| LIFE |
2009-04-28 |
never mention winning. my idea is that you can lose when you outscore somebody in a game and you can win when you're outscored. i've felt that way on certain occasions at various times. i just want my kids to be able to hold their head up after a game. i used to say that when a game is over and you see somebody that didn't know the outcome that i hope they couldn't tell by your actions wether you outscored and opponent or if an opponent outscored you. that's what really matters. if you make your effort to do the best you can regularly, the results will be about what they should be, not necessarily what you'd want them to be, but they'll be about what they should be.
excerpt from john wooden ted talk titled Coaching for people, not points
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2009-03-25 |
so your buttcheeks are sticking together?
this was the third thing i heard in my house yesterday morning. and it wasn't said by, to, or about me.
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2009-01-28 |
monday night i became sick quite suddenly. because of a meeting i briefly went to work tuesday morning. i then came home, went directly to my room, got in bed and went to sleep.
the kids had a snow day and were home from school on tuesday. marty invited a bunch of ladies and their kids over to play. i would occasionally get pulled from sleep because of screaming or laughing or loud running down the hallway. one time i stirred from sleep because of talking, close-by talking. i opened my eyes and lifted my head. standing around my bed were ten to twelve kids all eight years old or younger. they were all staring at me intently like i were a classmate's curious show and tell bauble. bella was standing next to my head talking to all the children like she was leading a group of medical interns on rounds. she was saying:
this is my father. he got diarrhea last night and it kept him up most of the night. diarrhea makes you have to use the restroom a lot. so today he is tired. this is why he is sleeping now and not at work.
of course when she said the word diarrhea, a few of the kids standing around the bed screwed up their faces and said "eeewww" and took a step back. if i were them i would have found my mom and asked to go home. |
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| LIFE |
2008-11-19 |
he's known for using the f-word as a comma.
comment made on the radio about obama's selection for chief of staff, rahm emanuel.
interesting and seemingly pertinent fact: rahm's brother ari emanuel is a talent agent in la who inspired the ari gold character in entourage.
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2008-11-17 |
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if you hear bella or alex say the words - "anthony come here, i have a really great idea" - eight times in ten anthony will be crying inside of ninety seconds.
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| ENTERTAINMENT, LIFE |
2008-10-15 |
There was a time when I thought I was all green coast and fertile marsh, that my interior lands were bounded by the Appalachian mountains, the skyline of Savannah, the citrus country of central Florida, and the eroded beaches on barrier islands threatened by the moon-swollen tides of the Atlantic. But as I grew older and explored my own starker regions more assiduously, I kept stumbling across pyramids, Mayan campfires, the rubble of Huns - civilizations that had no right of access to the terrain of a Southern boy's soul. I wanted desperately to find out why I felt different from the other boys at the Institute, why I felt more like Poteete than the rest of them. I wanted to find out why I was lonely and why I never felt lonelier than when I marched with the regiment, in step with the two thousand. When I picked up the yearbook on my desk, flipped through the pages, and looked at the faces of my friends, I thought I was looking at a field guide to ruined boys. That was not true. The Institute had helped many of those boys to find themselves. But as I turned to my own photograph and stared at the immobile smiling stranger who shared my features and my name, I realized that only one boy had been ruined. My task for the year was clear: I had to discover why the boy in that photograph loathed himself so completely and so violently.
excerpt from conroy's the lords of discipline
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2008-08-28 |
the girl made her hand into a ball and threw it at another girl's face. and blood came out of her nose.
a child's awe-struck recounting of an event at her first week of kindergarten.
