Storytime!

Yesterday was the first day to begin reading with some kids in the neighborhood. As many of you know, I believe that reading is THE BEST way to improve English skills. I also think that kids need to experience English in a more fun/informal, less structured way sometimes. We had a fun time - I read 3 books and then helped my older friends (who are helping me to gather kids to read with!) with a little English homework. I'm really thankful for the time we spent, the books that friends from home have sent, and the opportunities we'll share to have a little fun making English more accessible!

We read Ten Apples Up On Top (Theo LeSieg), My Friend Rabbit (Eric Rohmann), and The Story of Ferdinand the Bull (Munro Leaf). They loved My Friend Rabbit!

Brett Bart Blackburn

There was a joke of sorts that my father used to say...he said that had I been a boy, my name would have been Brett Bart Blackburn. I don't remember if he or I added the bit about how easy it would have been to call me if that had been my name; blubbering lips with an extended index finger for the b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b sound. I guess ever since then I've had an affinity for alliteration.

Mixed with stream of consciousness writing, alliteration is a fun thing for me. Maybe it was the combination of Dr, Suess and Shel Silverstein, or maybe even Loony Toons, but one of my favorite things about the English language is that it's so fun to play with.

Booger noses, garden hoses, sticking up your butt
Sweat beads and bumble bees, a dirty paper cut

I wrote two-pages in high school that began with those two lines - it's the only thing I've ever written that I've lost and surely hate not having. Just reading the lines that I recall transports me to that day - I remember every visual that inspired those lines, even though I'm certain that nothing was really sticking up anybody's butt, at least literally.

There's a big, brown bear behind me

That's been on repeat in my head for about 2 weeks now, so I think it's time to do something with it. Maybe it'll get it out and give me some peace. At least for the moment,

There's a big, brown bear behind me.

His soft feet fall so gently

He's never far, he's just right there

Slowly and moving deliberately

I know his name. He's my old friend

We used to be together often

He protected me, and I fed him

His name is Big Brown Bitter

Big Brown Bitter and Blaming Blathering Blackburn were inseparable, it's true 

She would act and he would respond - victims, both, those two

Of course it was never just the act or response that kept it going

It was careful thinking, reading, too

And a healthy dose of rebellion 

Hard heads make for soft asses

You'll get kicked from here to there

But banking on bitter and blather and blame

Help the cycle begin again

It is said that no good deed goes unpunished

But what of the bad, I say?

There's Big Brown Bitter and all he says is

bb--b-b-b--b--b-b-b-bb-bb

They lied! They lied! It was all a farce

But you complied, he said

I knew it was weird and I knew it seemed wrong

But I followed anyway

I have to remember and I have to remind

Myself of how it began

If it were for fun

If it were for money

I'd surely have gone some place else

But I was following and I'll continue to do it

With the bear who used to be beside me, behind me