Sunday, April 29, 2012

My Sister's Writing Assignment in 1985

For today's blog (before going back to quite a few things on my own mind), I want to post something my sister wrote and sent my mother back in 1985, on our mother's 84 birthday.  Here's part of what Suzy wrote in a letter accompanying the short story:


                Instead of another book, because this is a very special occasion, you get to preview a yet unpublished short story written mostly by your very own baby girl.  The first page or so is from a published story.  Our assignment was to take it from that point, without reading the “real” one.  I’ll tell you the exact point she ends and I pick up on the back of this letter, but you mustn’t read the back until you’re through reading the story.  Do keep in mind, however, that it is my first short story.
                Haven’t’ heard from you for a  while.  Trust everything’s going well.  How’s acting class?  Wish I could come to your first play.  Hey, that’d be nice, wouldn’t it?  You get to read my first story and I could see your first, shall we say, scheduled performance!  I know.  Have Kathy in the audience video-taping it.
                Hope you like all enclosures.  Have a real good time on your birthday!
                Love,
                Suzy


                                                                              Aftermath

                A few hours after my mother died, a friend of hers named Molly showed up in our living room and quickly turned her head left and right, taking in the plastic-covered furniture, the dustless parquet floors, the Wedgwood and Waterford carefully arranged inside the breakfront.  “I’ll say one thing for your mother,” Molly announced to my brother and me, “she certainly kept a nice clean house.”
                I looked at my brother, whose eyes were drowsy with grief, and hoped that he would tell her to go home, but Stephen only stared at the floor and slumped father into his seat on the couch.
                “No one knows the right thing to say at a time like this,” whispered his wife, Annie.
                “How do you know?” I said.  “Why do you always have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt?  You’re just like my mother,” I said, annoyed at them both, but mostly my mother for her unfaltering goodness.
                I was almost twenty-five, and I still believed that my mother had loved me more than anyone ever would.  Now there was only my father, who was what my grandmother called “peculiar”—a man who could get angry over anything and harbored grudges almost tenderly, every so often disowning another person from his life until there was only a handful of relatives left he was still speaking to.  He knew nothing about the benefit of the doubt.
                But most of the family came to the funeral anyway, for they must have known that my mother had shrugged off y father’s misanthropy, and they came to pay homage to her.  They were also determined to help us through our loss.
                “That family without Libby…”  Alexandra, my father’s sister-in-law, shook her head at the enormity of it.
                “We’ll follow them home and give them the comfort of our presence.”  Never wasting an opportunity to direct the next scene, she had approached the twenty or so family members individually during that awkward period before the service began, while the rest of us played our roles in the present, giving and receiving condolences.
                When my father learned of her intention and overhead her words, he said, “The comfort of their presence!  To meddle’s more like it.  I won’t put up with it.”
                Until now, he had tolerated Alexandra’s lifework of arranging the lives of those around her because it had never interfered with his own, but now that it promised to, she too had earned his permanent disapprobation.  And true to his words, when the service was over and the caravan arrived back at the house. My father took off.  No one seemed surprised.  No one even remarked about it, probably because it conformed to his familiar anti-social behavior.  But I was angry.
                “The least he could do in Mother’s memory is suffer the tedium of all this with the rest of us.”
                Stephen looked unwilling to commit himself, so I continued.
                “She was only his wife who for thirty years treated him like the god he thinks he is.”
                But when Stephen still didn’t answer me, and instead looked around for Annie, I stomped away in disgust and sequestered myself in the downstairs bathroom.  I was enraged.  Everyone was betraying my mother.  I gripped the rim of the white porcelain sink and stared at the quilted, red plaid skirt of the Scottish doll dressing the Kleenex box on the tank of the toilet.
