Bucket List

Do you have a bucket list? I don't have one per se, just a vague wish-list of travel destinations. Austrailia, Greece, Scandinavia. I have no desire to bungee off a bridge or surf Maui.

Thinking about speech class and Mrs. Boyd the other day got me to thinking about my knot of friends from that class. The four of us, Jim, Ron, J and I would hang out together, go off campus for lunch and talk endlessly about who knows what. J was my best friend from back then. I met her in my English Composition class (ENG 206) and we got along like peanut butter and jelly. Our instructor was A. Perry Whitmore, our silly school-girl emphasis on "A" always made us giggle. Like all college students I've ever known, we were full of inside jokes and would finish each other's sentences. We also shared a love for Dixon Ticonderoga 1388 #2 pencils, the best pencils ever, and a love for horses. For PE credits we took a horseback riding class, and ended up volunteering at the farm on weekends for riding groups. Oh, what fun times.

I left Urbana after two years and transferred to VCU. She stayed and graduated from there with a degree in graphic design (I think), then woke up one day ten years later and wanted to be a dentist. She got into OSU and now she has a dental practice in Kettering, Ohio.

We've kept in touch on an off over the years, not nearly as well as intended. Anyway, since I'd been thinking about her and speech class I called her on my way to work yesterday. No answer at her office (closed on Fridays) so I tried her cell. When she answered, I told her why I called, that I was thinking about her and school. Funny thing was, she has also recently been thinking about our speech instructor as well as thinking about me. We swapped memories for a few minutes and I said we needed to see each other more often.

Then she told me her news: stage 3 breast cancer was discovered in January. It might have spread into her hips which makes it stage 4. Sheesh. My neighbor, L, is recovering fantastically from her mastectomy done last fall. I can only hope and pray J's recovery is that successful. If the cancer has gotten into her hip, she'll start on her bucket list.

I tried to stay positve during the phone call, but my eyes wouldn't stop leaking after I hung up, hoped they weren't too red when I got to the office.

SPE 201

I think Mrs. Boyd would be pleased.

Linda Boyd was the Speech and Drama instructor at Urbana College, which is now Urbana University (I'm not sure when or why the name got changed, but it did) which is in the booming metropolis of Urbana, Ohio, population 11586. I started my college life there, partly because my grandmother taught there (biology and botany), but also because I got accepted there (if you know what I mean). It's a teeny tiny liberal arts school in central Ohio, north of Dayton. When I was there, there were less than 200 resident students and I knew most of them. There are about 1500 students enrolled there now, and they even have a graduate school. Who knew.

Because the school was so small, it was easy to participate in activities like the annual drama productions. I was part of the ensemble casts of Bye Bye Birdie and South Pacific which Linda directed. She was one of those great teachers, the kind you wanted to take all of her classes and to do well for, she was vivacious, fun, spunky. I'll always remember her with bleach-blond hair in her snug jeans and white Keds. She also directed the pep band and we played at the basketball games. Of all my years in college, I guess many of my fondest college memories revolve around things in which she was involved.

In the spring of my second year at Urbana I took Speech 201 from her. It was a great class and of course I got an A. I remember one exam. It was open-book and you had of choice of questions to answer, something like answer any eight of these ten. One asked for two types of persuasive speeches and I still remember the answer. Maybe I remember because it's just one of those things you remember, or maybe it was because Linda told me after class no other student had opted to answer that one, and she was proud of me. I thought it was an easy question. To persuade someone of something, and to change their mind about something. Easy.

Linda died much too early, if you ask me. I can't even remember how long ago now, maybe 10 years. I happened to be out in Ohio visiting my grandmother one weekend, the same weekend as the funeral. I went to the funeral home for the visitation, and was so depressed to see her lying there. The make-up artist got her coloring all wrong so in addition to being dead, she also looked sick. All the life and vitality she once exuded was gone.

This post started out to be about the persuasive speech I gave last night for the Parks and Planning Commission about the therapeutic programs Kevin participates in and enjoys and what else I'd like to see them do for us, and has instead turned into a memorial of sorts. Linda, I miss you. Thanks for everything. It went well last night.