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2008-07-14 |
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i felt very uninspired last week. which is sad and the opposite of what i wanted to feel and was supposed to feel after taking a five week break. in the past after my sabbatical i've been eager to return and usually had a few choice morsels in the hopper. not this time. and this was surprising because in those five weeks my family had taken two vacations, one to the beach and one to a lake resort. we had the outside of our house painted by two drunk guys. we renovated a bedroom. and both kids were on summer vacation. in short, we'd been busy and spent a lot of time together. yet, when i sat down to post last week i drew repeated blanks on what to say. towards the end of the week the dry well got me thinking this project has perhaps run its course and it may be time to shutter the windows and focus my attention on more pertinent matters. seriously.
then, saturday morning marty was organizing the kids in the front yard for a bike ride. i went out to help get the adventure underway. while i was strapping anthony into the rickshaw marty said behind me ...
alex, i want to hold your meat.
alex, in a ziplock baggie, was carrying some summer sausages i had just cut up for him to take along as a snack. the second marty finished her line, my head drooped and i started chuckling at her comment. marty instantly turned my way and chastised me saying that she already had three kids and didn't need a fourth. she then turned back to alex and said ...
alex, give me your meat.
and with that the log blocking my chi break through with a flood of commentary trailing behind. so, you can thank (or vex) marty for saving the day and dearmitt.com.
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| FAMILY, LIFE, WEB |
2008-05-16 |
a former colleague and his wife emailed me asking for guidance/direction/opinions about his wife quitting her job and becoming a stay at home mom. within five seconds of getting the message i fired it marty's way because i obviously don't know the first thing about it and she is, well, a bit of an expert on the topic. she cc'd me on her response and i found it meaty, insightful and honest enough to share for any others who may be thinking about or struggling with the choice ...
C and K,
I'm impressed that you are reaching out to people and asking questions about potentially switching careers. I didn't have that much foresight when I made my decision to stay at home.
I taught full time for 7 years before I had Bella. Then I worked part time for 2 years before I had Alexander. I decided to stay at home because I couldn't imagine managing 2 kids, 1 husband, and 40 students. And once I paid for care for both kids out of my pay I would have made $300 minus taxes. Troy explained that he could create one website in 2 months and make up what I would end up actually bringing home for the year. And I was worn out from the stress of finding alternative care if Bella was sick, scheduling the kids' doctor appointments, and finding time to do my school work--correcting papers, researching info, preparing new labs...
So after leaving the hospital with Alexander I instantly became a full time stay at home mom. And below is what I have learned...
My stress level decreased instantly. It was amazing not to have a rigid schedule to follow. When I was working I felt that spent my days rushing to get where I needed to go. Rush to get to the sitter on time, rush to get to school and prepare for my classes, rush out of school to get back to the sitters, rush home to start dinner. Having to wear one less "hat" relieved some stress.
The day is organized by your child's schedule. Staying at home isn't about doing what you want, it's about your child's needs. It's about getting home to lay down for morning and/or afternoon naps, it's about eating when hunger strikes, it's about holding them when they are sick, it's about stopping and watching each ant/roly poly/snail/slug/bird that crosses their path.
I had to treat staying at home like a job the first two years. Like any job the first year is the most difficult and has the most extreme learning curve. I tried to schedule one event a day but was always flexible and realistic that it might not happen. I became involved in my district's Parent as Teachers program, attended weekly storytimes at the public library and area bookstores, went to play at neighborhood parks, joined the local swim pool, discovered that Missouri Botanical Garden, Butterfly House, Magic House all have times in the week or month that admission is free. I chose not to pay for programs until my kids were between 4-5 years old, but I know many parents who did gymboree play groups, gymnastics, and music groups like Kindermusik.
I encourage you to use every means possible to build a group of friends who are at home with children that are approximately the same age(s) as yours. I found a great network of moms through my Parents as Teachers playgroups and the storytimes at my library. The women that I met when Alexander was a baby are still my support group 5 years later. We still get together every Tuesday for playgroup at the park in the summer and at different people's houses in the winter.
Many women find that their self-esteem and self-identity are tied partially or wholy to their career. I think that this is what causes women to want to return to work. I think that the best response to this that I heard was, "I am more than a stay at home mom", followed by "I am more than my minivan".
