Grammar Tip of the Day

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skip to main | skip to sidebarGrammar Tip of the Day

Rules of grammar, notes on vocabulary, and observations about the mechanics of writing.

Monday, December 14, 2020 Ken Medaris (1950-2020): An Improbable Life that Linked Weightlifting, Pro Wrestling, and "The Barn Dance" cable showBack before spandexed multitudes swarmed tony places like Court South, Curves, and the Rush, before personal training was a profession, when the Downtown YMCAs cinderblock basement weight room was known as The Dungeona few of Knoxvilles well-heeled doctors and businessmen discovered they could improve their strength and bodies by training under a former Sheriffs department supervisor and pro wrestler named Ken Medaris.Ken Medaris (right) with pro wrestler Barry Windham
Some people fish. Some people collect stamps. I love weightlifting, said Medaris, a former 135-pound weakling who liked to say that he learned his bodybuilding techniques from a succession of experts who fortune placed in his path, each of whom had studied under one of the biggest names in the field. Under examination, this turned out to be true. He was not a bullshitter, says Mark Hill, a local headhunter who trained with Medaris for several years. He was such a colorful character and an interesting man. From connections made trainingmostly in the DungeonMedaris spent five years on the pro wrestling circuit body-slamming colleagues like the Mongolian Stomper, Klondike Bill, Professor Malenko, the Suicide Blond, and the Iron Sheik. The best time of my life, said Medaris. We were stars. When we went through the Atlanta airport, wed have to stop and give autographs. Later, Medaris danced for five years on the Bagwell Communications cable show The Barn Dance. In real life, he worked for 16 years as a Knox County Sheriffs Department officer and supervisor. He came from that old-school era of training, says Clayton Bryant, former owner of Total Fitness, where Medaris trained clients starting in the mid-90s. Back then weightlifting was a little more of a cult thing. It wasnt as popular or widespread as it is now. It was a lot of bodybuilders, basic weightlifters, and wrestlers. For so long, athletes in other sports thought weights would take away flexibility or quickness. Now all athletes do it. Heck, even swimmers do it. He was Old School, but he was good old school, says Hill. He was smart about training. He knew. He didnt let you hurt yourself and he was conscientious about form. Many people may not realize that he was a sensitive and deeply caring man.
Tiny Long Makes a Difference In the summer of 1960, Ken Medaris was 10 and painfully shy. He was especially embarrassed that his legs looked like pencils. I was always athletic, said Medaris, but I was always small. I was so skinny that it really had an effect on me psychologically. I wouldnt go to McDonalds to get a hamburger. At a Saturday morning class at the Downtown Y, a 21-year-old counselor named David Tiny Long gave young Ken some tips. He took the time to teach me how to improve, said Medaris. He showed me how to sprint and told me to pick a mark on my street and run to it, then go a little further every day. He showed me how to do a lay-up and shoot a basketball, make a softball throw, do a broad jump. He told me to build a pull-up bar and do as many pull-ups as I could twice a day. At the end-of-summer decathlon, skinny Ken won top honors for Knoxville. This is the possession Im proudest of in the world, he said, showing off a tiny gold award on a gold chain reading YMCA Athletic Achievement. It was presented by John Duncan, the mayor. Jimmy Duncan was in my class, even though he was three years older. Tiny kindled my interest to build my body, said Medaris. He sent me on the road and had more influence than anything in my life. Medaris was born on December 30, 1950, in Knoxville, and lived for many years in the house he grew up in, on Lamour Ave., just off Hollywood Rd., near Pond Gap Elementary. His father, Paul, was a KUB lineman for 34 years. His mother, Hazel, worked in the cosmetics department at Millers Department Store. Ken moved back in to the family house take care of his dad in the 90s. I played Midget football, said Medaris, but I was a tackling dummy. His athletic career ended when he took a paper route at 13but he did wrestle. Mr. Bowman of the Bowman Hat Company would stage impromptu wrestling matches among the kids and give a dime to the winner. You can say that I did wrestle for a dime! said Medaris.
