matching tracksuits

If there is a town with kitsch as the central design premise, it is Myrtle Beach.

As a kid, I’d always wanted to go there. All my friends went there during the summer, and for us southwest Virginians, it was at least a seven-hour journey. It was not a place where one merely spent the weekend.

I finally went to Myrtle Beach this weekend for a middle school conference. It was everything I expected.

All decor seemed to have a heavy-handed marine theme, especially for the restaurants

and the stores. My companions and I wondered about the warmth of being invited into a shark’s mouth for a little shopping

Given the fact that all such shops are peddling to tourist, it seems somehow perfectly appropriate.

The kitsch extended all the way to the oceanfront, with hotels painted colors that only rarely occur in nature.

And then there were the mini-golf courses. We counted at least twelve on the main road, each with a different theme applied to the same goal: knock a golf ball through some obstacle.

“Who knew that the market could support this number of courses,” I muttered as we passed by yet another.

But we weren’t there for entertainment but for education, and we all received enough information to make us wish we could turn back the calendar to the beginning of the year and start again. In that sense — as well as the collection of mini-golf shots — it was a greatly successful weekend.

A Monday trip to Cypress Gardens.

I’m obsessed with cypress knees.

I would have asked the guide about them,

about what causes them, about whether they appear in other species,

about their function.

But I was sick in the car.

Nice pictures from K, don’t you think?

There are two parts of downtown Charleston, according to tour guides. It’s not a question of “The Haves” and “The Have-Nots” but rather “The Haves” and “The Have-a-Hell-of-a-Lot-Mores.” That’s where the houses along the battery lie.

After all, who else could pay the property taxes of such houses? The annual rate for most of these houses equals a solidly middle-class salary.

If driving a $100k Mercedes is a conspicuous sign of wealth, these houses make tourists scratch their heads in wonder. “Who could afford such a house?” we ask. Apparently, plenty of people.

Just a few blocks away is the prison. It closed in the 1940s, never having had electricity or running water. The last execution was in the 1930s: the state had changed its method of execution to the electric chair, and having no power, the Charleston prison was unable to continue executing criminals.

The Girl was impressed, but more so with the birds that were flying around her

and the waves splashing below us. We weaved among the tourists, and on one occasion became an object of tourist fascination: an Asian couple saw L marching down the street, giggled, and took a quick picture. A local, out walking his dog, observed that L was “all wrapped up” and thus “cute as a button.”

We continued on our way, though it was difficult not to look up. It’s not quite like being in a Gothic cathedral or Manhattan, but the impulse too look upward is undeniable.

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And look back: I noticed a placard announcing that we were in “Rainbow Row” and it struck me: “All the houses we’ve passed have been different colors.” It made me wonder if there is a similar tract in San Francisco.

The rest of Charleston went about its usual business. Cadets from the Citadel were out, walking in packs, strolling with their girlfriends, or harassing random girls (at least that’s what some of my captures look like).

Locals stood talking.

And everyone made their way here and there on a lazy Sunday.

Today at Boone Hall plantation, an experience I haven’t had since visiting Auschwitz several years ago: to stand in the center of a hell-on-earth and wonder how it’s even possible. We wandered around the plantation while waiting for a tour, weaving in and out of slave quarters.

The irony of America has never been more palpable. We are country that, from its inception, was about freedom. Yet our wealth was created on the backs of slaves. When people exclaim that, as twenty-first century whites, they are not responsible in any way for the actions of their ancestors, they are absolutely right. But for three hundred years, whites in America have built upon the foundation of those very slave holders and, until very recently, had a clear advantage for being on the lighter side of the color divide. Our free country was built, in the first century of its existence, at the expense of others’ freedom.

The fruits of that brutal labor still exists. At Boone Hall, the number one product was bricks. Those bricks went into many of the houses in Charleston and so provide a literal foundation for at least one American city.

