Quoting from the Poetry Foundations’s website:

The editors of Poetry magazine selected the winning manuscripts from more than 1,000 submissions. In announcing the winners, Poetry senior editor Don Share said, “Each year the competition grows larger—and stronger. We’re extremely pleased that the 2011 Ruth Lilly Fellowships will recognize this diverse and talented group of younger poets.” Editor Christian Wiman added, “The subjects and aesthetics of these writers are as various as their backgrounds, but there are two qualities they all share: excellence and promise. You’ll be hearing a lot from these writers in the years to come.”

Zac…I am awed by your erudition, dedication to art, and discipline.

Congratulations.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

*     *     *     *     *

I had this memory of my father. I was very young, and he was shining shoes. I well-remembered the smell, and the mess, and how careful he was with the polish in the little tubs. Everything was kept in a shoebox, and newspapers spread on the table, and I remember my amazement as the shoes would become transformed.

Last year I brought my daughter and my favorite clogs to my father’s house. I told Rhiannon: “Watch what Pobba can do — he will make them look new again.” She was dubious, carefully watching him unload polishes and stained toothbrushes and other such stuff from his very very old shoebox. But as the scuffed leather began to gleam, she delighted. She talked about it for weeks. At her insistence we even got my father a new tackle box for his shoe shining gear for Father’s Day—big enough for him to put his very very old shoebox inside it.

Full-sized Barbie was too big. But Barbie kid doll was perfect.

This June we went on a family trip and in the hotel bathrooms were bright green complimentary shoe mitts. Rhiannon thought maybe they were little sleeping bags for her dolls and she tried to stuff her full-sized Barbie into it. Barbie didn’t fit. One eyebrow raised (yes, she can do this — sigh), she gave me a What Gives? look.

“It’s a shoe mitt,” I said. “For shining shoes.”

I will bring it to Pobba! (Note, she went into my sister’s bathroom and swiped that one, too, so we brought two!)

Over the Fourth of July we went to Pobba’s house and dutifully brought both wee green shoe mitts and my same favorite clogs, dull again for a year of wearing. My dad took out his trusty old Kinney shoebox and he started to teach Rhiannon how to shine shoes.

“Where is your tacklebox?” I asked. He came up with some cockamamie reason why the box didn’t work for the shoe polish stuff, so he was using it for tools.

I know he just didn’t want to give up the ancient shoebox. I teased: “Is this the same box from when I was a kid? I remember watching you shine shoes when I was Rhiannon’s age.”

My father stopped shining my shoes. He looked up at me. Rhiannon looked up at him. Why’d you stop, Pobba?

“That was my father who shined shoes with you,” my father said.

Your father? Rhiannon asked. He shined shoes, too? (Note: I think this blew her mind a little to realize that Pobba wasn’t the only person in the whole world who shined shoes.)

And so as my father told my daughter about my grandfather and his shoe store while he shined shoes with a five-year-old looking on, I weightily processed that my memory of my father was really of my grandfather, and the picture of my daughter with my father was History Repeating…

And that I better learn how to shine shoes, because some day, if I am lucky, I will have a grandkid at my elbow.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

Over the years, her disappearing shades routine, unpredictable, yet certain as California earthquakes, has clashed spectacularly with a strong preference for fashion and quality. But the former dominated the latter, and she purchased inexpensive dark glasses, one after another after another.

Until last week.

For months she had been badgering her style-oblivious husband to venture mallward on a clothes shopping expedition. He employed every excuse (“There’s a documentary on kiwi pruning I can’t miss”), but finally he entered the emporia on her arm. Three stores, five shirts, two sweaters, a package of underwear, and 31 minutes later, he was finished. On their way out, recalling the evaporation of her last pair, she paused, then entered a store devoted to protecting every eye.

“Go next door and look at hats,” she suggested, and her husband, prejudicially bored by sunglasses (he never wears them), went next door to look at hats. After one quick walk around the chapeau shop (99% baseball caps) and a scientific examination of embroidering machine technology, he strolled back to find her at a register, paying for her purchase.

