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WRITING/BLOGGING

“WHAT ELSE CAN YOU REMEMBER?”

October 15, 2019
GROWING UP, MEMOIRS, WRITING/BLOGGING
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BY: JAMES F. O’NEIL

“Rosebud…”

* * *

I remember Buttercup Yellow (my favorite paint color for walls); Joe Fontana (my boss as Visitation parish); cool concrete steps (inside the elementary school)—and silverfish.

I remember gummy white bread (probably Wonder bread), white cheese, sliced tomatoes, and mayonnaise sandwiches—and cold “pop”—for lunches.

I remember mirror-like varnished classroom floors (which I was taught how to varnish, and before the Our Lady of the Angels fire), painted woodwork (done while I was seated and as I scooched along those varnished floors), and paint-splattered white coveralls (which fit, gotten from one of my sister’s boyfriends who drove a beautiful ’57 Mercury convertible).

I remember learning how to paint; I had to learn the fineries and delicacies of “cutting in” and “loading on” with brush (1/2-inch or 3/4-inch, with 1/4-inch for window frames.  I was a master of that: window frames), or the handling of a roller and roller pan, even while on a 12-foot ladder.  Colored paint on walls; white paint on ceilings: not the reverse.  (I admit, I was not–ever–good with ceilings; so, I demurred, and let my partners handle those jobs.)

I remember “Uncle” Joe Fontana, my boss.  Weathered, bent over, shuffling along (it seemed), cigarette always lighted in his mouth, teaching us, raising his voice hardly ever unless we deserved it for silliness or goofiness, or horseplay–or for some egregious errors (in painting walls?).  What did we high school kids do to make him angry?  Not working hard enough.  Not completing enough work within a certain amount of time–sticking to a work schedule.

I remember well, more than the paint and the rollers but the scrubbing machine.   I remember becoming proficient with that Monster, difficult to tame at first, with its three different pads: one steel wool for removing old varnish and a school-year’s dirt; one heavy duty bristle brush for washing the floors clean; one soft pad for polishing waxed floors.  Yes, I became keenly adept in the use of all three attachments.

Joe Fontana was a gentle soul.  Why did he choose me to master the scrubber?

He took the mop from the bucket of soapy water, spreading a soap solution over an area of the floor.  Then he called me over, placing (gently) his hands over mine, like a kindly father.  Left hand, right hand.

Then he gripped my hands and fingers over the handle and triggers of the machine.  Off we went: left, right, straight, left, around, him laughing, me frightening.  He stopped us.  “Not easy,” he commented in his Italian-accented voice, cigarette butt still held between his lips.

FLOOR SCRUBBER

“Are you-a ready?”  He told me to scrub.  To do it.  While he watched, and smiled, and smoked.  And I learned well.  I was Mr. Scrubber, for all classroom floors, school halls–and Waxer, too.  I was good.  And less painting.

Yes, I remember those high-school summers in Chicago, working at the parish school, getting up early, making and eating those sandwiches; painting and scrubbing and waxing–all those little details, little things: memoriesofatime…

Part of this past summer’s vacation I did time painting, was on a ladder, was even remembering, not “Rosebud” but “Buttercup Yellow” –one of my favorite colors for those long-ago classroom walls.  I felt Joe Fontana’s “spirit” around me from time to time, my memory of him while I climbed a ladder or kept my brush steady, helping me not forget all he graciously taught me so many years ago.

I hear sometimes, “You’re such a good painter.”  “Thank you (Joe).”

© James F. O’Neil 2019

BUTTERCUP YELLOW

REMEMBERING IRA PROGOFF. WHO?