An Entrée to theSecrets of Pumping Iron After graduating from West High School in 1969, Medaris started at Hiwassee College. On Jan. 3, 1970, he walked into the weight room. The barbells were pipes with cans filled with cement at either end. The pulldowns were made of pulley and ropes from the hardware store. There, by what he calls a stroke of luck, the 61, 135-pound string bean met a Brazilian named Evandro Camera who had apparently been carved from marble by Michelangelo. He was five-eight and 220 pounds of solid muscle, said Medaris. I consider this the day I started. Back in Recife, Brazil, Camera had read all the magazines and learned about the top names in bodybuildingespecially the great Bill Pearl. Camera had embarked on a pilgrimage to Muscle BeachVenice Beach, Californiaand asked, Where is the home of Bill Pearl? He moved into Pearls basement and learned the secrets of pumping iron, then earned a scholarship to Hiwassee. We buddied up and he set out to train me and teach me what he knew, said Medaris. It started, as it still does, with the six sets of basic exercises: the bench press, squat, bent-over row, lat pulldowns, press behind the neck, biceps curls. I looked at all the magazines. They were baloney, other than Iron Man. Medaris trained for a year and a half with Evandro, then moved back to Knoxville and UT for one quarter in 1972. I took a course in nutrition at UT at the Home Ec school. It was 70 women and me. Before there were protein shakes, there was Carnation Instant Breakfast. Starting then, I ate, slept, drank weightlifting. I became obsessed with only putting things in my body that would make my muscles grow. In the Dungeon, Medaris had the good fortune to get to know Bob Simpson, a commercial artist built like a refrigerator with a 55-inch chest who was Knoxvilles most famous weightlifter and even wrote for Iron Man. Simpson had trained under Paul Anderson, who once appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson billed as the undisputed strongest man in the world.. In 1974, Simpson was one of the first men in America to overhead press 500 pounds, said Medaris. Simpson did it in the YMCA. A lifter named Ken Patera did it in competition, stealing Simpsons glory, but Medaris saw Simpson do it. He also saw Simpson partially press 820 pounds, bending a York Olympic bar double in the process. That bent bar stayed in the Y for 20 years as a tribute.
Medaris watches the Stomper lift.Sheriff's Deputy and Pro Wrestler
In 1974, Medaris was working part-time in a health food store when a U.S. Marshall came inand started Medaris thinking about law enforcement. He took the test for the County Sheriffs office and started out at the bottom of the pole as a process server. In a 16-year career, he worked his way up to officer and eventually supervisor. In the later 1970s, Medaris watched Southeast Champion and Smoky Mountain Wrestling legend Archie Gouldie, the Mongolian Stomper, who lived in Maynardville and East Knoxville. He was the Stomper, said Medaris. It was so intimidating. For six months I was afraid to talk to him. One day I asked, Could you tell me how to build my chest? I ended up training with him for over a year.
The Stomper was Medariss entrée into professional wrestling, where Medaris was known as an excellent workermeaning that he made the seasoned hands look goodand a good hand, meaning that he could handle the basic moves that audiences liked. On the wrestling tour, said Medaris, you gotta be able to get along with people.
In 1981 Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had won Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe bodybuilding titles and been featured in the documentary Pumping Iron, came to Knoxville to do a promotion for Larry Jacksons weightlifting equipment. Medaris sat next to him at dinner at Jacksons house. We were the same height, 6 1, and weighed exactly the same, 215. But my arms looked like spaghetti noodles next to his. I thought, how is that possible? He told me, Its 50 percent what you do in the gym and 50 percent what you put in your mouth. He told everybody he was on his way to Hollywood to make movies. Everybody said, Youre on your way to the poorhousethats where old weightlifters go. Medaris wrestled for five years and was always paid in cash. In 1983, he suffered a serious back injury, rupturing a couple of discs and ending his ring career. It put me out of business. Then came The Barn Dance at Bagwell Communications, which was then pioneering the production of shows to fill the vast expanses of cable TV. Medaris danced on 800 shows with Amanda Maples, now marketing director of the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce. Medaris met and befriended the original three Dixie Chicks (below), especially Laura Lynch, who was eventually Pete Bested in favor of Natalie Maines.
The Accidental Personal Trainer One day, in 1982, at the Knoxville downtown Y, Dr. Ray Depue said to Medaris, Ive been watching you, and you seem to know what youre doing. Ill be glad to pay you, but could you teach me how to lift weights? There was no such thing as a personal trainer in those days, says Medaris. He trained Depue, which led to another client and another. He charged them $10 a session. When Depew built the Sports Farm, Medaris started training there. When I-40/75 ran over the Sports Farm, Medaris moved his operations to other gyms. Around 2006, Mark Hill walked into The Gym, then owned by a former male model named David White, and asked for a trainer. He looked me and saw that I was old and skinny, says Hill, and he shuffled me over to Ken. He sent the dregs to Ken. Hill turned out to be a dedicated student who quickly doubled his strength. When The Gym ran into money problems, Hill helped Medaris set up shop at the Knoxville Racquet Club, where he trained clients for five years before his declining health led to his retirement. Medaris died of various complications of heart failure on Thursday, December 3, 2020, a few weeks shy of his 70th birthday. I was lucky enough to win five training sessions with Ken Medaris at an Opera Ball auction. After those five visits to the Racquet Club, I signed up for many more and learned a regimen for the weight room that brings benefits to the present day. I like to remember Ken quoting the bodybuilder John C. Grimek, known as The Monarch of Muscledom, who often said, What a shame it is for a person to go through his life and not know the joy of a well-developed body.No comments: Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest Tuesday, March 20, 2018 FRANK CUSHWA: A LEGACY OF PASSIONATE TEACHING AT 100By Brooks Clark
From the Exeter Bulletin, Summer 2007

Beloved by his colleagues and students (including writers like James Agee, Robert Benchley and Robert Nathan),Frank Cushwa was a skillful and sympathetic teacher who made a difficult subject living and thrilling. He was also a puzzle.

