Education – On Second Thought

I Can’t Think of Anything to Write About

“To retire is to begin to die.”
Pablo Casals

1966 James Monroe High School Yearbook Photo

Weird. I usually have a million things on my mind to write about. I mean, I have a list. I’ve wanted to write about police brutality, what I should call myself (Hispanic, Dominican-Puerto Rican, Latino, Latinx), how white liberals are going to get us killed, the GOP delusion, how much reading I must do this semester for school; I mean I have a very long list. Yet, I can’t seem to put two sentences together this week. Nothing is coming out of my mind into my fingers onto the keyboard.

I’m just so busy with my three classes this semester. Seriously, I didn’t even think about how much reading and writing I would be doing as part of my classes and assignments. Take, for instance, Gerontology 401 (the study of aging). I just finished our third week, and I’m already overwhelmed with so much reading and writing, but I must admit, it’s interesting as hell. Theories of Aging, the biology of aging, the genetics of aging, and the three categories of aging (Young-old, Middle-Old, and Old-old) are right up there with lessons on physiology. I feel like I’ve walked into a medical school classroom. I learned some of this material in Anthropology at Long Beach City College, so it’s not entirely foreign to me. I’m glad I decided to take the class. When you’re 74, you discover you need all the knowledge and tools you can gather to deal with your aging.

One of our assignments this week was to write a 500–750-word essay about ourselves in the context of why we are taking this class. I wrote:

According to the Social Security Administration, I have an additional 12.5 years in life expectancy subject to a “wide number of factors such as current health, lifestyle, and family history that could increase or decrease life expectancy” (Unites States Government). I’m hopeful that my family genes will play a more significant role than my past health issues in determining my life expectancy. I have family members on both sides who have lived into their nineties and seen their centennial birthdays.
Discussion Post for GERN401

Until I wrote those sentences, I hadn’t thought much about aging. Honestly, I feel young except for the slow-moving getting up from a chair or those aches in places I never thought I had and the getting up in the middle of the night two or three times for the lonely journey to the bathroom (it’s a man thing). But a look in the mirror or the spider-like skin growing on my hands, along with those medical appointments to check my plumbing, all are severe indicators of aging. Yeah, I’m glad I’m taking this class.

My U.S. Ethnic Writers class, English 375, is beginning to heat up. In the last two weeks, we’ve watched two documentaries, Agents of Change (2016), directed by Abby Ginzberg and Frank Dawson, and Race: The Power of an Illusion, both critical films about race, whiteness, and culture in this here America. Particularly disturbing were the familiar battles over ethnic study programs in the late sixties and early seventies spotlighted in Agents of Change. Here we are in 2023, still fighting the same struggles with basically the same group of conservative white Christians, primarily men (accompanied now by more women), telling us People of Color who we should be and what we should learn about ourselves. Yeah, I have two words for you, and it isn’t a merry christmas. Thank goodness, I’m not tired yet.

Journalism 415 Diversity in the Media has turned out to be a surprise. This class isn’t what I first thought it was, and I’m cool. Here’s an excerpt from the syllabus:

This course is designed to give students a theoretical, as well as practical, experience with issues of gender, race, class, and sexuality as they manifest in mediated artifacts of popular culture. The course is taught from a cultural studies perspective where students will gain skills in critical analysis and media literacy. Concepts of power, privilege, justice, representations, hegemony, consumption, and resistance will be woven throughout course readings, films, assignments, and discussions.
Excerpted from syllabus JOUR 415: Diversity in the Media

Now that’s a mouthful. In practical terms, this past week, I spent much time listening to various podcasts like Scene on Radio’s “Seeing White: Turning the Lens,” and Code Switch’s “Can We Talk About Whiteness,”along with watching a documentary called White Like Me. Catch the theme? That makes two classes in the same week address the issue of race. The right wing in Texas and Florida must be pissing in their pants. Look, seriously, I know these are complex subjects to discuss that make people uncomfortable, but I can tell you from experience that these are not new subjects. American history is full of these subjects and will be for the foreseeable future until, if ever, we accept and deal with the foundational narrative of America. It hurts and will continue to be a sore on the soul of this nation, so pull up your britches and grow up.

This Spring 2023 semester marks fourteen semesters (hey, you don’t gulp fine wine, you slowly sip it) of college (Long Beach City College and California State University, Long Beach) with only two more until the Spring of 2024 when at the ripe middle-old age of seventy-five, I will graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, Creative Writing. The journey has been both exciting because I’ve met so many inspiring students, teachers, and staff and because of the universe of knowledge and wisdom that has been opened for me, including Math (Stats) which I am not a big fan of, but which proved to be my biggest challenge over the past seven years. I got my only B in all my years in college in that class, surprising me (no, not that I got a B, but that I even passed the course).

I have often told myself that retirement is outdated in the digital age. There are too many opportunities to enrich your mind, body, and soul at any age, especially now. If I can walk, talk, and think, I intend to keep pushing my boundaries of living by learning and grabbing up as many degrees as I can fit on my wall. After that B.A., a Master/MFA is next. Hell, why stop now? I don’t play golf.