And so we made our way through the house and grounds, seemingly free individuals in a seemingly free country. Our chains are less obvious, and less insidious. In fact, I would say most of us don’t even realize we’re shackled to our way of life, our point of view, our idiosyncrasies, our ambitions. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing: after all, this kind of slavery can hardly be called such in comparison. Yet we saw sixteen or so months ago that when our way of life, our point of view, our idiosyncrasies, our ambitions start to sink, we feel the weight.

It’s impossible to stay in rural South Carolina and not take a few night shots.

816.5 seconds, f/11.0, 10 mm

“Those planes flying over are Delta flights,” my uncle explains. “I’ve flown over my own place countless times. It takes me fifteen minutes to get to the airport from here and two hours to get back.”

63.4 seconds, f/5.6, 10 mm

He is known for his hyperbole.

We left the mountains of Madison County late Sunday morning and headed to Asheville, our home of two years.

Such an odd place, Asheville.

1/400, f/10.0, 10 mm

When we decided to move to Asheville, a quirky friend of the family warned us that there is a lot of Wiccan activity going on in Asheville and that we might want to rethink our decision. I’m not sure what she was expecting: fields of Wicca-ness that float about the city, turning unsuspecting passersby into pagans, but there is a different atmosphere there. In the heart of the mountains, not more than fifty miles from the rhinestone on the buckle of the Bible belt that is Bob Jones University (here in Greenville), Asheville is a hippy-filled, laid back, liberal island.

The Girl fell asleep during the drive so we drove by the apartment complex where we lived.

August 2005

Changes — three new buildings, and the whole complex feels, well, cheaper. The old buildings were brick veneer and looked a little classy; new buildings show the cheap way out: one-third brick, two-thirds siding. It’s so crowded and sprawling. It was not the place we moved into almost four years ago.

We headed downtown when the Girl woke up, doing a little window shopping on the way. “I want some!” L cried when we saw slab of fudge and explained to her just what it was. For a girl who didn’t like sweets for a very long time, she has grown positively obsessive about them.

1/160, f/6.3, 10 mm

Our time in Asheville was not meant to be idle sight seeing. We had a goal: buy a apartment-warming/wedding gift for dear friends of ours in Warsaw. We went to the galleries in the Grove Arcade.

The building never ceases to fascinate: built in 1924-29 by Edwin Wiley Grove, who also built the Grove Park Inn. It was a bustling little place until the Second World War, when everyone was evicted and the building converted to wartime use. In the 1970’s it served as the National Climatic Data Center. When my family would visit Asheville in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the building was vacant but alluring. It reopened in 2002, filled with shops and restaurants.

Unfortunately, said shops had nothing for us, and we already had lunch plans, so the restaurants went unnoticed. (I don’t think we ever ate there in our two years in Asheville, in fact.)

1/200, f/7.1, 10 mm

We went to the Kress Emperium, where we attempted to sell our photos. We had been hoping to make enough money eventually to buy a digital SLR. Our lack of sales and the monthly rent turned opportunity into irony: we simple lost enough money to buy a digital SLR. Still, it’s better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all.

1/80, f/4.5, 10 mm, 10.3 mm

We went to Woolworth Walk, which, as it sounds, is an old Woolworth store converted into galleries. Still, nothing. In the end, K had a brilliant idea, but it required being in Greenville.

1/320, f/9.0, 19 mm

Yet all was not lost: we got an old fashioned milkshake at Woolworth Walk; we got our fill of lesbians (of which Asheville has an enormous population; maybe that’s what the Wicca force fields do!); and the Girl got to run about a bit.

A visit to the Asheville area is not complete without a visit with Mike and Pia, our friends from the farm on the hill.

Their farm has grown considerably since our last visit. Their chickens have grown, they have a goat, and they added two bunnies to the fold.

For the days preceding our visit, L continually talked about going to see Mike and Pia “and the goat, and the chickens, and the dogs, and the bunny rabbits.” When she finally met the goat (whose name is Little Bit or Leadbelly, depending on whether you’re talking to Pia or Mike, respectively), L was a little apprehensive. It’s her usual modus operendi:be terrified for a few moments, then strike that and reverse it.

The chickens, all grown, have their own house now. The Girl was not at all interested in going inside, which is to say she would have been had we given her enough time.