One hundred years ago, Frank William Cushwa joined the Exeter faculty as an instructor in the
English department.
At such a milestone, its fitting to assess Cushwas influence on the Academy over his 32-year
tenure. From the moment he joined the faculty, wrote Myron R.Williams in The Story of Phillips
Exeter, he began arousing interests that had grown sluggish and set in motion new ones. Under
him the English Department truly came of age, and he gave new life to the Bulletin, which he
edited until 1933. The Davis Library, the Monthly, Academy lectures, funds for lectures and prizes, the Lantern Club, the Southern Club, the Musical Clubs, winter sports, new dormitories, the Art Department, the Dramatic Association, Phillips Church, the Problem Committee, the Harkness
Planthese and other things received from him either the initial impulse or much of the momentum to make them go.
At the same time, the centennial of Frank Cushwas arrival at Exeter presents a puzzle. Its not a puzzle we can solve, as much as we might like to, but it can perhaps draw us closer to a legacy
of innovative teaching.
Cushwa grew up in Martinsburg, WV. He graduated from West Virginia University in 1902, got one masters degree at WVU in 1903 and another at Harvard in 1904, then taught at Choate for
several years.
In his first year at Exeter, Cushwa, then 26, assigned his class to write an essay on a practical subject. One student, the future humorist Robert Benchley 08, sought out the local undertaker, who eagerly taught Benchley every gruesome detail of preparing a body for burial. Benchleys essay nonplussed his teacher with its stomach-turning itemization of corpse-care. Mr. Cushwa, who was young and rather shy, had a little trouble getting through it, wrote Nathaniel Benchley 34 in Benchley, a biography of his father.He could not deny, however, that it was practical. He cleared his throat, wiped his glasses, and gave it an A.
Benchley carried his interest in embalming into his years as an Algonquin Round Table wit. He subscribed to undertakers trade magazines, and when he and Dorothy Parker shared an office at Vanity Fair, they decorated their walls with cadaver illustrations, which they found hilarious. When their editor told Benchley and Parker to take the pictures down, it fueled the world-
class humorists all the more.
Benchley and Parker befriended Donald Ogden Stewart 12, then an editor at Life. (Stewart later wrote humorous books and crafted many screenplays, including The Philadelphia Story, for which he won an Academy Award.) One of the things which brought Robert Benchley 08 and me together at
our first meeting 10 years later was our mutual affection for Cush, wrote Stewart in Exeter
Remembered,a collection of essays.A more imaginative nickname [than Cush] would have been
Dr. Johnson. He was perfect for the part. His fat body moved awkwardly; his one good eye glared
from his blotched face as he grunted out his angry judgments.We loved him. His Shakespeare
classes were the most popular in the curriculum. His student imitators (and they were legion)
could always get a laugh, but it was a sympathetic laugh.
Cushwa taught, inspired and instilled a love of literature and writing. In the 1920s, wrote
Charles Edward Wyzanski Jr. 23 (a judge with the U.S. District Court of Boston) in Exeter
Remembered, the Phillips Exeter Academy was the most incandescent place for a boy who was
ready for the worlds most stimulating teachingthe kind of fire that burned from Frank Cush-
wa with lightning force lit the wicks of a thousand waxen lads.
Cushwa was a member of the committee that created the Harkness Plan. In 1933, he published his
Introduction to Conrad,which used autobiographical passages from Conrads works to paint a picture of Joseph Conrad as a person and a literary craftsman. In 1936, Cushwa co-wrote, with Exeter colleague Robert N. Cunningham, Ways ofThinking and Writing, a textbook
of advanced composition that provides a window onto the passion for ideas and creative thought that made the Exeter experience unique. (Used copies of this textbook are still available through Amazon.com.)
Undoubtedly, wrote Williams in The Story of Phillips Exeter, Mr. Cushwas great gift was that of vitality. He loved life himself and loved to see things live. His passion for shrubs and flowers was one example. With this love, however, went a lively sense of justice and a quick concern for the weak or the distressed. Almost best of all was his rich sense of humor, and his friends can still hear the hearty laugh that trumpeted the good joke.
Williams quotes a student who described Cushwa as a skillful and sympathetic teacher who made a difficult subject living and thrilling, and an adviser of never failing wisdom and experience, a father and a companion. Patience and a sense of humor prevented him from ever
treating anyone harshly.
Then there is the puzzle. In the late 1930s Cushwa apparently fell into a depressionthough no one in those days knew to call it that. On April 30, 1939, at age 57, Cushwa took his own life at the home of relatives in Worcester, Mass. As is often the case, no one ever really knew why, if there
was a why, or if there ever is a why. We certainly cant escape the irony of a person who so loved life ending his own.