Language

The following essay was written for my English 404 Creative Nonfiction class and was inspired by Ocean Vuong’s “Surrendering”

I have told this story it seems a million times. A nun, my teacher in the second grade, told my parents at a parent-teacher conference that they needed to stop speaking Spanish to me or otherwise I wouldn’t be able to progress in school. “This is America, and in America, we speak English,” I remember her telling them. By the eighth grade, I could barely speak a word of Spanish. It was the America of the fifties, and the nun won. I was now an American. Well, not probably in their minds, but I was at least trying to be one of them.

And that’s too bad because then, being American was anyone other than a nice white Anglo-Saxon protestant. Even Catholics were not allowed as long as they stuck to their side of town. And no Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Negroes (term of the time), and we won’t even talk about those Chinese who should have known better, according to red-blooded Americans back then, Hell, they had their own towns.

Those red-blooded Americans thought it was okay that we could live here in the United States of America as long as we spoke English. Funny, they seemed okay with European immigrants speaking Italian, German, and even French (so continental) and Spanish as from Spain (so Castilian). The problem had something to do with those darker people speaking their language. Weird.

So there I was stuck in this twilight world of wanting to be an American and yet unable to speak Spanish, which made it difficult if not impossible to talk to many of my closest relatives, including my grandmothers, who knew next to nothing of English because it was not their native language. And my mother, in her early years, still had struggles with the language, although, with time, she became more fluent. Even with that, I wish I could have asked her and my father questions about their lives in their home countries in the language that I knew they were the most comfortable with so they could tell me stories in that language in all its beauty and specificity that just could not be captured by the English language.

I went on to be an excellent reader and speaker of English, although since I was from the Bronx, some people might debate the excellence of the speaking part. I read books and Boys Life magazine, watched American English television, learned how they spoke, and thought of myself just like them. I never once felt that I was anything but just like them, an English language-speaking American at that young age. And that’s the way it’s been all my life.

Now, I wish in frustration that I had paid more attention in Mrs. Travieso’s Spanish class, “You speak Spanish with an American accent.” I knew she meant to add, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” She didn’t have to say it; I felt it. WTF. I imagine, for a second, that if I had kept my Spanish, and been bilingual, the stories I would have read, the stories I would have heard, the added dimension of life I would have experienced. Damn.

This while thing about to be an American, you must only speak English has messed with my head over the years. Yes, I’ve tried to learn Spanish to explore this other dimension of my life, my family’s life, and their history. When I try to speak the few words that I know, I tighten up, embarrassed with my pronunciation, the accent that Ms. Travieso complained about would make people look at me and say, “¿Que eres un gringo?”

I was so committed to being an English-only speaking American that, in all honesty, there were times in my life I was ashamed when someone would try to speak Spanish to me because somehow they assumed that I spoke the language and I would have different reactions. If they were a native Spanish speaker, I would hesitantly tell them No comprende or No habla Espanol in the worst English accented Spanish that I could muster. You were right, Miss Travieso. If the person was native English speaking and I thought they were trying to make some lousy attempt at shaming me like I wasn’t American enough because they thought I didn’t speak English. I would pause, look them in the eyes and say indignantly; I speak English. I didn’t add, but I desperately wanted to say I probably speak better English than you.

I love listening to people who can seamlessly move between languages. Even better, more than two languages. There’s a skill, a rolling of the lips and tongue, the hand gestures that come with each language. Some stories are best told in their native tongue. The music of that language. The cultural history. The depth of meaning.

Something magical happens when you are awash in the symbolism and specificity of each word and how it’s pronounced. It happens in English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, French, German, Arabic, hell, any of the thousands of languages that people in America, Americans all of them, speak at home, at school, in stores, on sidewalks, and in the subway. Hell, turn on your radio, television, or podcast. It’s all there, the whole world speaking to us in over seven thousand languages, and some people, okay, a lot of English-speaking Americans, get upset when they hear someone speaking another language. OMG, why is it any of your fuckin’ business?

I secretly dream that I can understand them (I’m a busybody), not so I can share their secrets but because I want to go up to them and ask them about their language, culture, history, and countries of origin. And if they were born in America, I want to know how and why they retained their parent’s native tongue because I would be jealous as hell if they told me, “Well, we just spoke our language because it is beautiful, and it is the way we share our lives.” Yeah, that should be a good enough reason for me and any other American if it was our business.

College

My continuing educational journey resumes at California State University, Long Beach, on August 22, 2022.

I’m often asked, “Why are you going to college at your age?” Why not? Better than wasting away in front of a television sitting on a battered sofa that has seen too much drinking, too much smoking (the marijuana kind), and too much slobbering coming out of my mouth. I’m thinking about all this nightmare as I joke out loud, “Well, I don’t play golf.”

But seriously, I tell them and probably myself, besides it being number one on my bucket list for most of my adult life, I had always loved to learn; I didn’t know how much until I realized I had stopped learning a long time ago. I had stopped reading books, magazines, and hell; the newspaper only deserved a glance. I was focused on the Trades (Hollywood Reporter, Variety) for some twenty years and maybe an occasional passing glance at something outside my career if I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room or waiting for my haircut or bored at Starbuck’s and someone left a magazine on a table.

Honestly, I think I stopped learning sometime around high school in 1966. However, I did try slipping in those single semesters of college in 1967 and 1970. Then there were those faint-hearted efforts at UCLA Extension in the early nineties when I swore I wanted to become a Hollywood screenwriter with some script titled Dealin’ or the time in 1987 I was chosen out of a hundred or more applicants nationally to attend a two-week intensive workshop at the American Film Institute on Writing Drama for Television with a script called Custer’s Last Stand (No, not that Custer, another one, an old Detective).

