Biscuit City

Teachers spend a lot of time figuring out “learning styles,” the preferred method a student has and the most effective way a particular student can be taught. My knowledge in this area is about ten years old so if my comments are decidedly old school, please consider the ancient source. (If not the Ancient Mariner.)

I think a useful way of thinking about learning styles is the mode the student uses to learn.  There are visual learners, auditory learners, kinesthetic learners,just to name a few types. These styles are related to the theory of multiple intelligences (which Amy tells me has been somewhat discredited, but bear with me, please), which says that there is no one type of intelligence.  Traditionally, verbal intelligence has been dominant, but there is evidence that there is social intelligence, emotional intelligence, spatial, linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic,musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic and existential.  I’m not sure what some of these are, but there are a number of articles online that explain them.  Suffice it to say that most adults are visual learners who rely on verbal intelligence to learn. In choir, for example, most people who read music tend to learn by visually reading the music(quite a concept, I know).  When we as a choir  have to learn something by listening, we are out of our comfort zone.  I know I am.

But I didn’t come here to talk about that.  I came to talk about how I’m a slow learner.  Maybe a better term is “long learner.”  If I grasp something right away, I get it (duh). If I don’t, it takes me a long time to figure it out, but I have German persistence in my genes and I keep at it until I get it.  Or not, as in the case of statistics or cricket.  Not going to happen. I tried.

Playing guitar is a good example of long learning.  I am not gifted musically and have to work at it.When I first took up guitar at age 14, I was a long learner compared to other people I know.  I taught myself by watching and listening to other people play when I could and using books. Another method I used was to play records (those 12 inch vinyl disks that we played on turntables) at 16 2/3 rpm, a speed on some turntables for recordings for the blind.  Playing a 33 1/3 record at 16 2/3 rpm slowed down a song by half and lowered it an octave. I would  play along with the record that way for a while and gradually work my way up to playing the song at normal speed. I wonder what I would have done if I had been learning during the days of CD’s.

Anyhow, I bopped along learning licks for a couple of years and then I plateaued and didn’t learn much for the next 48 years. It’s OK, I’m a hack guitarist and enjoy playing just for the sake of playing.

There was one figure from a Gordon Lightfoot song that eluded me until last week. I had tried to play it for decades with no success. It comes at the end of each verse of “Song for a Winter’s Night,” a beautiful song that Lightfoot wrote about the speaker being away from a loved one and thinking of him/her while the snow falls outside. Although it is full of wintery images and sensibilities, he wrote it in the summer during a thunderstorm in Cleveland.  Go figure.

Anyhow, I couldn’t get the turnaround at the end of each verse.  The song is in A, generally played in G capoed to the second fret. (Guitar players, you know what I’m talking about.) The bit sounded like it was minor, but nothing I tried worked.  Then I saw it was a sample online video lesson. It was so simple I don’t know why it eluded me for decades: Dm7, C, D, G. Wow. I got it.

Like I said, I’m a long learner. It may take me a while but I’ll get there.  Maybe this is something to remember as those of us who work with young people try to understand how they learn and help them learn.

I’m not what anyone would call a deal-maker. I usually pay list price for what I buy, although lately I’ve become more aware of the wonders of coupons. Now, Becky and my brother Ron are all over deals.  I think Becky has almost walked out of stores in which they  paid her to take the merchandise (Only a slight exaggeration.) One of her best buys was a $250 ring she bough at Kohl’s  for $1.41. The ring was on sale, there was a 15% Night Owl Special, she had a further charge customer discount of 15% and used two gift cards and a partial one to come up with the final price. (Do not try this yourself unless you are a consummate shopper such as Becky is.  You could be seriously injured in the  attempt.)

Starting last Monday evening, though, I had about a 24-hour run of deals that fell into my lap. In no case was I looking for bargains, but there they were anyhow.

It started Monday evening when we decided to rent The King’s Speech from Red Box.  It is an amazing movie, and you should stop reading this and go see it right away.  You’ll thank me later. Anyhow, I logged on to Red Box to reserve the film and the checkout indicated I had a credit and that the movie was free.  I have no idea why but I was good with it. ( We rarely see films in the theater and catch them later on DVD.  The exceptions are the Harry Potter movies, which we saw in the theater except for 7.1 which we watched at home to fill us in before we saw 7.2 in the theater.  It is an engrossing and moving film. You should stop reading this and go see it now. And now that I think of it, the only other movie we have seen in the past ten years on the big screen was Seabiscuit. Another good one.)