                “Stephen’s not standing up for you, Mother.  Dad’s left the assemblage to go off to God only knows where, and Stephen won’t even be angry at him about it.  But I am.  You deserve better.”
                I could see her standing in front of the kitchen sink, a slender figure in tailored yellow slacks and white blouse, washing the dishes after yet another meal of roast, new potatoes, carrots, and pie.  Many years earlier Mother had bough Diet for a Small Planet, excited at the idea of cooking vegetarian, but my father had immediately put his foot down and demanded his daily pound of flesh.
                She wore the faded but clean orange gingham apron that Stephen had given her two years ago for Mother’s Day that had printed across the front, “A Kitchen without a Mother Is like a Day without Sunshine.”  Mother said she thought it was lovely, but as far as I was concerned, that was just another instance of Stephen’s emulating my father’s chauvinism, and at Mom’s expense.
                “What about a father in a kitchen?” I had asked m brother after Mother had unwrapped the apron and was trying it on.  “Is that not sunshiny enough for you?”
                “But dads never some into the kitchen,” my brother responded, winking at Mother and glancing across the room at dad with a smile.
                My father lowered the newspaper long enough to peer at me from above his glasses.  Our eyes locked for a moment.  Reluctantly, but feeling the superior person for doing it, I dropped my eyes and the subject so he wouldn’t get angry at my defiance and ruin Mother’s party.
                “Dad was always so inconsiderate and domineering, Mom.  I mean, reading at your party.  Insisting only topics of his choosing be discussed.  I’ll never understand why you let him get away with it.”
                I stood still for a moment, trying to imagine her response.  I pulled some toilet tissue off the roll, so I wouldn’t disarrange the doll, and wiped my eyes and nose.
                She looked over her shoulder at me as she stacked the plate with the others in the drying rack.
                She would have said what she always said when I criticized Dad or her or their relationship or her life.
                “But, Honey, I’ve got what I want.  I’m content with my life.”
                He tone would be patient, never angry, never even sad.  How she had infuriated me with her serenity and virtue!
                I’d scream at her back, trying to force her to face me (and face the facts, as I saw them).
                I’d die before I’d put up with such a life!”
                Tears welled up in my eyes again.  I took another yank at the toilet paper, but I was st5ill in the kitchen in the early evening after supper with Mom.
                I’d say something just like that, wouldn’t I, Mom, but that was just a manner of speaking.”         
She stepped to her left, picked up the roasting pan and cover and plopped them in the suds.
                “Of course, it was, Margo. I know that.  Don’t worry about every little thing.  You’ll turn as grey as me before you’re twenty-five.”
                I’d gladly be grey if I could only look as elegant as you.
                I truly believed my mother was almost perfect, and that her one flaw was her complacency.  Again and again I’d try to prove to her she shouldn’t be happy.  My tirades were as constant as my father’s rudeness.  Every night after he had finished the pie and coffee my mother served him, he would scoot his chair back from the table, and, without a word to anyone, head for the living room where he’d watch Channel 2 News and read the Chronicle.  And I with religious fervor, would play my ordained role.  Following his ritual, I’d recite my litany to Mother.
                “Some husband.  He never helps.  He never even says thanks.  He doesn’t appreciate you!”
                If she saw I was especially upset by what I perceived as The great Injustice, Mother would take the dishtowel and dry her hands, and come over to me.  If I let her, she’d push my long, stringy hair back behind my shoulders, cup my face in her hands, and smile.
                “Just as I know you kids love and respect me, I know your dad…”
                “No, Mom, that’s what I’m saying!  You aren’t’ treated with respect.  And you don’t even realize it.  You’ve been thoroughly brainwashed to accept this shit, and you go even further and you think it smells sweet!”
                Suddenly I felt a hot blush spread over my face and neck, and I looked in the mirror.  I looked into my eyes, though them, and beyond.  Now Mother was in the backyard, on her hands and knees, planting bulbs for the spring.
                “But, Margo, you love me, don’t you”

