The Canadas

Fall 1997 News Back to School Say “Cheese”! The Triad Charleston, South Carolina Home Improvements, Part 2 Great Expectations Thank You, Henrys Christmas New Year’s Eve Updated August 8, 2002 © Canadas 2002

Another Special Fall Fall is a special time for us. Some of our first dates took place in the fall back in 1987, and we spent the first few months of our marriage in the fall of 1989. This fall was also special, as I was working for the first time as an assistant professor of English. I taught four courses at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke: two in literature and two in freshman composition. In one of the latter classes, I had an experience that alerted me to the generation gap between my students and me. As an exercise in varying the syntax of sentences, I had given the students a number of famous sentences, including this one: “Hey, Jude, don’t make it bad.” After I had written the sentences on the board, I heard a student ask, "What's Jude?" We spent a good part of the fall doing improvements on our new house in Laurinburg—putting in crown moulding in the living room, for example, and installing new kitchen counters. By late November, we could show off a number of these improvements to our friend Jamey Henderson, a former student of mine whom we had over for Thanksgiving dinner. Lisa wowed us with an appetizer of Armenian flatbread, cambozola cheese, roasted garlic, and tomato chutney, followed by a traditional Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas, cornbread stuffing, yeast rolls, and pumpkin pie. In December, we celebrated our first Christmas in our new home. We also got out of the house on a number of occasions, often enjoying some glorious autumn weather. In fact, one week in October was a virtual advertisement for fall: Leaves were turning red and yellow under cloudless blue skies, and soothing breezes occasionally sent them drifting down to the ground. When we came out to rake them over the weekend, we found several of our neighbors also enjoying the beautiful weather, and we stood out in our yard visiting with them. That same weekend, we joined a few thousand other people at the John Blue Cotton Festival, Laurinburg's biggest event of the year. Named after a cotton farmer and inventor who lived in Laurinburg around 1900, the festival is like a county fair, where we got a taste of North Carolina barbecue and homemade strawberry ice cream, as well as a look at some beautiful quilts and the grand John Blue house, a two-story farmhouse built in the 1890s. At home, Lisa made me an apple pie in honor of the season. Finally, we got away on a couple of occasions, taking short trips to the Triad—Winston-Salem, High Point, and Greensboro—in North Carolina and Charleston, South Carolina.

Back to School

September: In my first full year as an assistant professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, I'm having a ball teaching American literature, Introduction to Literature, and two sections of composition. I have been blessed with many bright, motivated students, who have patiently borne my incessant quizzes and a number of challenging reading and writing assignments. In the American literature course, for example, the 20 or so students and I have the difficult task of covering four centuries of fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry in 17 weeks. Although we cannot hope to study them in the depth they deserve, we have begun exploring the works and themes of many of America's major writers, including Anne Bradstreet, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Flannery O'Connor, and Robert Frost. In addition to enjoying some stimulating class discussions, including an outstanding one on Ralph Waldo Emerson's difficult essay "Self-Reliance," we also have been sharing our reponses to the literature in journals, which we post on an e-mail listserv.

In my Introduction to Literature course, I am guiding about 30 students through short stories, novels, poems, and plays, as well as the elements of literary interpretation. One of the most energetic groups I have seen, the students in this class often begin discussing the literature in their groups even before I arrive. Although they were lukewarm about Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat," one of my favorite stories, many responded with great enthusiasm to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Toni Morrison'snovel Beloved. Like most of the students, I am reading Belovedfor the first time, and I can see why Morrison has won both the Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize for Literature. Rich, provocative, and suspenseful, Beloved is one of the finest novels I have read. Although several of the students have commented on the difficulty of the novel, which freely moves between the past and the present, I think most of them find that the book is worth the effort.

Finally, I have been pleased to see that many of my composition students share some of my enthusiasm for writing and have chosen some fascinating topics for their research papers, including the effects of pledging a fraternity, the causes of repressed memories, the cultural causes of the Renaissance, and many others. Although they seemed to require a little prodding from me, many of the students also have found that the subject of language can inspire some stimulating conversations. One of the liveliest discussions I have experienced in a composition class occurred last week during a unit on dictionaries and word choice, when the students asked several provocative questions about the evolution of language and the ways words enter English.

