QUIDDITY, 82
It Became More than That, My Huck Finn, pt. 2, W!cked Schoo!marms
It Became More than That
From the time she was 15 until her passing in 2018, writing was an ever-present influencer in Leah Napolin’s life. Writing provided her with the platform to observe and comment on the events and people that were consequential in her world, from the minute to the universal, from YENTL to THE DOGS OF PRYPIAT. This new volume of QUIDDITY provides you with the opportunity to become familiar with some of her insights. **********
MY HUCK FINN, pt. 2
At age twenty-three, after a year spent teaching in Venezuela while, elsewhere, Fidel Castro takes Havana, I get married. My husband and I honeymoon in Paris, a time when Algerians are throwing bombs on the Champs-Élysées. We return to America to live in a furnished flat in a brownstone on the upper west side of Manhattan, then in an apartment overlooking the Hudson. It’s there that I give birth to our first daughter, and two years later to our second. I hug their velvety heads, kiss their dewy cheeks.
Three-Mile Island happens. The Cuban missile crisis happens. I march down Fifth Avenue with thousands of others in an anti-nuke rally. Krushchev pounds his shoe on the table. Kennedy is shot. We move to Columbus where my husband teaches art at Ohio State. The Vietnam War rolls off the front page of newspapers and onto campuses across the country, including ours. Not far away, Kent State students have a tragic encounter with the National Guard. Anti-draft protests, anti-war rallies and demonstrations. The Civil Rights movement gathers momentum and there are more rallies, more demonstrations. Theophilus “Bull” Connor turns fire hoses on marchers in Birmingham. The Women’s movement arrives. The times are full of raised voices, excitement, peril, challenge, change.
Mikey volunteers to fight in Vietnam. One missing finger can’t stop him from serving. One day, in the Columbus house I share with my artist husband and daughters, the doorbell rings. I open the door and there on the front porch, broad-shouldered and a head taller than I am, stubbly cheek shaved smooth, impossibly handsome in his olive green Marine uniform and all grown up, stands Mikey. Next to him is his lovely sweetheart to whom he has just become engaged.
“Do you remember me?” he asks, tremulously. “Huck Finn?”
“Mikey!” I cry.
These two beautiful young people sit on my couch. Mikey’s fiancé gazes at him adoringly. My eyes are brimming with tenderness. “These are my girls,” I say, introducing him to my children who are dazzled by his presence and the ribbons for valor that decorate his chest. I don’t remember what, if anything in particular, we talk about—surely nothing intimate, nothing deep. The years have passed filled with an abundance of worldly experience but no shared personal memories except for one shining one. The conversation between us is awkward with pauses, smiles, long looks. Then they leave.
Back on the east coast I become a writer of plays, one of which appears on Broadway. The artist and I separate, then divorce. Mikey takes off his uniform and goes back upstate where he works at odd jobs, becomes a carpenter. His wife becomes a nurse. I also work at odd jobs, struggling to send my girls through school. Continued success as a writer eludes me but I keep on doing it. Time passes, during which I rarely think about him since only the sketchiest of news ever comes my way, or nothing at all. My parents die. The artist dies. Grandchildren with velvety heads and dewy cheeks somersault into life. I grow old, get cancer and improbably survive, feel damaged but hopeful. Marry again, to my long-time companion.
Mikey and I have a mutual acquaintance—someone he grew up with in that small town in the foothills of the Allegheny mountains. Her name is Jay, and it was her brother Charles who played Jim the slave, one of the young actors who giggled and couldn’t keep a straight face. Jay has kept in touch with Charles’ friends from those days, including Mikey and his wife, who are now divorced. Of all the fates, some kind, some cruel, that await us, what determined theirs, I wonder? Jay tells me that one day she and Mikey are reminiscing about Huck Finn, telling stories in which I’m remembered as an inspirational figure who guided them, the children of the town, in their first magical taste of life behind the footlights. And Mikey, graybeard now but as he will always be in my heart, age ten, confesses to Jay, “You know, I was so in love with her!” &
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W!cked Schoo!marms takes ownership of this outdated opprobrium and turns it into a lens that focuses on women who are current or former teachers, instructors, professors -- Women with extraordinary talents that they have employed to teach skills, art, ethics, science, math, history, problem solving. Creative, talented women who have also encouraged and nourished the development of curiosity, empathy, creativity, commitment.
Denise Ryder
Denise Ryder, high school librarian since 1989, retired in 2021 and received plenty of cards and well wishes - “May your retirement be filled with joy, laughter, and endless possibilities!” and “May your next chapter be filled with exciting new adventures!” One card, however, stood out from the rest: “Congratulations on your new job.” Puzzled, she opened the card and saw that it was from her best friend, the founder and executive director of HorseAbility Center for Equine Facilitated Programs. This card led to Denise following a new path.
“I had been involved with HorseAbility in one capacity or another over the years, but my time was always limited due to the responsibilities of a school librarian, doing the high school yearbook, etc. I am now free to give my time and talents to this amazing organization whose purpose is to improve the lives of individuals with special needs through interactions with our wonderful, amazing horses. And so began my next chapter, with my new “job” at HorseAbility.
Those of you who know me would not be surprised to hear that I immediately took on HorseAbility’s website and social media. I created a yearbook celebrating HorseAbility’s 30th Anniversary, and I’m the official photographer! I volunteer with school programs, summer camp, in the ring with lessons, the Hampton Classic Horse Show, but the absolute highlight of my work at HorseAbility comes from being the team leader of the Miniature Horse Therapy Program!
HorseAbility provides adaptive riding as well as hippotherapy which refers to how OT, PT, and speech-language pathology professionals use the purposeful manipulation of the horse’s movement as a therapy tool. For individuals with impaired mobility, horseback riding gently and rhythmically moves their body in a manner similar to a walking gait. Riders experience increased balance, muscle control, and strength. To be present when a young rider, who arrived at her lesson supported by two canes, takes steps while holding her mom’s hand after she rode, or to witness a girl, who never moves her arms, reach up to touch a pony’s nose? It is unbelievable. Breakthroughs like that happen every day at HorseAbility.
Aiden and Pearl travel in style in our “Whinny Van,” which is a converted Dodge minivan.
Our minis bring smiles to the faces of everyone they meet! We help children and adults with special needs as well as seniors improve their physical, emotional, and social well being. With our mobile therapeutic services we are able to visit hospitals such as Stony Brook and Cohen’s Childrens’ Hospital, nursing homes, the Long Island Alzheimer's & Dementia Center, the AHRC, schools, libraries, and rehabilitation centers, and more!
Winston Churchill said, “You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give.” I had 31 amazing years as a librarian. I made my living, and now I make my life as a volunteer, and I absolutely love it! &