#the year i taught the poetry unit in first grade i tried to get around this by being like

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

a lot of people carry around an assumption that a work of art which is “good” in certain ways is going to be received pleasurably (i’m using an extremely broad definition of pleasure here that encompasses things like art-induced moral discomfort or sadness don’t @ me) by, like, people at large. this comes up in two different areas of interest for me: on the one hand, People Having Takes On The Internet; on the other hand, discussions about pedagogy, particularly around writing. i have, i mean, a lot of different thoughts about this - still marveling over the interview with a book critic and harvard philosophy doctoral student i read where she casually espoused the belief that if people were simply taught better what makes art good they would like bad art less, which continues to strike me as one of the stupidest things i’ve ever seen a person i temporarily had a positive opinion of say - but like in pedagogical considerations for example something i had started to wonder about when i left the classroom was like… our writing instruction relied a lot on modeling. like, “notice how this published author does this thing; see how i try to do it also; now you try.” and i think that an unarticulated/unrecognized problem in that sort of modeling is that it kind of assumes the student finds pleasure in say a thorough visual description - that the student agrees “yes this part of what makes the book good.” (an adult can probably choose to learn craft lessons from a book they dislike - but i think that’s a tall order for a seven year old.) but not all of them do, and i picked description specifically because it’s something plenty of adult readers dislike as well - “too much description” is a common goodreads complaint! to me this is viscerally sort of insane because what are you even reading for then? but the answer is that they’re reading for different reasons than i am and i’ve never heard an argument i found compelling in favor of the idea that there are objectively better or worse things to seek from art (an area of life that quite literally doesn’t matter, which is precisely what gives it meaning, IMO). and also a surprising number of people very deep into art generally or of a particular kind seem ignorant of or opposed to the idea that, for example, someone who cares about a medium as an art form is probably going to have different criteria than a person who doesn’t care and just sometimes wants to go to the movies or see a book, and this is actually normal and not a problem to be solved. which i find strange. no real conclusion here except maybe an argument for spending more writing time in elementary school on things like learning what a complete sentence is and how to write one, which is a skill that will prove valuable regardless of personal tastes.

[awkwarddezzy]

Uplate on RL Dan

typed this all last night on a word doc and felt too lazy so I only proofread once

Hiya lovelies! Whoever read Anywhere But Here and 7 Days are aware RL Dan (if you didn’t read the stories, his name is David) and I broke up. Since posting those imagine fics, a lot of things have happened. I mean A LOT. Between then and now, the things that happened will make you guys dislike RL Dan less (should you hate him for what he did). DO NOT BLAME HIM FOR HIS CHOICE. As you’re about to read, what’s going on with us atm will shed a new perspective for our entire situation.

PS before I forget I learned what “her” name is. However, for privacy purposes, I’ll call her Sarah like what I did in 7 Days. As for David, I’ve grown used to calling him RL Dan here so that’s the name I’ll be sticking with.

We chatted on Facebook Messenger a few times throughout winter break. When I originally posted the stories, I assumed Sarah and RL Dan would get a chance to meet, talk, and start a proper relationship over the break. I was ready to spend the next three weeks wallowing in my misery and playing the role as supportive best friend as I watched their relationship progress. But that didn’t happen. She was supposedly under a home lockdown for whatever reason. Maybe she was grounded for doing something bad. Maybe an alien attacked her like what happened with Tabitha in that Sims ep last year lol. I didn’t know. She had no way to get in touch. On top of that, she was sick. As someone who has asthma, I felt bad for her. This is a season for getting sick. RL Dan was feeling incredibly disconnected since he wanted so badly to talk to her. So I gave him words of encouragement, telling him things will get better and to think positive. And it did… I guess. He got to talk to her a couple times before New Years Eve, though he was laying low and mostly focused on the holidays.

He appreciates when I’m around to cheer him up. He knows about my situation of barely having internet at home (a reason also explained from 7 Days). He’s happy I’m still there for him, because he was afraid I wouldn’t want to talk to him anymore. But I’m not that sort of person. Experience from the past taught me to keep fighting for people even if they’re pulling away.

We’re both emotional messes. It’s one among many reasons why we’re so close.