A friend had asked me Sunday if I were interested in a couple of free tickets to a Nats game in September.  Her office was going and they had a couple of extras.  The deal included a free hot dog and drink. Yes, I was interested! She sent an email confirming the deal Monday morning and we were good to go.

Monday afternoon I went to wash my pickup since I was planning on selling it to Car Max the next day if the price was right (it was, and that was another deal).  I pulled into the car wash place and a couple of guys were working on the control box that money is deposited in.  One of them told me they’d have it fixed in a couple of minutes.  After about ten minutes, the guy came over and told me to go through, that the wash was free since I had to wait.  Score!

Then I went over to Home Depot to get some materials to do some electrical work on the house. I got a current tester to try to avoid the shocks I usually get when I work with household current. There was a nice yellow one on sale for $6, discounted from $22.  Deal.  When I took it to the register, it rang up as one cent.  The checker said it was a secret discount.  Yay!

My next stop was Lowes to check on insulation for an attic insulating project. They had denim insulation (doesn’t make you itch like a man on a fuzzy tree like fiberglass insulation does)on  clearance for less than half-price! I got ten bales of R-19 and was a happy fellow.

Later on that afternoon, Becky sent me a link for a Groupon coupon (I know, it rhymes) good for a 50% discount at a nice local restaurant.  We liked the idea so much we got two! Again, I was doing nothing but sitting at the computer, fat, dumb and happy.


After all this, I felt as if I should buy a lottery ticket, except I am cheap and don’t gamble.  I could invest in the stock market…or maybe not. I am trying to stimulate the economy.

My brother Ron says he would rather be lucky than good. I had about a twenty-four hour period where I was both. I hope you are, too.

Now, there are two words most of us never expected to see together in one phrase. There’s the old saying about grammarians being dead from the waist down [ask your momma when you’re asking her where babies come from.  Answer: “From your mom or something else.” A line from my TV favorite commercial (from Kaiser Permanente)– the little kid with the big ears slays me every time.]. Did you notice, faithful blog readers, what I did there, putting the parens mark [(  )] inside the bracket mark { [  ] }. How did I know to do that? Answer: I guessed!  No, I relied on my knowledge of grammar! (And I think I did it correctly.)

As an English teacher and even into retirement, I find people ask me questions about grammar, like “Do I use ‘who’ or ‘whom’ here?” My answer depends on the rarity of the usage.  “Who” and “whom” are sometimes tough nuts to crack since their usage depends on their function in the sentence. (“Who” for subjective case, “whom” for objective.) That means you have to figure out the function of the word, which is difficult on the fly. That’s why the distinction is disappearing, even among educated speakers. It’s just too hard to come up with the right case, even with an educated speaker.

Language lesson: part of the problem stems from the first English grammars, put together in the eighteenth century. They were based on Latin grammars since Latin was regarded as a superior language. Latin has cases, so English has cases.  Latin is an inflected language, meaning the form of the word relies on its function in the sentence.  If the word is the subject of the sentence, say, it is in subjective case: “I did the deed.”  If the word is an object, it uses objective case, “Just between you and me, I think hats with fascinators are strange.”

The problem is that English is not a Romance language, derived from Latin. It is a Germanic language, closer to Dutch than to French, say. You may thank the Germanic tribes who swept through Europe following the collapse of the Roman Empire.  Add some French from the takeover of England by the Normans in the eleventh century and you have (more or less) English.

English as a Germanic language is a syntactic language, relying on word order to determine case. Anything to the left of the verb is subjective; anything to the right, objective. This can lead to buzzing in our ears. “It is I” is technically correct since “is” is a linking verb and the predicate nominative “I” is in subjective case, but it sounds stuffy.  “It’s me” sounds natural and relaxed and follows the Germanic rules of objective form after the verb.  What a mess!

I try not to exercise my powers as a grammar policeman unless someone asks me. I think it’s obnoxious to correct someone else’s speech or writing unbidden. I have to admit, though, that my correction finger itches when I see something like “Stewed in it’s own juices.”  Ugh. You know.