“I bought a this,” she said, holding up a decorative string with little rubber loops at each end. “Hook it on my sunglasses, and I’ll never lose them again.”

Edwin Land

Noting his horror-struck mien, she said, “I was hoping for you to stay longer in the hat store.”

There was nothing more to say, and they spoke no more about it.

Until today.

They went out to dinner at a local restaurant not yet tried, ordered the day’s special to share, and were pleasantly surprised by the presentation, quality, and quantity of the meal. The owner/manager was courteous, almost charming, and attentive, and the atmosphere was just right. But the Monday night service was repetitively lacking.

Their ragout arrived bubbling hot, but there was no spoon with which to serve it. The husband lifted his head, raised an arm, and finally had to leave their table to locate a waitress and make a request.

The couple soon exhausted their bread and wished more, and when no employee passed by, it was she who rose to summon a refill. Even with these service gaffes, when the gracious host appeared tableside to ask if he could do anything else for them, the two carped at nothing, rather they expressed delight with the flavors. The proprietor nodded and smiled. They asked for waters. He never returned.

Finally, watered by yet another summoned waitress, they requested the check…and chuckled to each other (“We’re in no hurry.”) when it didn’t come.

At last, the tab paid, they exited the restaurant holding hands, pleasantly full and agreeing that the food warranted a repeat visit.

“But,” he began as they reached their car, “the service was…”

He was interrupted by a waitress calling out to them as she ran across the parking lot, carrying the wife’s new sunglasses aloft.

Husband and wife stood for an instant.

Then she laughed.

And he laughed harder. “…the service was terrific.”

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

One of my daughters, a medieval history scholar and expert on European royalty, recently acquired a Henry VIII mug with images of his six wives surrounding him. Appropriately, when the Queens get into hot water (e.g., tea or coffee), their heads disappear.

What she hadn’t anticipated was how fascinated her five-year-old daughter would be with the mug.

“Why do the queens disappear?” was the first question, quickly followed by, “Why did he have so many queens?”

As my daughter searched for a way to explain the pressures and consequences of primogeniture in 16th century England, she somewhat clumsily crafted an age-appropriate story to go with the old rhyme:

King Henry the Eighth had six wives he wedded:
One died, one survived, two divorced, and two beheaded.

Over the next three days, my granddaughter insisted on five more retellings, demanding additional details each time. Ultimately it became a call-and-response story.

“Once upon a time, over five hundred years ago–”

That’s WAY before Laura Ingalls was a little girl.

“Way before, yes. Before King Henry was a King he was a Prince, and he married a Spanish Princess. Her name was—”

Katherine. She was the first Katherine. There were lots of Katherines. Why were there so many Katherines?

“Princess Katherine of Aragon married Prince Henry of England and after a few years they became the King and Queen of England and all was well except for one thing: Henry and Katherine only had a daughter and he wanted a son.”

Why?

“Well, a long, long, long time ago, lots of people didn’t think that a girl would be able to be strong enough to protect the country.”

That’s silly. I am very strong.

“Remember how I told you about Dr. Martin Luther King and how there have been times in history when some people haven’t had the same opportunities as other people? Black people, Jews, Irish immigrants, and girls. Lots of people didn’t think that girls should even go to school!”

Yes, yes, Mom, I know that about Dr. Martin and the Jews. Tell me the story of the SIX QUEENS. [blogger's note-- "Dr. Martin and the Jews" is a direct quote.]

“Well, Queen Katherine and King Henry had a daughter, Princess Mary.”

And she became bloody. [Face scrunches, knowing she mixed it up.] No! They CALLED her bloody.

“They didn’t call her “Bloody” when she was only a princess. That came later.”

Yeah, later, when she was queen. Nobody liked her very much.

“No, they didn’t. But when she was just a little girl, King Henry was very upset that she didn’t have any brothers, so he decided he needed a different queen who might be able to have boy babies, so he divorced Queen Katherine.”

She didn’t like that very much.