He told me a little bit about Sarah. In his words, “she’s smart, funny, she laughs at my jokes, she’s always been there, she makes me laugh, she loves her family, I just think she’s great.” He described her as a likable person, but in the back of my mind, something felt off. I didn’t know what it was, but I imagined her as one of those “dream” nerdy girls that seems so perfect you wouldn’t expect them to have a bitchy side. I didn’t tell him that though. I didn’t want to sound jealous, and I really did want him to be happy. He was doing what I wished I could’ve done in the past with someone else.

I also asked him why he wanted to talk to me when we started the poetry unit for our creative writing class. Apparently, I did mention I was into MCR too when we had to do that whole explanation of our opinions about poetry. In his head, he thought I was cool and felt intrigued to approach me after class. It was something I was curious about for the last few days, especially since you guys know I’m incredibly introverted and have a difficult time socializing to people outside of social media.

Fast forward to this Monday. What was SUPPOSED to be my first day of microbiology lab was a bust since I got an email in my college email account from my professor telling us class won’t start till Wednesday (today). So for the next few hours (because I didn’t wanna go home yet), I was chatting with Crystal aka @beforethebraces, later, RL Dan. With Crystal, we talked about… well, something that makes her incredibly happy right now that I can’t share the details yet (I’ll let her be the one to give me the green light for the big reveal). But anyway, we also talked about David and our thoughts about Sarah. We had a very, very deep conversation over the feelings I still have for RL Dan. She gave me the best advice about believing there’s a reason we met. She agreed how we’re highly suspicious of Sarah’s feelings for RL Dan. Between the two of us, we analyzed the events I knew happened with Sarah and RL Dan and realized there was something fishy. We sensed Sarah didn’t feel the way RL Dan felt toward her.

When I got to chat with David (he had class and immediately left campus afterward for dialysis), he told me he ran into Sarah on his way to class. They did some catching up. He learned her phone was acting up, hence why she couldn’t reach him. She was also still sick (he thought it was the flu), so even if she could get in contact with him, she didn’t feel well enough to do so.

So how do I secretly react?

😡😡😡

I sensed some lying.

Lemme break it down for you guys.

The most obvious one: You can’t have the flu for three weeks. As a future medical specialist, it isn’t possible. A flu is only supposed to last a week or two. Anything beyond a week could mean something serious.

Second: the way RL Dan described their encounter seemed like she was distant from him, as if she feigned being sick so she wouldn’t talk to him. If you’re being distant, it usually means you’re hiding something, or at least have something weighing your mind.

Third: What if the lockdown was an excuse? It was a possibility on the back of my mind while I was on break, but didn’t think much of it since it would make me sound jealous. But it was likely. Think about it: if you’re sick, wouldn’t you desperately want to talk to the people who matter to you? That’s what Crystal and I would do. When I was really sick in 10th grade and was absent from school for 3 days, I was desperate to get online and talk to my friends so I could tell them what was up. I barely kept my resistance to stay offline. My mom drilled into my head to get better, so that’s what I did. And I was so exhausted I’d sleep most of the day away.

In general, I had a hunch Sarah wasn’t being truthful. But I wouldn’t allow my suspicions cloud my friendship with RL Dan. I did what a good friend would do: give a great pep talk, because that’s what I’m a master at (ask Crystal; just being there for her and not being a judge gets her through awful times). I kept him company while he was on dialysis. He told me he had issues with his schedule. We tried to make plans to meet up the next day, though the time I’d arrive at school is the time he has a class. So we just let that tiny dilemma be. We’d have time to meet another day once we get used to our spring courses.

So that brings me to yesterday. He found me sitting at one of the tables in front of the campus Subway. I just finished my first day of a micro lecture class and doing my usual Tumblr spree/waiting for another chat room to open for Mystic Messenger (I finally started deep story and crossing my fingers to land on Jumin’s route). I planned to stay for 10 minutes or so before catching a bus home. We talk for a bit, and he finally tells me he discussed his feelings with Sarah with her.

She. Changed. Her. Mind.

She told him she didn’t feel the sparks anymore and the door is now 100% closed. In other words, it’s done-zo. Oh, and he apologized for our breakup. He still feels bad about it.

