I sometimes imagine that my stomach and tastebuds have minds of their own. They seem to remain quiet at a very low-key level through the oatmeal, fresh fruit, fish, and vegetables that I consume on a regular basis. However, as careful as I am (or try to be) about consuming a healthy diet, there are those moments of wild abandon when I crave something more unusual and dangerous than an apple or glass of skim milk.
For my birthday, a friend brought a beautiful, home-made carrot cake with a rich icing made with heavy cream. The chopped walnuts, carrots, and bits of orange rind led to the self-deluding conclusion that my consuming a slice would be astonishingly healthy (insert laugh here) and wondrously good for my physical and mental health.
I should have remembered the powerful but impatient attitudes of the picky and temperamental triumvirate of my spleen, liver, and gall bladder. I can only imagine that the splash landing of that first bite would cause the three to say in unison, “What the hell was THAT?”
To appease them, I immediately swallowed a One-A-Day multiple Vitamin tablet, but it was too late. The three maniacs continued to rumble and make a big, grumbly fuss until it was time for bed, and I knocked them all out for the night with a big glass of French Champagne. I knew then by the gentle sound of their snoring down there that further appeasement would arrive the next morning with a big, healthy bowl of oatmeal to leave them singing with joy until the cheesecake dessert I had plotted to have after dinner, when another internal drama would occur. JB
About John
About John
John Bolinger was born and raised in Northwest Indiana, where he attended Ball State University and Purdue University, receiving his BS and MA from those schools. Then he taught English and French for thirty-five years at Morton High School in Hammond, Indiana before moving to Colorado, where he resided for ten years before moving to Florida. Besides COME SEPTEMBER, Journey of a High School Teacher, John's other books are ALL MY LAZY RIVERS, an Indiana Childhood, and COME ON, FLUFFY, THIS AIN'T NO BALLET, a Novel on Coming of Age, all available on Amazon.com as paperbacks and Kindle books. Alternately funny and touching, COME SEPTEMBER, conveys the story of every high school teacher’s struggle to enlighten both himself and his pupils, encountering along the way, battles with colleagues, administrators, and parents through a parade of characters that include a freshman boy for whom the faculty code name is “Spawn of Satan,” to a senior girl whose water breaks during a pop-quiz over THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Through social change and the relentless march of technology, the human element remains constant in the book’s personal, entertaining, and sympathetic portraits of faculty, students, parents, and others. The audience for this book will certainly include school teachers everywhere, teenagers, parents of teens, as well as anyone who appreciates that blend of humor and pathos with which the world of public education is drenched. The drive of the story is the narrator's struggle to become the best teacher he can be. The book is filled with advice for young teachers based upon experience of the writer, advice that will never be found in college methods classes.
Another of John's recent books is Mum's the Word: Secrets of a Family. It is the story of his alcoholic father and the family's efforts to deal with or hide the fact. Though a serious treatment of the horrors of alcoholism, the book also entertains in its descriptions of the father during his best times and the humor of the family's attempts to create a façade for the outside world. All John's books are available as paperbacks and Kindle readers on Amazon, and also as paperbacks at Barnes & Noble. John's sixth book is, Growing Old in America: Notes from a Codger was released on June 15, 2014. John’s most recent book is a novel titled Resisting Gravity, A Ghost Story, published the summer of 2018
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