February 28, 2019
ACTIVITIES, AUTHORS, JOURNALING, WRITING PHILOSOPHY, WRITING/BLOGGING
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“The basic exercise is for us to list about a dozen meaningful events [from birth to our current circumstance] in the movement of our life up to the present point in time.  . . . it gives us a perspective of our life as a whole from the time of our birth to our situation at the time when we are listing our Steppingstones.  The listing of the Steppingstones of our life is the basic step in positioning ourselves between our past and our future.”  [“Steppingstones are the meaningful events that mark off the movement of a person’s life from that person’s own point of view . . . not objectively important . . . always personally important . . . perceived through the eyes and through the experience of the person who is living the life.”]  –Ira Progoff, Life-Study (Dialogue House, 1983)

* * *

Ira Progoff (1921-1998) was an American psychotherapist best known for his development of the Intensive Journal Method; his main interest was in depth psychology.  A humanist, who studied privately with Carl Jung in Switzerland, he founded Dialogue House in New York City to help promote this method.  In 1966, Progoff introduced the Intensive Journal method of personal development, the innovation for which he is most remembered.  The public use of the method increased, and the National Intensive Journal Program was formed in 1977.  It supplied materials and leaders to provide Intensive Journal workshops in the United States and other countries.  The Intensive Journal education program was expanded upon in 1983 with the publication of Life-Study.  [See Wikipedia and http://intensivejournal.org for more introduction to the Method.] 

“. . .  I was drawn further toward the conclusion that a private journal is the essential instrument for personal growth . . . I began in 1957 to use a journal as an adjunct to psychotherapy in my private practice.”

[My purpose is to have you use]  “techniques to help you become your own person and find a way of living that will validate itself to you both in terms of your inner sense of truth and the actualities of your outer experience.”

“The Steppingstones of our life are those events that come to our minds when we spontaneously reflect on the course that our life has taken from its beginning to the present moment.”

List no more than a dozen:  1.    2.    3.    4.    5.    6.    7.    8.    9.    10.    11.    12.     

“We go back into the past of our lives, not because of fascination with the past . . . not to lose ourselves in the field of memory . . . [but] in order to reconnect ourselves with the movement of our personal Time/Life, and so that we can move more adequately into our future.”

“The listing of our Steppingstones is the first step that we take in order to position ourselves in the full continuity of our lives.  Each set of Steppingstones that we draw together reflects the interior view of our life as it is perceived from the vantage point of a particular moment.  By being expressed spontaneously and concisely without self-conscious analysis, the Steppingstones list gives us a direct, inner perception of the movement of our life.”     

* * *

At a Journal Workshop: The Basic Text and Guide for Using the Intensive Journal Process (Dialogue House, 1975)

The Practice of Process Meditation: The Intensive Journal Way to Spiritual Experience (Dialogue House, 1980)

Life Study: Experiencing Creative Lives by the Intensive Journal Method (Dialogue House, 1983)

The Progoff Intensive Journal ® Program:  http://intensivejournal.org/index.php

Question_mark_(black_on_white)

 

SOME THOUGHTS ON DOING RESEARCH

February 4, 2019
ACTIVITIES, ARTISTIC VENTURES, EDUCATION AND LEARNING, WRITING PHILOSOPHY, WRITING/BLOGGING

By James F. O’Neil

“To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. . .   Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.  Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be digested. . . .  Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. . . .”  –“Of Studies,” Francis Bacon (1561-1626).

+ + +

My first research paper, as I re-call, was finding out about Scotland.  This search had to be started in sixth or seventh grade.  I discovered lakes, cities, and climate–and probably something about wool, whiskey, and politics.  I had only the encyclopedia: that’s all we had back then.  I learned the basics from that first paper.  (I have often referred to that kind of paper as “The Switzerland Paper”: about banks, lakes, and chocolates.  And that is basic.)

swiss chololate

SOME SWISS CHOCOLATE

During high school, I am sure I wrote a few research papers (“term papers”); but I recollect one in particular for an education class: I wrote about Friedrich Froebel and the founding of the kindergarten.  I may have had eight or ten sources.  Yet what I do remember more than anything else–not the long hours writing nor the time-consuming typing on my portable 1955 (manual) Underwood typewriter nor the submitting the paper, but the thrill of being in a library, a great library, doing serious research.  I delighted being in the Chicago Public Library (downtown) and also at the Newberry Library, a special place for researchers then over age sixteen. 