“No, she didn’t. And a lot of people were angry about it. But the King had fallen in love with a girl named Anne Boleyn, and Anne promised the King that if they had children together that those children would be boys. Of course, no woman can promise that, and that promise got her in trouble with the King a few years later after she was Queen and she had a baby—”

ELIZABETH! But not the Elizabeth who is the queen now. She’s the second Elizabeth — and she’s old now. But not dead!

“That’s right, she’s the second Elizabeth, and she’s still very much alive. I can show you a picture of her. But the first Elizabeth was a great queen who lots of people loved and she was queen for a very long time — almost 45 years! But King Henry didn’t know how great she’d be when she was just a little baby. He was mad that Queen Anne hadn’t had a prince like she promised. So he decided he needed a new queen, but since he had just divorced Queen Katherine he couldn’t divorce another queen — even though he was king, the court wouldn’t let him do it twice in a row! So he made up stories about the queen so she would get in trouble.”

That wasn’t very nice.

“No, it wasn’t very nice. And when all the stories were told, Queen Anne got in a LOT of trouble. Even though she really didn’t do anything except have a daughter instead of a son. But a lot of people became very angry at her for being a Bad Queen and she went to prison. And a long time ago when kings and queens went to prison — which didn’t happen very often — but when it did, sometimes they had their heads cut off, which is really not nice at all! After that, King Henry married Jane Seymour.”

She died.

“Yes, she died, but not before having a baby boy, Prince Edward.”

Why did she die?

[Here is inserted an age-appropriate aside about infections and mortality a long time ago and how doctors are much smarter these days.]

“After Queen Jane died King Henry was very sad, but a king needs a queen so the King’s friends looked all around for a princess to become queen, and they all decided that Princess Anne of Cleves would be the right princess to become queen, but King Henry didn’t like her very much but he hadn’t divorced a queen in a while so he divorced Anne. And that was queen number four. Then the king fell in love with a silly young girl who wasn’t very smart. Her name was Katherine.”

Another Katherine!

“And Katherine lied to the king. Many times. [Age-appropriate euphemism for adultery.] And over 400 years ago lying to a king was a terrible crime called treason, and so Katherine also lost her head.

How do you lose your head?

[Realizing how utterly literal kids this age are, daughter corrects herself and explains that hapless Katherine Howard had her head chopped off because she got in a lot of trouble, but that kings don’t go around chopping people’s heads off anymore. Granddaughter nods approvingly.]

“By this time the king was old and very fat, and could only walk with a cane when he could walk at all. So he married a nice lady who took care of him and his children. Her name was—”

KATHERINE!

“Yes, Katherine. And the king died before she did, so she was King Henry’s last queen. And then Prince Edward became king. But he was very sickly and died only a few years later.”

What did he die from?

[Daughter suspects granddaughter is worried someone cut off his head. But since most historians believe Edward VI died of tuberculosis, she says...]

“From a coughing sickness.”

[But realizing granddaughter’s recent allergies have engendered terrible coughing, quickly adds...]

“He coughed up blood a lot. And that’s never good.”

[Granddaughter purses her lips at this, clearly considering the gruesomeness of bloody coughing.]

“Then Princess Mary became queen, but she wasn’t very nice. She didn’t like people who didn’t think the way she did. And for five years she was a terrible queen, so bad that people called her Bloody Mary. But she didn’t have any children, so the next queen was her sister.”

ELIZABETH! I love her.

[The story ends here, and if my daughter is fortunate, bedtime arrives simultaneously.]

My daughter is an unapologetic monarchist. That her daughter is fascinated with these stories tickles her endlessly. And at the end of this month, she will show her daughter photos and online videos of the royal wedding where she can see the newest Princess Catherine and the second Queen Elizabeth, and no one losing her head.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

Little Johnny can read well long before he can spell well. Should you be worried? Should you send him to a tutor?

Problem-solving technique can be deductive/analytical or inductive/synthetic. Stated another way, an approach can be convergent or divergent.

For every youngster striving for literacy, learning to read and spell requires both convergent and divergent thinking. When reading an unfamiliar word, the child deduces/analyzes, using past phonics lessons and similar-looking words from which to build a guess. Thus, for a kindergartner whose rudimentary reading skills are somewhat developed, a new word like president presents no insurmountable difficulty. Previously learned examples enable the reader to converge more or less successfully.