                “Of course I do, Mom.”
                “And I know you respect me, even if you’re confused about it right now.”  She molded the black soil around the flowers-to-be.
                I stood there without saying anything. Again she was right.  I was confused.  She was so deserving of respect and admiration ad yet she didn’t get it, and she still stayed with him!
                “Won’t these daffodils be pretty next year?”
                “I refused to get sidetracked into talking about flowers.  I didn’t answer her.
                She wiped the dirty off the spade onto the flower bed, and again patted down the soil with her bare hands.  She liked to feel the earth.  “I’m from peasant stock, you know,” she’d say.
                Sitting down in the dirty right where she was, she said, “Okay, you win.”
                She untied the knot of her blue bandana from around her neck, and wiped her hands on it.
                “We’ll talk about your subject.”
                I watched her as she brought her denim-covered legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around him.  I was trying to determine if she was just condescending to humor me.  But when she looked u and smiled and said, “Sit with me,” I was pretty sure she wasn’t, so I squatted across from her.
                “You’re an idealist, Honey, and I love you for it.  You’re always trying to figure out what’s right and fair, and when you reach your conclusions, I know you’ll never abandon them.  But, Margo, your truths aren’t necessarily the next person’s.  Do you know what I mean?”
                I gazed into her bright, almost black brown eyes as she looked tenderly at me, waiting for me to acknowledge what she’d said.
                “Margo?”
                Startled into the present, I found myself staring into the mirror.  My face was blotched and glistening.  The tissue in my hands was a wet glob.
                “It’s Annie.  Can I get you anything?”
                I struggled to get control of my voice so she wouldn’t’ know.
                “No, I’m all right.  I just got lost in thought.  I’ll be right out.”  I waited till I heard her walk away before I turned o the cold-water faucet and rinsed my ace.
                So she wouldn’t know!  How ridiculous.  My mother dies and I don’t want her to know I cried in private.
                “H, what a fool.”  I looked scornfully at my reflection.
                The towel felt soft as I dried my face.
                I waited a few minutes until my complexion returned to its normal consistent paleness.  My eyes were rimmed in red, but there was nothing I could do about that.
                When I returned to the den-kitchen area where everyone was mingling, I no longer was angry that they were there.  It didn’t matter. I looked about the room. My glance was met with what others thought were sorrowful expressions; what did they know?  I responded to as many as I could, and then I kept my eyes lowered to avoid the necessity.  But my downcast eyes deterred no one from approaching me, and the drone of platitudes intoned anew.
                Your mother will be missed by us all…”
                “A dear woman.”
                “She was devoted to you”
                “A wonderful mother and wife…”
                “Such a kind, generous woman.”
                When Alexandra saw the swarm hovering around me, she ran over and, waving her arms, began shooing everyone away.
                “Give the child some space, now.”  She nodded to me.  On her cue, I extricated myself and walked over to Stephen and Annie.  Annie smiled reassuringly.  I tied to smile back, but couldn’t’.
                Mom.
                I took Stephen’s arm, and learned against his shoulder.

Friday, April 27, 2012

Olga's 65 at The Russian Renaissance

I almost couldn't log on today because I'd started a ccsf.edu Google site.  Carol Reitan came to my rescue.
In the next couple of days I want to write about three different things:

Olga's 65th birthday
How two teachers from Columbia High School days are still affecting my lessons
Rare--Books!

This morning I got a lot of correcting, entering grades, and lesson planning out of the way so that I can enjoy the rest of the weekend.  This was made possible by a morning of no-classes that wasn't on our calendar in the schedule of classes but was, apparently, online.  This afternoon I have a dental appointment, which is actually a lot of fun because I have a great dentist, and then a Pakistani tea at Shehla's.  Tomorrow morning Jonathan and I have an online discussion of The Marriage Plot for this month's meeting of the Jo-Mama Book Club, and then Javier and I are going to see Bully at the Stonestown Cinema and take a walk in Stern Grove.  On Sunday, Kathy and Suzy and I are getting together for OUR monthly meeting at Suzy's, and I'm going to take Suzy a short story she wrote in 1985--something Mom kept because it was very, very good.  It's sad though that it begins after the death of the narrator's mother.

 Now...about Olga's party! 

This blog was interrupted by a call from Line Fapiano Folaumoeloa, who's going back to New Zealand tonight from Redwood City.  It was a very interesting call, but that's another blog.

Now, about Olga and her family!  I'm always grateful when I have students who don't hate me, and Olga was my student back in the days when students actually liked me.  She was a dream student in my ESL 4 (?) class after Mikhail had been my dream student at the JCC, where one of their daughters, 12-year-old Svetlana, would come to class with her dad.  She remembers that when someone had a birthday, I'd bring in a cupcake to divide among all the students, but she would really wind up with it, after the candle in the center had been lit and blown out by the birthday honoree.  I was impressed by how bright she was and still am impressed.  She's now an attorney for the Justice Department in D.C. and knows Patrick McMullen, who is Consul on the House of Representatives Ethics Committee, where Miguess is a Senior Consul.  They have offices near each other.

