Pledge drive began last Monday morning, and even in a slow news week pledge is busy. But in a week like this, with at least three major news stories, and one that knocked nearly all others from the headlines, handling the coverage proved challenging, and running a pledge drive become doubly so. Obviously, news takes priority over pledge, so we suspended pledge Monday evening and Tuesday morning. And later in the week, during memorial services for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, and during press conferences, we suspended pledge. Then this morning, when Boston was in a state of lockdown, and NPR (and all TV stations) went wall-to-wall with coverage of the manhunt, we suspended the campaign again.

My week has been a steady stream of All Things Considered run-downs, squawk-channel alerts, and lightning-fast conferences with my work colleagues about how to approach all this. Add in pitching on-air and I am very tired.

When I left work this evening I didn’t think much would happen tonight. By six o’clock it looked liked the lone surviving bombing suspect had evaded capture, and slipped past the dragnet. Miriam and I decided to have a casual dinner at Sandy’s Place, and to our surprise, the TV coverage indicated something was happening. All eyes in the restaurant were glued to the TV. I hadn’t experienced anything like it since the Bronco chase in 1994.

And now one story is over – or at least partly over. There are atill the other stories – still a dozen dead in Texas following an explosion earlier in the week. And who knows what else may happen this weekend? It reminds me of the ancient Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times.

And yet, I feel a deep sense of peace and comfort. This, too, I am learning, is my grandmother’s gift. Her unshakable faith and devotion were matched by her grace and dignity, and in this I find tranquility.

I will never stop missing her. I know that I will, ages hence, think back to the perfect summer days of my childhood, sitting beside her on the porch swing my grandfather built, listening to stories about people and places long gone. I will feel her hand pressed in mine on the long walks we would take to the lake or the park, waving at neighbors whose faces I have already forgotten, but whose names I never will. I will hear her voice, reading the stories that will remain etched in my mind. And I will hear her singing. Always singing. And when I do this it will be because I learned it from her – because memory was such an important part of our relationship. But I trust that when I do think back, it will always be with a smile.

Below are remarks I made at the memorial service for my grandmother on Friday, April 12, 2013 in St. Petersburg.

Among the countless joys my grandmother shared with me throughout my life, there is one I consider quite special: poetry. My grandmother introduced me to poetry, and I can recall how, at a very young age, she would read me poems she loved. I would like to share one of those with you. It is by James Leigh Hunt.

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said
“What writest thou?”—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered “The names of those who love the Lord.”
“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.

My grandmother gave me many books over the years. In one, a book of Civil War poems, she wrote, “To Dana on your graduation, with every good wish for the rest of your life.” It feels now like the rest of my life began last Sunday, and that it cannot possibly be as happy without her in it.

And then I came upon another inscription in another book – a history of World War II, and the people who, like her, lived it. She wrote:

I truly love the life with which I have been blessed. I have always felt that I was born at exactly the perfect moment in history, and, of course, your grandpa shared that good fortune. The War interrupted our youth, and we grew up separated by a continent and an ocean. The stories in this book belong to other people, but we lived our story – a sailor and girl who waited, and you know the rest.

I do know the rest. We here are the rest. My uncle Tom is the rest. My cousin Aimee is the rest. Little Henry is the rest.

I have a small photograph – one that is famous in the family. It shows Grandma and Grandpa hugging one another in 1945, young and beautiful. They look profoundly happy. So if today I mourn the loss of one so dear to me as my grandmother, just as I still lament the loss of my grandfather twenty-three years ago, I need only look at this photograph to see a sacred reunion decades in the making.

And if we all can be like Abou Ben Adhem—if we can be like Alice Hill—and love each other, and love the Lord, we will meet again.

I remember seeing signs along U.S. 301 as a child marking the route Ponce de Leon is believed to have traveled in 1513, and if I am not mistaken, there is still one on 441 near Alachua. I was always intrigued, but knew very little about any Florida history until college.

It was then that I took an early Florida history class with Jack Davis, and a modern Florida history class with Steve Noll. Then, in grad school, the first book assigned in my first class was called A Land So Strange: the Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca. It wasn’t about Ponce de Leon, but it was thrilling nonetheless. Indeed, it was one book I actually enjoyed reading among many other very dull books I read for grad school. It should be a major motion picture. Long story short: Florida was a disaster for the Spanish, the English, and everyone else who tried to make a go of it. That people lived here for thousands of years is astonishing. I don’t want to give away what happened to Cabeza de Vaca and his men; you should read about it.

