Home: The Silver and the Gold Sunday, Nov 28 2021

Returning to Louisiana last week for the first time since we moved was confusing.  Did we leave home (Huntsville) to go back home (Louisiana)?  When we left Louisiana Friday, did we leave home to go back home (Huntsville)?

I’m not sure!  What’s sufficient to understand, I suppose, is that even though I live in Texas, I am not a Texan.  I can never be a Texan because I am too much of a Louisianian, no matter that I live in Texas.  At the same time, I’m delighted to be living in Texas, because I understand that we moved here for all the right reasons.   In addition, we’ve made wonderful new friends and acquaintances among our neighbors and our church family.

So like that little chorus we sang in fifth grade choir, “Make new friends, but keep the old. / One is silver and the other gold.”

Texas is silver; Louisiana is gold.  Both are valuable in their own right.

The photo with this post shows the Circle Park in Eunice where we had a reminiscent Subway sandwich picnic last Wednesday.  The only thing missing was our beloved Marley the Dog, who loved  our long jogs and walks on Park Avenue.  We’ll miss our little lover boy dog for the rest of our days!  He was a friend both golden and silver. 

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The Flatness of the Prairie: December Sunset Tuesday, Nov 23 2021

We returned “home” (Louisiana) today for the first time since we moved away on June 30.  We find little has changed.  The roads are as abominable as ever and we saw, for the first time since we left in June, a local Eunice “druggie on a bike.”  (These tatted-up, bearded, thin-as-rails characters pedaling 20″ kids’ bikes up and down the streets don’t seem to exist in Huntsville.)

Something else that remains the same, on a more enchanting note, was the stunning Cajun sunset blazing across the western prairie land south of Crowley as dusk descended on the farm. 

So we were welcomed home with this poetic expression of nature.  God’s glory shines on the magnificent flatness of the prairie!

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O Chicken Tree, O Chicken Tree: How Lovely Are Thy Branches! (In November) Friday, Nov 19 2021

One constant in the flora and fauna between the South Louisiana prairie and the East Tex big thicket country is the relative dullness of fall foliage—- save for the much-maligned Chicken Tree (Chinese Tallow tree, officially named). 

The Chicken Tree, which is identified as an invasive non-native species that was imported from China a generation or two ago when the importer had no idea what procreative force he was about to unleash in the Deep South,  is a weed as much as it is a tree, its seed sown gratuitously in bird doo-doo and growing in immoderate profusion in the worst places, including fence rows, because birds, who eat the Chicken Trees’ seed-laden berries, like to perch on fences and do their “business.”  That’s all fine until the seeds birth seedlings that  begin to grow and ensnare their trunks in the fence material.   Chicken Trees will also choke out other more desirable trees simply because they proliferate so freely and grow so fast.

But the Chicken Tree gathers a little redemption every fall, a week or two before and after Thanksgiving, when the leaves turn bright, floral shades of yellow, red, and orange.  Hardly any native tree in the region turns as pretty, and since the Chicken Trees are so plentiful in the small groves dotting the woodscape, they add a floral touch of fall.

“I think that I shall never see / a sight more lovely than a [chicken] tree,” especially in the Deep South in November.

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The Garbage Culture Sunday, Nov 14 2021

(I’ve composed from the results of three sensory detail creative writing exercises that I did with my classes since 2017. What sensory detail do two of the most recent exercises have in common? The noisy, smelly appearance of a garbage truck disrupting the quiet of an autumn morning. This piece was born from a sensory detail writing exercise I did this month with my English 1301 class at SHSU.)

How or why should the peaceful tranquility of a fresh autumn morning be disrupted by the rude snarling, grinding noises of a garbage truck rumbling through the serenity of a quiet campus setting? Must there be some life’s lesson, some truth that man must confront owing to the intrusion of the ubiquitous garbage truck that obliterates the calm? Let’s explore the possibilities.

Perhaps the garbage truck represents the trash of life, the rubble and refuse that we allow to accumulate in the corners of our lives because we are wasters and consumers. So much of the garbage truck’s cargo is the wanton waste left over and overflowing in our waste cans from the materialism of our nature. We are driven to collect clothes and shoes and devices and junk food and all other manners of “things” that accumulate to profusion.

Maybe the garbage truck, with its smelliness, offers commentary on how life stinks at times . . . not literally, but figuratively. Whether our carelessness or rudeness or misfortune provide sources of life’s stench or whether others contribute to the noxious possibilities,we admit that life at times truly stinks.