Your children will not be thankful or grateful that you stay at home. Your spouse might be more thankful that you are at home, but not enough to affirm your choice on a daily or hourly basis. Research does NOT show that your children will be smarter, more responsible, more successful, or more self-confident if you stay at home.
It is important that your spouse is solely responsible for the children, house, and routines for a minimum of 4 days every 1-3 years. There are things that can not be explained but must be experienced. This helps him realize that your job is challenging! Troy feels that the 4-day duration is important, because "any man can sit on 2 kids for a weekend, but on day 3 you start to lose hope."
Don't take on all the house responsibilities/chores just because you are at home. This advice came from my older sister. I strongly feel that the reason you are at home is to be with your child/ren, not to do an extra load of laundry, or clean the bathroom, or pay the bills. You are there to be present to your children.
I have been at home for 5 years and I am thankful that Troy and I had the resources and the desire that I could stay at home. A few days seem to drag on endlessly, but the years have passed too quickly. I realize now that I will never get another opportunity to be so intimately involved in my children's lives as I do right now. I enjoy being there to see what excites them, to answer their questions, and to teach them to slide down the fireman's pole. Most importantly I am thankful that their lives are unhurried and peaceful.
I hope this helps. Good luck with this decision.
Marty Walter
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| LIFE, FAMILY, SOCIETY |
2008-05-01 |
The Coolidge Effect is a phenomenon whereby males exhibit high sexual performance given the introduction of new willing females.
It earned its name many years ago when President Coolidge and his wife were touring a farm. While the President was elsewhere, the farmer proudly showed Mrs. Coolidge a rooster that "could copulate with hens all day long, day after day." Mrs. Coolidge coyly suggested that the farmer tell that to Mr. Coolidge, which he did.
The President thought for a moment and then inquired, "With the same hen?"
"No, sir," replied the farmer.
"Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge," retorted the President.
via kottke ... via defective yeti ... via reuniting |
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2008-01-23 |
i sat in the grass at the back of the house with my baby in my arms. the white clover smelled of honey: it was the time in the afternoon when it is easy to drowse and slip into light summery dreams. i fed my baby until she fell asleep on my breast. her lips let go of the nipple and her head tipped backwards a little on my arm. her mouth was slightly open with a thin trail of milk at the corner. i wiped it away with my finger. i ran my little finger over her soft gums and felt the tips of the two new teeth, like embedded grains of rice. her eyelids were closed, the finest film over her black eyes. they fluttered now and then and her lips quivered in fleeting secret smiles.
excerpt from linda olsson's Astrid & Veronika.
i've never breast-fed a child yet this passage spoke to me. and judging from marty's response, as she read it to me at the dinner table last night after the kids were off and playing, it spoke to her as well. stirring stuff.
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2008-01-17 |
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alex stood quietly, watching me peel potatoes for dinner. the potatoes were wet and i was fumbling them in my hands. i started getting frustrated. i took a breath about to mutter something when alex spoke up:
aahhhh. you gotta be kidding me.
i looked at him and smiled. that is definitely something i mutter on a near-daily basis. he never took his eyes of my hands and continued to watch me struggle. after a few more minutes of slippery spuds i drew another breath and alex shot out:
son of a beeeeaaaannnn.
you see i usually catch myself before i finish that one and it would seem alex has surmised the word i've been omitting is 'bean' given the way i end up elongating the letter B. when the kids are a bit older i bet we could make a sporting game out of guessing the swear dad or mom would use given various scenarios.
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| ENTERTAINMENT, FAMILY, LIFE |
2007-12-20 |
First, how many minutes a week does the average father spend with his children in on-on-one conversation? According to a study done a few years ago, the number is seven minutes - seven minutes in an entire week! Is it vital that we spend time with our children, one-on-one? I think everyone would agree it's vital; it has great value. But is it urgent? No. Why not? Because the child is always there. We can do it anytime we want. So we tend to put off the highly valued task because we're dealing with urgencies all day.