The exciting discussions and motivated students I have encountered this semester making teaching tremendously fun and rewarding for me. At the same time, I have been trying to give my students some of the most challenging and rewarding intellectual experiences they will have inside or outside college. Through rigorous reading assignments, in-class essays, journals, class discussion, group exercises, and conferences, my students and I work continuously to broaden our store of knowledge and develop our skills inanalyzing information, articulating our ideas, and making effective use of tools such as the library and computers. Like many Americans, I have heard the concerns about intellectual decline in this country. My experienceas a college teacher has provided me with special insight on this need, but it also has filled me with hope. With guidance, this generation can contribute some of the best readers, writers, thinkers, and leaders that America and the world have seen. Providing that guidance is not only one of the most important things I have done, but one of the most fulfilling.

Say “Cheese”!

Fall: Flipping through a new batch of photographs we had just gotten developed, we came across one that we didn't remember taking. We stood there and puzzled over for a moment, and then Lisa solved the mystery: the picture had been taken at the factory where the disposable camera had been manufactured. In the foreground is a row of other cameras, and behind them are two workers. The queerest part is that someone apparently deliberately took the picture because the flash obviously has been used. Was an assembly line worker feeling playful during breaktime? Was a journalist documenting sweat-shop conditions in the factory? Were the mice from molding on vacation in the soldering wing? You decide.

The Triad

October 3-5, 1997: Since seeing its production of The Tempest a few years ago, I have been a fan of the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival in High Point. This year, I was pleased to see that the company was performing a couple of plays I had neither seen nor read, As You Like It and Richard III. We seized the opportunity and turned the festival into an excuse for a weekend getaway.

A few days before we left home, the weather turned idyllic in North Carolina. Several days of clouds and rain gave way to a week of Carolina blue skies and temperatures in the 70s--the kind of weather that makes me want to spend every minute of the day outside. The Triad--Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and High Point--is a perfect place to do that. When we arrived in the area on Friday afternoon, for example, we spent an hour or two walking through Old Salem. Founded by members of the Moravian Church in 1766, Old Salem is now a living-history village similar to Williamsburg, Virginia. In and around the area are several interesting sites, including the beautiful campus of Salem College and God's Acre, a cemetery in which the nearly identical tombstones reflect the Moravians' belief that people are equal after death. We ate dinner on the back porch of the Salem Tavern, where we each had a slice of chicken pot pie.

The next morning, we took another walk, this time in the picturesque Greensboro Arboretum, where we relaxed among numerous gardens, a fountain, and a large pergola covered with vines. Finally, on Sunday, we visited Guilford Courthouse Battleground, the site of an important battle of the American Revolution. Since visiting Yorktown a few years ago, we have been interested in Revolutionary War battlegrounds, where we can indulge both our interest in history and our love of the outdoors. At the visitors' center, an extremely knowledgeable tour guide named Tom Baker shared several anecdotes and insights relevant to the battle, which was both a defeat and a victory for the Americans. Although they abandoned their weapons on the field, the Americans devastated their enemy, killing more than a quarter of the 2,000 British troops. Out in the park, we saw the field where a Hispanic-American soldier named Peter Francisco rode among the British, killing several with a gigantic sword. For this feat and others, the 6'6'' Francisco became a legend among his fellow soldiers. We also saw a monument of Nathanael Greene, the Rhode Islander who rose from private to brigadier general in charge of the Southern campaign and who planned the Americans' strategy at Guilford Courthouse.

The main reason we were in town, the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival, was a treat, as always. Although Shakespeare's plays always seem to play better in my mind than on stage, I enjoyed the shows and particularly liked the Richard III costumes and set, which were suggestive and ethereal in their geometric shapes and combination of red, silver, purple, and black. One of my favorite parts of the festival is the series of seminars that accompany the shows. This time, I attended one on Richard III featuring two Shakespearean scholars, who shared interesting anecdotes about Shakespeare and the play, introduced us to the complex historical context of the Wars of the Roses, and discussed some of the play's themes and techniques. The value of this introduction became clear to me when I began watching the play and was able to recognize characters, passages, and events that otherwise would have escaped me. My favorite part of the seminar, however, was the final portion, in which the show's artistic director and three of the actors fielded questions. As someone who usually encounters as Shakespeare's plays as words on a page, I was fascinated by the insights of these people, who talked about the plays as things to be brought to life on stage. Mary Elizabeth Scallen, who plays Lady Anne in Richard III, for example, compared their production to a body. Over the course of a run, she explained, the production has a structure akin to a skeleton, and the actors recreate this structure in every performance. The rest of the production, however, is more flexible--like flesh or muscles--and can change from night to night. She and the other performers also described the way they prepare for a play. Before performing Richard III and As You Like It, they met with a dramaturge, who identified strange or archaic words, recommended books the actors might want to read, and helped them with Shakespeare's versification. They also made some interesting comments on this versification. For example, because Shakespeare omitted many stage directions in his scripts, actors and directors have to make artistic choices about gestures and delivery. Harrison Long, who plays Henry, Earl of Richmond, compared Shakespeare's iambic pentameter to a bass line in music and explained that gaps in this rhythm sometimes give the actors a clue about a gesture and an opportunity for interpretation. I'm looking forward to using these theatrical insights when I teach Shakespeare's Othello in my Introduction to Literature course in a few weeks.

Charleston, South Carolina

October 16-19, 1997: Something about this city lifts our spirits every time we visit it.

Taking advantage of my fall break at Pembroke, Lisa and I came here thistime to celebrate our eighth anniversary. It felt like a homecoming, perhapsbecause we have been strolled down these streets so many times or becauseCharleston's rich history and culture make us feel that we belong here--ormaybe just because for the second year in a row we managed to show up on exactly the same weekend at the Citadel's homecoming.What appeared to be bad timing turned into good fortune, however, becausewe discovered a great place to stay. The Sea Cabins, one of the few placesin the area with vacancies that weekend, are on the beach on nearby Sullivan'sIsland. For a rate half that of the hotels in downtown Charleston, we hada view of the ocean, a patio, easy access to the beach, and a very comfortablecondominium with a kitchenette. On our first night, we went for a walk onthe beach, and later I went for an exhilarating jog there on a cold, rainyevening.

I think the secret of Charleston's appeal forus is its culture. It's a classy city. When it was growing up in the 1700sand 1800s, its literature, arts, gorgeous homes, and public buildings--includingthe first museum in America--made Charleston the undisputed cultural centerof the South. Today, it continues to promote the arts while also preservingits magnificent architecture, gardens, and general design. Of course, Charlestonis a city of class in another, less appealing away. In earlier times--and,to a lesser extent, today--the people with the most access to this cultureare the members of relatively high social classes. Plenty of areas of thecity remind visitors that they haven't left reality. Still, though not aperfect city, Charleston sparkles as few others do and reminds us what humanscan create when resources, commitment, and a love of beauty come together.

Much of this culture--the kind we can afford--isfree or relatively inexpensive. We spent a lot of our time, as we alwaysdo, strolling down the narrow streets, tour book in hand, admiring the gorgeoushouses and gardens, sometimes pausing to read the sign on a house or historicbuilding. Occasionally, we ducked into a shop, such as The Southern LiteraryTradition, a bookstore located just across the street from Cabbage Row,where the musical Porgy and Bess is set. On the inside are scoresof early editions and other rare books, arranged on inlaid wooden bookshelves.While in the neighborhood, we also visited the Heyward-Washington House,built in 1772, and saw its small landscape garden as well as some spectacularfurniture; the highlight of the house was the enormous Holmes bookcase,which a brochure describes as "the finest American piece of furnitureknown in the country today." Later, we relaxed in Waterfront Parkand visited the Charleston Museum, which was founded in 1773 as the firstmuseum in the country. In addition to modern exhibits on the city's Huguenotheritage, early silversmiths, and plantation life, we saw some of the museum'searly holdings, including an Egyptian mummy and a reproduction of the Rosettastone.

Home Improvements, Part 2

Fall 1997: When we moved into this house in April, I had done some woodworking, and Lisa had some experience sewing and refinishing furniture. Over the next several months, we found ourselves in a crash course in home repair, and this fall brought the final exam. 

First, we completely renovated the living room and dining room, patching cracks in the plaster, painting the walls a pale yellow, repairing and repainting the ceiling and inlaid bookshelves, and, in our crowning achievement, putting up crown molding in both rooms. We realized what a challenge we had undertaken when we spent an entire afternoon toiling on the woodwork and finished only half of the first of three stages of the molding. In addition to requiring a lot of time, installing the molding was an intellectual challenge. Staring at the corners, trying to figure the angle at which to cut the pieces that themselves would hang at an angle, I know how my students feel when I try to explain the fine points of punctuation or paragraph organization. After about three weeks of working on the room off and on, we finished it with good result. The rooms are cheery and sun-filled, open and comfortable for us and our guests.

Our second large project of the season was installing new countertops in the kitchen, where the decrepit orange-red laminate that had offended me from the start had finally worn down Lisa's positive outlook. Although not in the same league as the crown molding, these countertops posed their own set of difficulties. For one thing, they crack easily, and we spent at least half of our time carefully positioning them between a workbench and a table, taping them, and cutting them with a power saw. Because the back splashes curved around the molding on the window sills, we also had to make some of the cuts by hand with a coping saw. Finally, attaching the laminate to the countertop was a little nerve-racking because the contact cement allowed no repositioning; crooked once is crooked to stay. We finished the job without any serious problems in about five days, just in time for Thanksgiving.

Over the past several months, we also worked on an assortment of smaller projects all over the house. In the kitchen, for example, we installed a new faucet and sink. Lisa sewed some curtains and hung them in the living room and dining room, where I installed a chandelier and dimmer switch. We renovated our extra bedroom a little by installing some bookshelves, hanging curtains and pictures, and moving in the futon and desk from elsewhere in the house so that now the room serves as a cozy den and guest room. Finally, in the nursery, we installed more shelves, arranged the furniture, and assembled our new crib, a gift from my parents. Now, we're ready to put the home projects on hold for a while and devote our free time to an even bigger project, who is scheduled to arrive in January.

Great Expectations

December 2, 1997: I have to admit that for a long time – most of my married life -- the trappings of adulthood were out of my reach. A fulfilling job, a home of my own, a car -- even children -- were luxuries that everyone else (it seemed) enjoyed, but were not available to me. But I thought about them a lot and hoped to have them eventually. Perhaps all that thinking and hoping tipped the cosmic scales in my favor.

In May, Mark and I learned that a little one would be joining our family.This bit of news was unexpected, but seemed in order, considering all the other big steps we had taken in the previous weeks, namely a doctorate, a new job, and a new home. It made sense that there would be a new life, too.

Summer was difficult. Endless first-trimester nausea, the eerie stillness and intense, humid heat of this coastal plain, and the loneliness and isolation of life in a new town broke my spirit. However, by summer's end I could digest crackers and water without incident, the heat of south central NorthCarolina began to move out to sea, and most importantly, we met Essie.

This is Essie.

Seeing this little face and watching her make little "O"s with her tiny mouth somehow erased the memories of all that discomfort. ...Well, it didn't quite erase the memories, but I was able to forgive her very easily. Wouldn't you?

Since then, the pregnancy has been uneventful, and therefore a success. She's fattening up nicely and has a good strong heart beat. She's active and hasn't caused much trouble at all. Although she's expected in mid-January, Mark and I would be happy if she showed up a little sooner. We want to meet this little person who will fulfill all our greatest expectations.

Thank You, Henrys

December 18, 1997

Dear Jerry and Marganelle Henry, Jerry and Becky Henry, Tom and Cindy Henry, Bill and Paula Bentley, Tony Henry, Ray and Andrea Navarro, Denise Dominguez, Erik and Mary Kay Henry, Mart and Vicki Henry, Matt and Anne Henry, Kurt and Lisa Henry, Karl Henry, John and Sonya Witte, Louis and Brenda Henry, Chris and Carolyn Henry, Lisa Canada, and Jessica Henry:

As an only child, I had never experienced anything like the Henry Christmas party. But ever since that baptism by fire in 1988, when I was chosen at random to sing "Five golden rings" with Tony, I have felt that I belonged. Even now, when 700 miles and a range of icy mountains keep us away, I feel that I belong, and I join Lisa in missing the party and our families. Writing from North Carolina, where we expect temperatures near70 today, I do not, however, miss the snow.

Last summer, I was puzzling over a way to thank you all for your beautiful graduation gift, and Dad suggested I write a letter, which he could then read aloud at the Christmas party. (Dad, if you're reading this letter in advance, please be sure not to sandwich it between "Schnitzelbank"and "The Twelve Days of Christmas." Somehow, I think it might get lost in there.)

As a teacher, I believe that positive support can make an enormous differencein the amount a person can achieve. Support brings comfort, confidence,and help with the little things that make the big things possible, as Lisa knows as well as anyone. Over the past five years or so, I have had the pleasure of knowing that all of you were pulling for us, encouraging us,sharing in our successes. In addition to the warmth I have experienced everytime we come back to Fort Wayne, we even have enjoyed several individual signs of love and support from many of you:

• Louis's homemade IU and UNC bookends, which I display proudly in my office;
• Tony's Edgar Allan Poe plaque, which also resides there, spooking a few of my students;
• Matt and Anne's mailbox adorned with "Canada" and leaves of ivy, which we display in our family room in hopes of using it when we live in a farmhouse;
• Andy and Ramon's Canada nameplate, which hangs on our front door;
• Carolyn's Christmas tree skirt, which adorns the tree in our new home, as well as the baby shower she threw for Lisa last summer;
• Jesse's CD of Johnny Cash recordings (Her graduation card said, "Now that you have an English degree, I thought you could use a little cash.);
• Jerry and Becky's Indiana University picture book, which we use to remember our alma mater, as well as the opportunity to relax in their condo in Florida;
• Karl's camaraderie while we stayed in Fort Wayne last summer;
• Mart and Vicki's toboggan, which they loaned to us when were in town a few Christmases ago;
• Avon goodies from Tom and Cindy;
• music from Paula and Bill;
• a gorgeous kaleidoscope from Sonya and John;
• greetings by e-mail, telephone, and card from the families of Denise, Matt and Anne, and Erik and Mary Kay;
• dozens of gifts from Mom and Dad, including a portrait of my favorite poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, as well as books about him--all of which I treasure;
• and, perhaps best of all, personal visits from Mom and Dad, Andy and Ramon, Jesse, Chris's family, Louis's family, and Kurt and Lisa's daughter Brenda.

The class ring, which reads "University of North Carolina at ChapelHill, Ph.D., 97" and has my name engraved on the inside, was Dad's idea, and a wonderful idea it was. I wear it every day, and it continually reminds me of the love and support I know I will always have from my second family. Thank you and merry Christmas.

Christmas

December: There are only two times of the yearwhen North Carolina doesn't feel like heaven to us. One is that period ofthe summer when the temperatures seem to top 90 degrees every day, and the other is Christmas. While we enjoy the warm temperatures, which approached 70 this year, and don't miss the snow much, we do miss our families. In past years, we tried to return to Indiana for the holidays, but every year, it seemed, nature had a new way of telling us that "home for the holidays" was a bad idea for us. One year, we got stuck in a terrible ice storm in the Blue Ridge Mountains, first driving three miles in three hours and then having to pull over, park in a service station's parking lot, and sleep in the car under a blanket or two we happen to have with us. Another year, we tried to beat the driving hassles by flying to Indiana. We arrived without incident, but the day we were scheduled to return was also the day a thick fog covered Fort Wayne's airport, grounding the planes and forcing us to take a three-hour bus ride to Chicago to pick up our connecting flight.

The last two years, we have spent quiet holiday seasons in our own homes, first in Chapel Hill and now in Laurinburg. We missed visiting, eating,and opening gifts with our families, but we enjoyed many peaceful eveningsin our new home, which Lisa decorated beautifully. For the first time inour marriage, we had a fireplace, and we often built a fire there, burned some candles, turned on the lights on our tree, and just relaxed in the dim light. On Christmas Eve, we went to Midnight Mass at St. Mary, where Lisa sang carols with the choir, and I had a surprise opportunity to take part in a ceremony that meant a lot to me. As someone who is going through catechism to become a Catholic, I was asked by the priest to bring up thestatue of baby Jesus and place it in the Nativity scene beside the altar.I have to admit that I felt a little silly at first, only because Father Kevin made a point of explaining to the congregation before the ceremony that traditionally the smallest altar boy played this role. As he said this, the current altar boys, who were standing around me at the rear of the church, kept glancing up at me and smiling. When I came forward, however, and placed the baby in the manger, I felt especially close to my faith. It was a wonderful moment. Finally, on Christmas morning, Lisa and I opened the many wonderful gifts we had received from our families and each other. The greatest gift, however, is still on the way, and we expect her any day now.

New Year's Eve

December: With a baby on the way, I suppose we should be sowing our wild oats tonight, but we wouldn't know where to find the seeds. Not exactly night owls when we came to Laurinburg, we have managed to grow even calmer. I've heard people say that they're turning into their parents. I think we're turning into our neighbors, who range in age from about 80 to 93. Tonight, as thousands pour into Times Square, we've been organizing Lisa's sewing supplies and listening to "The Big Bands Are Back" on the radio. I used to laugh when Lisa told me that her family celebrates the arrival of the New Year by banging some pots and pans at midnight. Now, I usually can't even stay awake that long. Besides, we wouldn't want to wake the neighbors.