Different worlds

I have been on different planets lately. My first flight was Monday AM, when I went to South River, the next town over but a few decades behind the town I live in. I was in search of Charlie, a sewing machine repairman. He met me in front of an old brick factory and led me into his first floor office/workroom. It was a blast from the past. Drawers from floor to ceiling, with handlettered labels, contained sewing machine parts. A machine from the late 40’s, very pretty, black with gold decoration, sat smugly on one counter, a piece of jeans material placed under the needle, bearing rows of stitches. (“Don’t bother trying to sew jeans with these new machines” Charlie says scornfully.) Charlie is retired and comes in from Rossmoor, a retirement community, to work on machines out of the love of his heart. He really likes old machines, which he says were better made.

I noticed he had a boxed set of Dorothy Sayers books, labeled $1.00, and commented on that. He said that when people die at Rossmoor they have estate sales, so he picks up things to sell.

We talked an hour. My machine is a piece of shit but he would see what he could do. We talked about plastic vs metal parts (guess which he favors), the time he found Two Guys selling a machine he had designed and how he then got royalties or whatever you call it, his friend a vice president at Singer, South River locals who have been loyal customers for 40 years, etc.

Charlie called last night to tell me all my troubles were because I was using the wrong bobbin. (I thought they were all the same, but oh well). He promised to give me some tips when I come in to pick the machine up, plus sell me the 2007 Entertainment book for a super low price because he has a friend in the business.

So, that one one planet.

The other planet is near the Delaware River, in NJ. I went out to a high school there today to hold two sessions on holistic essay scoring. The area is lovely–farms and so forth, although the McMansions are moving in. It was lovely to be with teachers. They thought I was great. They want me to come back. They loved my personality. We talked all day about writing and everyone was excited. Education can be a lot of fun. It can also be a drag, though. One poor woman there told me that she has taught 5th grade for 39 years, but this year, at the end of August, she was told she would be teaching a combined 5th and 6th class on literature that met for 30 minutes and the rest of the day 7th and 8th graders. No warning, no time to prep for something she’d never done, and the teacher’s manuals didn’t even come until Oct. She asked me why I thought they were doing that and I said of course I knew what they were trying to do–she is 62 and they want her to quit so they can hire someone cheaper. She did say that she’s good at controlling her classroom, so it wasn’t stupid that they would assign a difficult age group to her rather than to a 21 year old just out of college, but they didn’t make it easy. (To make matters worse, her father died Aug. 29). I am a big fan of preparing, especially for new things, and don’t understand this habit of school administrators of making assignments last minute. (The teachers were also pissed because a pep rally is to be held tomorrow, a last minute decision, which screws up their plans). It would be so EASY to create schedules, you would think, and do other things that cost no money to support teachers, help them stay organized.

Oh, well. Bureaucracy does do something strange to the brain.