In any case, I came here to talk about the comfort of grammar. I was writing along when I came up with this construction: “Here are the words to ‘Creation Will Be at Peace'”:. (Check out that single quote-double quote-colon-period sequence. Like a double play.) I couldn’t remember if the colon went inside the quote or outside, so I pulled out my Warriner’s Complete Course, 1973 edition.  There was the answer, on page 650, “Semicolons and colons are always placed outside the closing quotation marks.” Here is where the comfort of grammar came in, knowing I could look up the correct use. I really did feel better.

I know this has been a post that only a mother could love, but I hope you enjoyed it somehow. Grammar and language are always changing (the distinction between “shall” and “will” is no longer in house),  which is a good thing. I’d hate to run around speaking Anglo-Saxon all the time.

The top ten list of places to visit has become more like the top thirty places to visit in the D.C. area, but the suggestions from faithful blog readers are too good to pass up. Here they are:

From Nick Pegram, who knows all about Richmond:

Since you will be spending the night at the Jefferson, you might want to visit the Edgar Allen Poe museum, St. John’s Church, St. Paul’s Church (across from the state capitol), Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Dooley Mansion (a Victorian at Maymont Park), the Valentine Museum, and the White House of the Confederacy. Before leaving take a ride down Monument Avenue that includes statues of famous war heroes, Arthur Ashe, and other people of note. Now that I look back at the list you might want to book two nights at the Jefferson. 

I thought of a few more:

For Mary McElveen, who is from Baltimore, the Inner Harbor, the Baltimore Aquarium, and Camden Yards baseball stadium. Closer to home, I’ll add Nationals Park and Washington Cathedral.

If you’ve been following these posts the past few days, you know that Monday night I discovered that the condensate from the HVAC drain had seeped under a partition and soaked an area rug in a storage area. I used the wet-dry vac on the carpet and then cut it into pieces to take it out since the sodden carpet was too heavy to lift in one piece. There was about a foot wide piece I left since it ran under a couple of seven-foot tall bookcases loaded with books and a couple of four-drawer files cabinets loaded with files.

I went downstairs Tuesday evening to move the bookcases and file cabinets and take the last of the carpet out. I thought about unloading the bookcases before I moved them.  I decided I could move them without unloading them.

At this point I am reminded of the parable of the wise and foolish builders from the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew 7:24-27:  (ASV) Every one therefore that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and if fell not: for it was founded upon the rock. And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall thereof.

Put me down for a foolish man in trying to move a fully loaded bookcase. I moved one off the carpet with success and started on the other one.  The interior shelves were held by those  thin metal clips, one of which broke under the stress of being shifted.  The shelf (and books) fell onto the shelf and books below it and the next and the next.  There was a cascade of books pouring out of the bookcase.  I had two thoughts: It’s raining books and “great was the fall thereof.” Even though I don’t move as quickly as I used to, I leaped out of the way of the torrent of hard- and paperbacks with considerable alacrity.

I think I said that the silver lining in taking up the carpet was finding a dulcimer neck to a kit I had lost track of.  In this case, the silver lining was going through all the fallen books, some of which I had forgotten I owned.  I listened over the radio to the Nats pound the Braves and stacked books for an hour.

In spite of the fall, it was enjoyable.  Sometimes even a foolish man lucks out.

If you’ve been following these entries, you might remember that I wrote about the condensate drain on our air conditioner backing up a bit and my adventures with the wet-dry vacuum.  Well, not so fast, there, Sparky.  On the other side of a partition is a storage space where I have a lot of books and where we, well, store things.  I went into the room last night about 8 PM to look for a book and noticed the area rug was decidedly squishy.  I didn’t have a bit of water, I had a lot of water.  Fortunately the carpet absorbed a lot of it and kept it from spreading. Unfortunately there was a lot of stuff sitting on the carpet which I had to move.  Then I cut the carpet up since it was too heavy to carry out and stuffed it in plastic bags.  I used our friend the wet-dry vac to take up most of the water and set a fan on it overnight.  This morning the area is completely dry.

Obviously I wasn’t too happy about the situation, having to labor late into the evening. I found that condensate drains have a tendency to clog and the cure is either to snake them out or vacuum them out before they clog completely.  Mea culpa for not doing so.

Earlier that afternoon, Alyssa sent me an email about an unfortunate family in her neighborhood:

There was apparently a huge house fire in Stone Ridge last night.  All of the people and animals got out okay, but the kids are 9 and 11, and the dad passed away unexpectedly last year.  Poor children.  The HOA is already organizing a walk to benefit the family, and they are staying with relatives locally.  So sad.  In the meantime, they have asked for gift cards, so I think I’ll pick one up on my way home and drop it off at the HOA office.  The nice thing is that Stone Ridge is a good community, so I think they’ll get lots of assistance.