While noting this mark of 100 yearsand how distant it makes that era soundwe can at the same time remind ourselves that in fact it was just a generation or two ago. Frank Cushwa was my
grandfather. His son,William T. Cushwa 36, 89, is my uncle Bill. His daughter, Charlotte Cushwa
Clark, is my mother. Now 90, Mom remembers James Agee 28 walking through their garden behind Gilman House. He was a very odd walker, she says.I didnt know his name at the time, but I saw
pictures later and knew it was him. Cushwa wrote in a recommendation letter for Agee, "He was meant for Harvard and Harvard for him." At one time my grandmother, Elizabeth Cushwa, had in her bookshelves a copy of Let Us Now Praise FamousMen that Agee had inscribed, To Mr. Cushwa, who taught me everything I know. It is somehow appropriate to Agees legendary status that
the book was lost after my grandmothers death.
None of Frank Cushwas 11 grandchildrenmy five cousins, my five siblings and I
were born during his lifetime. So, strictly speaking, none of us knew him. But we know his
hearty laugh. It was passed on and can be heard at any family gathering. Many other clear and discernible traits were passed onamong them love of learning, words and talking, a joy in aiding the development of young people, and, for some of us, alas, a tendency to girth. We can look around and realize that Cushwas passion for teaching still lives and breathes at Exeterand some of us can realize that it lives and breathes in us.

The youngest brother of W. Tucker Clark 63, Brooks Clark (St. Albans 74, Dartmouth 78) lives in
Knoxville, Tenn.6 comments: Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest Friday, October 27, 2017 John C. Hodges: The Harvard Scholar Whose Grammar Book Built the Library.
By Brooks Clark
Back in the 1920s a college professor devised a system formarking essays to help his students identify their grammatical mistakes.Seventy-six years after he first published his scheme in a handbook for Englishinstructors, his text is still an academic and commercial success. The John C.Hodges Library is named in his honor.
John Cunyus Hodgeswas born March 15, 1892, in tiny Cotton Valley in northwestern Louisiana,between Shreveport and the Arkansas state line. It was a rural but comfortablechildhood. At the age of 19, Hodges graduated with a BA from Meridian Collegein Mississippi, and he got his masters in English from Tulane a year later. In 1913 Hodges becamean instructor at Northwestern University, where he met Alwin Thaler, a Shakespearescholar from Brooklyn. The genteel southerner and the German immigrant from NewYork became lifelong friends. At a summer program at the University ofWisconsin, Hodges met Lillian Nelson. They married in 1914. Thaler and Hodgesstarted at Harvard in 1916. Hodges earned his PhD in 1918 and got a job at OhioWesleyan, just north of Columbus, where he taught for three years. Thaler endedup at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1921 Hodges wasrecruited to the Tennessee English department by James Douglas Bruce, a notedCelticist and Arthurian scholar, who later helped steer Hodges into his chiefscholarly concern, the life and work of the Restoration playwright WilliamCongreve. On his arrival, Hodges took over the direction and coordination of amoribund program of Freshman English, according to Kenneth Currys history ofthe department, English at Tennessee.Within a year, Hodges developed the beginnings of a systematic approach toteaching freshman English. Curry writes that Hodges had students keep theirpapers and revisions in folders, which they would discuss in regularconferences with their instructors. The folders were then archived by thedepartment. Over time, Hodges analyzed and tabulated the contents of thesefolders, Curry explains. With so many stacks of papers and so many sets of corrections,Hodges was able to systematically determine which errors his students were mostlikely to make. In 1923 Hodges persuadedhis colleagues to lure Thaler away from Berkeley. John and Lillian met Alwinand Harriett at the train station and hosted them at their house at 1908 WhiteAvenue while Alwin looked for a house to rent. For the next four decades,Hodges and Thaler were the Harvard guys, as English Professor Bain Stewartput it respected scholars and teachers who brought gravitas to the department. All Matters Neededby Freshmen Starting in 1922,Hodges published his own Manual of Instruction for Freshman English, which heexpanded each year. By 1937, the manual was 29 pages long and included a map ofthe library and instructions on how to write papers. Hodges becameassistant head of the department in 1937 and acting head between 1938 and 41,when he formally succeeded Burke. Sometime in thelate 1930s, a Harcourt Brace traveling textbook salesman named Sidney Stanleyvisited UT. He met Hodges, and after he heard about his system of correctingpapers, he passed on the lead to the Harcourt Brace editorial department.Intrigued, the publishing company offered Hodges a contract. What Hodges calledhis handbook of all matters needed by freshmen was published in 1941. (Harbraceis a conflation of Harcourt Brace.) The rest ishistory, says Michael Rosenberg, a publisher at Wadsworth/Cengage Learning,which owns the rights to the now-defunct Harcourt Braces college textbooks.The company was hoping to make only a small dent in the freshman handbookmarket with the unknown author from Tennessee. However, the cleverorganizational plan, the compact, trim size, and the books ability to explaindifficult issues of language cogently and concisely created a demand thatcatapulted the handbook to best-seller status quickly.
