The Professor's Bayonet

www.48bconsulting.com In the hustle and bustle of the current day, it is easy to forget that many in the not-too-distant past resorted to solitude and silence to work through their struggles.  It was a monastic approach to facing one’s troubles, and to those living today who cannot imagine a time without cellphones and instant access, that approach is unimaginable.  We are in the midst of a social...

My grandfather – my dad’s dad – had many titles.  He was a physician in a small Kentucky town, so everywhere we went, he was greeted with a hearty “Hello, there, Dr. Dew!”  He liked to joke that he had delivered about half of them.  He was also a Catholic deacon, so if it wasn’t Dr. Dew, it was Deacon Dew.  The heartiness would be the same.  He was also an Army officer and a pilot, an elected offi...

I did not believe it when I learned that Chuck, the man who would become my stepdad, had never served in the military.  All the men in my life since then had served -- grampa, uncles, my own father, now deceased – and the notion that a man could grow to maturity without ever having been in uniform confounded me, to say the least.  I did not know it was possible.  I had no idea that it was even an...

The technical term is “cultural artifact.”  A cultural artifact is some item that helps to tell the story about the person who owned it, used it, relied on it, even.  It might be a tool or a garment – a keepsake or a piece of jewelry.  In point of fact, it could be anything so long as it gives context to the particular place and time a person or people group existed.  We are surrounded by cultural...

The first of the month was practically a holiday.  In addition to government help, my mom would receive checks from the Navy and the Coast Guard to help provide for her children. Dad had served in both branches, and both branches honored their commitment to care for the children of the fallen.  The exact amount was never on my radar.  All I knew and all my siblings knew was that we could go to the...

https://48bconsulting.com/ https://www.colorfulcrowpublishing.com/barbara-tucker Barbara G. Tucker is proof that exquisite storytelling can and does happen far from the massive New York City publishing houses with their army of gatekeepers and yes-men and women whose focus is less on craft and more on fickle trends in the market.  Her brilliantly-written novel,  Lying In , which was published by C...

God is referenced as a “he” and “him” in the Bible, so goes the argument, because men, in specific, need a male ideal to look up to.  This in no way is meant to put men above women; on the contrary, this underscores men’s unique weakness.  Without a male ideal – without that distinctly male celestial guide – men, left to themselves, would be indescribably brutal, unfathomably destructive.  Notably...

https://48bconsulting.com/ INVITING: Creators ... writers, poets, painters, builders, etc. SEEKING: Clients looking for a unique way to improve human performance 48Bconsulting@gmail.com “Beads on a String” by Harriet Bowers recounts the raising of children and the relentless passing of time – how a house full of the happy noise of children can so abruptly become quiet, still, and lonely.  Bowers l...

Napolean Bonaparte is famous for saying that a soldier would do anything for him if awarded a pretty piece of ribbon to decorate his uniform.  He was referring, of course, to medals and accommodations for valor, but I have found this to be true in other, less dangerous contexts.  One of the many rungs I clung to on my way toward manhood was made of cloth, and I can still remember the pride I took...

I have come to learn that each of us is given raw material to make of it what we will.  Typically, that raw material aligns with our vocation, our job.  I am a university professor, which means that my raw material is paper.  I use it to collect my thoughts, brainstorm, teach, and communicate, and my students, in turn, give me paper with their work on it for me to evaluate and assign a grade.  I a...

Being a parent oftentimes means having only two hands for a four-hand problem.  That is just the nature of the job.  A parent opens their eyes and is met with a barrage of chores and responsibilities, mostly centered on preserving a stable home environment for their children.  Because this series focuses on fathers, however, allow me to be culturally “trad” (or traditional as the more hip call it)...

As I write this, though it is nine months out, I am bracing myself for when we drop my oldest daughter off at college for her freshman year.  I know I will be sad.  Terribly so.  For eighteen years, I have been on a special mission and I am in a tailspin for how that dynamic will change.  Practically daily, I take my dog, Arrow, to Simpsonwood Park, a sprawling forested land that has dirt trails a...

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On those fortunate Fridays, we kids were given a mission by our mother.  We were to locate Steve, the mailman, and retrieve the check.  He usually delivered our mail after 4 pm when the banks would be closed, and we desperately needed groceries for the weekend.  If we could intercept Steve and get the government check, we would eat well.  If not, it might be hotdogs or meatless pasta again or a tr...

The parade would begin at the high school and move through town – past the barbershop, the doctor’s office, a couple of banks, and the bars – then pause on the bridge over the Brokenstraw Creek.  A prayer was said, a wreath was dropped over the bridge into the water, and three shots were fired before the parade would resume, making its way up to the cemetery where there would be a speech, another...

I am grateful that I belong to a generation that got to sit and listen to stories about World War II from the mouths of those who lived it.  Grampa, my mother’s father, had already been in the army when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but my great uncles had likely joined up when another uncle, Uncle Sam, issued the call.  I remember sitting at a table with old men who called each other boys. ...

Home ownership had always been the plan, but it was an experience I had when we were living in a little apartment that really lit the fuse.  Our three girls were little.  The youngest had just come along.  It was the beginning of the Disney princess fad, and those who know what I am talking about know exactly what that meant: dresses and crowns, DVDs and catchy songs the kids would belt out at ran...

I have my Uncle Barry to thank for introducing my father to my mother.  He was a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and one day, after making hamburgers for dinner, he decided to toss the grease outside but forgot about the screen door in the process.  The result?  He got splattered with boiling grease and had to go to the infirmary where he was attended to by a Navy corpsman, my da...

In The Professor’s Bayonet, I attempted to cut through what I perceived to be a lot of nonsense in order to offer something thoughtful to chew on.  The episodes were not long on purpose. Having arrived at episode 100, however, I am met with the cold reality that, despite my best efforts, I have been unsuccessful at growing my audience.  I have a very dedicated bunch, and to them, I am very, very g...

If you have ever sat in a literature class, you have likely heard of this term: iambic pentameter.  It is used to describe the da-dum, da-dum, da-dum rhythm often found in poetry.  One syllable is unstressed but the syllable immediately after is stressed: Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.  Often likened to a human heartbeat, iambic pentameter appeals to even novice students of literature because the meter i...

Shel Silverstein’s vastly popular children’s book, The Giving Tree , has been a fixture in most nurseries since its publication in 1964.  Both the story and the illustrations are simple. It begins with a tree who loves a little boy who would gather her leaves, climb up her trunk, and swing from her branches.  The boy was imaginative and joyful, and, Silverstein writes, “when he was tired he would...

Allen Ginsberg begins his 1956 poem “Howl” with the following words: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, / dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, / angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, / who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and...

American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, first preached his sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1741.  This was the catalyst for the first Great Awakening, that time in American history when hordes of individuals flocked back to the faith, sobered up by what lawless living might lead to – in a word, damnation.  Before this sermon, the faithful were...

Published in 1968, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” begins with an infestation of crabs on a property inhabited by Pelayo and Elisenda, a couple of humble means, living on a Columbian shore.  The crabs begin to rot, and believing this rot is making his and Elisenda’s baby sick, Pelayo is tasked with disposing them in the sea; however, upon his return, he s...

William Shakespeare’s 1623 tragedy, Antony and Cleopatra , is renowned for its depiction of a complex and fully developed female character in the person of one of its title figures.  Cleopatra, recalling the inexperience of her youth, exclaims, “My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood, to say as I said then.”  She had been, in other words, a novice at all things pertaining to li...