Another possibility is that peace and tranquility in our lives is too often drowned out by the rumbling, grinding, cacophonous sounds of the racket that surrounds us. We cannot rest, we cannot endure peace, we cannot train our minds to reflect because we bombard our senses with the shrieking noise of media: phones, videos, laptops, TVs, loud music, trashy talk, boisterous words without meaning.

On a positive note, perhaps we can regard the garbage truck as a beneficial vehicle that hauls away the refuse of life that would otherwise beset and pollute our homes and spaces. Better to haul off the dirty paper plates and used Kleenexes and spent toothpaste tubes than keep those smelly objects to fester and foul the atmosphere!

All of this contemplation brought me around to a quotation from Thoreau’s On Walden Pond, where Thoreau had gone in retreat from society for a period of years in mid-19th century New England. From that experience of living a simple, solitary life in a cabin by a lake shore with minimal comforts of life, he wrote, “I am convinced, by faith and experience, that to maintain oneself on this earth is not a hardship, but a pastime, if we will but live simply and wisely.”

I am confident that Thoreau would not have penned those words had he lived in 2021 America, because to live “simply and wisely” in our noise-polluted culture is impractical. The garbage truck, a rambling and rumbling symbol of culture, surely suggests that our lives are cluttered, beset by “stuff,” complicated beyond measure.

Alas . . . We are the children of garbage-ridden culture.

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The Garbage Man and Marigold Blossoms: A St. Anthony’s Memoir Sunday, Nov 7 2021

In the post-retirement years when I taught at St. Edmund Catholic School in Eunice, Louisiana, (2015-17), my favorite memories were creative writing sessions when I took my classes to the garden areas in the front of St. Anthony’s Church to search for inspiration.  The magnificent statuary and the powerful over-arching branches of the Live Oaks before the church created a stunning scene for reflection.  The piece created here came from one of those exercises, an exercise in recognizing sensory details.   Imagine a blue-collar Cajun garbage truck driver entuned to Marigold blossoms and his wife . . . in front of the church?  What are the possibilities?

I sat on the cold granite bench in front of St. Anthony’s massive red brick church in Eunice, Louisiana, on a crisp fall morning in 2017. The peace of the tranquil air was broken by the noisy rumbling of a Waste Management garbage truck that pulled up along the curb at 341 West Vine, right across the street.

A swarthy Cajun driver opened the truck door and clambered down from the cab. He was about five feet, eight inches, barrel-chested, probably in his late 50s/early 60s, a blue collar kind of a Cajun guy. He crossed he street toward me, ambling my way.

With an inquisitive expression on his face, he asked me, “Sir, do you smell Marigold blossoms?”

A little stumped at such a random question, I managed to stammer a reply, “Why, of course, sir, look in the flower pot right over here by the church door.”

He walked across the church lawn, mounted the steps, and plucked a sprig of marigolds. He chuckled, “I need doze for my wife. She loves marigolds, her.”

What do we learn from this man?

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A Homework Tale: The Chicken Made Me [not] Do It Tuesday, Nov 2 2021

I’ve heard innumerable excuses from students as to why they failed to turn in an assignment.  Some are clever, many are inventive, all are lame, whether the blame is on the dog who peed on the worksheet or the overzealous mom who threw out the essay with the household trash.

But last week I heard the best ever.  The assignment due was an online submission, deadline midnight.  The student missed the deadline.  The next day after class, he comes up to me, a little sheepish.

“Mr. Pulling, you noticed I didn’t turn in my assignment on time last night.  I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but when I got back to my apartment around 11:30 p.m., there was a chicken in my room.   I did turn it in later, but I realize it might have been past the deadline.”

In the moment, I didn’t know what to do but laugh.  I have no doubt the kid was sincere, especially as I recalled some of the freshmen pranks my buddies and I pulled back in 1970.  What else about human (or freshman) nature has changed?

I didn’t inquire about the details, but I imagine he was a bit shaken by the live chicken in his room, and his most immediate concern must have been how to get rid of the clucking fowl.  As the student is not a country boy, the presence of the live chicken was likely a little unnerving.

So I accepted his late submission without charging a late penalty, and now I have the story of the best “excuse” for missing an assignment deadline.  And I see that the longer I hang around this profession of teaching and learning, the more marvelous wonders I behold!

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