Another beautiful daughter, Yelena, got maried in 1997 in SF, and I was at her wedding as I was at Lana's on Long Island in 2009.  So I've been friends with the Lunskiy family for more than 20 years. 
I had to miss Olga's 60th birthday, but she and the rest of the family were at my 60th, and Javier and I took over flowers after Olga's 60th party, which fell on the same day as a party at Nina's.

This 65th birthday party was held at the Russian Renaissance Restaurant, where Steve took me back in 1966 or 1967, when Harriet and I were living on California Street and I was about to spend the Summer of Love in Zamora, Michoacan!  The Restaurant has changed a lot!  I like the woman in charge, who knows about the history and suggested that I get the Arcadia book on the Richmond District to see the Russian Renaissance as it used to be. 

The food was beautiful to behold, as was the whole Lunskiy family.  Lana and Phil make a gorgeous couple (he looks Yemenese), and Yelena was beautiful and sang a "Mama" song in Russian that sounded wonderful.  I met Jackie, their little girl, for the first time, and saw Sam, who recited a poem from memory and wore cool sun glasses.  Chagall went very well with the whole party, maybe especially with a redheaded woman who was charming.

Before I close on this blog, I do want to say that Lana, years after I taught her parents, told me that they'd passed on a song I'd taught them, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree," and they all loved it.  I had to tell her that I'd read an article saying that police use that as punishment for people whose rap music has disturbed the peace.  It's aversion therapy.

Is that my contribution as a teacher?

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Character Development in Real Life

On the subject of The Submission, the "book of ideas" by Amy Waldman, someone said that it had been criticized for lack of character development, which led me to thinking of the characters.  The novel certainly had the forward movement a novel is supposed to have, but did it have character development?  Didn't they all remain basically the same?

But that made me wonder about people I know--and even about myself. 

What character development do we show?

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Being Mean Coaching ESL Speech Presentations


Today I really felt great—all kinds of energy I was missing when I was weakened by the common cold this past weekend—and I directed the energy towards some good things like talking with a leader-colleague about the ESL Department’s  speaking –listening courses and handing out flyers on The New Priority Campaign (www.NewPrioritiesCampaign.org ).  But I also directed it towards being imperious and demanding in one of my classes, and I was mean.    First of all, I insisted that they listen.  I insisted that they put away the preparation they were supposed to have done at home and listen to me and then to the speakers.  But this is a class that never listens.  I’ve taught on and off--mostly on-- since 1970, and this is the most passive-aggressive group of students I’ve ever met.  So I was aggressive, with no passivity at all. 
               
I told them that, above all else, I wanted them to make their presentations interesting by speaking to us, not reading.  So when someone started reading, and I really couldn’t understand what she was reading, I interrupted her to ask.  I almost never do that.  I just let them drone on and give them a D.  But I had hope of getting the message across early—on our first day of presentations—so I interrupted her.  The problem was that she couldn’t really put the reading into her own words because she didn’t understand what she was reading.  This is what it was:  

Mexico has one of the world's largest economies, and is considered both a regional power and middle power.[14][15] [16][17] In addition, Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD (since 1994), and considered an upper-middle income country by the World Bank.[18] Mexico is considered a newly industrialized country[19][20][21][22] and an emerging power.[23] It has the thirteenth largest nominal GDP and the eleventh largest by purchasing power parity. The economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) partners, especially the United States.[24][25] Mexico ranks fifth in the world and first in the Americas by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites with 31,[26][27][28] and in 2007 was the tenth most visited country in the world with 21.4 million international arrivals per year.[29]

Straight from Wikipedia but all highlighted in a dazzling yellow.  This was a presentation assigned on March 22nd.  She hadn't mastered that downloaded section in those three plus weeks.  She hadn't done anything with that information except color it yellow.

The student who hadn’t prepared at all did better than she did because he spoke, and even though he gave us only what five minutes of work on his iPhone had provided (at the beginning of class after he’d come in late as usual), he understood what he was saying about the President of Mexico—his name—and he understood the meaning of the not-quite-accurate information he was giving about Jalisco, Michoacan.  (He said the rich people there help the poor.)  He didn’t know how to pronounce Catholocism.  