We met up again a couple hours ago, though it was short. He wanted to see me before he had to head home, eat a quick lunch, and go do his dialysis. In that time frame, we talked like we usually did. Still super close, still open and didn’t act weird around me, still just… him.

How rare is it for exes to remain like best friends? You guys tell me.

So… what happens now? Where do we go from here? RL Dan says he’s fine about it. Good actually, since he knows the truth and now he can move on. I feel guilty about my hunch being right. I’m selfless and was so supportive for his happiness. But I can’t help but feel… hopeful. A door closes and another opens. An end to a beginning.

I’ve let go of my fears about love. I did that during the break. I’m not scared anymore to fall in love. I’m not letting my past hold me back. I feel refreshed for 2017: with school, with love, with life… with everything.

Think positive. That’s my motto for the year.

I’ll give RL Dan a few days to think it over. I was so, so tempted yesterday to ask him about us, but my feelings weren’t what’s important. It’s his. I won’t make the mistake to give him space, because trust me, I made that choice once and it was the worst choice I ever made. But I will be here for him. I’ll talk to him and continue to be his confidant. Now isn’t our time. It’s too soon for him to jump back into a relationship. No matter how much I want us to get back together, being hasty will only lead to disastrous results.

Then again, a part of me thinks we never actually broke up. I see it as us pressing pause in our relationship; someday, when the time is right, we’ll press resume.

Red string of fate, ya’ll. I still believe he’s on the other end of mine.

I care so much about him. It’s scary. I don’t want to lose him as a friend. For now, I’ll set aside my emotions and get through the rest of the week. I’ll talk to him one-on-one about our relationship next week (unless he brings it up sooner). I’ll tell him I still have feelings for him. I’ll tell him I didn’t give up on him and wonder if we could open the door for our own relationship again. I’ll go on a first date we never did and be the girl that won’t ever hurt him again.

So… yeah. You guys deserve an explanation for what’s happening between David and I. Dating him during a time where I suffered through a semester-long existential crisis over questioning what I was doing with my life really helped me out. I was in such a funk and he was that fallen angel who rescued a princess of darkness. He reignited my passion to go into the medical field. And it’s not everyday I meet a boy who resembles Dan Howell (and a bit of Phil). When I truly got into Dan and Phil in early 2016, I structured my ideal boyfriend to be someone who’s a mix of Phan. And guess what? I met that person. I met that person who knows about their existence. I met that person who I don’t have to put a persona for. I met a boy who showed me the best parts of falling in love and refused to let me go when he chose Sarah.

He matters. He’s… my cheesehead (a nickname I started calling him since he’s so cheesy AF lol). He understood the part of my past that made me fear trusting people. He’s everything I could ask for in a red string soulmate.

Nowadays he calls me fam. Like we’re family.

I adore him. He’s a beautifully broken boy I waited 19 years to capture my heart like this.

Trust me on this, everyone. I know what I’m doing and I won’t let him hurt me again.

I’ll definitely update you guys again once I do our one-on-one talk. You guys have been incredibly cool about us and I really love sharing these kind of details with you. It’s exhilarating to experience events that become incorporated in my imagines.

My life… it’s a gigantic fanfiction eh? 😂

[robert-portfolio]

The Death of a Literature Program

       You’re in a one hundred-person lecture hall, sitting at the back of the room. The lights are dim. The professor, a middle-aged, white man, is speaking in a level tone, going over the plot-points of the reading due today. He fills in some context—the reading is ancient Greek tragedy, so the context is useful—but largely he tells you things you know already because you did the reading. You’re a good student because you are smart and you work hard. The people sitting next to you are probably good students, too, but they, like you, are bored. Their laptops are open. A man to your left is on Google maps. Maybe he’s planning a trip to visit his significant other in Northern California. The woman sitting in front of you is on a food blog. Maybe she lives with six other people and has agreed to cook dinner for the house tonight. She’s nervous because she’s not sure she knows how to cook for herself yet, but she wants to make something healthy and good for her friends. The man to your right is texting. You want to get mad but you don’t. It would be hypocritical: You are writing this article, not taking notes. You only wonder why you are here.         It could be another way. For a long time, the College of Creative Studies offered another way to study literature. Classes averaged around 15 people, rarely exceeded 20. The work was hard: one professor, who retired earlier than he planned to due to disagreements with the administration, taught a course on the 19th century novel for which the reading was Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Eliot’s Middlemarch, Trollope’s Barchester Towers, as well as three other masterwork’s of similar length and difficulty. A popular course taught by a current professor had students read everything by William Carlos Williams: his three novels, hundreds (thousands?) of poems, and his slim autobiography, I Wanted to Write a Poem. The work was daunting, but you weren’t worried: You weren’t graded, just assigned units for the amount of work you completed. You were free to read great books and write about them without anxiety. You could take a dozen classes with the same professor, both academic and creative, and enter into an atelier-style, artistic mentor/apprentice relationship with them. What’s more, you were encouraged to take lots of classes, hard classes, outside of your discipline in Letters and Sciences, the main college at UCSB, and could drop them at any point if you found yourself drowning in this sea of knowledge instead of swimming.

