for Phil

I can remember the ragman, walking down the alley with his refrain of “r-r-r-r-aaags, R-r-r-r-ags!” He came through the steep and pitted alley between the garages in my grandmother’s neighborhood, and collected clothing too worn to be given to charity or donated to family members. He had a cart, that I remember, and his pronunciation of the letter “R” was rich, almost foreign. The fabric lay stuffed in bags in his cart. Where did those rags go? When I asked my grandma, she said, “Good paper. Good paper is made from rags.” I learned not only where the rags went, but that there was an indisputable caste system in the world of paper.
This is perfectly appropriate, because now we have the bookmen. They come to campus about every six weeks – similar to the ragman’s scheduled wanderings down the alley – and they take our unused examination copies of texts. What do they do with them? Resell, to schools or other teachers.
They have a lancet window of time: a textbook company issues a new edition of a book every three years, making the previous edition obsolete. They used to do it more infrequently, explained the textbook rep – but the competitive market from used book purveyors is so intense, that to survive they need to reissue every three, or even every two years.
We part with our examination copies unwillingly or gladly: wary of letting go the example we could use for an exam, the favorite stories appearing in yet another edition; gladly: happy for an extra 10 inches by 7 inch space on our desks where the stack of books to be sold had sat. And we wait, sometimes months, for our favorite bookbuyers to show up. Many of us waited for Phil.
Phil was huge: wide face and wide grin, large stomach, and acres of appetite for knowledge. He talked of stories with the English teachers, formulas and applications with the chemistry teachers, historical parallels with present events with the history teachers. Each group swore he must have professional knowledge of its subject, arcane and broad levels. He did not simply buy books; he read them. The first time I talked with him, we discussed Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and I shared a comic book version that some of my students prefer. But Phil already knew Kafka’s themes and sorrows. He spoke with us as learner to learner, and when he did not come to buy books, we grieved.
Phil’s body had cancer. Phil’s spirit was finally set to wander even broader halls of books. Some of us refused to sell books to Phil’s wife and son for six months, waiting for him to return. His spirit walks our hallways, visiting schools in many cities, drawing us learning, reminding us of our community. “Phil was a builder of relationships,” says Phil’s widow. “That’s what he did best.” They link us: the delivery people, the ragman, the book buyers. Phil and his like made the circle complete.

?

“From what I have read about marriage and adultery, I have discovered that although I think it’s a terrible thing, it could be justified.” ~ a student
? I ponder how large I could make the question mark indicating my astonishment and my confusion. What? What’s terrible? Marriage with adultery? Adultery? Marriage? Whichever we find most convenient or incomprehensible?
My writing students explain their ideas; I am left to ponder their meaning, how their meaning differs from mine, and another essential aspect of life: punctuation. As I argue to students when we are discussion punctuation: it’s important. Those little marks not only sort out our meaning, but convey our message. Punctuation allows us to know if the problem relates to the brother’s or brothers’ situation, among other choices.
I’ve written odes to semi colons, and have pondered the construction of a rubber stamp to explain the relationship of quote marks with closing punctuation. I have written illustrations on the chalkboard and their essays. Do they remember for next time? Not usually. Perhaps they believe punctuation is irrelevant (because they are busy text messaging?). Because “everyone talks now and nobody writes.” Because a starlet featured on the cover of the Sunday newspaper magazine brags how she dropped out of high school and has since won two awards (not for writing). Because punctuation too closely resembles the smudges left from papers residing too long in the bottom of a book bag?
Or maybe because life is more exciting when we can’t decipher whether it’s marriage or adultery or the combination that is terrible, and some of us just want to find out.