Second, how many minutes a week do the average husband and wife spend in one-on-one conversation? According to the study, the number is twenty-seven minutes. Is it vital to spend time with your spouse? I think we'd agree, it's vital. But is it urgent? No. Why not? Same problem - the spouse is always there.
excerpt from hyrum smith's ten natural laws of successful time and life management ... a book i've read this time of year for seven years now.
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| ENTERTAINMENT, FAMILY, LIFE, WEB |
2007-12-11 |
in planning for our last class of the semester, i told my co-teacher, a very seasoned pro, that i wanted to take a group photo of the class. he looked at me a little sideways and said, kindly, "that's cute". in virtually all matters of planning and decision-making i deferred to this mentor but this was one i had to have. as the final minutes of the class approached i gained the room's attention and said:
i don't know how many of you knew and we didn't really advertise the fact, although it may have been painfully apparent, that this was the first college-level course i have ever taught. i don't mind saying that coming into it, i initially found it quite harrowing but it has gone on to be an extraordinary experience and one which will hold a special place with me and serve as a personal highlight of my professional career. i wanted to thank you and say it has been a pleasure getting to know all of you and i appreciate all the patience and energy you've shown me. it's been wonderful.
so that may not be exactly how it came out but it is what i was shooting for. truthfully, i found myself slightly emotional looking at the collection of young and bright faces before me. this collection which would never come together again as they have. this sentimentality surely stems from the only child in me, that plus an extra heavy dash of androgyny which makes for good and routine awkwardness. as requested we did shoot a picture and good to the end, they were champs, exquisitely smiling and hamming for the camera.
after the last student left and the door closed one more time for that particular fall07 course i walked home in the rain thinking about how and why i needed that photograph. by the time i reached my door i didn't have an exact answer, but did know this image, freshly made, would warm me for years to come. |
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2007-11-20 |
when we drive away from our home, alex turns in his seat to get a quick final glimpse of the house and spiritedly calls:
goodbye our house. goodbye trees. goodbye della. goodbye mommy. goodbye anfunee. goodbye.
it's all very sweet except that the first goodbye comes out sounding more like "goodbye whore-house" than it does "goodbye our house" which slightly soils the cuteness of it all. |
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| ENTERTAINMENT, LIFE |
2007-11-01 |
As the audience filed back in, I began, cartoonishly, to envisage the fatal malady that, without anyone's recognizing it, was working away inside us, within each and every one of us: to visualize the blood vessels occluding under the baseball caps, the malignancies growing beneath the permed white hair, the organs misfiring, atrophying, shutting down, the hundreds of billions of murderous cells surreptitiously marching this entire audience toward the improbable disaster ahead. I couldn't stop myself. The stupendous decimation that is death sweeping us all away. Orchestra, audience, conductor, technicians, swallows, wrens - think of the numbers for Tanglewood alone just between now and the year 4000. Then multiply that times everything. The ceaseless perishing. What an idea! What maniac conceived it? And yet what a lovely day it is today, a gift of a day, a perfect day lacking nothing in a Massachusetts vacation spot that is itself as harmless and pretty as any on earth.
excerpt from Phillip Roth's The Human Stain
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2007-10-17 |
yesterday upon waking up the first thing i heard was marty walking down the hallway calling the following out to the house:
nobody is going to school today. everybody is going to school tomorrow. if anybody disobeys me or acts disrespectful in this house, i'm getting them dressed and taking them to school, because if you are well enough to give me trouble, you are well enough to go to school.
this is alex's fourth day home, bella's second and my first. i think marty is feeling the pinch of having so many cantankerous and inflicted humans milling about her home. especially since when bella cuts class she conducts her own school in our ping-pong room. while in teacher mode she expects to be called Mrs. Fun. however, if you cross her or make light of a provided assignment a more apt name would be Mrs. Pissed-Off-And-Surly, although no one is brave enough to say that to her face. |
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| LIFE |
2007-10-05 |
Excessive wealth engenders self-satisfied mediocrity.