 I showed them how to Google pronunciation of Catholocism.  Pronunciation of economies.  After the presentations (and I don’t think it was my imagination that the students were glaring at me with the “mean teacher” stare), I let the other students work on their upcoming presentations with their teams and I sat down with the student who had read her Wiki.  That paragraph she understood not at all was full of a lot of good information.  I suggested that she give just a little bit of it.  Mexico
                One of the world’s largest economies
                Economy linked to NAFTA
                                She could make an 8 ½ x 11" sign with NAFTA and explain that it’s the North American Fair Trade Agreement
                (We’ve studied continents so that would bring in the continent of North America:  Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.  Never mind that some of us are critical of NAFTA)
                31 UNESCO World Heritage Sites
                Places listed by the United Nations as of special cultural or physical significance

                                Show pictures of some of the 31 UNESCO World Heritage Sites
                Mexico—1st in number of UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Americas
                                5th in the world in number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites



The best-prepared of the three speakers today said that Mexico was to the North of the United States, but I know he didn’t mean that.  We’d worked on North, South, East, and West.   We'd even turned our bodies in those directions.

I asked the student evaluators to take notes, and of course they didn’t.  That would mean having to understand something that was said.  I remember when I first began teaching ESL 79, the most advanced speech course for ESL students, the evaluators would say “Great.  Clear and strong.”  But when I asked them what the speaker’s main idea was, they’d say, “I didn’t quite get that.”  They really didn’t quite get anything at all. 

Today I had too much energy to be defeated by their faking it.  I made demands that they say less but say it clearly.  My non-negotiable demands weren’t met, but I’m not sorry that I made them.  I don’t want them to fake it, and I don’t want to fake it for them either.

Now, in closing, I acknowledge that public speaking is what people fear more than death.  After all, if we're dead, we don't have to do any public speaking.  I'm not unsympathetic to the nervousness.  But there are ways to deal with the nervousness that don't involve reading uncomprehended downloaded sentences, which is what I fear more than death.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

YMCA Journal from Liverpool November 8, 1918 Armistice

My grandfather (Perry W. Robison) wrote from Knotty Ash Camp, Liverpool, on November 8, 1918:

1st night in a mud hole.  Bunked with Mr. Long (a preacher)  November 9th we moved from the mud hole into some wooden barracks.  Messed at the officers mess and oh boy but it was fine.  One shilling for meal.  Real U.S. Army grub cooked by U.S.A. boys and served by some mighty husky lads in O.D. They were a cheerful lot. 
Armistice was signed while we were in camp and Liverpool went wild with joy.  1/13 orders came to move.  We left on 10:40 train.

Looking back at the 60's

It's almost midnight, and instead of a fable for tomorrow, I'm going to use these last three minutes of today to reflect a little on the 1960s--before 1964--when two watershed moments came.  Miss Purvis, my science teacher at Columbia High School, who word "old lady" black shoes, told us about someone named Rachel Carson, who had just written a wonderful new book that was going to change the world. The other was when Miss Pitts came into our room with new technology although we didn't use the word technology back then.  It was a machine that made it possible for her to project an image on the screen while she was facing us.  An overhead projector.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Forbidden Food Assignment for ESL Students, Speaking and Listening


Ah, the rewards of teaching!  My students wrote reports on their interviews on the subject of Forbidden Food, and I spent hours doing what might be called synthesizing. 

Who were their interviewees?  Present and past classmates, present and past teachers, an instructor at the CLAD (CCSF’s Center for Language and Academic Development), a relative born in the US, an ex-roommate’s girlfriend (any particular reason the interviewee is in touch with the girlfriend but the roommate is ex?), a teacher at a child’s school, a husband’s friend and part-time employer, a housemate, a co-worker.

How did they make the appointment?  Texting, running into someone who might be willing, knocking on a neighbor’s door.

Where did they conduct their interviews?  In Washington Park, at coffee shops or restaurants, at the interviewee’s home, at the interviewer’s home, at church, where the interviewee works, in the library (conference room).

What was their interviewee’s favorite restaurant?  Tomatora, House of Prime Rib, Oyaji on Clement between 32nd and 33rd, Park Chow in the Sunset, Outback Steak House, Sakana, Miller’s Deli, Elephant Bar, All-American Café at North Beach, Café Puccini in Chinatown, Sushi Rock on Grant, The Cheesecake Factory, Tay Gian, Burma Star.

