The Talon Times

Thanks to the time change, my drive to Arkansas in the evenings has changed considerably.

I am now headed due west right during the fall of the sun so I am essentially driving directly into a beam of shrill orange light. I am driving into a nuclear bug zapper for forty-five miles without rest. Straight into the center of a high-beam headlight, just face-first into a flame. Perfect for a sensitive migraineur like myself. And if you think sunglasses will help – well then send me some. I mean – you are wrong. Nothing helps because it is the sun and as we all agree - the sun is very bright. Perhaps it is the brightest object in this great sky we all share.

However, there is a sinister upside to the change in light and timing. Now that I arrive in the farmland right at sunset, it is feeding time in the fields. So I get to see at least ten times the hawks I usually do. (If you haven’t developed an appreciation for taloned animals I suggest you start with a horned owl or something before you move onto a hawk.) It is mass mouse murder for a good seven miles off the highway on my way to class so I am very relaxed by the time I have to lecture.

Not counting Thanksgiving week, I only have two more weeks left in this semester. It has not been easy teaching two classes while saving children during the day (day job). Last week I graded seventy-five essays and I don’t even believe in grades! Some students (the old fashioned and the obsessive compulsive) need grades so I can’t just walk in there and say “I don’t believe in grades, you will notice at the top of your paper is a swatch of color and a hand-written temperature, the color represents the general mood emitting from your work and the temperature is my actually body temperature while reading your essay.”

That wouldn’t work right now because, to be fair, I would have to calibrate the thermometer I use for “grading” at the very beginning of the semester. So I have to stick with regular grades through to the end. Things will be much different next semester I tell you! I will be arriving in the dark of the early winter night, the hawks will be sleeping, I will be using more classic essays for course material, and I will use my body temperature to determine grades. Like the light, we all change.