Hodges had twostated objectives when he composed his textbook. The first read: To makecorrection of written work as clear and easy as possible for the student. Thesecond was: To make marking of student papers as easy as possible for theinstructor. The latter pointmaking teachers lives easierhas been the secretto its continuing success. Each broad,numbered section was subdivided in an alphanumeric scheme that aided citation. Hodgessunique numbering of each rule enabled teachers coming upon a sentence such asWhile riding a bus, the tornado ripped through town to simply write in themargin 25f(4), sending students to the rule Avoid dangling ellipticalphrases or clauses and its explanation. The first edition of Harbracecame out at the beginning of World War II. After it was published, Hodgesembarked on a program of identifying best practices among English teachersacross the state and spreading their gospel. By collecting the scores offreshmen entering the colleges in the state of Tennessee, wrote Kenneth Curryin English at Tennessee, it waspossible to identify the high schools with superior programs in English as wellas the superior teachers of high school English. Dr. Hodges himself visitedmany schools and began a program that was to be expanded after the war. So, too, didHodges expand the UT English department, which had six staff members at the endof World War II. Hodges was a catalyst for the amazing transformation of asmall, sleepy department into a lively, expanding department, wrote Curry.Where others in the University had been pessimistic and defeatist, Dr. Hodgeswas positive and hopeful and confident that, given the opportunity, thedepartment would justify his faith. A second editionof Harbrace appeared in 1946. A thirdfollowed five years later, and a fourth edition five years after that.
An Expert on theBawdy Bard In his ownacademic research, Hodges was a leading authority on the seventeenth-centuryEnglish playwright William Congreve, who hit it big with five high-brow, sexualcomedies of manners written between 1693 and 1700. This was during the roaring RestorationPeriod, when the rakish Charles II had replaced the stick-in-the-mud Puritans, reinstatedthe Anglican Church, reopened the theatres, and allowed women (including hisown mistress, Nell Gwyn) to perform on stage. Congreves playsincluded memorable lines such as, Heaven has no rage like love to hatredturned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned, Music has charms to sooth asavage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak, and Say what you will,'tis better to be left than never to have been loved. The dawn of the 1700sbrought a conservative reaction to the Roaring 1690s. A wave of button-down moresswept England, Congreves bawdy style fell out of fashion, and Congreve turnedthereafter to politics of the Whig party. Over the years,Hodges amassed one of the worlds largest collections of Congreves plays,which are now housed in UTs Special Collections. In the late 40s, Lillianaccompanied Hodges to England and Ireland to help him collect material for hisbook The Life of Congreve. In the late springof 1951, Lillian grew ill. Still, she accompanied Hodges on a trip to theHuntington Library in Pasadena, California, to gather material for the book The Library of William Congreve.Unfortunately, Lillians condition worsened. She entered a Pasadena hospitaland died a month later. They had one son, Nelson. Hodges metCornelia Smartt Hendley when she served as executrix of the estate of Hodgessformer colleague John B. Emperor, who had set up a fund for the Englishdepartment in his will, much as Hodges did later on. My sister had an uncannyability to handle details and amounts, says John Smartt, Hodgessbrother-in-law. She had a good business head on her. Cornelia and Johnmarried in 1952 and spent six months together in Europe doing Congreveresearch. One of their key findings resolved confusion about the authorship ofthe play that begins with the line, Music has charms to soothe a savagebreast. Some manuscripts of the day attributed the play to the Duke of Leedsin Yorkshire, England, but Hodges located Congreves private library catalogueand verified that the lines were, in fact, his. In all, Hodgess search forduplicates of books owned by Congreve was a four-year project that took him tolibraries in five countries. John and Cornelialived for fifteen years at 8 Hillvale Circle in Sequoyah Hills, where she threwelegant English department parties and displayed her lively wit. She was whip-smartand hilariously funny, while always the genteel southern lady, says GinnaMashburn, a faculty spouse and instructor.
A Gift that Keeps onGiving In its variouseditions, co-authors and collaborators worked with Hodges on Harbrace, but the format stayed thesame. One of the biggest changes came in the 1962 fifth edition, when Hodgessname was added to the title, just as he retired from teaching in the English department.In July of 1967, Hodges died at 75 following a heart attack. His will left halfhis Harbrace royalties to the UT Librariesand the English department. Now in its eighteenth edition, Harbracethe most successful college textbook on record--is a giftto UT that keeps on giving. When the JohnC. Hodges Library was dedicated two years later, Cornelia helped put in place acornerstone that to this day contains a 1969 UT yearbook, a 69-70 catalog,library development annual reports for 1966 to 68, and Hodgess threebooksthe sixth edition of Harbrace, The Life of Congreve, and The Library of Congreve.