And later,

One of the neighbors was collecting donations tonight after the HOA office was closed, so I took a card and a check over.  I didn’t realize I’d walk by the actual house–it was awful.  You could smell the burnt smell from streets away.  The neighbor said that the outpouring of support has been incredible–they have raised several thousand dollars in cash and several thousand in gift cards, plus a huge room full of new clothes, so that’s good.  It’s nice to think that if this happened to me or to any of the neighbors, the community would be supportive. If only Anne Bradstreet had something to say about this…*

And finally,

I did get the ages of the kids wrong–they are 12 and 17.  They both play sports, so people have also asked about donating sports equipment, as well as video games for the little boy. 🙂  People have also written cards, and the kids have drawn pictures.  Very cool.

This family’s situation put my little problem with water into perspective.  It also affirmed that our daughters are compassionate, insightful, thoughtful young women (Amy recently offered to help in a situation I can’t write about because of privacy concerns). They’ve evidenced these qualities time and times again.  Their attitudes and actions would make any parent proud.  And we are. 

* Alyssa is referring to a poem by the seventeenth-century American poet Anne Bradstreet, “Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House,July 10, 1666.” You may read the poem at  http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/some_verses_upon_the_burning.html

Did you ever feel that your appliances were conspiring against you?  No, I’m not being more paranoid than usual–it’s just something I’ve noticed.  The refrigerator develops a buzzing noise, then the washer won’t drain, and next the microwave goes up in flames, all within a couple of days. Something is afoot and it ain’t your shoes (sorry).

Here’s a secret: household appliances communicate with each other.  The HVAC sends a message to the oven: “It’s going to be over 100 tomorrow.  I’m goin’ over the wall!”  The other appliances whisper “Good luck, man,” and they get the idea.  The oven door drops off.  A day later the dishwasher springs a leak all over the kitchen floor. The vacuum shoots out clouds of dust from its exhaust.

You know what I’m talking about.

I had such a day Saturday.  Four different inanimate objects busted loose.  Fortunately I was able to fix them.

The condensate line of our air conditioner runs into a drain in the floor of the basement and usually backs up a little during the summer if we’ve had a series of hot days.  I suppose I should have the drain enlarged, but it runs through the basement slab floor and that would be a mess. I just vacuum it up each day for about a week.  Well, it backed up and I got the wet vac out, forgetting that the last thing I used it on was a drywall sanding job.  Since the filter was full of dust, the water couldn’t get through to the tank and the vac spewed water out the back, all over the furnace and me.  Fortunately, I figured out that the filter needed cleaning so I did that and I was good to go, if soaking wet.

Then I was going to the grocery store and some citizen didn’t see me and pulled out in front of me from a side street.  I crammed on the brakes and tried to blow the horn and nothing happened.  When I got back from buying bananas I tried to find the location of the horn relay but it wasn’t listed in the owner’s manual. I looked online for an hour before I found someone who said the location diagram it was printed on the inside of the engine fuse box cover.  And it was.  There was also a page online on how to test for a bad relay so I took my twelve-volt tester out and found that, yep, it was a bad relay.  I ordered one online since no one at Advance Auto seemed to know what I was talking about. The part was $15 and shipping was $12.  Still cheaper than a mechanic (sorry, Logan).

We use some portable fans on the upper floor since the air conditioning doesn’t reach as well there.  I had not used an old floor fan yet this year but I was cleaning up my study and needed a fan in there.  When I started it up it sounded geriatric, which it is.  I took it apart, cleaned it and sprayed everything with WD-40.  It wheezed and groaned when it started up but the lubricant worked its way in and it took off.

Later on, my special three-headed flashlight started acting possessed.  It came on by itself and went off by itself. That’s inconvenient when you’re trying to see if the condensate drain is clogged up.  I figured the flashlight had a short somewhere so I took it apart and found some of the battery contacts were corroded. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen corrosion on a dry cell device.  I poured some vinegar on the offending contacts (didn’t have any Coke) and the flashlight returned to normal.

I hope you don’t have a spate of appliance problems as I did, but if you do, I also hope they’re as easily fixed as mine were!