         The oral history of CCS has it that each major in the college (there are eight: literature, art, music composition, biology, chemistry, biochemistry, physics, and computing) used to function as literature had functioned until very recently: you’d take most of your classes in CCS because they were tougher, smaller classes and venture into L&S in your field for the occasional challenging fare offered there, such as a graduate course or an upper division course taught by a very good professor. The literature major is the last holdover from Marvin Mudrick’s original vision for the College of Creative Studies. The restructuring process that’s happening to literature now has already happened everywhere else.         Mudrick was an English professor at UCSB who was hired in 1949. He founded the college in 1967 was its provost (the college now has a dean) until he was ousted by Chancellor Huttenback in 1984. Chancellor Huttenback was himself fired for embezzlement of university money.         I couldn’t tell you why this current restructuring process is taking place. I’ve heard that the program’s most recent external evaluation glowed with praise, but I’ve also heard that Marvin Mudrick made a lot of enemies in Letters and Sciences when he started his own school, and that chief among them was Chancellor Huttenback. The university administration continued his antagonism, and this, I believe, is the source of the narrative that CCS needs to fall in line with the rest of the university. The current administration seems to be carrying out this legacy.         When asked at a meeting with literature students what he thought of Mudrick’s vision for the college, Bruce Tiffney, the current dean of CCS, said that Mudrick had an elitist and unsustainable vision of the college’s future, that Mudrick had envisioned “a city on a hill,” that CCS students would have their own dorms and classrooms where Manzanita Village stands today. CCS students do have their own dorms in Manzanita Village, Pendola House, and CCS does have its own building, complete with classrooms. At the annual All-College Meeting, Bruce Tiffney tells the same parable of the “five hundred pound gorilla.” CCS students are intellectual heavyweights, he says. They are the five hundred pound gorillas sitting the backs of classrooms. “Where does the five hundred pound gorilla go?” he asks. “Wherever it wants.”

        The specific vision of CCS’s new Literature and Writing program has been kept relatively hidden. However, one thing seems to be certain: literature courses will by and large not be taught within the college. Instead, students will study literature in its cognate departments within Letters and Sciences: English and Comparative Literature. This model works well in the sciences. A Creative Studies physics student takes a rigorous, two-year introductory series within CCS that rivals the undergraduate sequences at CalTech and MIT. The rest of his or her UCSB career is spent taking specialized upper division courses, such as Non-Linear Dynamics, and advanced graduate coursework, like Quantum Field Theory, and, of course, doing research. The upper division courses average twenty-five to fifty students and the graduate courses average ten. This model works so well for two reasons. One, discussion isn’t necessary in the process of learning science. An undergraduate physicist doesn’t have his own take on rotational mechanics. If they do need to talk to the professor about the material, it’s to answer an assigned problem or to seek help in answering it. In the humanities, discussion is the essential component of learning. It’s not until I’ve talked out my ideas about a poem or a novel with a peer or a professor that I feel I know what my ideas are, let alone can asses their strengths and weaknesses. Two, graduate level coursework in the sciences, at least in the first two years, is essentially very hard undergraduate coursework. As a beginning grad student, you are still learning things about the universe uncovered by the great minds that came before you, as well as the tools they used to discover them. The same is not true of literature. In most graduate courses, students don’t read primary sources (i.e. novels, poems, and short stories) and instead read books of criticism (the assumption being that students have already read a great deal of primary source texts and are constantly reading other primary source texts in their spare time and for their research). You’d be hard pressed to get a literature degree without reading any literature.         At a Q&A that the College of Creative Studies administration had with its literature students, we were asked what our favorite parts of the literature program have been. I said that my favorite part has been the literature coursework taught in CCS because we do much more reading than in L&S courses and the discussion we have in these courses is at such a high level. Other students agreed. The administration asked, “Have you tried doing extra work for these L&S courses?” Their vision is that future students will read extra books and write extra papers for unchallenging L&S courses, and will be evaluated on this work in their senior portfolios. In other words, students will take worse courses and pickup the slack themselves.