He was an imposingpresence, said David Burns of Knoxville, who took freshman English underHodges in 1950 and still has his inscribed copy of the 1946 edition of Harbrace. He wore tweed jackets most ofthe time, as youd expect, and he was a grammarian through and through. I thinkof him when I read even magazines that have good writers and see onegrammatical error after another. He was simply one of the finest gentlemen Iever knew.

This story appeared in its current form in 30 Years of the New John C. Hodges Library(c) University of Tennessee Libraries, 2017. 1 comment: Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest Tuesday, September 5, 2017 On the 100th anniversary of Charlotte Clark's birth, a look back at 2009Dear Friends of Charlotte Cheever Cushwa Clark, I wrote the essay below, entitled "One More Year," in 2009, after I had visited my mother for a week in March or thereabouts at her home in Harwich Port, Massachusetts. She died in late May of that year, a few months shy of her 92nd birthday.Charlotte and Charlotte Here she is, at right, with her granddaughter and namesake Charlotte Spring Clark. Today, on what would have been Charlotte Clark's 100th birthday, I hope you enjoy this snapshot of her at 91. Brooks ClarkOne More YearWell, says Charlotte, elbows on the church folding table, one handholding a piece of coffee cake, everybody says I should think about going intoassisted living. She annunciates the last two words withthe emphasis she might use to punctuate sentences like, He got mixed up with that female, or, That dress was perfectly dreadful. Around the tables, arranged in a U, the membersof the Wednesday morning post-service breakfast discussion, many of them octogenariansthemselves, turn their heads to hear Charlottes nearly nonagenarian voice. I guess I need to think about it, shesays, even though I dont want to. Thank you, Charlotte, says Father P____,just a hair too patronizing, as usual, not like the interim rector, Bill, whohad preceded him. Bill had alwaysunderstood that, even as Charlottes hearing and sight grew weaker and she gotslower moving her walker down the aisle to Communion, she most definitely hadall her marbles. Bill gave great sermons. He neverused any notes and stood near the front pews, so he was easy to hear, and hewas popular with everyone. Charlotte says that, at his previous posting onMarthas Vineyard, he had done something bad which sounds for all the world like something good in the conspiratorial way she whispers it to earn his interimposting at such a small church with such an old congregation. He went astray,she adds, in case you hadnt figured it out. In her years as a clergymans wife,Charlotte always hated it when parishioners said they liked the old rectorbetter than the current one. Its sounfair to the new guy, she explains. SoI always stood up for John P____. Butshe did like Bill better. It was with the wife of aCongregational minister, she finally adds, having held out the juicy detaillong enough. Change can be hard in our lives, FatherP____ continues. Just as change can be hard in the Church. Many of us love the Episcopal Church becauseit has so many traditions and so much history, and because the words we sayhavent changed, going back to the early centuries of Christianity. But we now have female clergy. We have gay clergy, and gay bishops, and weknow there are differing opinions about all of that. And we have many differentways that we approach what the Church is all about. The Youth Ministry is a great example. Were still trying to figure out what works. Nods all around. Ive thought a lot about it, says Charlie,a vestryman in his 70s, and Ive decided that these changes are good. Theykeep our Church up with the times and able to reach young people. If the only people coming to church are allof us, were sunk. That was several years ago. Just this fall the church got anew rector, Judith Davis. She went to Yale Divinity School, says Charlotte,and she gives great sermons. Its sogreat to have a person of thinking. Judithhad been rector at a church on Capitol Hill for 12 years and a hematologist ina previous career. She and her partner, Ann,whos also a priest, have an adopted son, Jamie, 6, whom they are homeschooling. A few people left the parish when theyheard about the new hire. Some havecome back, says Charlotte, because they heard she was good. There were a couple of weeks between theannouncement and her arrival. That gave people time to talk and get upset. It would have been better if theyd made theannouncement and she started right then. Change comes in many disguises. A couple of years ago Charlotte startedremaining seated during Communion. Thatwas after Jack Doran, the head usher, made her feel uncomfortable about movingher walker down the center aisle. He said, You can go this way, Charlotterecalls. So now, after everyone else isfinished, Judith and the chalice bearer come down and administer the wafer andwine to Charlotte in her pew. Its OK, she says. Onweekdays, Charlotte watches The TodayShow, doing her flexibility movements sitting on the side of her bed. Then she pilots her walker into the kitchen alittle before 10 a.m. Her Special K isin a bowl with a light blue Ziploc cover on top. She pours her coffee and milkand sits in her white wooden chair that has been recently reupholstered and reconditioned. Barbara, her beloved caregiverfor five years now, arrives at the stroke of ten. Hello-oo! chirps Barbara, putting herbag down on the round kitchen table. The table has looked the same since 1969,when Charlotte made a collage out of newspaper clips from the moon landing and sealedit under poly-urethane. Some still say. . . earth is flat, reads one headline, placed over a close-up of the lunarsurface.
