If I Were a Radio Station

. . . I would say, "Welcome to Chatterbox in the Feed Room; we're live and back on the air!"

I've changed to a different venue where some blogs are public, some private, but I welcome your comments. Chatterbox is my "public" blog, the one I'm most willing to share with everyone from current students to friends . . . and . . . well, no. There are NO relations I want in my "Feed Room." (Which is to say, humor and honesty will always be the trademarks of any writing posted.)

I've missed blogging, I must admit; but I'm short on creative titles . . . the primary reason it took so long for my fingers to find the keyboard -- that, and, like a snake sloughing its skin, I've outgrown my previous Troll Witch persona. It was as painful as it was inevitable, and, though it was the right move, evolution comes slowly;and, God willing, I shall continue to evolve. Now . . . the title . . . Chatterbox in the Feed Room. :^) It's no stranger than one of my other favorite blogs: SalmonandGrits, AND it's not part of MySpace or Facebook. I become too distracted by those to read blogs. I've tried; sometimes it's the pictures, sometimes it's the disclosures that people reveal that I would just as soon NOT know.

But back to the title: Chatterbox in the Feed Room. *sigh*
I suppose in some bizarre way I owe every teacher I had an grammar school a thank-you note--not so much for what they taught me (since 90% of all learning is outside the classroom) but for the days I spend indoors, during recess, writing the same inane sentence over and over and over: "I must not talk in class." It was called CHATTERBOX back "in the day" and it was much cheaper than allergy tablets. In fact, it was not until high school that I knew I had allergies. In grammar school I stayed in CHATTERBOX so much I never got outside to play. Of course, until I got glasses, late in first grade, the playground was not so much fun. I never had very good large motor skills (I learned to ride a bike when I was 13.) and consequently, if I ran, jumped from a swing, came down a slide, hopped off a seesaw, I usually ended up on my knees. It became fairly customary. I still have the scars to prove it. Sometimes I caught myself with my hands as well; I seemed to be the most uncoordinated kid on the playground. Until I got my glasses! Then . . . I could actually SEE where I was going . . . as I fell on my knees and hands. So . . . CHATTERBOX was not so bad. Writing wasn't either, although I did get tired of the same sentence. There was NO imagination in it at all. I knew I talked too much; that was evident on my report cards . . . couldn't they find something interesting for me to write? Nope. I MUST NOT TALK IN CLASS. It wasn't like we didn't both (the teacher and I) know I'd be right back in there, after a couple of days' pardon.

Things haven't changed too much, except now I've put myself in CHATTERBOX -- and I can write all the sentences, of any sort, any length, any design I like. :^p
Now . . . the Feed Room. Oddly enough, it doesn't refer to my kitchen. I went to work when I was fourteen at a local dry goods store; I worked 12 hours a day on Sat. and 10 hrs. a day through the week. I was paid 50 cents an hour and was happy to get it. When I wasn't working at what was commonly called the "Dime Store," I was home; if it was summer, I was home cooking, keeping house while my mother worked, and "hanging out" with my dad "getting up" the cows from the pasture and walking them to the barn where they could be milked. In the afternoon I was expected to stay at the barn, with my dad, until my mother picked me up. Until you've spent long days in July without a fan, with the aroma of fresh manure pervading the air, the stillness of the heat broken only by the occasional buzzing wings of a fly or wasp -- only then can you appreciate the overhead static of flourescent lights and the tap-tap of the keyboard. By the time I was fifteen, the owner of the barn [not my folks, by the way], had built an adjacent feed room to the barn. I sat on the feed bags there, shaded from the direct sun, and read to escape the summer head, the red clay, and the boredom of borderline poverty. My dog and my imagination were further company, and when the owner of the farm added a wall creating himself an office, I was allowed to go inside and sit at the desk to read. But I didn't. I wrote. I never told anyone--except my dog--because no one really cared, as long as I was safe and out of trouble, my parents were happy.

If I tired of writing . . . I could always read.
Not a very auspicious start for an English teacher or college instructor, is it? Not one I would expect, at least. I should think an English teacher would have been surrounded by books during childhood, listening intently while her parents read stories and poems, and spoke of . . . Proust. lol CHATTERBOX was frustrating and embarrassing. The Feed Room . . . was unconventional.

Today, my office is much larger than the feed room was, but . . . I still escape into books when I can, and now I try to encourage other people to go with me. Oh--and . . . I still write, occasionally; but then, you figured that out now, didn't you?