A word like scientist, however, requires both deduction and induction. How is the c sounded? Is the i long or short? Context provides the clue from which the child may be able to synthesize the correct pronunciation.

Because deduction builds stepwise from past lessons, while induction relies upon wider generalizations that may not yet be within the child’s orbit, the former is inherently more productive.

Spelling, however, leans more heavily than reading upon synthesis.

The paper is blank. My grandson needs to spell scientist, a word he has never before written. He charges into the unknown.

He succeeds! Is there a more synthetically correct spelling than siyuntist? If English spelling were based on sense, rather than history, siyuntist would be the korekt spelling.

The drawing, BTW, is of an “elechtrec” rover machine. I know. I asked.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

* * * * *

This is not a good day. The Fat Guy is driving me to the vet. At least he brought treats. The Pretty Blonde brought tissues. She’s got tears in her eyes. I wonder what for?

I feel old. My hips are killing me. I can barely stand up and walk anymore. My nose is shot. I can’t smell any difference between the kitchen and the backyard. Glaucoma’s nearly blinded me, and I haven’t heard anything since the last Super Bowl. At least The Pretty Blonde came with us.  I’m glad she’s sitting on the floor petting me. Helps calm my nerves. The Fat Guy is talking to the doctor. He says I’m fourteen years old, which is almost ninety-eight in dog years. I still look better than he does.

I remember the first time I saw The Pretty Blonde. It was almost ten years ago. I was five and living with an elderly couple who couldn’t take care of me. She brought me home to meet The Skinny Kid and The Red Headed Kid, only they were a lot smaller then. So was The Fat Guy.

At least The Fat Guy is coachable. It only took me one morning to train him to let me out to pee. One week later, The Fat Guy came home early from work because some planes flew into some buildings. Seems like yesterday. When was yesterday?

The doctor is giving me a shot to calm my nerves. This feels good. Calm is my mantra. That’s why I don’t chase balls. Or squirrels. And if you’ll excuse me for saying, barking is WAY overrated. I bark twice a year, just to let you know I still can. Give me some food, a Law and Order rerun, and a soft carpet, and I’m happy. Some dogs like to play, but not me. I’m a lay dog.

Darn, these hips. Walks are cool, or at least they were. It used to be fun to run alongside The Red Headed Kid and the Skinny Kid. They both got real good at running. Guess I taught them something. The Fat Guy and The Pretty Blonde used to walk me around the neighborhood, talking about their kids, their jobs, their dreams. Life stuff. I tried to listen, but mostly I peed on a few bushes, smelled the flowers, and flirted with that sexy Husky up the street. I miss it.

I’m getting really sleepy. So what else is new? I take a dozen naps a day. Life is good at home. All I have to do is eat, sleep, and wag my tail. I love these guys.

The doctor is taking out another needle. I don’t mind, though. The Pretty Blonde and The Fat Guy are both on the floor, petting me, telling me how much they love me, and what a good family member I’ve been. I may be a dog, but you can never hear that enough. How come The Fat Guy is crying? The World Series hasn’t even started yet.

Well I’ll be doggoned. Will you look at this? Nothing but green grass, sunshine, and all the doggie biscuits I’d ever want. Booyah!

So this is what Heaven is like.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

It was 1967. I was a first-year graduate student living in Peabody Terrace, the married students’ housing, a walking bridge across the river from Harvard Business School. These were tall, narrow buildings, four units to a floor, all sharing a long narrow balcony that looked east over the Charles River toward Boston. We had the uppermost balcony, a twentieth-floor apartment. When the weather was warm, all four apartments might be open to the balcony, on which rested only two heavy chairs, the frequent strong winds making predictable patio furniture a hazard to ground dwellers.

Treswick lived two apartments away and often walked the parapets, pacing the railing, three feet down on one side, 200 on the other. One evening, our door to the balcony open, I stepped from the bedroom into the living room and found Treswick aprowl. Words of encouragement accompanied by mild gestures toward the open door did not inspire him to exit. Raised tones and more challenging approaches only served to anger the feline. He stood his ground, offering hisses as counterpoint. Rapid wieldings of a long-handled broom and several high-octaved unintelligibilities finally convinced him; Treswick backed out, expressing discontent and disaffection toward me, my wife, and our unborn children.