Somewhere in between the induced fogs inspired by drugs and alcohol, I dreamed of expanding my universe of knowledge (before the internet when you really had to go to a library or an extension class) and even thought that maybe attending an actual college course would jumpstart my life again even when I had finally reached my lifelong dream of working in Hollywood, well sort of. I wasn’t writing teleplays or screenplays.

I wasn’t directing or producing the next humongous blockbuster directed and produced by ANTONIO PEDRO RUIZ, direct from the South Bronx, from public housing to the streets of Hollywood and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. No, I would have to be satisfied with live television of celebrities walking a red carpet between a phalanx of cameras and inquisitive hosts and producers asking, “Tell me dahling, what are you wearing under that mahvelous sequin dress?” and I guess some knowledge is better than no knowledge at all—sort of.

Don’t get me wrong. From the nineteen seventies through the two-thousand teens, I got lucky with careers and jobs that many only dream of. And I’m grateful. They all taught me something, injecting into my brain a skill, an insight, a clue to the keys that unlock the universe inside and outside me. But I knew some time after I went sober in 2011 that I wanted more than just what could be found in real-life experience (still the best teacher). I dreamed of a structured environment where a teacher of some importance and wisdom would direct my attention to knowledge unknown to me and the keys to unlocking my imagination and the directions to past and future worlds where someone is not stopping me so they can ask, “What the fuck are you wearing? (A flowery Hawaiian Shirt and untorn Levis jeans with black and white running shoes, and what the fuck is that Jibaro hat on your head).

When was I brave enough in 2016 to admit that I had missed out on the entire college experience beginning at seventeen in 1966 and that if I had stayed, I would have probably been at the forefront of a mob of students who would have stormed the halls of academia in 1968 during the days of rage and probably have gotten kicked out of college or worse and ended up not with a college degree but with a jail sentence and where would I be?

Fast forward to 2016, and five years later, into the middle of a Pandemic, and despite it, I collected my Associate of Arts degree in English from Long Beach City College and graduated with a 3.94 GPA (damn that B in Stats). I was accepted to the only University I applied to two blocks from my house California State University, Long Beach, where I continued my education journey through Fall 2021 and Spring 2022. Now it’s Fall 2022, and I am working hard at seventy-three toward a BA in English focusing on Nonfiction Creative Writing in Spring to graduate in 2024 when I will be seventy-five. And to be even more ambitious, I have plans for beyond suddenly. If I can still breathe, walk, and talk, why not?

I want to pursue post-graduate work in American Studies, American History, Bronx Nuyorican and Dominican Voices that have been unheard, unseen, searching for my identity, why I’m an American, to fight back at those crazy ass Americans who insist that I’m not American and what does that all mean politically, culturally, and can we even save America?

I now read voraciously everything I can get my hands on (Thank you, Kindle, Amazon Books, the internet, and every online discount bookstore I can find). I’m writing poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, a thought, a scrap of my mind, a sentence, many sentences, playing with words, with form, with insight, with clues that lead to other clues that will unlock more clues to definitions that will help me see that learning is forever to be found in books and the internet and life in the experience of learning and exchanging wisdom through that learning.

I’m going to get those future degrees, not for the paper they represent but because they will be markers on my path to greater knowledge (you can teach an old dog new tricks) and the keys to the universe.

Sh!t On My Mind

Election day in California has come and gone, and it’s time to get back to the vital matter at hand, summer. You know, trips to the beach, the desert, camping, mountains, blockbuster movies, and don’t forget, predictions of doom for the midterms in November. Hell, I can make vacay and doomsay at the same time. In between house and summer break stuff, I’ve been sorting through a bunch of sh!t on my mind. For example, who won the Heard-Depp defamation trial? And why should I care?

The Economy

The good news: the unemployment rate is now 3.6% from a high of 14.7% two years ago. Do you remember when everyone was so happy to get those Pandemic checks and small business grants and rent moratoriums? Now, economists and critics swear that all this has helped lead us into the inflation crisis we’re facing. Putting too much money into people’s pockets and the economy spells trouble like gas and food prices: Doom and gloom. Yet, I have seen more people in stores and restaurants in a long time. I was just wondering what all of this means.

Crime

I read that Democrats all over the country because they favor social justice approaches to, well, justice. The prevailing narrative is that all this has led to an increase in crime. So, the pandemic and the crazy that followed have nothing to do with it. The solution is more police and locking people up (any people, it seems) and throwing away the key.

For example in New York City.

“For the month of April 2022, New York City saw a 38% decrease in homicides (31 v. 50) and a 29.1% drop in shooting incidents (105 v. 148) compared to April 2021. Overall index crime increased by 34.2% in April 2022, compared to the same period a year ago (9,463 v. 7,051) – a total driven by a 43.5% increase in grand larceny (3,867 v. 2,694) and a 41.5% increase in robbery (1,261 v. 891). Burglaries also increased by 39.4% (1,209 v. 867) in April 2022 compared to last year.”
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00044/nypd-citywide-crime-statistics-april-2022

But then, you come across stuff like the following. I guess one’s perception of crime depends on where one lives and not just what one feels.