Favorite food?  Sushi, Indian, Filipino, ice cream, Thai, fish, Thai noodles and taco fish, meat lasagna, chocolate, potatoes, noodles and grilled fish, clam chowder.

What food will they not eat?   Dogs or horse, food in Chinese restaurants just in case, foie gras, meat, tropical fruit, chicken, lima beans

What is the most unusual food they’ve ever eaten?  Cockroaches in a Korean restaurant in LA, mussels in Boston and rabbit at Stinky Rose, frog’s legs, crickets fried with chili powder, chocolate-covered ants, cow’s tongue, snake, pig’s blood, a live octopus, and asparagus.  Asparagus didn’t give us much to work with, and the student whose interviewee didn’t like snake tried to give him her favorite recipe, and he refused to hear it.

The special vocabulary I came across included sprouted brobiotic, viscera, grody (turned out to be gross), peziza, and some with which I was more familiar:  gluten, dairy products, mimosas, tripe, and “fat-food restaurants.”  (I did ask, “Is it fat-food or fast-food, or both?”)  After reading about an interviewee who wanted to have six-pack abs, I confessed to the students that when I first heard that expression, I thought it meant a bear belly.  I even printed out pictures to show them the difference.  It did appear that one interview was trying for the beer belly.  He said he drank beer every day to put on weight.

Interviewees were also asked whether they’d ever given up a food they liked, and some spoke of giving up meat for Lent or sugar for a diet, and an interviewee I recognized gave up meat because he thought he’d lose weight on a vegetable diet, but he gained.  My favorite response was the interviewee who said that, yes, he sometimes gave up the food on his plate to someone at the table who really wanted it.

It was nice to hear that some interviewees felt no need to diet.  “I’m sexy the way I am,” one of them said. 

Fasting was a different matter.  They did it before blood test, during “Famine” when Catholic, for spiritual reason, and during Ramadan. 

The interviewees, when asked about their best memory of a meal, mentioned an Arab restaurant where they ate with their fingers, eating in China with uncles, Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, a grandfather’s 80th birthday, cooking dumplings with Mom during childhood, eating homemade ravioli, a surprise 40th birthday party in Florida.  Many seemed nostalgic about the years when they ate wither their families and “both your stomach and your heart are full of love.” 

We’re moving on to Burger Bacteria, so the students asked about food poisoning too.  One good sick from undercooked chicken.  “I guess she was just too hungry and couldn’t wait until it was done,” the student reporter wrote.  One interviewee was sure that it wasn’t the crab she ate but the mayonnaise and milk in the sauce.  Another got sick from a Burger king sandwich, a Mexican restaurant, a bad piece of steak oil in Vietnam that sent the oiled diner to the hospital, expired pudding, expired bread.  (I read that the same day I got “Buyer’s Choice” bread for two dollars off—with a date that had passed four days earlier.) 

Language challenges:  Has she ever fasted?  Yes, she has ever fasted.

The nicest part of all this was hearing the students react to what they heard.  One student felt very sympathetic to the interviewee who didn’t like tropic fruit “because it is so delicious.”  Another liked the description of her seventy-one-year-old interviewee when she spoke about her dinners at a child with a father who always talked about science.  “It look like so warm.”  That was the comment by a Chinese student who’d watched her neighbor play with children and give them trick and treat candy on Halloween.  The assignment gave her an excuse to knock on the door of this nice neighbor and get to know her better.

YMCA in World War I from Kansas to France

Monday, April 9, 2012

Granddaddy Robisons 1918 Travel Journal Kansas to France YMCA

I've been going to the Y to wimp out every other day since 1994, and of course I had contact with it before then.  But I only recently learned of the part it played in World War I, when it was already established in France and helped get supplies to soldiers in France and other places.    Now that I have Granddaddy Robison's travel journal, I'm going to share what I learn about that.
On the back of a picture of him in uniform he's written "Just an ordinary Y.M.C.A. secretary who is trying to do his bit in France.  For many of our solidier boys need more help in the battle of Paris than they needed in the Arregon (Arragon?) or at St. Michiel (Michael?) sectors.  April 26, 1919.
Perry W. Robison

I don't think this is the kind of community-provided bench the SF Chronicle was talking about today in its article https://www.sfchronic...