newberry library chicago wikipedia

NEWBERRY LIBRARY, CHICAGO 

Throughout college, the papers came and went, and on into graduate school and post graduate work: papers, papers, papers: Shakespeare, sonnets, Jesus and school administration, Arthurian romances, the G.I. Bill, teachers and in-service activities, manic depression and school administrators, chaos and adultery, public service, the aorist tense in Greek, “Poe the Philosopher,” water symbolism in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man–and more, many more.

Some papers I hated as chores; most I loved as opportunities for knowledge and writing experience.  From this, despite the grade and the time spent, I learned time-use, planning, and library skills.  More than that, I learned organizational skills and meeting deadlines.  All this was not easy; learning sometimes hurts.  (And, I am sure, there were tears of frustration–but never a late paper.)

From this, I also developed a sense of researching–and my three questions: What do I already know?  What do I want to know?  And, What do I need to know?  Where those questions came from, I do not know.  But they have always worked for me.

Of course, I had to learn documentation skills: “the old Turabian” was all we had back then.  And I learned it–and even wrote a little research handbook for students.  Now MLA, APA, and OWL far exceed anything we had–but so has the amount of knowledge increased, with electronic access to this knowledge.  How lucky I am now to see this, to use this, to be a part of global knowledge and learning.  “I just love the Internet!”

But the smell of books, walking the stacks, sitting and reading and taking notes in England at the Cambridge University Library, or at the US Library of Congress, the libraries at the University of Minnesota, and in any small-town public library does more for me than sitting at the computer, drinking coffee, doing a Google Search.  “I love the smell of a musty book in the morning!”  Nothing like doing research . . . But I found that it takes heart, organizational skills, and a sense of the past: where I came from, where I have been, what I have done.  All this enters into my questions: What am I doing this for?  What do I want out of this?  To me, that is what doing research is all about.  “What’s it to me?”

Having done professional stained-glass work, I learned the most difficult aspect of craftsmanship was not cutting the glass, not the pattern making, not the assembly–no matter how large or small the project–but choosing the right glass, the right textures, the right colors. 

glass Ready for Foil

GLASS RESTORATION PROJECT: CUT AND READY FOR COPPER FOIL, THEN SOLDER

Choosing the right glass is likened to the most difficult aspect of doing a research project: choosing the right topic.  “Choice of topic: the hardest part of all,” I say. 

I have never chosen anything dumb or stupid; I have chosen (for the most part) wisely.  Not everything came back an A, of course.  Can’t have all A’s.  But can’t have all gold medals, can’t always win the Super Bowl, can’t always be #1, and can’t always be perfect.  However, I have learned I can do my best, and have that sense of accomplishment (relief?) when I submit the project.  AHHH!  Done.  And on to the next, for there is always a next–no matter how big or small, no matter in school or on the job: “Look this up for me, will ya’?”  “You have a paper due . . .”  “I need to find . . . Can you help?”  “As a member of this parent-teacher committee, . . . ”

“Hafta’ what?”  Know facts.  Document.  Have opinions.  Present feelings.  Solve problems.  Search.  Learn.  And make a presentation: to the family, a board, a committee, a boss, a reading club, a course instructor, a hearing officer, a judge–on and on and on.  There is no easy way.  And it all begins with the basics, with “My Switzerland Paper.” 

And these are my thoughts today on doing research.

©  JAMES F. O’NEIL  2019  

PS: All of the above is rated at the 6th grade reading level: my computer figured that out; but I used to know how to do it without the computer.  I researched it . . .    

PPS: I was once told that a “good” 1500-word paper takes about 40 hours–plus typing–from choosing the topic to the last bit of punctuation.  (Getting it right takes time.)

 

 

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