“According to polls from Axios/SurveyMonkey and The Economist/YouGov, around 9 in 10 Americans feel very or somewhat safe in the communities where they live. At the same time, Gallup polling shows the gap in perception of growing crime in the U.S. versus crime in one’s own neighborhood has never been wider.”
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/safest-states-in-the-us.html

Here’s their list:

New Jersey is the safest state, according to our scoring system. It separated itself from other leading states with a significantly higher score for law enforcement officers per capita.
Eight of the 10 safest states are in the Northeastern region of the U.S. (as defined by the Census Bureau), including the top six states on our list. The list also includes one state from the Midwest and one from the South. No states from the West made the top 10.
Maine had the best score of all 50 states for violent crime per capita. Massachusetts had the best score for property crime per capita. New Jersey had the best score for law enforcement officers per capita, and Ohio had the highest score for estimated public safety budget per law enforcement employee.

In the Meantime

“Mass shootings have been on the rise in recent years. In 2021, almost 700 such incidents occurred, a jump from the 611 in 2020 and 417 in 2019. Before that, incidents had not topped 400 annually since the Gun Violence Archive started tracking in 2014.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/02/mass-shootings-in-2022/

I guess I’m not doing enough prayers. Well, that’s probably because I don’t believe in prayers, only laws, and their enforcement. But, no laws are going to stop the madness of anger, violence worship, and “I just don’t give a sh!t” attitudes.

The Unhoused

Drive or walk down any major street or freeway in southern California, and their presence is ubiquitous, tents of the unhoused.

“In the United States, there are over half a million people experiencing homelessness. These individuals live in a temporary shelter or transitional housing or sleep in a place not meant for habitation (like an abandoned building). The top four causes of homelessness, in order, are lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, and low wages.”
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/homeless-population-by-state

According to the World Population Review website, these some of the breakdown of their statistics:

The average life expectancy of a homeless person is just 50 years.
39.8% of homeless persons are African-Americans
61% of homeless persons are men and boys
20% of homeless persons are kids
42% of street children identify as LGBT
New York City has one-fifth of all US sheltered homeless
The homeless problem is on a downward trend- Where is this happening?
Permanent housing interventions have grown by 450% in 5 years.

Music

Did you know that the top artist and song right now is Harry Styles, “As It Was,” according to Billboard Magazine? Number two is Doja Cat, “Woman.” And number three is Lizzo, “About Damn Time.” I am so out of touch. Read more of the list HERE.

Fashion

You may not remember, but in another dimension, I was once Executive Producer of Fashion Police with Joan and Melissa Rivers on E! (No, really). According to Refinery29.com, these fashion trends are defining 2022

Sweats 2.0
The Pointelle Lounge Crop Pants
Victor Glemaud Chain Link Wide-Leg Cropped Pants
Donni Eco-Fleece Roll Pant
Skims Cozy Knit Pant

Curious

What are we calling the generation after Gen Z? Well, apparently, Gen Alpha.

“Comparing Generation Alpha versus Generation Z statistics — much like the groups’ members themselves — are still developing. However, if current trends hold, Generation Alpha kids will be more racially and ethnically diverse than their Generation Z counterparts. Members of Generation Alpha will also be more likely to go to college, more likely to grow up in a single-parent household and more likely to be surrounded by college-educated adults.”
https://www.aecf.org/blog/what-is-generation-alpha

Still Curious

I’ve been told that the Republican Party is looking after us better than the Democratic Party because…….I’ll have to get back to you on that.

Conspiracy Theories

When did conspiracy theories go from “Who Killed JFK?” to the Democrats are a bunch of child-eating pedos?

English as my major

Lifelong Learning — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I’m so naive. I didn’t realize that when I decided to major in English to study Creative Writing that it meant that I would be studying mostly white men and some white women, with James Baldwin thrown in as the token. I must be in the wrong decade.

I only have four semesters left to graduate at seventy-five years old with a Bachelor of Arts in English- Creative Writing. Do you think I will be too old to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at that age?

1968 A Year of Living Violently

The following essay was submitted as my final project for English 404 Creative Nonfiction Spring 2022.

In 1968, I was nineteen, living in the Bronx. I couldn’t feel how deep was the water around me or know I would almost drown in it. My mind and life were mired in an ocean of depression and anxiety. The turmoil was lurking on the horizon. Youth were challenging the world order. War was everywhere, in faraway lands, on American streets, in our souls. The war in Vietnam continued to eat the young even as we protested across this country. The champions of a peaceful revolution were assassinated. Racist forces held their ground against the forward movement of American history. The old voices told us to believe that America was exceptional. Racism, sexism, income disparities, and class warfare were only aberrations. They called us communists, rabble-rousers, and traitors. According to them, we were the real danger to America. They sicced police violence down on us. Bodies and blood flowed like a flash flood across America’s urban landscape. I battled for survival inside the cyclone, where my life would be defined by two lies: a “normal” life during the day and a dope fiend at night.

It was not what I dreamed 
when I was a kid 
looking into the future 
or what my mother and father 
had wished. 

Amid the violent chaos, 
a quiet but deadly menace 
stalked the Bronx. 
Its campaign for death
swept me up.

