poured down.

They were also places for just thinking, or resting, of enjoying the scenery and waving at people in the neighborhood. They were also for comfort, for  talking about and solving problems, as seen in the iconic movie To Kill a Mockingbird, as Atticus comforted Scout.
There's the poem by Sam Walter Foss that must have a front porch swing in spirit, "Let me live in a house by the side of the road. And be a friend to man...."
As adults, you'd treasure sitting on the front porch swing in the morning with coffee, reading a newspaper, enjoying the day with the dew still on the grass, or as a youngster spending a lazy, un-organized  summer day, reading a book of adventure and imagination, like Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes. 
They're not just rural or Southern either. I've seen blue collar mill towns in Pennsylvania where every frame house had a front porch, where the hard-working laborers could come home after a long day, sit on the porch with a beer perhaps, and talk to nearby neighbors
Memories.
What happened to them?
First I think, was air conditioning and television, that forced and enabled us to staying indoors to be cool, and shut us off from others in a cocoon.
Then new houses were built without front porches. Instead, we've retreated to back patios and porches with lawn chairs and fire pits in fenced yards, isolated from our no longer "neighbor"hoods.
Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451 foresaw deeper effects: 
“No front porches. My uncle says there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn't want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, turned things over. So they ran off with the porches."
It's refreshing to me that in this pandemic, I see more people walking in the neighborhood, stopping to chat a little, hungry to talk, even with "social" distancing (talk about an oxymoron). Given our isolating digital, online, "smart"phone work-world and lives, porches seem more important than ever. 
Just this week our across the street neighbors put up a front yard swing between trees. Yes, people stop and talk.
I found this pertinent saying: "The swing on your porch is a better liver of life than the chair in front of your desk."  --Terri Guillemets
I'd been thinking about today's watercolor for a while, even before the neighbors put up their swing between two trees, but they helped me. It took a few attempts, but here it is...nice and simple, like a front porch swing.

Banned books I have read

From the previous post, and the American Library Association list, I counted about 30 banned and challenged books that I have read.
Four on the list I attempted--and never got all the way through: Ulysses, As I Lay Dying, All the King's Men, The Satanic Verses.
In addition I've read a part of a few books banned in other countries: The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn, Dr. Zivago by Pasternak, and The Bible, The Quran.
Many of these have been challenged in schools and libraries because people found them offensive in terms of language, racism, sex, or in the case of Harry Potter, Satanic. 
People have a right not to read books, but not to prescribe what other people do. Most books that are challenged find the wrath of governments, or religions. 
Challenging or banning books actually adds to their appeal, but narrow-minded authoritarian  governments and people who don't want people to think for themselves--thought Nazis-- don't seem to get that message. I'll admit, I read some of them as a teenager because they were openly sexual, but so what? 
Have you read these? 

 Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck 
The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding 
1984, by George Orwell 
Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov 
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller 
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley 
 Animal Farm, by George Orwell
 The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
 As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner 
A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway  
Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell 
 For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway 
The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
 All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren 
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien 
The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair 
Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
 A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess  
In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
 The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie 
The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer  
Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller

It would be such an honor to have written a banned book. That means you've written something significant.
Of course my favorite book, about banning books, is Ray Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451. I mentioned this in a class the other day, and sadly, none of the students had read it.

Ray Bradbury, and my trip to Mars and beyond

I went to Mars as a teenager. And I drank dandelion wine and watched tattoos move over a man's body. My imagination never returned to earth.

Bradbury was a character and geezer, a
brother in imagination.

That's because my tour guide was Ray Bradbury, who died today at age 91.
His series of stories in "The Martian Chronicles'' (1950) was a Cold War morality tale of events on another planet commented on life on this planet. It has been published in more than 30 languages.
And I was mesmerized by his 1984-ish novel, "Fahrenheit 451" (1953) about book burning and thought control. But as a teen, I thought I was just reading stories.
Years later as an adult, I've increasingly relied on his writings to teach writing and living. I see the same dangers in higher ed and our country toward cookie-cutter micromanagement and control that he so aptly wrote about.
I use his book "Zen and the Art of Writing" in my classes. I show YouTube videos of him talking about writing, and dissing going to college. A favorite quote: 

"I hate a Roman named Status Quo! Stuff your eyes with wonder, live yourlife as if you'd drop dead in 10 seconds. See the world. Its more fantastic thanany dream made or paid for in factories. Ask for no guarantees, ask for no security,there were never such an animal. And if it were, it would be related to the greatsloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that, shake the tree and know the great sloth down on his ass."

I've referred to him on this blog before, and my students know. Most recently, one, Andy Jensen,  gave me a gift of a lifetime, a signed copy of Fahrenheit 451. And in later years, I also learned Bradbury idolized Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Tarzan books. I read those before I read him, thanks to my Dad taking me to used bookstores. No wonder we're brothers in imagination. My son Travis, also a Bradburyite, now has those old books.
 http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/2011/12/gift-of-teaching.html
It's inaccurate to label him a science fiction writer, because he wrote so much more. He suffered a stroke years ago, and couldn't type, but he wrote every day, dictating stories on the phone to his daughter. In the last few years he's come out with other books of short stories, and I've eagerly snatched them up. They've continued to take me on trips far beyond Mars. Here's the official website: 
http://www.raybradbury.com/

The gift of teaching...

I don't really like the ends of semesters, and can find them depressing, because, thought a time of success for those graduating, it's also a time of separation. Favorite students saying goodbye, wanting photos, introducing parents and husbands and wives.

My reward is not instantaneous like the byline all us journalists live for. Instead, you develop friendships and relationships built on respect, and then savor their success in later years, keeping in touch with  the memorable ones, and they with you.

I've been doing this so long now that I'm officially a geezer and curmudgeon, and I treasure having known these students.

And every once in a while, one of them brings a gift. Some are trinkets or cards or photos, objects of mutual respect.  That happened today, but it was no small item, as you may have known if you follow me on Facebook, but I can't help repeat it.

Here's what I wrote on Facebook:
"The rewards of teaching...I'm stunned. A veteran comes in today while I'm grading papers. His A is already posted. He works full time, and is married and has the passion and skills to be a journalist. He thanks me for the several classes he's had with me, for making him think, "Twisting his mind," he says. He knows from several references some of my favorite books. Then he reaches in his backpack, and pulls out this leather-bound book, new. "I may be a broke-ass student," he says, "but I found it on ebay. Look inside." I open it to the first page--collectors' edition of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, signed with a signed certificate of authenticity! Just Wow. And thanks more than I can say."


I added that I meant mint condition, copyright and dated 11/8/98 by Bradbury himself.

So take a look. I'm fortunate to be a teacher.