Meanwhile, if you want to learn about what Florida was like before the Spanish, there is an excellent exhibit at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

I studied eighteenth century English literature in college, and stuck to that as best I could, straying a century in either direction only occasionally. But as part of my program I had to take one semester of American literature, about which I knew almost nothing. I recall being nervous about it. “Early U.S. Novels” was the title of the course, and we covered works written up to around 1820. None of the titles we studied are famous today, and some never were famous.

The teacher of this course was a youngish fellow with a beard who always wore sweaters. His was the only college English course I took that didn’t require a long term paper or two. Instead, we had a traditional mid-term and final exam. While this might seem less intimidating, his exam was among the hardest I’d ever seen. If I recall correctly, it worked something like this:

We had to choose two of three or four possible questions to answer. In each answer we were required to compare several of the works we had read that semester. But we had to choose wisely, because the titles we compared in one question could not be brought up again in the second question.

I remember spending forty-five minutes just figuring out which novels to compare for each question, formulating an argument, before I set pen to paper. So it was hardly surprising when I ran out of time. I recall being the last person to leave the classroom, apologizing in advance for what I was sure was an awful exam response.

When that semester ended, I only occasionally ran into this professor around Turlington Hall. He’d always tell me he enjoyed hearing me on the radio. Then, once I was in grad school, I lost almost all contact with anyone in the English Department.

So it was a tremendous surprise when, last year sometime, I arrived late to a house warming party for a friend, and upon walking through the door I was greeted by my former professor. I was grateful that at that instant I did not experience one of my patented I-don’t-remember-you-or-where-I-know-you-from moments. I did remember him. He was with his wife, who was acquainted with my friend who was throwing the housewarming party. They made a charming couple, and we all had a nice time chatting over dinner.

Barely any time passed before I saw my former professor again – this time at a downtown festival. And later still, I saw him and his wife at a craft show, where she had a booth selling homemade soap. Finally, a month or so ago, Miriam and I were invited to dinner and a movie with our housewarming friend. We met up at Blue Highway Pizza in Micanopy. Once again, my former professor and his wife were there. It was cold outside, and we waited forever to get a seat, which was at an outside table. Then it took hilariously long for our food to arrive. But it was fine, because I had a chance to chat with my teacher about a number of things I had been curious about for some time.

I asked what he made of what was happening to the English Department at UF. From what I could see, the number of professors who taught traditional literature—poetry and prose from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century—was in decline. (Indeed, my main guy, who has since retired, once told me that when he arrived at UF in the early 1970s, he was one of several professors who taught eighteenth century English literature, and colleges were flying in recent Ph.D. grads to interview for jobs in English departments. Since his departure, I understand that no one teaches courses on Samuel Johnson, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, or the early novelists like Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Fanny Burney, or Samuel Richardson. God knows who teaches advanced exposition.) My teacher-turned-friend expressed grave concerns about the future of reading itself. Most students, he lamented, simply do not read books any more. How English departments at colleges and universities adapt when students’ interests no longer include literature remains to be seen. My prediction is that the English major will cease to be associated with the study of literature at most universities, and move more toward the study of film, blogs and websites, and graphic novels and comics. The major will be renamed something like “Media Studies”. A select few schools will continue to have a strong focus on literature, and the dwindling ranks of students interested in novels, poetry, and plays (as literature rather than theater) will seek out those schools. But who knows. English departments like the one at UF may limp along for another generation, only offering the occasional literature course taught by a grad student.

But it wasn’t just school talk with my former professor: we also talked a lot about classical music. He seemed very interested in my thoughts about the recording industry, and asked my opinion on collecting recordings.