I pushed back against the waves of depression with long subway rides from the South Bronx to Greenwich Village to seek camaraderie with other anti-war compatriots. There were the secret Thursday shopping excursions into Manhattan with my girlfriend Chicky, who hid the relationship from her family. We swore we were in love. The Fridays with my boys at Saint Anselm Catholic Youth Organization. We would shoot hoops and pool and then run off to Carlos’s basement apartment to smoke weed and listen to Red Foxx and Moms Mabley comedy albums. However, despite my worst efforts, my life was besieged by a growing heroin habit, the petty crimes to feed it, and the inevitable drug overdoses. I was scared, confused, and angry, and sure I would be doomed to six feet under.

In the dope world,
everyone lies and cheats. 
It’s the bargain with the devil. 
Heroin
imported from some foreign country 
smuggled across thousands of miles 
hidden in suitcase bottoms 
to apartments full of naked women 
mixing it with baby milk powder 
or rat poison 
into a glassine bag 
so you can buy 
from a man with no name 
in some dark hidden hallway.

I was old enough to go to Vietnam, but I wasn’t ready to die in a faraway land. So, I bluffed my way out with a military service deferment only in a war or national emergency. But, the powers in Washington, D.C. couldn’t or wouldn’t admit there was a war in Vietnam. Meanwhile, my friends were disappearing from the hood—drafted to become the wounded and dead bodies that kept piling up in field hospitals and black bags 8,637 miles away. Young people, the fodder for the war machine, lost faith in the Vietnam conflict and the illusion that America was exceptional. At home, another battle raged on between my father and me. Even as the bleak reality of the war filled the evening newscasts and newspaper headlines every day, my father declared America was winning. I only saw death and hopelessness. In protest, I burned my draft card at a UN rally.

Abandoned apartments 
became shooting galleries 
like the one
off Willis Avenue 
where a violent moment, 
a drug overdose, 
played out 
like a bad crime movie 
that would not stop.
  
It was my daily dance with mainline, 
straight into the central vein. 
Slumped in a broken down 
upholstered chair
that had seen a more peaceful, 
relaxing time.
My hands smeared 
with pain and blood, 
surrounded by the smell 
of alcohol, weed,
a grease-stained brown shopping bag, 
a trail of dead food, 
half-empty beer cans,
and desperate dreams.

It was the year of cities burning. New York, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, Washington, D.C. I wanted to join the urban guerrillas committed to tearing it all down. I was no longer willing to sit on the sidelines watching televised pandemonium. I left a Wall Street trading job to enlist in the South Bronx social justice army to battle over community control of public schools. The New York City Teachers’ Union closed the city schools against community control, the largest strike in the city’s history. Community groups, parents, and teacher allies vowed to battle the union and the Central Board of Education in the streets and schools. The days were filled with marches, school board meeting takeovers, and Black and Latino parent mobilization to fight for local control.

There is a ritual.
There is always a ritual 
when preparing 
for the violent death
that is sure to come.
 
Don’t worry about sterile. 
Ignore the dirt on the stairs
to the apartment, 
the old blood dripping down its walls, 
or the smell you swear is 
“Man, did someone shit up in here?” 
This is not Good Housekeeping certified.

The cops lined up military-style in a straight-line shoulder to shoulder on that Friday, September 13, in front of JHS 52, with their shiny badges and nice crisp uniforms. Their police hats tipped just right on their lovely crew-cut white heads. Their job was to keep the threatening hordes of black and brown mothers and their children from conjuring up a new life and future beyond the South Bronx and public housing and run-down tenement buildings. The parents were there to open the school for their kids. They could pledge allegiance to the flag, grow up to be successful Americans, and move to New Jersey, Long Island, New Rochelle, or Connecticut. It could happen. It’s the American Dream. Instead, they were destined to work low-paying jobs. You could find them at the greasy spoon in El Barrio, shuffling clothes racks down 7th Avenue or sorting through boxes of vegetables at the Hunts Point Market.

Mainlining, 
injecting directly into my vein 
was the only way 
to enjoy the fruits of the opium poppy. 
I pulled out the eyedropper
 and a small needle 
ready to shove heroin
Smack, H, Chiba, Junk, Skag, Dope 
 into my body.

An old bottle of murky water 
the rusting bottle cap 
on an equally rusting coffee table
leftover from the last fool 
who overdosed while 
crying for his mommy, 
“Don’t take this ride on the mainline home.”

I’m choking from the stink 
that’s floating around me. 
I needed to get high 
with my last five dollars 
until payday Friday.

The police megaphone announced there would be no trespassing that day. Not on their watch. The spotlight turned onto one constable, a defender of the social order, the vanguard against disorder. A young, fresh-faced stalwart for a way of life, an ax handle in his hand. This ax handle, typically 32 to 36 inches long, was not the usual official policeman’s nightstick. The longer ones worked best for big timber and splitting wood. The shorter lengths were superior for smaller timber and general utility work. The latter was also best for beating those black and brown people who thought they could trespass onto public property as if they were taxpayers. On this day, the American Dream turned into an American nightmare. The one defender of the social order would use that ax handle as he saw in those news reports from the south. They knew how to use the ax handle properly. Swing and never miss.

Into the bottle cap 
I so carefully squeezed 
one, two, three drops 
of unclean water.

The water slowly mixed 
with the off-white specks of heroin. 
Cooked it with a match 
underneath the cap 
until it blends into a muddy liquid.