         CCS remains a great place for the sciences. A Weighted Companion Cube—a reference to the popular Portal games—hangs from the ceiling outside of the computer lab. The dean wears a purple wizard’s hat when addressing his students at the All College Meeting, a yearly introductory meeting for the entire college, and at graduation, along with his formal academic regalia. The message is clear: nerds can feel safe here. Students’ posters explaining their scientific research line the walls of the building’s one, long, maze-like hallway. Along with the five hundred pound gorilla parable, Dean Tiffney also tells the students each year that the building is ours to do with what we want, “aside from structural changes.” There used to be scraps of poetry and art between the science posters. Last year they got taken down. I tried to put up more poetry. It, too, was taken down. The official line is that little scraps of paper hanging from the walls are a fire hazard. I believe this. Still, the message is clear: “Artists are not welcome here.”         The demographics of CCS confirm this. There were close to one hundred literature students when I entered UCSB five years ago. Now there are twenty-four. This is largely a product of the halt on admissions put on the major for the past two years. However, the population of the college as a whole has not dropped. More scientists have been admitted to take the place of the literature students. The largest effect this has had isn’t to make the artists feel outnumbered (though it does), but to make women outnumbered.         This wouldn’t be so alarming (STEM fields are heavily dominated by men) if this demographic shift weren’t also mirrored in the faculty. I know of eight professors who have left CCS over the past few years either because they were not asked back or because they found it too difficult to work with the present administration. Five additional professors did not leave or left for unrelated reasons. The three of these professors who did not leave are working at half time and with reduced or eliminated benefits and have been working under these conditions for over a year. The other two left this summer, but never experienced a reduction in benefits or pay. These two professors are white men. Of the three that remain, one is a white woman, one is a white man, and the other is a black man. Of the professors who have left because of the administration, three are white men, four are white women, and one is a black man. Women and black men in literature have only ever been mistreated by the current administration. I’m not saying that Bruce Tiffney has gone out of his way to be misogynistic and racist. Nobody but he can know whether or not he intentionally made life harder for women and black men than he did for white men, or, if like the overpopulation of CCS with men, these sexist and racist results are a result of his implicit biases.            These changes to the literature program are being made in the name of intellectual diversity. The program’s biggest failing in its detractors’ eyes is that it is “too insular.” Students take too many classes within CCS and are therefore deprived of the diversity of ideas found in L&S. But students avoid L&S classes because they aren’t rigorous enough, and these reforms have lead to less literal diversity. The good news here is that nothing is set in stone. The program hasn’t yet been re-opened for admission. Good, hard classes, women, and people of color can still be a part of literature in the College of Creative Studies if we want them to be. All it takes is for Bruce Tiffney to listen to us.

[kenfinton]