On the kitchen wall, alongside a doorjamb, are pencil markings marking the heights of the children and grandchildrenover the years. From a black-and-white photoon the wall, Charlottes husband, Bayard, gone some 15 years now, beams withpride as he holds up a fish that stretches from his shoulders to his white Top-Sidersneakers. A blue-tinged certificate signedby Governor Endicott Peabody declares Bayards catch to be the biggest stripedbass taken from Massachusetts waters in 1968.
On the wall theres also thefamily photo from 1970 the boys with the moustaches and long hair, everyonedressed in brightly colored attire from India, brought back by two sons fromthe Peace Corps. That year Charlottesmother, beginning her descent into senility, had taken a pair of scissors toher copy of the family shot and snipped the tops of the boys heads and theirhair right out of the picture. Beneath glass in seven motley-sized framesare dozens of business cards. Thetradition started as a retort to the question, asked once too often, What is your job, anyway? As if anyone in a large family ever listenswhen you say your title and the name of the company you work for. And anyway, in this kitchen you worry aboutother things: How is so-and-so doing inschool? Are Tommy and Jeanne going toget married? Does the roof need to bereplaced? Can we afford it? Nonetheless, there they are, thosecards decades of jobs and titles and companies gone by, preserved forposterity, testament to the changing paths of our lives, even if things dontchange much in Charlottes kitchen. Barbara takes Charlottes bloodpressure, reads Charlotte her mail, as well as the headlines from the Cape Cod Times, and a column or two, especiallyMaureen Dowd. Charlotte closes her eyes to listen and punctuates each of Dowdswitty barbs with a hearty laugh. Thats been the hardest thing, saysCharlotte, not being able to read. Last March she learned to use a smallportable CD player. So now she listensto books on CD on Saturdays and Sundays, when Barbara isnt there. Last spring she read Doris Kearns GoodwinsA Team of Rivals, about Lincolnscabinet. So many people were reading andtalking about that book that uninitiated listeners, hearing discussions aboutthe precocious Belle of Washington Kate Chase and her elegant parties,thought Charlotte was talking about someone she knew. Barbara makes up a meal plan for the evening and a shopping list, andthen heads out to the Star Market.Charlotte talks on the phone with children, their spouses andex-spouses, grandchildren, neighbors and friends. One granddaughter is graduating from collegein May. Another is getting married in June to a good guy. Another isengaged. Another will be soon. Its a lot to keep up with, but Charlotte ison top of each development. Weddings and graduations have always beenCharlottes favorite occasions. Three years ago she made it to agranddaughters wedding in Boston, with a son piloting her wheelchair through game-daycrowds for the reception at Fenway Park.Two Aprils ago she did the same for a grandsons wedding inPhiladelphia. But shell miss the college graduation and the wedding. Itsvery upsetting, she says, but its just toomuch for me to make long trips, and for someone to look after me. Ideally, Barbara could take me. Its challenge enough for Charlotte tomake it to the 10 a.m. service on Sundays, if its not too cold or icy. Bo Coursen, the senior warden of the church,and his wife, Sidney, are so nice to come by and drive her. Nowadays the Wednesday 7:30 a.m. service is justtoo early. Charlotte has had occasional mini-strokes TIAs (transient ischemic attacks),they call them as well as a fainting episode and other health moments, butnow shes doing pretty well. A few days after her 90^th birthdayparty she had a TIA, and they found she wasnt getting enough oxygen. I was incarcerated for three weeks, she says of her stay in rehab at Liberty Commons,when she learned to breathe better. Theyalso gave her an oxygen machine to use at night Each week Barbara puts Charlottes pillsfor the week, morning and evening, in two one of those M-T-W handy containers,and, says Barbara, shes good about taking them. Barbara is also good at changing thebatteries on Charlottes hearing aids, thank heaven. At least once a day Charlotte talks with Lucy,her best friend since they were 6. They can tell you anything you want to knowabout anyone who attended or taught at Phillips Exeter Academy, where theirfathers were professors, in the first half of the 20^th century. Charlotte remembers seeing James Agee movingthrough the garden behind the dorm they lived in. He was a very odd walker, sherecalls. People come by, some for tea, some forlunch, and chat. Before she leaves at around 4 p.m., Barbarareads again to Charlotte. Right nowtheyre in the early chapters of Dreams fromMy Father. An extraordinary story,says Charlotte. Really extraordinary. Its important for Charlotte to get her nap in the afternoon, but it canbe hard to get her to nap when the children or grandchildren or greatgrandchildren are visiting. In the evenings Charlottewatches The Situation Room and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer in herbedroom. She then moves to the kitchen,heats up the dinner Barbara has made for her, and eats while watching Hardball. When everything is the same, shes the happiest, says Barbara, who comesfive days a week now. So dont move thatstack of New Yorkers on the livingroom coffee table. She likes them there,right next to the Smith Alumnae Quarterlyand a Boston College hockey