The picture in front of me was vivid, living in my nightmares for years into the future. Swing baby, crush some heads, some Friday daydreams. Swing that ax handle like it’s 1968. The angry spittle foamed from his face and those of his comrades. The message was clear. The ax handle would crash through some heads and bodies to teach them a lesson. “Don’t fuck with us. We’re the man. We are the power.” No amount of black and brown mothers with their innocent children at their sides could stop them. Not one. It was madness run amuck. They went after the first black guy they saw, swearing that he was the Black Panther Party. As if they all looked alike. Brown hands reached out to stop the arrest. Nightsticks and the ax handle blocked the charging crowd. I grabbed a blue uniform. A club and an arm then wrapped around my throat choking me. My eyeglasses crashed onto the sidewalk. My breath escaped from my lungs. Two arms became four become six as I was lifted and hauled to a waiting police car.

My belt wrapped around my upper arm 
looked for the central vein 
that cried for the high.
 
And the muddy water sucked up 
through the thin needle
from the rusting bottle cap 
through the weeks old cotton ball 
up into the eyedropper 
back down through the needle 
and down I plunged 
and the rush of warmth
that turned to panic
while my soul was
falling and falling and falling.
 
And I realized
this is not a trip home or into paradise.
No one would save me here.

Those guardians of society proved they would do anything to protect their American Dream. The war for social justice continues until this day.

Suddenly, I was falling out 
out of the apartment
down broken stairs
spilling out into the street
cursing 
where I heard heavenly music 
crashing with the sounds of sirens, 
imagining 
what my father would later call me 
in the emergency room,
desagradecido,
ungrateful.
 
I’m shrieking, 
I’m alive,
I’m alive.

Lifelong Learning

Well, one more semester under my belt. Spring 2022 is done. Yes, I’m anxiously awaiting my grades (I did get one A already. Only two more to go). But I must tell you, I realize more each semester that passes that I’ve been missing the whole point of why I’m going to college. Sure I want my degree, and of course, I would like some validation for my hard work. However, that’s not the point. Learning is.

I started my college journey in 2016 at the age of sixty-seven. That came after working a long line of jobs and careers since I was fifteen years old, from New York to Washington, D.C. to Hartford, Connecticut, back to Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles to Long Beach, California. I once counted thirty-six jobs during that time, from selling magazine subscriptions to television executive producer to mentoring young people. I couldn’t begin to quantify everything I’ve learned about people, life, and subjects, from spotting stains on clothing to how to produce a live television event with more than twenty-four cameras plus the Goodyear Blimp.

Yet, just when I thought I had learned it all, I discovered that there is no such thing. Learning is living every day you are alive. If you open your senses, then you are learning something new. Even when you are doing the same thing from one day to the next, you can learn something new if you are open to it.

Beginning at Long Beach City College and now at California State University, Long Beach, I have tackled everything from Political Philosophy to Statistics to Mythology to Writing Creative Nonfiction. Along the way, I’ve learned that I am capable of opening my mind to new ideas and how to challenge opinions that I thought were anchored in concrete and immovable. I see these things because I refuse to stop learning.

This past semester, I took three classes, English 404 (Creative Nonfiction), English 470 (American Ethnic Literature), and English 385 (The Short Story). Each class challenged me with reading and writing assignments. Every day, I read a short story, a novel, a poem, and a nonfiction essay. I wrote critiques and essays. I engaged with my classmates in often stimulating discussions about what we had read and written. I loved every second of it. There were new ideas, perspectives, and directions to learn and think.

For example, English 385, “Music is Freedom and Redemption in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues.”

In 2020, New York City celebrated the centennial of the Harlem Renaissance. The Renaissance was a revival of Black culture and thought in music, literature, theater, and politics during the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century. On the centennial occasion, Baruch College of the City University of New York celebrated the roots of jazz and the blues in Harlem. Mo Beasley, a Harlem, New York-based poet and educator, observed, “If there were no music in Harlem, there would be no black folks in Harlem” (Bacchus and Banks). James Baldwin writes of this legacy of music and Harlem in his 1957 short story, “Sonny’s Blues.” Blues, jazz, and gospel are the soundtrack for the estranged lives of Sonny and his much older brother, the story’s unnamed narrator. The music is a metaphor for the lives of Harlem, where there is pain one moment and hopes the next. One can find the pain in a juke joint along 125th Street, where the music is “something black and bouncy" (Baldwin 40). Spiritual uplift can come from an old-fashioned revival of jangling tambourines, testifying, and gospel music, bringing hope to Harlem’s people. The alternating emotions of vivid jazz and wailing blues pounded out by a musician’s instrument fill the air. The music in their lives is crucial to unlocking Sonny and his brother’s anguished and conflicted souls so they can break free and find redemption, even if momentarily.

English 404 “1968 A Year of Living Violently”

In 1968, I was nineteen, living in the Bronx. I couldn't feel how deep was the water around me or know I would almost drown in it. My mind and life were mired in an ocean of depression and anxiety. The turmoil was lurking on the horizon. Youth were challenging the world order. War was everywhere, in faraway lands, on American streets, in our souls. The war in Vietnam continued to eat the young even as we protested across this country. The champions of a peaceful revolution were assassinated. Racist forces held their ground against the forward movement of American history. The old voices told us to believe that America was exceptional. Racism, sexism, income disparities, and class warfare were only aberrations. They called us communists, rabble-rousers, and traitors. According to them, we were the real danger to America. They sicced police violence down on us. Bodies and blood flowed like a flash flood across America’s urban landscape. I battled for survival inside the cyclone, where my life would be defined by two lies: a “normal” life during the day and a dope fiend at night.

