High school religion teacher (2 of 2): The teacher who stayed a while.

That same friend also talked about the 1^st days of the first religion teacher who stayed a while, this (older) (white) liberal post-Vatican II nun who everyone now loves in retrospect but at the time was experienced as an odd mix of repetitious lectures on social justice and unpredictable disciplinary boundaries where she’d spazz out at people who had purposely baited her.

As my friend tells it, in her 1^st days, she spazzed out at someone and said something to the effect of “What are you trying to pull?, who do you think I am?”, to which the (smart ass) (white) (high school) kid sassed back condescendingly, “You’re a religion teacher in a small Catholic high school in [name of town], [name of state].”

At that, she broke out crying.

High school religion teacher (1 of 2): Revolving door days.

My one friend from my hometown who’s like 5 years older than me went to the same (Catholic) high school that I did, but in the famed days of "the revolving religion teacher", where there was a new religion teacher every year for quite a stretch of time, and some of the teachers even got fired mid-year.

One teacher was a guy who was well known in the parish but turned out to be homeless, and for a while hid changes of clothes in the school’s boiler room, and one day adjusted his shoe in class and took out a bar of soap.

Minnesota, to me.

When I was barhopping after the Ronnie Spector concert a few months ago, I was talking with the (black) bartender at a nearby upscale (black) bar in this (white) yuppie neighborhood, and she was telling me how Prince had had a surprise concert a few months earlier at the same small venue that I had just been at.

We then started talking about Prince as an artist, and I confessed that in my head, I couldn’t see him and Bob Dylan as being from the same state, that them and Minnesota fit together in odd but important ways, especially Prince, since he seemed like a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit in with it.

Ever since my time getting-out-the-vote in Wisconsin, I have been realizing how much (black) people are a stepchild of northern plain state Democratic electorates, and how this does funny things to their heads; it’s like they’ve been used by the party that should be doing things for them, but have never been thrown a bone, which to me will always be captured by how the one (black) (female) voter in Wisconsin was just resentful when I showed up at her door up in small city Wisconsin, though she had voted as a Democrat in election after election, and practically all other (black) people forever everywhere else had been cordial and even happy when I showed up knocking and identified myself with the Democratic party.

At the end of the day, what is the (black) experience in places like Milwaukee and Minneapolis?

It must be fundamentally different from the (black) experience in places like Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, even though somewhere like Milwaukee is also part of the Rust Belt.

I’m not sure that Prince would have been Prince if he had grown up somewhere else, though I really can’t put my finger on why.  His artistic identity seems so much more linked in to Minnesota than Michael Jackson’s to industrial northwest Indiana or Madonna’s to suburban Detroit.

A text of students.

A text from a friend who teaches composition at a large flagship state school in the Southwestern U.S.:

Student quote of the day: She was a punk gothic who enjoyed attending rock concerts with tattooed partners of the opposite sex.  [Acronym of the university], baby!

. . .

Generic vs. Name Brands.

The other month I ran out of generic brand oats, and when I was at the store, the only large container of oats they had was Quaker, so I shelled out a few bucks more to get that and cause the earth less harm through less packaging, though it pained me just a bit to spend more money.

I have to say, though, that oats from Quaker are a lot better quality than the generic brand; they have a firmer texture when cooked, and ooze less gluten out into the water, and contain less chaff that should have been sorted out.

I’ll still get the generic brand next time I run out of oats, though, if the store has re-stocked them by then.

Impressions of Washington D.C.

As soon as you go into the neighborhoods off of downtown Washington D.C. – or at least the neighborhoods where I was – there’s just this overwhelming sameness, of row houses intermittently broken with bland but expensive bars and chain stores.

Some of the only life was 2 longtime (black) residents I met who were working in service jobs in the city, one a hotdog vendor near the Smithsonian who I chit-chatted with and who then gave me a free bag of chips after I realized I was still hungry after eating the hotdog I had bought and getting back in line to buy some chips, and the other a cashier at the FDR memorial souvenir store, who helped me sort through gift possibilities for my mom, and then was telling me about all the (white) yuppies buying up houses and building expensive stores in his neighborhood where he grew up and still lives, and all the long-time (black) residents just sitting on their porches and staring at these stores they can’t afford to shop at and just hating them, but also selling out their property when they get offers since the money is just too good to pass up.

“I wouldn’t live anywhere else but D.C.,” the souvenir store cashier told me, though he also said he has never travelled anywhere else and wouldn’t have any money to do so till he finished school.