I enjoy telling stories I’ve experienced in my life.
My plan is to write, illustrate, and share them here, one story at a time.
I’m grateful that I have the time, memories, and some new thoughts to express. There is some pressure to ‘beat the clock’ before my brain/mind/body completes its temporary assignment to keep me aware and animated; I’m not in denial that the body/mind complex will become superfluous….you know, the inevitable ‘Big Surrender.’
Working Title: TEACHER TELLS ALL: Notes From a Worn Out Whistleblower
One Main Character: Pseudonym Cassandra Banks, Public School Teacher
Location: Rural School in the Southern California desert/all schools.
Premise: In which One Woman’s Journey as a Public School Teacher highlights the cacophony of divergent personalities and viewpoints within the institutional culture of a small elementary school, any small elementary school.
Scene: A vast, rural area of Southern California desert where flat craggy sands meet the rocky foothills of a National Preserve. Seen from above, knots form in the 40 mile ribbon of highway connecting four distinct and confused communities.
With Palms Springs/Los Angeles off-ramps to the west, and a Laughlin /Las Vegas split to the east, our Basin is a sling back lawn chair, a hammock, secured to the iconic outcroppings of our ancient and revered Mountain neighbors: San Jacinto, San Gorgonio, Joshua Tree National Park, and the Sheep Hole Mountains.
Situated on the sloping north side of the highway, the local townfolk need a hand with food and health care. Visitors value the primitive beauty of the area, but there are few jobs, and resources from the tourist trade are spread thin for permanent residents.
We all endure the howling winds together. They muffle the rumblings from the nearby United States Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center. (Eight beat cadence: USMCAGCC). The rumblings pass as echoes of supposed thunder in the distance.
In total square miles, it is the largest Marine Combat Training Center in the country. The Base is a small city unto itself, with its own housing, infrastructure, and amenities for military families
This ancient archeological wonderland, with hidden caves, magical plants, and incredible celestial vistas, is known to attract:
Tourists
Star Gazers
Bird Watchers
Hikers and Rock Climbers
Hollywood Producers shooting car commercials
Pioneers, Homesteaders
Arthritis and Asthma Sufferers
Retirees on a fixed income
Artists, Musicians, and Poets
Spiritual Seekers and Healers
Extraterrestrials
Fundamentalists seeking towns to control
Off-Roaders seeking dust to kick up
Welfare recipients on fixed incomes
Foreclosed upscale families from the coast now living in their cars
Domestic Violence Refugees
Teachers who grew up here and took root
Rookie Teachers recruited from Ohio and Pennsylvania
At the same time, the area repels newbies who assume there would be:
Retail Shopping
Wholesale Shopping
Outlet Shopping
Green Grass
Paved Streets
Ways to get across the highway
Police
Water supply
Swimming Pools
Sewers
High School Electives
Higher Education
Cultural Events
Museums
Seasons
Gated Communities
Trees
As one of the oldest built, Desert Elementary School (DES) has been designated the redheaded stepsister in a ‘unified district’, and even though all twelve schools orbit around a different sun, this sweet school stands as a microcosm, a shining example, of the permanent issues bedeviling America’s Public School System.
In the firm dirt above dueling washes, the small elementary school produces long thin shadows from its rows of portable classrooms. Architecturally akin to a prison, each classroom is a stand-alone cell. One door: in or out.
Each classroom has its own ramp and railing that connects to long sidewalks. Seen from above, the sidewalks form a giant capital E, like strips of pasta dough drying in the sun. They lead from the asphalt parking lot, past the prefabricated Principal’s Office and the Now Condemned Auditorium (built on an earthquake fault), east to the blacktop game courts and plastic, safety-compliant climbing equipment.
Then it’s all dirt till the cyclone fence that catches the pages of homework the wind snatches from the hands of children rifling through their backpacks to find that plastic dinosaur. The kids gleefully toss snack bags and candy wrappers to the wind. Anything lighter than a first grader ends up stuck like Brer Rabbit to the fence.
Premise corollaries to be fleshed out:
Nobody Knows the Trouble a Teacher sees.
Nobody sees the same thing.
Nobody is as Disturbed as a Self-Righteous Noon Duty Supervisor.
LOVE LOVE LOVE the leaves with the fountain and your ART is wonderful. It enlivens me, lifts me up to the light. Sherry, I am wondering if that one pic with the picnic table/tree/leaves is that by chance in Santa Fe??