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How to Escape the Flu & Other Responsibilities

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“For years, I have kept a set of file folders in the back of the ‘General Reference’ drawer of my four-drawer, salmon-colored file cabinet, and inside these folders are classroom assignments for a perfectly wonderful imaginary class I am always preparing for, to let students know that the biggest secret about language is that it’s a place where you can actually be in charge of something important in your life. You can make changes, improve reality, create something worthwhile even if nobody on the planet ever knows about it, or cares.”—Anita Sullivan

On The Other Hand

By Anita Sullivan

Flying Purple-People Eater (Image by FootyBandit.deviantart.com on @deviantART)
Flying Purple-People Eater (Image by FootyBandit.deviantart.com on @deviantART).

Anita Sullivan

EUGENE Oregon—(Weekly Hubris)—January 2019—My parents expected me to become an English teacher, and I tried mightily to please them but, in this regard at least, I failed.

Lack of good teachers as role models was not my excuse: I was extremely well taught—or perhaps I should say tutored—in all subjects, by my parents.

My father’s patience, for example, not only got me through algebra and trigonometry, but his command of the English language was such that he took pleasure in writing short witty pieces for non-academic publications and actually relished turning his mind to literary questions from his only daughter, such as “Daddy, I need a good name for a basketball team in a satire I’m writing for the school newspaper.” After a few seconds of puckering his brow, he gave a little shrug as if this quick answer were only the first of many more possibilities: “How about The Podunk Pullets?”

I was smitten by the brilliance of this reply, and snickered my way back to my manual typewriter, knowing I couldn’t have thought it up in a million years. In fact, this gleeful camaraderie between us on the subject of word-power may have been a kind of subconscious wisdom on his part, a way of encouraging me to become a writer rather than a teacher of writing—something I can’t imagine he would have done on purpose.

My father was a professor of electrical engineering at Clemson University, a subject completely closed to me. I assumed it was a very dry topic, more like math or physics, where the “teacher” simply wrote numbers and connecting symbols all over the blackboard, and learning happened by memory, since explanatory words would have no real subject matter to hold onto. My college experience with engineering students was that they had minds that ran on electricity, or oil and gas, but words were in short supply and thus used only to convey basic information. Throughout adolescence, my romantic temperament caused me to look down upon my father’s chosen vocation, wishing he was at least a Professor of Philosophy, or Archaeology, or Old English who maybe wrote mystery novels on the side under a pseudonym.

My mother, meanwhile, was in charge of my reading list, and introduced me to all the wonderful English novels with gardens in them.

Although I avoided the many attempts of parents and larger society to send me down the chute to a career in teaching English composition or literature, I never ceased to carry on a kind of secret, unrequited affair with the profession I never had the courage to take a full run at. For years, I have kept a set of file folders in the back of the “General Reference” drawer of my four-drawer, salmon-colored file cabinet, and inside these folders are classroom assignments for a perfectly wonderful imaginary class I am always preparing for, to let students know that the biggest secret about language is that it’s a place where you can actually be in charge of something important in your life. You can make changes, improve reality, create something worthwhile even if nobody on the planet ever knows about it, or cares.

So, when I enter my imaginary classroom three times a week (I’m teaching in a community college) I always head straight for the far-left corner of the blackboard, and I start writing (before the students have started to trickle in) today’s “Pun” exercise. It’s always from the top of my head, and sometimes kind of corny or lame, and the students roll their eyes as well they should. For example, early in the term—before we’ve gotten all sophisticated—I  write the day’s exercise as follows: “You just got a text on your cell phone that said: ‘Warning Bulletin: Purple-People Eater escaped and heading down I-5; Use Extreme Caution; Do not leave your cars’—The question is, Should you be worried?”

I give the students about two minutes to digest this bit of absurd folderol I am wasting their time with and, after a bit of back-and-forth like, “Of course this is so silly nobody would pay any attention,” and gentle pressure from the teacher, to the effect of “pretend you have heard of this creature—since there is actually a song about it—should you be worried?” And soon they will spot the hyphen, and then you can have a few more minutes getting them to make up other examples of where the presence or absence of this tidbit of punctuation might make an enormous difference in whatever is going on at the time. (The original song, by the way, did not include a clarifying hyphen in either of the spots where it might have been helpful.) Punctuation can be a life or death matter.