Leon Botstein, President, Bard College
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| LIFE |
2007-09-20 |
now the first hour (of the interview) was all pre-intercourse information and then he would ask you if you ever had intercourse. if your answer was yes you stayed another hour. boys on campus figured out girls who stayed two hours had had intercourse and so they would sit out there. if you came out after an hour they were not interested in you. if you came out after two hours they made a pass at you.
excerpt from american experience's documentary on sex researcher, alfred kinsey. here, alice ginott cohn talks about her memory of being interviewed by kinsey.
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2007-09-13 |
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marty took the kids on a play date a while back. when she came home she was morose. i asked what was wrong. she said she felt like she just walked off the set of 90210 and that all of her clothes were ugly, and out of style, and didn't fit her right and all these other moms not only managed to keep up with the latest trends but their clothes were also ironed and free of kool-aid and/or vomit stains. i studied marty momentarily, gauging if she was working towards a punch-line, because this is pretty unlike the girl i'm married to. there was no punch-line.
her observations about the moms at our kids' preschool are right though. they are stylish, not quite high-fashion but certainly trendily-appointed. think camouflage capris. they also somehow seem to always be freshly showered too. these are not the sorts of things the dearmitt-walter home can claim with any sort of daily regularity.
seeing my partner injured so, i jumped in as it seems men are wont to do. i said to her, 'marty, you're a parent. you know this. you accept this. they don't. they dress like teenage girls in a sophomoric attempt to transport themselves back to when they were the popular kid in school and lived at the mall because for them it is a way to escape the reality of their faltering adulthood."
my words did not hit the mark. later that day, marty called one of her three sisters. the sister said ... "marty, while you're looking at them wishing you looked nicer, they are probably looking at you wishing they had the self-esteem to not try so hard." yeah, i guess that's sorta ok advice. ok enough to mend marty's mood more than my own words at least. what do you say we call it a girl thing and leave it at that.
admittedly, after hearing the sisters take on things, i thought more about it. while we'll gladly take the self-esteem card, i don't know that it would work for everyone. for instance some of these grown, near-forty women wear thongs and frilly bras (i know this because so many of these items conspicuously peek out of their other teenager wear). the hottest piece of lingerie in our home is a 1987, threadbare, psychedelic furs concert tee marty sometimes wears to bed. unfortunately when she puts this wisp of a garment on she's not always attempting to ignite our relationship. i know this because when she looks at me looking at her in it, she sometimes sighs and says:
MARTY
don't even think it. i'm tired and i'm going to bed.
TROY
but you got THE shirt on.
MARTY
the only reason i got THE shirt on is because you forgot to wash whites again.
TROY
it could be fate talking to us.
MARTY
well, you or fate need to do a load of laundry before i'm taking any messages.
conversely, if she did ever come to bed in a bedazzled or satiny thong, we'd spend twenty minutes studying it, talking about how comfortable it was (or wasn't) and examining the physics of how it worked. marty would probably convince me to try it on and then we'd laugh hysterically at the outcome and i'd eventually do zany dances on the bed. after tiring of the sport i'd ask her to put the furs shirt on and she would and we'd return to our life in our home, which is quite a ways away from the 90210 zip code. and for us, gladly so.
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| LIFE |
2007-03-22 |
it's like my husband always says, never trust a man in a suit who has a tan.
a neighbor-lady speaking about a business transaction that almost happened
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2007-03-06 |
some people think little brothers are an ache in the neck but i don't think that. alex and anthony are a love in my neck.
isabella, who turns six today, speaking randomly during bedtime rituals.
