Author: abendelow
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Memoir: football fantasies (1968-72)
As you get older, you’ll see how fantasies change with the situation, but your football dreams reanimated in me yesterday…
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Memoir: Worst job (1982)
“Hello, Mrs. Jones? This is George from United Auto Warranty. I see that your ‘79 Ford’s warranty is about to expire this November, and I’m calling to tell you that we can lock-in a better warranty today extending coverage two whole years, and you’ll actually pay less for more coverage. Can I take just a…
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Memoir: Back to School (2023)
Ah, those two weeks in late July or early August, mesmerized by steady waves on the southeast shore of Lake Michigan, the soft cry of hovering gulls, clouds gently morphing and moving across blue skies by sweet summer winds. Precious downtime. Time for me and my family to just be. And then, “When do you…
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Memoir: Lessons learned about delivering lessons (1986-88)
Yesterday I conversed with a young teacher at the start of her first year teaching high school French, something I did many years ago, before I switched to just English. She asked, “What have you learned about how to teach adolescents? Any insights, or ‘lessons learned?’” I shook my head and told her how embarrassed…
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Memoir: What’s in my closet, part 2 (2023)
These shirts and other swag were a pathetically big part of my payment for several years. And in retrospect they were a long time coming.
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Memoir: What’s in my closet (2023)
English teachers fetishized and rhapsodized the shirts. A surprisingly big part of department culture and practice centered on them.
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Memoir: “All by myself”–reflections on my creativity (1971 & 1989)
It’s tempting for creative people to believe that they perform their creative acts solo, without external assistance or influence. “Gasp! You did that all by yourself? Wow, you’re so creative–so special. You’re different from the rest (in some sense you are really better)!” Getting a dopamine rush from critical feedback like that as a child…
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Memoir: Early memories of dad (1966-67)
Sports were one place dad felt comfortable interacting with me. Otherwise he acted as men who came of age in the 1940s and 50s did: strong, silent, and cool. Except when it came to sports. In the presence of an athletic contest, dad re-animated. Watching a game on our black and white TV, he’d explosively…
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Memoir: Encountering NASCAR (1972)
One day when I was 11, dad asked me, “How would you like to fly to Alabama to see the Talladega 500?” He may as well have asked if I wanted to dance the tarantella on Venus. The question made no sense. I craved dad’s company so much that I readily agreed. Dad ran an…
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Memoir: How the “Greener Cleaners” got started (1986)
In 1974, my friend Karen Frerichs was a 12 year old playing by herself outside her family home in Kankakee. A crop dusting plane coated the adjacent field with pesticide, but it wafted over to Karen on a breeze. Her eye membranes, which absorb pesticides faster than any external body part, took in the toxin,…
The Wikiness 