English 470 “In the Time of the Butterflies: Heroes, Dictators, and the People Who Love Them”

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez is a fictionalized account of the Dominican Republic’s four Mirabal sisters known as Las Mariposas- the Butterflies. Three of the four sisters would eventually be surveilled, jailed, and assassinated for their protests against the tyrannical reign of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina, known simply as Trujillo (Alvarez). Alvarez's narrative strategy is to tell their story from many “different perspectives and narrated by a myriad of characters” (Puleo). Alvarez based the novel on actual people and events. Lurking in the background of the Mirabal story are the circumstances that propagated the long dictatorships like that of the man nicknamed El Jefe. Trujillo’s formula for survival included the use of the secret police who carried out his orders, a Catholic Church that looked the other way until it could not, and the upper classes of Dominicans who benefitted from the regime. Then, there was the conspiracy of everyday Dominicans who spied and informed on others, actively supporting the brutal dictatorship or falling silent at the disorder around them. Those critical elements in Alvarez's novel provide a roadmap to understanding both the brutality and the longevity of the real-world Trujillo regime. The story also serves as a warning for supporters of democratic institutions that they must be vigilant to prevent future dictatorships.

These essays resulted from deep thinking, extensive research, multiple drafts, and allowing my mind’s imagination to soar to places it’s never been before. No matter the grade I eventually get, I feel more confident at the end of every semester that I’ve given my best at that time. The point is that I learned something new so that next semester, I will hopefully give something new and the best of that new. Damn, I love learning.

Postscript: I expect to graduate with a BA in Creative Writing in May 2024. I will be seventy-five years old. Next year, I will be applying to an MFA program in Creative Nonfiction. I expect to be seventy-seven or seventy-eight when I complete my studies. Now, that’s lifelong learning.

Spring Finals Redux

It’s that time again. Spring finals week begin May 9. I thought it would be a valuable reminder to revisit last semester’s essay on the subject to mark the anxiety-filled event. (Edited for grammar and style).

Education — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

It’s finals week at California State University, Long Beach. My finals began last week, but the hard stuff is this week. I don’t know what it is about testing and writing final papers, but I get anxious, sometimes beyond relief. Now, these are not time-pressured deadlines save for the deadline to submit. That doesn’t seem to matter. The problem is with the task itself.

I know my semester grade is dependent on this. Sixteen weeks of studying, quizzes, a mid-term, writing other papers, and class participation will mean very little if I flunk this final week. I’m confident that won’t happen, but as you well know, a grade less than an “A” is never good enough for me. Does that sound neurotic to you? Don’t answer that. At Long Beach City College, where I received my A.A. in English, only once did I grab a grade lower than an “A.” That was for Statistics. I can’t tell you how upset I was. That lone “B” haunted me for weeks. And that’s my problem. One exam can challenge your self-confidence, patience, and measurement of how you are doing in school.

Something isn’t right about that. I don’t remember the last time someone asked me a statistics question in the real world. They demanded an analysis of Twelfth Night or sparred with me on the true meaning behind Waiting for Godot. I mean, I wish they would. I’d be ready for them. It seems such a shame that you go through all the anxieties and gymnastics of studying and testing only to leave it behind once you leave school.

All those years in K-12 and College, I now can barely remember a fourth of it. What was the point? You know how much sleep I lost studying for a test only to discover that most of what I studied never appeared on the exam. What a waste of time is what I would want to say. And all this would be true if my education was only about memorizing facts. If I did learn anything, education was about learning to ask questions and seek answers. Think.

Wait, learning to think? I could have done that at home, listening to some podcast with my eyes closed. And that would probably count too. The truth is that every time you watch television or a YouTube video or scan a website, you’re taking in information. If you’re conscious of what you’re doing, you’re learning to think.

I thought my years in jobs as a motorcycle messenger, bartender, or waiter were just temp jobs until I scored the big career move. I learned so much about organizing, people relations, and how to make a mean drink (a great conversation starter even if I don’t drink anymore). I used to think that anything outside the formal setting of a school or a training course was, oh, I don’t know, just living, doing a job, making a living. The reality is that I was learning to think through life. I’m not just talking about learning to survive in those cold, savage jungles of New York, Washington, D.C., or Los Angeles (Okay, that too). I was learning how to view the total picture, the complexity of reality, an event or a situation, the people I met along the way, and make decisions based on facts, instincts, and experience. Did I always get it right? Oh, hell no. But, even when I got it wrong in Statistics, I learned something other than I would never take that course again. I sharpened my analytical skills.

I could go on with a long list of skills that I acquired doing activities outside of school. But, my time at Long Beach City College and now in the waning days of my first semester of CSULB have given me an appreciation of the power of formal education. The professors, the textbooks, the lectures, the interaction with fellow students create an environment where you can lose yourself in intellectual enlightenment if you allow yourself. Does that mean every class I’ve taken is equal in the results? No, some are better than others. But, I decided a long time ago that I wasn’t going to waste any chance to learn to think.