My wife Jane worked as a school nurse, often coming home before I did. Her previous and long-standing fear of non-cuddly felines was now in foment. I came in late one afternoon not long after the aforesaid interloping to find the bathroom door locked. Jane was in the tub. She had come home, leaped when she found Treswick in the living room again, and escaped to the the bathroom, where she had been closeted for two hours. The cat had exited, how long before I could not know. Jane was pruney; I was pissed. I trotted over to the owners’ apartment, explained the invasion, and suggested an accommodation. Each of us would look to see if the other’s exterior door was open. If so, the examiner would keep his closed. With such an arrangement, I explained, Treswick would patrol only when our living quarters were closed to him, and we would enjoy the air only when Treswick was locked in.

A few nights later, balmy weather prompted me to check the door status as I retired. Treswick’s was shut. I opened ours to the night air.

Jane, in her first trimester with our first child, had already gone to bed and was nearly asleep when I joined her. Our bedroom, small, concrete-walled, and spare, had one window that opened to the building side opposite the balcony, providing a welcome cross-breeze on this warm night. Twenty floors up, there was little ambient street light; the room was lit by starlight only. The moon, which began this evening on the balcony, east, was a building away. I fell asleep.

Sometime later in slumber, I turned from my left side onto my back, Jane to my right, and awoke with the realization that Treswick had come in our balcony door and settled down on the pillow between us, his fur brushing my cheek. Reptilian brain suddenly firing, my heartbeat leaped from ahhh-sleep to lion-on-the-veldt. But my body did not move. Even slogging through the sodden clod of partial consciousness, I knew that to startle Treswick was injudicious. But what to do? I am right-handed, and my right arm was beneath the beast. I am near-sighted, and the room, dimly lit by the toenail moon now in the west, was entirely undefined.

Lying on my back, cat near my right ear, I constructed a plan. I would slowly extract my left arm from the covers, carefully reach across my chest without translating that motion to the bed, pillow, or feline, grab Treswick with one sure snatch, and fling him back across my body hard against the concrete wall which stood only two feet from the edge of the bed. It was not a great plan, but it was all I had. If he awoke while I was cocking my arm… If I mishandled the grab and left him startled on the bed… If I muffed the fling and only angered him… the night murk would be claws, blood, and blinded eyes.

It was dark. I was desperate. I had one chance.

I slowly extricated my arm from the covers. The cat didn’t move.

I began moving my arm toward Treswick. I was just past halfway when I felt my wife begin to turn. The roll began at her hips; one moment more and Jane would turn her head, either discovering the cat or upsetting it. Either way I would have to strike immediately and with all the force I could muster..

The events that followed must have taken place in a blur of milliseconds, but even today those steps are clear, discrete memories.

The impulse to reach and snatch formed in my brain and began its electrochemical transit to my arm. My vision, heightened in the moment by adrenaline and necessity, focused on the back and neck of the cat. But my wife’s head turned, and in that sliver of time before my muscles fired, I realized that the darkness of fur that appeared as Treswick was actually Jane’s head. Motion and mind froze.

I had nearly grabbed my pregnant wife’s head and flung it against the wall.

I was the man who mistook his wife for a cat.

It was years before I told her.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

Yesterday, the Avon Books division of HarperCollins Publishers released a short promo video for Julia Quinn‘s soon-to-be-released novel, What Happens in London. The promo is so professionally done, I would probably have commented on it even if best-selling novelist Quinn (her last book hit #1 on The New York Times list) were not my daughter.

Ms. Quinn wrote the script. The young actress is Talia Gottlieb, a college senior who grew up in Kenya, the child of international aid workers. Ms. Gottlieb, who auditioned for the part at Ms. Quinn’s suggestion, beat out the other performers based upon her obvious-to-all-who-watch talents…not because she happens to be Ms. Quinn’s second cousin, once removed and my first cousin, twice removed. (Confusing, huh? For a consanguinity chart, click here.)