The Hoosier Poet

        VIDEO AUDIO FALSE COVER OF POEMS OF CHILDHOOD  COVER OF POEMS OF CHILDHOOD FALSE Pictures of Riley FALSE TOMB STATUE FALSE ILLUSTRATION OF STORY TELLING. An’  the Gobble-uns ‘ill git you. ef you don’t watch out. FALSE These words from his famous poem about LIttle Orpant Annie framed the entire career of this famous Hoosier poet) FALSE Pictures of Riley NARRATOR FALSE FALSE Log cabin and Greenfield footage James Whitcomb Riley, like Abe Lincoln,  was born in a log cabin. He was born in the heartland of the Indiana farmland near the town of Greenfield eleven years before the American Civil War began. FALSE James was born on Oct 7, 1849, which was, by coincidence, the same day that Edgar Allan Poe died. FALSE Video of Main Street today FALSE FALSE old Main street Main Street  in Greenfield was the National Road that wound through farms and forested lands on its way to California and points West FALSE Reuben pix Riley’s father, Reuben, was a lawyer and politician. FALSE RILEY PHOTOS FALSE CAPITOL Greenfield was but a day’s ride from the capital city in Indianapolis. FALSE FALSE national road In 1848, the year before James was born, his father Reuben was elected as a Democrat to the Indiana House of Representatives. Reuben became good friends with James Whitcomb, the 8th governor of Indiana, so he named his second son after him. FALSE FALSE Pic of  Liz or gravestone and kitchen footage from house. His mother, Elizabeth, was a story teller who wrote poetry as well. She baked in a hearth oven and sometimes wrote her poetry at the kitchen table while and raising her growing bevy of children. FALSE HOUSE IN GREENFIELD FALSE When Riley was still quite young, his father began building another home for the family in Greenfield. This is the home where James grew up. FALSE FALSE GWEN BETOR SHOWING LIVING AREA It is now open as a museum and manned by historical society volunteers who take thousands of visitors on tours every year. FALSE FALSE James schooling was sporadic. He did not graduate the eighth grade  until he was twenty-one in 1869.

His mother taught him to read and write at home, but he eventually went to a local schoolhouse.

Riley was the first to admit that his schooling had suffered. He did not know much about mathematics, or science, as he was not interested in these things.

FALSE FALSE His parents began to worry that James would never amount to much. He   simply would not learn history, science or mathematics. FALSE FALSE A teacher once asked him where Columbus sailed on his second voyage and Riley replied that he did not even know where he sailed on his first voyage,

Riley was fond of saying, “I don’t take no credit fer my ignorance – jest born that-a-way,.”

FALSE FALSE LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE WAS ONE OF RILEY’S FAMOUS CHILDREN POEMS. IT WAS WRITTEN ABOUT A HIRED GIRL NAMED MARY ALICE SMITH THAT CAME TO WORK FOR HIS PARENTS WHEN HE WAS YOUNG. WE HAVE AN OLD RECORDING OF RILEY READING THIS POEM: FALSE CLIP OF FURNISHINGS … NO CHILDREN ALLOWED TO MESS IT UP FALSE JAMES WAS FEARFUL OF THE SPACE IN THE ATTIC WHERE TWO EYES OF LIGHT SHOWED THROUGH FROM HOLES IN THE ROOFING. FALSE FALSE CLIP OF TOUR GUIDE TALKING ABOUT RILEY’S SCHOOLING GUIDE: James tried to please his father and study the law books but his mind just kept wandering.   Those poems just kept jumping in this head, and when he grew up Reuben couldn’t understand why he did not grow out of this phase. Poetry was a thing back then. Both His Mother and Dad did it, but then they grew up and they stopped.  James  didn’t like to work, he was a daydreamer, he liked to go outside and wander around. When James became big, what did those people see he him?  He’s a lazy guy. FALSE FALSE RILEY PHOTO AND PICTURES OF BOOKS FOR A LAZY GUY, JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY SURELY KEPT HIMSELF BUSY WRITING BOOKS AND COLLECTIONS OF POETRY. TRUE   TRUE When Riley was ten the first library was opened in Greenfield. He developed a real love for literature. TRUE James and his friends  became friends with the librarian who told them stories and read them poems. One of James’ favorite authors was Charles Dickens . Some of his poems were inspired by Dickens, such as “CHRISTMAS SEASON’  and GOD BLESS US EVERY ONE. TRUE MISC STILLS Poetry was not just an exotic taste in literature in Riley’s day.  It was read by the common men and women of the nation. Poetry offered the reader a form of self-reflection, an expression of  their personal hopes and aspirations. It was printed in of newspapers and read by public speakers.  Poetry served as entertainment for the masses. In Riley’s time, reading poetry was as common as watching television or clicking on Internet websites. FALSE Fairbanks Tea Party photo Riley was known as a humorist and a prankster. One of his pranks may have had the effect of electing William Howard Taft to be President of the United States. President Roosevelt was a friend of Riley’s. A t a famous tea party in Indianapolis, Riley reportedly spiked the punch. The Hoosier Vice President, Charles Warren Fairbanks got tipsy at the party and gained the reputation of being a ‘lush’ during a time of prohibition sentiment. As a result, Fairbanks was passed over as Teddy Roosevelt’s pick for vice president and Taft was picked instead. Taft later succeeded Roosevelt to the Presidency. FALSE Mark Twain ) said James Whitcomb Riley’s “Old Soldier’s Story”  was the funniest story he ever listened to and considered Riley America’s number one humorist. FALSE “I heerd an awful funny thing the other day – Ha! Ha! I don’t know whether I kin git it off or not, but, anyhow, I’ll tell it to you. Well! – let’s see now how the fool thing goes. FALSE Oh, yes! Why, there was a feller one time – it was during the army and this feller that I started in to tell you about was in the war and – Ha! Ha! – there was a big fight agoin’ one, and this feller was in the fight, and it was a big battle and bullets aflyin’ ever’ which way, and bombshells abustin’ and cannon balls aflyin’ ‘round promiscuous; and this feller right in the midst of it, you know, and all excited and heated up, and chargin’’ away; and the first thing you know along comes a cannon-ball and shot his head off – Ha! Ha! Ha! FALSE Hold on here a minute! No, sir! I’m agettin’ ahead of my story. FALSE No No! It didn’t shoot his head off. I’m gettin’ ahead of my story. FALSE Shot his leg off. That was the way. Shot his leg off. FALSE And down the poor feller dropped and of course in that condition was perfectly helpless, you know. But he did have the presence of mind enough to know that he was in a dangerous condition if something wasn’t done for him right away.

So he seen a comrade achargin’ by that he knowed, and he hollers to him and called him by name – I don’t remember now what the feller’s name was… Well, that’s got nothin’ to do with the story anyway.

FALSE He hollers at him, he did, and says, “Hello, there,” he says to him; “Here! I want you to come here and give me a lift. I got my leg shot off and I want you to pack me back to the rear of the battle.” That’s where the doctors is during a fight you know. FALSE And he says, “I need attention or I’m a dead man for I got my leg shot off,” he says, “and I want you to pack me back there so’s the surgeons can take care of me.”

Well – the feller, as luck would have it, recognized him and run to him and throwed down his own musket so’s he could pick him up.

FALSE And he stooped down and picked him up and kind of half-way shouldered him and half-way held him between his arms like, and then he turned and started back with him – Ha! Ha! FALSE Now, mind, the fight was still agoin’ on – and right at the hot of the fight, and the feller all excited you know like he was, and the soldier that had his leg shot off getting kinda fainty like, and his head kinda stuck back over the feller’s shoulder that was carryin’ him. FALSE   FALSE And the most curious thing about it was – Ha! Ha! – that the feller was apackin’ him didn’t know that he had been hit again at all, and back he went – still carryin’ the deceased back – Ha! Ha! Ha! – to where the doctors could take care of him – as he thought. FALSE Well, his captain happened to see him, and he thought it was a rather curious proceedings – a solder carryin’ a dead body out of the fight – don’t you see? And so the captain hollers at him, and he says to the soldier the captain did. He says, “Hello there. Where you goin’ with that thing?” That is what the captain said to the solder who was acarryin’ away the feller that had his leg shot off. Well, his head too, by that time. FALSE “So he says, “Where you going with that thing?” FALSE Well the soldier he stopped – kinda halted – you know like a private soldier will when his presidin’ officer speaks to him – and he says to him, “Why,” he says, “Cap. It’s a comrade of mine and the poor feller has got his leg shot off, and I’m a packin’ him back to where the doctors is . And there was nobody to help him, and the feller would have died in his tracks – or track rather – if it hadn’t been for me. I’m packin’ him back where the surgeons can take care of him, where he can get medical attendance or else his wife’s a widow for sure,” he says. FALSE Then captain says, “You blame fool you. He’s got his head shot off.”

So then the feller slacked his grip on the body and let it slide down to the ground, and looked at it a minute, all puzzled, you know, and says, “Why he told me it was his leg!””