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| ENTERTAINMENT, LIFE |
2007-02-13 |
I never tried to hurry anything all summer. Not in the porch swing, or in the pine woods, or on the float at night when we swam out, or in the roadster. Everything that happened came to happen as simply and as naturally and as gradually as a season coming on or a plant unrolling a leaf or a kitten waking up. And there was a kind of luxuriousness in not rushing things, in not driving toward the hot grip and awkward tussle and the leer for the boys back in the dormitory when you got in, a new sensuality in waiting for the massive current to take you where you belonged and would go in the end. She was young — she seemed younger to me then than she did later on looking back for that summer I was so sure that I was old and jaded — and she was timid and sensitive and shy, but it wasn't any squealing, squawking, pullet-squawking, teasing, twitching, oh-that's-not-nice-and-I-never-let-anyone-do-that-before-oh kind of shyness. Perhaps shyness is the wrong word for it, after all. Certainly it is wrong if back behind that word there is any implication or color of shame or fear or desire to be "nice." For in one way, she seemed to be detached from her very slender, compactly made, tight-muscled, soft-fleshed, golden-shouldered body, as though it were an elaborate and cunning mechanism in which she and I shared ownership, which had suddenly dropped to us out of the blue, and which, in our ignorance, we had to study with the greatest patience and most reverent attention lest we miss some minute, scholarly detail without knowledge of which everything would be wasted. So it was a period of the most delicate discrimination and subtle investigations, with her seriousness mixed with a graceful gaiety, ... a gaiety to which the words didn't mean much but the tune meant everything, a tune which seemed to come from the very air as though it were full of invisible strings and she simply reached out at random in the dark to pluck them with an idle familiar finger.
...
We went quite a long way, that summer, and there were times when I was perfectly sure I could have gone farther. When I could have gone the limit. For that fine, slender, compactly made, tight-muscled, soft-fleshed, golden-shouldered mechanism which fascinated Anne Stanton and me, which had dropped to us out of the blue, was a very sensitive and beautifully tuned-up contraption. But maybe I was wrong in that surmise, and maybe I could not have hurried the massive deliberation of that current in which we were caught and suspended, or hurried Anne Stanton's pensive and scholarly assimilation of each minute variation which had to be slowly absorbed into the body of our experience before another could be permitted. It was as though she was aware of a rhythm, a tune, a compulsion, outside of herself, and devoutly followed it in its subtle and winding progression. But wrong or not, I did not put my surmise to the test, for if I myself was not truly aware of that rhythm and compulsion which bemused her, I was aware of her devotion to it, and could find every moment with her full enough. Paradoxically enough, it was when I was away from her, when I was withdrawn from her context, back in my room at night or in the hot early afternoon, after lunch, that I was savagely impatient of the delays and discriminations. This would be especially true at those times when she wouldn't see me for a day, the times which seemed to mark, I came to understand, some stage, some milepost, we had passed. She would simply withdraw herself from me, as she had done that night after we first kissed, and leave me, at first, confused and guilty, but later, as I came to grasp the pattern of things, merely impatient for the next day when she would appear at the court, swinging her racket, her face so smooth, young, healthy and apparently disinterested, though comradely, that I could not equate it with the face I remembered with the eyelids drooping and the damp, starlight-or-moonlight-glistening lips parted for the quick, shallow breath or the unashamed sigh.
excerpt from robert penn warren's All the King's Men
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| ENTERTAINMENT, LIFE |
2007-02-02 |
i have been quite neglectful of my reading commitment for almost a year now (new job + new baby = no read). for about the last ten years, it has been my personal goal is to read 25 pages a day (and 50 on weekends). back when i used to ride the subway to work, this was easily achieved. my subway ride has been replaced with a walking commute and three children, so, i've slipped, drastically. but beginning this month, i'm dusting off the precariously tall stack of books sitting on my windowsill and committing to getting back in the game.
additionally, i've decided to raise the stock of what i choose to read. i've always justified plugging lots of tripe into my reading rotation by saying i needed the fluff pieces to give my mind some downtime. then i considered all the terrible television and film i subject my ever-softening brain to and feel it is already spoon-fed generous quantities of pointless information and would benefit from being forced to get off the couch with a little more frequency. also, i liken reading authors who know what the hell they are doing to listening to the amelie soundtrack in a dark and quiet room. in example, here's a few bytes from my current tome, All the Kings Men:
There were a good many folks in the store, men in overalls lined up along the soda fountain, and women hanging around the counters where the junk and glory was, and kids hanging on skirts with one hand and clutching ice-cream cones with the other and staring out over their own wet noses at the world of men from eyes which resembled painted china marbles. The Boss just stood modestly back of the gang of customers at the soda fountain, with his hat in this hand and the damp hair hanging down over his forehead. He stood that way a minute maybe, and then one of the girls ladling up ice cream happened to see him, and got a look on her face as though her garter belt had busted in church, and dropped her ice-cream scoop, and headed for the back of the store with her hips pumping hell-for-leather (*) under the lettuce-green smock.
or this example:
I took the card out of my pocket and gave it to him. He looked at the card for a minute, holding it off near arm's length as though he were afraid it would spit in his eye, then he turned it over and looked at the back side a minute till he was dead sure it was blank. Then he laid the hand with the card in it back down on his stomach, where it belonged, and looked at me. "You done come a piece," he said.
"That's right," I said.
"What you come fer?"
"To see what's going on about the schoolhouse," I said.
"You come a piece," he said, "to stick yore nose in somebody else's bizness."
"That's right," I agreed cheerfully, "but my boss on the paper can't see it that way."
"It ain't any of his bizness either."
"No," I said, "but what's the ruckas about, now I've come all that piece?"
"It ain't any of my bizness. I'm the Sheriff."
"Well, Sherriff," I said, "whose business is it?"
"Them as is tending to it. If folks would quit messen and let 'em."
(*) on the first excerpt, while i've heard it used, it occurred to me i hadn't the slightest notion what 'hell-for-leather' actually meant. even so, my mind could somehow picture the vigor behind that hip-charging woman. but, remaining mystified by the the phrase, i located the following explanation:
Hell for leather is a statement that is often confused with "Hell bent for leather". Hell for leather, in American vernacular, refers to an arduous walk that may have been strewn with difficulties and was a strain on footwear. A long and difficult walk, such as over rough terrain, might be referred to as hell for leather because of the abuse the leather footwear sustained during the walk.
"Hell bent for leather" has many uses and the most popular american use goes back to the 19th century american west when a particular livestock animal, such as a cow, bull or horse would be particularly difficult to handle. One of these troublesome creatures would cause their handler so much trouble that the owner or handler considered slaughter of the animal and turning the carcass into leather. When a horse or cattle became difficult to handle they were called "Hell bent for leather" meaning that the animal was hell bent to become a leather good.
source : phrases.org.uk
oh, it feels good to be off the bench and on the court again. i can already sense the irregular dance-steps of those neurons moving about.
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| ENTERTAINMENT, FAMILY, LIFE |
2007-01-25 |
My fictional character Sarah lived in Pennsylvania in the early 1700's, when families living on farms had to raise, grow and make almost everything they needed to survive. Most colonial homes were a single room, often with a sleeping loft for older children. Parents and younger children slept on the ground floor in front of the fireplace, and almost everyone slept on mats of rush or feathers, which were rolled up during the day.
Chairs were expensive and were usually used only by the father of the family — everyone else sat on benches or stools. But during meals, children were not allowed to sit, and they were NEVER allowed to speak while eating — for any reason at all.
The women of the house did the cooking, and in those days, many young women died from their clothing catching on fire. Spoons and knives were the only eating utensils, and often just one mug was passed around from person to person. Water was considered unsafe to drink, so everyone drank beer, including babies and children. (It was brewed to be barely alcoholic.)
New clothing was almost all handmade, and it was a very time-consuming process. A girl would wear her only dress every day for as long as it fit, even it is was a year or more. It was an exciting day when a girl got a new outfit to wear!
Author's Note from Homespun Sarah by Verla Kay & Ted Rand
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