12/19/09 What I saw while grading papers

The History Channel, for about five hours.  Two hours of "Black Blizzards," a story I've been fascinated by since listening to Tim Egan's The Worst Hard Time last spring:  The choking clouds of Black Sunday, the barbwire sparking, the people refusing to move.  Then "102 Minutes That Changed America," raw documentary enhanced with quiet anxious drumbeat and ambient drone.  Again the dust clouds.  The fight for survival.  I was a hundred miles away on 9/11, in Massachusetts.  We watched CBS in the school library and lobby.  The superintendent said our lives would never be the same.  I felt disoriented, but I wanted to believe he was wrong.  I was glad to get home later that day and see my kids.  Today, between those two dust-ridden programs, The Beatles on Record.  A breath of fresh air.  Afterwards, Einstein.