For more about the how and who of the promo, click here.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

When Ethan and I walked outside, we had no specific plans. We knew only that the sun was shining, the spring birds were singing. It was warm and we were going to explore the backyard. There were so many possibilities. But once he saw the hose happily gurgling water into the pool, I knew immediately what the next 15 minutes would hold.

How did I know? My mind rewound 20 years. Each of my sons had done the same thing Ethan was about to do.

Many things in life produce a slippery slope. One of them is a flowing hose near a swimming pool.

Here is the order of events. Mark them down because this sequence follows one of the hidden Laws of the Universe.

Ethan picks up the hose and starts watering. I warn him that the swimming pool is closed today. It is very cold and dangerous. Ethan shrugs and moves away from the pool to water the yard. I suggest he remove his shoes so that they don’t get wet. Then he asks to remove his pants, shirt and underwear so that he can be naked. Now Ethan is careening around the yard, hose in tow, spraying everything… plants, Uncle Doug, sidewalks, Molly the dog. He finds a stash of tennis balls, drops the hose and throws them into the pool. Molly jumps in to fetch them. Ethan now is at the edge of the pool reaching down and outward, retrieving each ball so that he can throw them again into the pool.

It is at this point that I recognize the inevitable. Stoically and with quiet resolve, I remove my wallet, cellphone, and keys from my pockets and place them safely on the dry diving board. I know the Law. I can predict the future. I am going in the pool. There is no doubt that my destiny is to go into the pool. I cannot stop Fate’s march.

Sure enough. Ethan leans forward to scoop up a ball. It is just out of reach and Kerplop! he does a header into the deep end. His cute little naked body is speedily swallowed by the icy backyard pool. Just as quickly, Uncle Doug’s arm grabs Ethan’s and pulls him to the surface.

Ethan shudders, “I fell in, Uncle Doug.”

Uncle Doug replies, “I know.”

“It’s very cold, Uncle Doug.” Ethan’s eyes are wide and unfocused. His tiny testicles are racing from his shrinking scrotum up into his abdomen.

“Would you like to get out now?” Uncle Doug queries.

“Oh, yes!” Ethan manages.

A warm towel and a life lesson. Then we had some little hot dogs and cowboy beans for lunch.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a different shade
You’ve got to be carefully taught

The converse is also true: you have to be carefully taught to be color-blind. Witness this exchange between one of my daughters and her almost-four-year-old son:

Mother: Do you remember when we were in the grocery store and you asked me why some people have darker skin than we do?

Child: Yes. And some people have lighter skin!

Mother: Yes! Do you remember that I told you that is because it is important to have variety…to have all sorts of different people, because if we were all the same life would be boring?

Child: Yes! And some people have red hair. Like Jonah at school.

Mother: Yes. Well, a long time ago—well, long ago in your life—there were people in the United States and around the world who didn’t like all that variety. They thought that people with different skin color shouldn’t be treated as nicely as they were.

Child: That’s terrible, Mommy.

Mother: Yes, it was terrible. But there were a lot of people who knew that variety was a very good thing. And there was a man named Martin Luther King, Jr., who talked to the people of the United States about how important it is to have variety and to share the United States with everyone, no matter how light or dark their skin is. He was a very good man.

Child: Where is the King man now?

Mother: Well, buddy, Martin Luther King is no longer alive.

Child: He’s DEAD? Oh nooooooo…

Mother: Yes he is, bud, but we have a holiday every year to celebrate his life and all the good things he did.

Child: That’s good. But I’m sad he’s dead, Mommy.

Mother: Me too, buddy.

Child: When will *I* be dead?

Mother: Not for a very very long time.

Child: That’s good!

Mother: Yes, yes it is! I like having you around.

Diversity.

Tolerance.

It took more than two centuries, but at last we have variety in the White House.

*     *     *     *     *

(Full disclosure:  I sang the part of Luther Billis in South Pacific at Harvard in 1965.  The Harvard Crimson panned the play, but I got a good notice. The review is online.)

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.