I haven’t. As I wrote in a reflections letter that was part of the finals for an English class,

“You can sail through college and get that degree and not remember a damn thing you studied. Or you can take each day to allow yourself to be absorbed by what you learn.” If you choose the latter path, you will be changed forever. I have, and I am.
English 380- English Studies

I shared with the professor my daily mantra, “Eat life like you’re starving. You may feel full at the end of the day, but damn, it tasted good.” The class, like life, offered me a buffet of mind-altering intellectual dishes in sixteen weeks that left me very full. I can comfortably say that my brain and my spirit feel very satisfied.

And isn’t that the point? You walk away from a person, an event, a job, and if you feel like, damn, I’m wiser now than before that encounter, you can smile. All that knowledge will go into my memory banks and be available to use the next time I want to learn something new. I’m doing Finals Week like it’s one more opportunity to learn something new, no matter how stressful. It might be because some things in life are worth putting a little more effort into.

100

The following was an assignment in English 404, Creative Nonfiction, to write an essay of only 100 words.

100 English words. That’s how many I probably knew in the first grade. My Puerto Rican father, Dominican mother sent me to Catholic School at five years old to become an American. The nun with the stern scowl, black and white hooded costume, a long chain of rosary beads hanging from her hip told my parents, “This is America. In America, we speak English.” The nun didn’t have to say only at the end. My parents knew what she meant.

My mother’s English was terrible, so television became my teacher. By the eighth grade, I couldn’t remember 100 Spanish words.

Finals

It’s finals week at California State University, Long Beach. Actually, my finals began last week, but the hard stuff is this week. I don’t know what it is about testing and writing final papers. I always get anxious, sometimes nervous beyond relief. Now, these are not time-pressured deadlines save for the deadline to submit. That doesn’t seem to matter. The problem is with the task itself.

I know that my semester grade is dependent on this. Sixteen weeks of studying, quizzes, a mid-term, writing other papers, class participation will mean very little if I flunk this final week. I’m sure I’ll still get a good grade of a “B,” but as you well know, such a grade is never good enough for me. At Long Beach City College, where I received my A.A. in English, only once did I garner a grade lower than an “A” sneak into my transcript. That was for Statistics. I can’t tell you how upset I was. That lone grade of “B” haunted me for weeks. That sound neurotic to you? And that’s the problem. One exam can really test your sense of self, patience, and measurement of how you are really doing in school.

Something isn’t right about that. Having served in the real world of careers, I don’t quite remember the last time someone asked me a statistics question or provide an analysis of Twelfth Night or spar with me on the true meaning behind Waiting for Godot. I mean, I wish they would. I’d be ready for them. Seems such a shame that you go through all the anxieties and gymnastics of studying and testing only to leave it behind once you leave school.

All those years in school, K-12 and College, and you can barely remember a fourth of it. What was the point? I mean, you know how much sleep I lost studying for a test only to discover that most of what I studied never appeared on the exam. What a waste of time is what I would say. And all this would be true if it wasn’t for the fact that I know this wasn’t just about memorizing facts. This semester at CSULB and my past semesters at LBCC were about my learning to think.

Wait, to think? Hell, I could have done that at home listening to some podcast with my eyes closed. And that would probably count too. Every time you watch television or a YouTube video or scan a website, you’re taking in information. If you’re conscious of what you’re doing, you’re learning to think.

I thought my years in jobs as a motorcycle messenger or bartender or waiter were just temp jobs until I scored the big career move. Actually, I learned so much about organizing, people relations, and how to make a mean drink (a great conversation starter even if I don’t drink anymore). I used to think that anything outside the formal setting of a school or a training course was just, oh I don’t know, just living, doing a job, making a living. The reality is I was learning to think through life. I’m not just talking about learning to survive in those cold, savage jungles of New York, Washington, D.C., or Los Angeles (Okay, that too). I was learning how to view the total picture, the complexity of reality, an event or a situation, the people I met along the way, make decisions based on facts, instincts, experience. Did I always get it right? Oh, hell no. But, even when I got it wrong in Statistics, I learned something other than I would never take that course ever again. I sharpened my analytical skills.

I haven’t. As I wrote in a reflections letter that was part of the finals for an English class,

“You can sail through college and get that degree and not remember a damn thing you studied. Or you can take each day to allow yourself to be absorbed by what you learn.” If you choose the latter path, you will be changed forever. I have, and I am.
English 380- English Studies

I shared with him my daily mantra, “Eat life like you’re starving. You may feel full at the end of the day, but damn, it tasted good.” The class, like life, offered me a buffet of mind-altering intellectual dishes in sixteen weeks that left me very full. I can comfortably say that my brain and my spirit feel very satisfied.

And isn’t that the point? You walk away from a person, an event, a job, and if you feel like, damn, I’m wiser now than I was before that encounter, you can smile. All that knowledge will go into my memory banks and be available to use the next time I want to learn something new. I’m doing Finals Week like it’s one more opportunity to learn something new no matter how stressful it might be. Because some things in life are worth putting a little more effort into it.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

The Economy

Crime

In the Meantime

The Unhoused

Music

Fashion

Curious

Still Curious

Conspiracy Theories

English as my major

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: