If you drive out of Angola, Indiana, towards Fremont, past the American Inn and the billboards advertising fireworks and a squat, white cinderblock building called The Butt Hut, you’ll find (if you know what you’re looking for) a turn-off that leads to a trailhead.
It’s a maybe 2-mile loop through the woods that brushes up against Pokagon State Park.
A few hundred yards in, someone has constructed an odd little hut out of branches. The entrance is just high enough for children pretending to be fairies or gnomes to go giggling in and out. And just high enough for a woman who’s foolishly taken two dogs for a walk in a thunderstorm to fold herself into and crouch.
I’m not sure how long we sheltered there, Pete, Joe, and I, but I remember the roar of the rain and also how the cross-hatched tree limbs sent the drops caroming at odd angles into my eyes and ears.
This experience of three years ago was what leapt to mind this morning when I began to think about how to describe grading this week. It was very much like being trapped in a porous, four-foot high hut in the rain.
Monday, I graded. And Tuesday, I graded. And Wednesday, I graded. And still the essays came raining down.
Other things happened as well. There was lots of exercise. Pent-up grading frustration sent me to our weird TreadClimber exercise machine for an hour at lunch on Monday, and then down to Jake’s gym when the work day ended, and then out for a bike ride when I came home. That morning, I’d read that some federal health entity recommends150 minutes of exercise per week. I looked down at my Apple Watch to see that I’d already exercised 167 minutes that day.
Tuesday, we went out to dinner with friends, and instead of exercising I ate fried fish and pecan pie with ice cream.
Wednesday, it was back to the gym for some insane Jake invention that involved, all told, two miles of running, and 75 each of back squats, military presses, hang cleans, and knee-tucks.
I came home around 6:30, sweaty and sore, and just for kicks, did a little grading.
Then, this morning, something happened. I opened one eye, and for the first time in living memory, an incorrect parenthetical citation did not come flying at it sideways. I opened the other. Slowly, I crept towards the cramped little doorway of my grading hovel. I stepped outside and was almost blinded by it — SKY! Clear, blue, grading-free sky!
I mean, of course, that’s all metaphorical. In reality, the greater Toledo area was bracing for storms that have rolled through all day. But here in Sarah-land, the laundry is finally folded. The dishes are in the dishwasher, and the sun is shining.
And if you dare mention that all those essays are coming back to me Saturday night for a second round of grading, you are not, and have never been my friend.
If you drive out of Angola, Indiana, towards Fremont, past the American Inn and the billboards advertising fireworks and a squat, white cinderblock building called The Butt Hut, you’ll find (if you know what you’re looking for) a turn-off that leads to a trailhead.
It’s a maybe 2-mile loop through the woods that brushes up against Pokagon State Park.
A few hundred yards in, someone has constructed an odd little hut out of branches. The entrance is just high enough for children pretending to be fairies or gnomes to go giggling in and out. And just high enough for a woman who’s foolishly taken two dogs for a walk in a thunderstorm to fold herself into and crouch.
I’m not sure how long we sheltered there, Pete, Joe, and I, but I remember the roar of the rain and also how the cross-hatched tree limbs sent the drops caroming at odd angles into my eyes and ears.
This experience of three years ago was what leapt to mind this morning when I began to think about how to describe grading this week. It was very much like being trapped in a porous, four-foot high hut in the rain.
Monday, I graded. And Tuesday, I graded. And Wednesday, I graded. And still the essays came raining down.
Other things happened as well. There was lots of exercise. Pent-up grading frustration sent me to our weird TreadClimber exercise machine for an hour at lunch on Monday, and then down to Jake’s gym when the work day ended, and then out for a bike ride when I came home. That morning, I’d read that some federal health entity recommends150 minutes of exercise per week. I looked down at my Apple Watch to see that I’d already exercised 167 minutes that day.
Tuesday, we went out to dinner with friends, and instead of exercising I ate fried fish and pecan pie with ice cream.
Wednesday, it was back to the gym for some insane Jake invention that involved, all told, two miles of running, and 75 each of back squats, military presses, hang cleans, and knee-tucks.
I came home around 6:30, sweaty and sore, and just for kicks, did a little grading.
Then, this morning, something happened. I opened one eye, and for the first time in living memory, an incorrect parenthetical citation did not come flying at it sideways. I opened the other. Slowly, I crept towards the cramped little doorway of my grading hovel. I stepped outside and was almost blinded by it — SKY! Clear, blue, grading-free sky!
I mean, of course, that’s all metaphorical. In reality, the greater Toledo area was bracing for storms that have rolled through all day. But here in Sarah-land, the laundry is finally folded. The dishes are in the dishwasher, and the sun is shining.
And if you dare mention that all those essays are coming back to me Saturday night for a second round of grading, you are not, and have never been my friend.
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