The sight of all those chickens, scurrying about, clucking and flapping was too unpredictable for L to handle, so she simply waited outside.

Once a chicken was isolated, though, the L was eager to pet and giggle, giggle and pet.

The sun finally set, and with L in bed, we sat around the porch, then around the kitchen, talking, laughing, imbibing this and that, until after midnight.

One of the negatives about moving out of Asheville was leaving behind friends. Yet there is a sweet note to the bitterness: the semi-yearly visits become all the more precious. We all bounce out of the house crying, “We’re going to Asheville!” It’s the classic dilemma/blessing.

About a week too late, we headed to the mountains of North Carolina today. Last weekend the leaves were at their color peak; after a windy Saturday, there were few left on the trees. Still, we found a spot with good light and a lot of leaves and went at it.

L and I ran,

fell,

rolled around, and covered each other with leaves.

Really not as happy about this as one might expect

Except for the covering-with-leaves portion, it was continuous “more!” from L (and it came out as sweetly as always: “mo!”).

And while most of the leaves had fallen, there were still some magnificent views, particiularly of one lay down.

Of course, what would an outing be without some quiet moments, sharing a snack.

I’ve been writing all day. Planning lessons (putting the finishing touches on a unit about the memoir in which we study Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) and preparing materials for my PAS-T notebook. The former I don’t mind; the latter is a hastle.

PAS-T is an acronym for “Pain in the…” — no, rather it’s “Performance Assessment System for Teachers”. It is, in short, a pile of paperwork that I am to provide three different evaluators as they come through my classroom two times each throughout the year for formal observations. My PAS-T notebook is to include things like,

• Summary of plan for integrating instruction
• Class profile
• Annotated list/samples/photos of instructional activities/materials/displays
• Lesson/intervention plan
• Summary of staff consultations
• Syllabus
• Lesson plan(s)
• Differentiation
• Annotated photos of class activities
• Sample handouts/transparencies/Thinking Maps
• Student samples of technology integration
• Record-keeping/monitory system
• Labeled and dated grades
• Teacher-made tests/assessments
• Example grading rubric
• Grading procedures
• Student work with feedback
• Progress reports/letters for parents/students
• Survey and summary
• Class rules with description of development procedures/reinforcement system
• Classroom diagram with comments/alternative room arrangement
• Class schedule
• Explanation of behavior management philosophy/procedures
• A printed copy of the teacher’s home page
• Log of rapport building efforts (notes, calls, conferences)
• Copy of newsletter
• Agenda from orientation/fieldtrip
• Documentation of Technology Proficiency or letter of intent
• Resume
• Certificates, agendas, support materials from presentations given
• Certificates, agendas, support materials from presentations attended
• Documentation of membership/participation in professional organizations
• Performance goal setting forms
• Chart of student progress throughout year
• Analysis of grades for marking period
• Log of collegial collaboration
• Documentation of meeting established annual goals

It is difficult to think of this as more than busy work. I mean, how useful can a classroom diagram with comments be to an evaluator who’s sitting in my classroom?

I’m all for accoutability, but this is starting to feel like an extra burden.

Still, I will perservere, and I will get only “Exemplory” ratings because anything else would drive me mad. If I’m to jump through hoops, I want to jump through them while juggling chainsaws and lecturing on Kant — I want to blow people’s minds.

Fortunately, I didn’t spend the whole weekend at a desk; we spent some of it at a table, so to speak: Table Rock State Park, which means more hiking and more waterfalls.

Such a burden.

A few more pictures are available at Flickr.

Dupont Forest is one of those places K has wanted to go for a long time, but time and circumstance prevented us. School, exams, life…we only last week made it to the state park.

Most notable: waterfalls.

Lower Falls

It’s a short drive from our place, but it seems like a different world. Cool mountain air, wonderful views — the perfect Sunday outing.

We weren’t the only ones to think that.

L and one calm horse

Sliding

At the top of the enormous rock down which kids were sliding was a covered bridge — I swear it looked bigger from the bottom of the falls.

The Girl didn’t seem to mind, though.