FALSE FALSE One of the poems attributed to James Whitcomb Riley was never included in his published works.  It was called “The Passing of the Outhouse.” FALSE      The older generations know what an outhouse is but perhaps the younger do not.  It is an outdoor toilet.  Every country home had an outhouse. FALSE THE PASSING OF THE OUTHOUSE FALSE James Whitcomb Riley FALSE   FALSE out house We had our posey garden FALSE That the women loved so well. FALSE I loved it too but better still FALSE I loved the stronger smell FALSE That filled the evening breezes FALSE So full of homely cheer FALSE And told the night-o’ertaken tramp FALSE That human life was near. FALSE On lazy August afternoons: FALSE It made a little bower FALSE passing 2 Delightful, where my grandsire sat FALSE And whiled away an hour. FALSE For there the summer morning FALSE Its very cares entwined. And berry bushes reddened FALSE In the teeming soil behind. FALSE All day fat spiders spun their webs FALSE To catch the buzzing flies. FALSE That flitted to and from the house FALSE Where Ma was baking pies. FALSE And once a swarm of hornets bold FALSE Had built a palace there. FALSE And stung my unsuspecting aunt – FALSE I must not tell you where. FALSE Then father took a flaming pole FALSE That was a happy day – FALSE He nearly burned the building up FALSE But the hornets left to stay. FALSE When summer bloom began to fade FALSE And winter to carouse, FALSE We banked the little building FALSE With a heap of hemlock boughs. FALSE But when the crust was on the snow FALSE And the sullen skies were gray, FALSE In sooth the building was no place FALSE Where one could wish to stay. FALSE We did our duties promptly; FALSE There one purpose swayed the mind. FALSE outhouse We tarried not nor lingered long FALSE On what we left behind. FALSE The torture of that icy seat FALSE Would made a Spartan sob, FALSE For needs must scrape the gooseflesh FALSE With a lacerating cob. FALSE That from a frost-encrusted nail FALSE Was suspended by a string – FALSE My father was a frugal man FALSE And wasted not a thing. FALSE When grandpa had to “go out back” FALSE And make his morning call, FALSE We’d bundled up the dear old man FALSE With a muffler and a shawl. FALSE I knew the hole on which he sat FALSE Twas padded all around, FALSE And once I dared to sit there; FALSE Twas all too wide, I found. FALSE passing 3 My loins were all too little FALSE And I jack-knifed there to stay; FALSE They had to come and get me out FALSE Or I’d have passed away. FALSE Then father said ambition FALSE Was a thing small boys should shun, FALSE And I must use the children’s hole FALSE Till childhood days were done. FALSE But still I marvel at the craft FALSE That cut those holes so true; FALSE The baby hole and the slender hole FALSE That fitted Sister Sue. FALSE That dear old country landmark! FALSE I’ve tramped around a not FALSE And in the lap of luxury FALSE My lot has been to sit, FALSE But ere I die I‘ll eat the fruit FALSE Of trees I robbed of yore, FALSE Then seek the shanty where my name FALSE Is carved upon the door. FALSE I ween the old familiar smell FALSE Will soothe my jaded soul; FALSE I’m now a man, but none the less FALSE I’ll try the children’s hole. FALSE The Old Swimmin’ Hole was a poem written by James Whitcomb Riley. H wrote it under the pen name “Benjamin F. Johnson of Boone County“. The poem was first published in 1883 as part of a book entitled The Old Swimmin’ Hole and ‘Leven More Poems. The poem is one of Riley’s most famous and perhaps the most  memorable. Riley reminisces about the Brandywine Creek where played with his friends during his boyhood. The poem has sold millions of copies. FALSE Oh! the old swimmin’-hole! When I last saw the place, FALSE The scenes was all changed, like the change in my face; FALSE The bridge of the railroad now crosses the spot FALSE Whare the old divin’-log lays sunk and fergot. FALSE And I stray down the banks whare the trees ust to be— FALSE But never again will theyr shade shelter me! FALSE And I wish in my sorrow I could strip to the soul, FALSE And dive off in my grave like the old swimmin’-hole. FALSE James Whitcomb Riley loved children. Every year on Riley Day, the children from the Greenfield area have a parade and bring fresh cut flowers to the Riley statue, where they hand them to adults who decorate the statue with these cut flowers. So far as I know, this is a unique event.  What poet anywhere is revered and celebrated  with such enthusiasm and appreciation?

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY The Hoosier Poet VIDEO AUDIO