November 02, 2001

What's a bearfoot beau?

We have *got* to stop turning off the baseball game to get to sleep on time. Last
night was the second in a row that we went to bed with the Diamondbacks in the
lead, only to find out they'd brought in Kim as cleanup pitcher and lost the game.
I am beginning to not like him very much.

I'm also getting a little annoyed with the Yankees' blatant bid for sympathy. To
my thinking, "People died in our city so we morally deserve to win the World
Series," is not a valid syllogism.

This morning, I admit to being a complete bum. I skipped rowing and got to sleep
all the way to 5 AM. But there are extenuating circumstances: I got up, put in my
contact lenses, got dressed, and realized my gut was slightly upset. (Details
withheld as a public service.) It wasn't that bad and I was about to head out
anyway, until I realized there was no point. Because I'm not in the boat for the
next big race, I would only have rowed half a practice anyway, or taken out my
single. I did a 45 minute erg piece yesterday (are you impressed? you should be)
and besides, there was a warm, sleeping, barely-dressed man right upstairs I could
be lying next to. The boys rowed a little yesterday and put the boat on top of the
truck to save time today, so that Rudder could get to work earlier and, with luck,
leave earlier. Therefore, Rudder was actually sleeping in, for once. At that
point, common sense kicked in and I went back to bed. And enjoyed it, though I
only got back to sleep right before the alarm went off.

Got an interesting phone call yesterday. The woman who interviewed me about online
diaries a few weeks ago wants to send a photographer out next week to take
pictures of me doing some of the things I write about -- rowing, shopping for
beads, going out for a drink. The rowing program, the bead store, and the bar
won't mind the free publicity, though I did check with three I'm most likely to go
out drinking with to be sure they don't mind. But this will necessarily publicize
this site to the rowers and coaches. I may need to write only nice things about
them for a week or so. :-)

There's not much reason to complain about the coaches now, anyway. Yesterday, I
sent out a note to all the women in the lightweight four, telling them I would be
dropping out of the program. Leaving that boat is my only real regret about the
change -- I will still be rowing, just in my single or with the other local club.
There is a dim possibility that we may revive the four under the auspices of the
other club, though I don't know how likely it is. Rudder and T2 are also likely
to leave, and possibly Egret and others. If that happens, perhaps the city will
notice and finally do something about DI. Or perhaps not.

That was rowing, now to books. I am reading Barbara Michaels' A Stitch in
Time
. All I keep thinking is, "I bet href="http://caerula.diaryland.com">Caerula loves this book." She's both a
quilter and a Michaels fan, so that doesn't take any extraordinary insight. Before
that, I read a couple of Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy books -- two of the high
school ones. I've always sort of liked the concept, where the series goes from
books for and about little girls to books for and about high-schoolers. The two I
read are set in about 1908-09, and it's funny, but some of the references are to
things I've known all my life, like some of the songs:

School days, school days, dear old golden rule days,

Reading and writing and 'rithmetic, learned to the tune of a hick'ry stick.

You were my queen in calico, I was your bashful barefoot beau

You rode on my sleigh and I loved you so, when we were a couple of kids.

My grandparents, born around when Betsy was in school, used to sing that with me.
(I always thought it was "bashful bearfoot beau".) Some of the references were to
things I've only recently encountered, as when Betsy's little sister Margaret
receives a copy of Mary Ware, the Little Colonel's Friend. And there were a
few implements mentioned that I didn't recognize at all, and don't remember now.

The mores were also interesting -- the gradual switch form horses to cars, the
rules by which a good girl wouldn't even hold hands with a boy, the friendly
attitude toward Germans on the eve of WWI. That last is especially interesting in
books first published around 1946. It looks deliberate -- Tib Muller, who had
moved away, invites Betsy for a visit to the very German Milwaukee, and then moves
back into town. Was Lovelace working toward a reconciliation, or just lamenting an
easier time?

Posted by dichroic at November 2, 2001 06:07 AM
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