The Canadas
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Fall 1998 News Updated August 6, 2002 |
Renovations and Celebrations
The holidays took on new meaning as we experienced them with Essie for the first time. For Halloween, she dressed up as a penguin and went trick-or-treating with her buddy, Heydon Ward. After taking in a bizarre Christmas parade in Laurinburg, we traveled up to Indiana to spend the holidays there. Essie had the time of her life opening gifts and playing with her grandparents. She also took her first steps. |
Our
home renovations continued, as we took on our biggest project yet, a massive
renovation of the utility room, as well as a number of smaller jobs in the
kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom, master bedroom, and playroom, as
well as a couple of jobs outside the house.Home Improvement, Part 5
Fall
1998: It seems that every six months--long enough for us to recover from our
last endeavor--Lisa and I launch a major home renovation. At the rate we're
going, we expect to begin competing with Biltmore Estate for tourists by the
year 2000. The renovation we began a few months ago has been our biggest yet,
gradually spreading from the utility room--the part of the house most in need
of work--to the kitchen, dining room, living room, playroom, both bathrooms,
master bedroom, and even the back step and driveway. Although we managed to do
a lot without spending too much money, the renovation was not without cost: We
nearly lost our sanity, and I nearly lost a quarter-inch of my thumb, which I
sliced off while cutting tile and had to have reattached in the hospital
emergency room.
Now that it's all over, we're convinced that the gains were worth the sacrifices. We hope the following room-by-room summary will entice some of our friends and family to come to Laurinburg and see the finished project for themselves. When you call, ask about the package deal featuring the Biltmore and Monticello.
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The utility room underwent the biggest renovation in the house. When we bought the house, it was little more than a place to hold the water heater and a washing machine. The floor was gray concrete, and the walls were plain white. I set up a workbench and installed work lights over it, ran a phone line into the room, installed new lights switches and switch plates, hung new blinds, installed a dozen or so cabinets, and built a broom closet and two sets of bookshelves. Lisa hung wallpaper and painted the ceiling, broom closet, cabinets, bookshelves, trim, and two walls. We worked together to put down new tile and install a new work area, a utility sink, and a new ceiling light. |
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After
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In the kitchen, Lisa hung new pictures, sewed and hung curtains, and painted the cabinets, wall, and trim. We also put down new tile and painted the ceiling. In the dining room, we painted and installed indoor shutters on the bottom windows. Lisa bought and painted an old end table for the living room and rearranged the furniture there. In the bathrooms, I installed new blinds, and Lisa hung new wallpaper and hung some curtains she sewed especially for the window there. She also painted the closet doors in the master bedroom. The back room, which we call the “playroom,” got some new tile next to the back door, along with carpet guards, a spring for the screen door, and a futon from the den. Finally, on the outside of the house, we painted the back door and step, and I installed lights along the driveway and front walkway.
Still Studying
November 27, 1998: Last week, while I was waiting for a dinner at our church to begin, I was reading an article that I had assigned to one of my classes. "Are you studying?" someone asked. I gave her the short answer--that I'm a professor. The wonderful truth about my job, however, is that I am studying, as well as learning and growing, all the time. All anyone asks of me is to share that enriching experience with my students and colleagues--a role I am more than willing to play. This semester, I have had the opportunity to study one of my favorite subjects, the English language, in some depth as I design and teach my first graduate course, "Contemporary Issues in American English." Knowing that many English students learn a lot about literature without ever exploring the language that makes up that literature, I have made a point of exposing the 11 students in this class to all of the fundamental linguistic concepts while also giving them opportunities to apply their knowledge. In one of my favorite exercises, for example, the students and I used what we know about English syntax to analyze how computer grammar checkers work--or don't work. We also have explored how words enter the language, studied child language acquisition, and drawn on our understanding of speech sounds, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics to analyze the ways that politicians, journalists, and poets use language. The students, I am happy to say, have responded with enthusiasm and have contributed their own intelligence and excitement about the language to make the course a success. In the last few weeks, in fact, they have taken over the teaching, giving presentations on topics such as slang and jargon.
I also have been active studying, researching, and teaching my other favorite subject, American literature. When the semester began, I was finishing writing my second article for an upcoming reference book called A Companion to Southern Literature. In the first article, I had traced the development of the Southern short story from its beginnings to 1900, covering the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, and several other writers. If this article provided me with an opportunity to do some expansive research, the second one gave a chance to have some fun. In this one, I analyzed sheriff characters in Southern fiction. While I was sure to look at sheriffs in classic works such as William Faulkner's The Bear and James Dickey's Deliverance, I also knew that the best-known Southern sheriffs have come from somewhat less literary sources. As a result, I have become perhaps one of the few writers in the world to mention William Faulkner, James Dickey, Roscoe P. Coltrane, and Buford T. Justice in the same article. While I will have to wait until next year to see these articles in print, I had the great satisfaction of seeing another article I wrote, "The Right Brain in Poe's Creative Process," appear in the fall issue of The Southern Quarterly. I also learned that my article "Flight into Fancy: Poe's Discovery of the Right Brain" will appear in another literary journal, The Southern Literary Journal. Finally, I taught two sections of "Major American Authors," a survey course covering the history of American literature from the creation stories of Native Americans and narratives of early explorers such as Captain John Smith to contemporary writers such as Richard Wilbur and Rita Dove. Because I believe that an appreciation of American literature and culture can enrich a person in life-changing ways, I pack a lot in this course. In addition to studying dozens of poems and stories, several pieces of nonfiction, a novel, and a play by some 30 authors, we frequently delve into the history and geography of America. Many of the students who have stuck with the course have done outstanding work in their journals, discussions, and course projects. Indeed, I was pleased to publish some of these projects--including ones on the poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Shelby Stephenson--on All American, a World Wide Web site I have developed to help people study and appreciate American literature and culture.
A Year of Firsts
November
30, 1998: One of the baby shower gifts we brought home from Indiana a year
and a half ago is an entertainment center with a seat and several toys,
including a star that plays "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" when you
press it. When Essie was a few months old, we started putting her in the seat
and encouraging her to play with the toys. The one that fascinated her more
than all the others was the star. For several minutes--an eternity in baby
time--she would stare at it, gradually learning to press or swat it. For weeks,
however, she was not strong or coordinated enough to hit it just right and make
it play the song. Lisa and I used to sit down next to her and demonstrate,
sometimes using her hand and our strength to press the star. At times, Essie
would get frustrated because she wanted so badly to make the star play, but she
couldn't quite do it herself. One day, during the usual routine of her attempts
and my encouragement, she hit it just right, and it played. She hit it again, and
it played again. By the time she had played it for the fifth time all by
herself, we both were glowing. To look at me, you would have thought she had
just composed a symphony.
How quickly things change. Since that little breakthrough, our little star has done a lot of twinkling in this year of firsts. While the two big milestones--walking and talking--are still to come, Essie already has covered a lot of ground, usually on all fours. Indeed, learning to crawl has opened up a new world for our little daughter, who now spends virtually all of her waking hours crawling around the house, grabbing everything she can reach and beaming all the while. In the kitchen, she goes right for the Tupperware cabinet, carefully opens it with her index finger, stands up, and begins pulling out plastic cups and lids and scattering them on the floor. In the utility room, she stands next to the washer and slaps the side of it, delighting in the hollow booming sound. In the den, where I am writing this, she is sitting on the floor behind my chair waving a pair of her shoes and babbling. Sometimes, when I am working and Lisa is watching her in another room, I hear her coming, clopping like a little horse because she is carrying a little box or a Tupperware lid in each hand. Last month, Lisa dressed her up, and we took her out for her first Halloween. Dressed as a penguin in a costume that Lisa made, she joined her friend Heydon, a fireman, to trick-or-treat at some friends' houses. Although she cooperated well, she didn't quite understand the holiday's appeal. For an hour or so, Mommy and Daddy took her in and out of the car and paraded her up to houses in the dark. When it was all over, they ate her candy. Maybe Christmas will be better.
As
Essie's physical talents have developed, so has her personality. Judging from
her propensity for mirrors, we have long recognized her vanity, but now we also
can appreciate other traits. She makes her love for music apparent, for
example, by bouncing and waving her arms when she hears a particularly lyrical
melody. Like her mom and dad, she also enjoys the outdoors, where she gets to
ride in a stroller or just sit contentedly and watch us rake or wash the car.
Her most distinctive trait, however, is her joie de vivre. Virtually everything
she sees or does makes her face burst open in an enormous grin. As I sit here
writing this and listen to her babble and play, I look back at her every once
in a while to see that she's OK. When she happens to notice me, she often
flashes me one of these huge, delightful smiles, as if to say, "Isn't life
wonderful, Dad?"
Yes, Esprit, it is.
A Christmas Parade
December: We love a parade. But in Laurinburg, the sound of the drums, the marching of feet and 76 trombones were bumped to make room for the low-rider trucks, golf carts, and 76 beauty queens of dubious distinction. For a small town lacking in culture, the parade seemed long -- more than an hour. So whom did the low riders, golf carts and the occasional liberty bell float carry? Well, you had to ask, didn't you...
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Sporting a string of garland that may or may not have been
new, our local garbage truck, Ronnie's Sanitation, was one of the more
festive entries. |
Laurinburg has a fine recycling program, thanks, no doubt
to Recycle Man's superhuman efforts. We suspect that he had a hand in
creating some of the floats, especially a red, white, and blue one featuring
something that looked suspiciously like a replica of the Liberty Bell. |
His shopping all done and his hive impeccably decorated for the season, the Christmas Bee took to the streets to wish all of Laurinburg the happiest of holidays. |
Perhaps the most touching of all parade entries was
"Mona Lisa" and her Majestic Dancers. This woman of Amazonian
proportions was in fact a man, or rather a transvestite, stirring up citizens
who may or may not have known his/her chromosomal make-up. Leonardo da Vinci
wishes you a merry Christmas. |
Esprit's First Christmas
December
1998: A lesser baby might have been confused or even overwhelmed by the
strange custom that adults called "Christmas." Just when you learn
that a tree is something outdoors, one shows up in your living room. On the
other hand, vanilla frosting--definitely an indoor creature--suddenly appears
all over the ground outside. One day, for the first time in your life, everyone
else is more excited than you, and they're rushing around, smiling, and
laughing like--well, like you usually do for no reason at all. Then, after
months of snatching away every shred of that delightful thing they call paper
before you can properly enjoy it, they start handing you boxes covered with it
and insisting that you tear it.
As a number of people close to her--chiefly blood relatives--will tell you, however, Essie Canada is no ordinary baby. Despite all of its strange features, she quickly made herself right at home with Christmas. For starters, she put up with an 11-hour car trip to Indiana, rarely protesting though she had to sit still for 10 hours and 57 minutes longer than she has done in the total amount of time she has lived on planet Earth. For this new patience, she--and her dad--have to thank Mommy, who strategically planned our itinerary around Essie's nap schedule: we left each morning just before morning nap time, drove three hours or so while she slept, stopped for a long lunch and let her stretch her legs, and drove another three hours while she took her afternoon nap.
When she arrived in Indianapolis, where my parents live, she almost immediately took to Granny and Grandpa, whom she had not seen in several months, and played for hours with them, even consenting to let Granny push her around in a laundry basket. With the help of a snow suit that earned her the nickname "the Michelin baby," she also made the adjustment to winter weather Midwest style, enduring temperatures in the teens without complaining. When Christmas finally came, she not only caught on to tearing the wrapping paper off her thousand or so gifts, but mastered the custom of marveling at the gifts, crying "Ooooh!" as they emerged from the colored paper. Finally, while she clearly enjoyed the interlocking boxes, ridable pig, and other toys that Santa Clause brought her, Esprit showed she understood that one of the true joys of Christmas is giving. Before we left home, she had taken only a few tentative steps. Over the course of our vacation, however, Esprit became a full-fledged walker, giving her grandparents in both Indianapolis and Fort Wayne the show of their lives and the best gift they could have imagined.
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