Opportunity and optimism have started to sprout. One nice thing about living in a four-seasons county is that the attitude transcends the mud and muck of snowmelt. The Star City and its neighborhoods see those first sprouts poke through.
Green waves come through the gray branches of winter. Traveling around the world opens one’s eyes to options not considered before. In Korea, the principal guide is to grow enough food to feed its own citizens. Part of the secret to their success has been getting away from a single-crop culture.
Here, we have the soil. Our gardeners demonstrate year after year that a wide variety of vegetables and fruits can grow in a supposed short season.
Obstinacy seems inherent in a generation willing to forgo improvements, and yet some of the biggest gamblers are the farmers. As these light green leaves fill out the horizon; as new shoots come out for their moments in the sun and as the days turn warmer, hopefully obstinacy is left behind and optimism blooms again.
Spurred by the last column, following through on some ideas from the pun commentary, thoughts of Janus words come to mind. Janus words are ones that have multiple meanings that may be the opposite of what one thinks a word means.
Some of this is a tongue-in-cheek critique of all those annoying grammar tests that came at the end of the high school year. Grammar, sad to say, is not language. It is an exercise designed to frustrate the mind and cause high school students to reconsider a writing career.
To apprehend a person or thing is to capture it. Police will apprehend a suspect. But that leads into a problem. The subject of the effort may be fearful of apprehension. With a bit of witticism, this gives rise to this proposed academic paper title, “Apprehension Issues on Language Acquisition, Theatre to Apprehend a Second Language.” In this proposed paper is an effort to cleave the current method of working with plays, namely reading them, and instead use a more realistic approach of doing the play to cleave onto a new way of learning. It’s like fixing the proverbial Ford truck: read a book about it or start taking a wrench to it.
Janus words help to bring some amusement to begin the day. If done correctly, one makes fast work of learning something new. Done poorly and one will fast for a time waiting for new ideas.
Take time to enjoy the blooms of Mother’s Day, as mothers help us all to bloom.
Orpheus Allison is a photojournalist living in The County who graduated from UMPI and earned a master of liberal arts degree from the University of North Carolina. He began his journalism career at WAGM television, later working in many different areas of the US. After 20 years of television he changed careers and taught in China and Korea.