And from here you can move up the ladder to more serious and weighty word-tangles, such as

the limerick/tongue-twister about the flea and the fly (originally by Ogden Nash): A flea and a fly in a flue/Were imprisoned, so what could they do?/Said the fly, “Let us flee!”/“Let us fly!” said the flea/So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

Here, students would be introduced to the vast sub-category of homonyms, words pronounced the same but spelled differently and thus not meaning the same thing. Even in this deft little poem, the poet does not manage to sneak in the word “flu,” which refers to a sickness, not a vent in the side of a house.

Someone might find a substitute for “imprisoned” that begins with an ‘f’ (I have not been able to come up with anything better than “flummoxed”). The entire category of homonym is slowly disappearing before a thuggish indifference to the need for words that are grass-fed and cage-free. Where are the theirs and theres of yesteryear, the whiles and wiles? The just desserts? What would Oregon do at the Christmas season without that line from Handel’s Messiah gleefully misread as “And It Shall Rain Forever!”

“The Purple People Eater,” written and performed by Sheb Wooley, reached No. 1 in the Billboard pop charts in 1958.

To order Anita Sullivan’s book, The Bird That Swallowed the Music Box, click on the book cover below.

Born under the sign of Libra, Anita Sullivan cheerfully admits to a life governed by issues of balance and harmony. This likely led to her 25-year career as a piano tuner, as well as her love of birds (Libra is an air sign), and love of gardening, music, and fine literature (beauty). She spent years trying to decide if she was a piano tuner who wrote poetry, or a poet who tuned pianos. She traveled a lot without giving way to a strong urge to become a nomad; taught without becoming a teacher; danced without becoming a dancer; and fell totally in love with the high desert country of the Southwest, and then never managed to stay there. However, Sullivan did firmly settle the writing question—yes, it turns out she is a writer, but not fixed upon any one category. She has published four essay collections, a novel, two chapbooks and one full-length book of poetry, and many short pieces in journals. Most recently, her essay collection The Rhythm Of It: Poetry’s Hidden Dance, indulges her instinct to regard contemporary free-verse poetry as being built upon natural proportional rhythm patterns exhibited in music and geography, and therefore quite ancient and disciplined—not particularly “free” at all. This book was a finalist for the Montaigne Medal from the Eric Hoffer Book Award. More about her books can be found on her website: www.anitasullivan.org. The poet-piano-tuner-etc. also maintains an occasional blog, “The Poet’s Petard,” which may be accessed here here. (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)

3 Comments

  • diana

    Flying purple-people eater!!! How on earth did that pop into your head (with or without hyphen). I remember that song so well but certainly have not sung it since ’58.

    But your wise words are worth pasting on every bathroom mirror, where they would be seen every morning, not just by students, but by everyone who speaks, never mind writes. How we use language is so important and we just toss out phrases without thinking. For example, what about the way most people tend to say, “I’m dying to see you” or “this [food] is to die for”?
    ‘The biggest secret about language is that it’s a place where you can actually be in charge of something important in your life. You can make changes, improve reality, create something worthwhile even if nobody on the planet ever knows about it, or cares’.
    Language is a gift, we should treasure it. Thanks for reminding us with such wit.

  • Anita Sullivan

    Thanks, Diana, those words coming from you make me feel warm and hopeful. I have taken a love of language for granted most of my life, assuming it was something all humans had in common, since it is one of our signature accomplishments. But we squander even that. Our signature accomplishment seems to be trying new ways to undercut our chances for being fully alive. I relish the writings on WH as food for the soul! Happy New Year!

  • Will

    Lovely Anita, you are so right – there’s such joy in reading our fellow contributors in this digital journal, so many taking pleasure in using – even celebrating – language’s possibilities. Language is perhaps as well the quickest path to iniquity, as all those avid users of the dreaded pun demonstrate. Your imaginary classroom would be a joy to be in, so this month’s reflection of yours is rich with language-pleasure . . . and the pleasure is doubled for the reader to encounter both you and Diana, word celebrants both, in dialog. Thank you!