Edubabble and other Blither

I’m living a John Mellencamp video. No, I’m really living a John Cougar Mellencamp video. No, maybe I’m actually living a John Cougar video. I find myself glancing out the window of the Sipesburg Town Hall, searching for little pink houses peeking out from the trees on Sipes Hill.

I scoop my hundredth (at least) serving of spaghetti for the local Eagles’ Ladies’ Auxiliary’s fundraiser, benefiting the kids’ Christmas party. My apron, donated by a nearby city’s family-owned pasta and sauce company, is evidence with its blood-like splatters of our canned-but-doctored sauce, some still wet and oily, others in various thicknesses of crusty scabs. My feet tap, my knees bend, my hips shimmy, my hands and wedding ring thump and chink on the counter-top in time to The Country Rebels’ talents, donated especially for the event.

Middle-school-aged members of the local Boy Scout troop, indentured for the afternoon in order to serve plates, pour coffee, and wash dishes, snicker occasionally at me, but I don’t mind. I ham it up a little more for them every once in awhile, in between chastising them for eating too much Italian bread or cupcakes or for chewing gum. “We’re not in school! We can chew gum!” they remind me gleefully.

One such fellow, Old Navy, grates on my nerves. He whips out his cell-phone continually, often to answer it, sometimes just because he can. He’s in ninth grade, and his nameless girlfriend has called him seven times since the start of our event. (Like 14 year olds need another, more convenient way to spend time on the phone.) Several kids are glued around my serving window, and I know the reason. The reason is not me, Chrissy. The reason is Katie, hazel-eyed, brown-tressed, girl-next-door cool.

Katie has no idea how cool she is, how mesmerizing to the scouts. To me. She wears no make-up. She sings along with the Rebels. When Old Navy ridicules her for being so lame, she taunts him happily. “I like it!” I never would have been so bold.

Old Navy’s phone again finds itself at his ear. “Say hi,” he orders Katie, and places it against hers.

“Hi?” she obeys. “Whoever it was hung up,” she announces.

“It was my girlfriend,” Old Navy brags.

The Rebels play “Mustang Sally,” and an old lady, maybe sixty-five years old, dances alone. I’m watching my future self—still hamming it up thirty years from now. My hair is grayer, but still worn the same as now. I still have rhythm. People still snicker. I still don’t care.

After everything is washed, swept, and put to rights, I sit at the club across the street. I’m comfortable here and take the opportunity to clean out my wallet—dozens of expired coupons, losing tickets, and neglected lists of tasks litter the bar in front of me. The bartender bullies the members into supporting the kids’ Christmas party by buying more tickets. Shep Yanek, an elderly bachelor, stands next to me. “Call me a girdle and I’ll support you!” he quips, mighty pleased with his wit. He obeys, however, whipping out a crisp one-dollar bill from his gray plastic wallet.

The crowd at the bar yells indignantly as they watch a Kansas City Chief yank Troy Polamalu’s hair, taking him down in excruciating slow motion during the first half of the Steeler game on the television. I don’t even really follow football, but offer this: “Cut it off if you can’t take it, Troy!” I don’t know where that came from.

I’m exhausted and ready to go home. I just returned yesterday afternoon from a state convention of English teachers, where my former colleague, now a professor, and I presented for two people.

Laurie Halse Anderson, a young-adult author of rock-star status among English teachers and teenagers, was a keynote speaker. (There were more than two people for her.) Her novel Speak, set in Syracuse, is a staple in classroom libraries and reading lists. She’s received thousands of letters from kids just like Katie, Old Navy, and the other scouts. The most disturbing, she told us, was from a young man who liked the book a lot. “I just don’t see what Melinda was so mad about,” he wrote, referring to the main character’s self-imposed silence after surviving a rape at a party.

Thinking of that sobers me, and I head home to my not-pink house, to lesson plans, paper grading, and a nice long bath.