media guide that her grandson Tim worked on. And dont touch anything on that foldoutdesk and its cubbies overflowing with envelopes. Many of the bills are paid automaticallythese days, but there are a few that Charlotte has to deal with. A friend comes by every now and then andhelps her mailing birthday cards and other notes. Charlottes ring binder with everyonesphone numbers printed in 24-point type stays right on the kitchen table. Judy [a daughter-in-law] was so nice to putthat together for me, says Charlotte. With her macular degeneration, Charlotteis having trouble reading even with the big numbers, but she can get Barbara todial them for her.The house is full of Charlottes paintings and lithographs. A few years ago her eyesight and unsure handsended her life as an artist, but she took it in stride. Right now, she just wants to keep being ableto live in her house, with Barbara coming in and cooking for her and drivingher to her doctors appointments, and friends and family coming by and callingto say hello. I think I have one more year, saysCharlotte. Of course, she said the samething a year ago, and the year before that. Our rule, explains Barbara, is that,as long as she can get up and out of her chair, and get the bathroom, and intothe kitchen, I can take care of her. Butif she cant get up, I cant look after her any more. The specter of not being able to get upand having to leave her house for assistedliving inspires Charlotte to do her eight minutes of movements on the sideof her bed while listening to Matt Lauer every morning. [Sons] Rocky and Stocky wanted to buy meone of those chairs that you push a button and go flying in the air, shesays. I didnt want that. It was brown, so it didnt match. They said it was only $150, and you couldnever get a chair like that for $150. Ordinarily they cost $600. But I said no. To keep living here, I have tobe able to get up, and if I had that chair Id stop being able to. And anyway, I like this chair, she says, hitting the white wood arm rest with the heelof her hand. People my age dont like change, sheexplains. We like things to remain thesame. Rocky comes for dinner on Wednesdays,usually with his daughter Anna and her boyfriend Chris, both of them just outof college. Both of them have jobs,says Charlotte. You know, all 14 of mygrandchildren have made it through college, she has said more than once. Improud about that, and I dont mind saying so. The summer months will bring waves ofchildren, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, filling up the house andsparking those storied, more-the-merrier family dinners, at which those of allages are expected contribute to the conversation. One granddaughter described the familydinners in her application essay to Williams. Last summer anothergranddaughter, counseling at a Fresh Air Fund camp north of New York City,brought co-counselors from Germany, Scotland and England during one of theirbreaks between encampments. For the past six decades or so, thesedinners always begin with joined hands and the singing of For health andstrength and daily food, we praise thy name, oh Lord. Ah-h-h-h . . . men. If shes not careful, Charlotte, at 91,can get worn down during these months of activity, but she hates to miss aminute and of course wants to be up to date on the constant changes in everyoneslives.
Really, says Charlotte, Im just so happyto still be here. On earth and in the kitchen, for one moreyear. 1 comment: Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest Older PostsHomeSubscribe to:Posts (Atom)
Total PageviewsPopular Posts"While" -- a comma makes it mean "whereas"from Ruge Rules The Rule : While can be used to mean during the time that, and it can be used to mean whereas....Not only . . . but also from Ruge Rules The Rule: In the not only . . . but also construction, the two items connected must be similar in kind. So: Wrong: He not ...Grammatical responses to "How are you?" and "How ya doin'?"A friend found herself managing a debate among high school students about the proper response to the everyday pleasantries, How are yo...To capitalize or not to capitalize From the Knoxville News Sentinel Grammar Gremlins column By Don Ferguson Sunday, August 26, 2007 If the pronoun everyone is used in...Should it be "more important" or "more importantly"?From Garners Usage Tip of the Day: more important(ly) As an introductory phrase, more important, has historically been c...When to use a comma with "or"(from Ruge Rules ) The rule: Place a comma before or when what follows it means the same as what precedes it. As in: ..."The reason is that" not "The reason is because" From Ruge Rules Incorrect: The reason I am late is because I had an accident. Correct: The reason I am late is that I had an accident. Wh...A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subjectIn perusing The Elements of Style (the delightful, recent illustrated edition), I was reminded how elegantly Strunk and White express their..."Who's your Daddy" redux: the New York Post taunts Pedro Martinez The New York Post strives each day to equal the greatest tabloid headline of all time: Headless body found in topless bar . Yesterday, ...Set off non-restrictive phrases or clauses in commasThis is a big one---perhaps the most important rule of commas. The Rule: Set off non-restrictive phrases or clauses in commas....Hodges' Harbrace Handbook 15th Edition
A Most Sacred TextThe Elements of Style
One of the sacred textsBrooks Clark
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