After we finished our dinner at Blue Highway, our plan was to head out to a star-gazing event hosted by the local astronomy club, then catch a movie at the Ocala Drive-in. But by the time we paid our check, the movie in Ocala was already well underway, so we scratched that off the list. The question was whether we’d still have time to make it to star-gazing. I was doubtful, but my professor’s wife was hopeful, and so we took off down County Road 234 until we reached a farm on the far eastern edge of Paines Prairie. It was extremely dark, and the number of stars visible so exceeded what one sees in a city, that I would have been happy even without the telescopes. But there were telescopes, and we took turns looking at Jupiter, the Pleiades, and this and that. I told my former professor about going star gazing with my father as a boy. It was such an affecting experience for me that even today, decades later, I still think about it any time I find myself looking up at a truly dark sky.

And as we walked back to the car and said goodnight, I knew that was the end of it. My former professor had already moved to New Orleans to begin teaching at a university there.

It was fun while it lasted.

How does life hate me? Let me count the ways.

In January, after months of riding Miriam’s vintage bicycle to and from work each day, I was eager to get back on my own bike. Miriam’s bike is a delight – a 1968 English-made three-speed. But my American-made Cannondale is better suited for me and my seven-mile daily commute: it’s light as a feather, has many useful gears, and I can get to work on it in about two-thirds the time it would take on the Dunnelt. I only stopped riding the Cannondale because the tires were in desperate need of replacing, and so were the pedals. I kept putting it off because I knew I’d have to spend over a hundred dollars to take care of it. Then, one morning on campus a spoke suddenly snapped, instantly flattening my tire, and I could put it off no more. Well, I could. I could ride Miriam’s bike, which she had only just purchased from her friend Kat who moved away to Providence. So I put off fixing up my Cannondale for six months.

Then, last month, I decided it was finally time, and I went on down to Bikes and More on Sixth Street and purchased two new tires, two tubes, and a spoke. I even bought a snazzy new U-lock to dissuade would-be brigands. I cleaned the bike up nice, installed the tubes and tires, replaced the broken spoke, and put everything back together. I was very excited to get going again. Nope. The wheel was severely untrue. So I had to wait until I could take it to Bikes and More to get straightened. I had spent over a hundred dollars and was not able to ride my bicycle. I am riding it now, but it took a while.

Elsewhere, Miriam and I had a dream. A dream in which we had two televisions. Like royalty. This extra TV would go in the bedroom, and we could watch it from the comfort of our bed instead of falling asleep on the couch. Like royalty. While we were browsing stores for televisions, we came upon one that could connect wirelessly to the internet. It even has a Netflix button right on the remote. We brought it home, so excited to watch TV in the bedroom (like royalty). But I discovered that our wireless router didn’t emit a signal strong enough to reach the back bedroom. So I went and bought a new wireless router—which does give a strong, consistent signal to our computers—but the wireless receiver that plugs into a USB jack on the side of the TV is evidently not good, and we still cannot watch Netflix in the bedroom.

Elsewhere, after seven years of living with folded paper shades, we decided it was time to upgrade to deluxe, faux-wood blinds. Some of our windows required custom-cut sizes, and we bought those at Home Depot. Other windows, however, had standard sizes, and we purchased those blinds much cheaper at Walmart. They look almost identical, so it’s not a big deal that there are two different designs. It took me a couple weeks to install the blinds in all the windows because I did one at a time before work. And installing blinds inside window frames that are not wood is a frustrating experience. The old plaster in this house is crumbly, and behind that in some windows is not wood, but brick. So getting screws to hold brackets in was a tedious and time-comsuming task. The last window I worked on was in the dining room, and all proceeded according to plan until I put the blinds up and went to adjust them. Then I found that they were broken. So, all that work and I don’t have functional blinds.

And last but not least, I have had frustrating experiences ordering CDs. (I know, first-world problems.) Early last month I ordered a newly-reissued deluxe edition of Janowski’s 1980s recording of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (more on this soon). A week or so after placing my order, Amazon sent me an alert telling me that my order would be delayed for an undetermined amount of time; they had no stock. After about three weeks I got an email telling me my item would ship soon, then I waited some more until a shipping date was posted. The evening the package arrived I was very excited. I opened the box to show Miriam, but to my dismay, the set they sent me had been damaged – clearly dropped or crushed at some point. It is easy to return items to Amazon, and I wasn’t worried about getting cheated, but I Amazon informed me that this recording would not be released for another week. What? It turns out that the set they sent me was part of a very limited supply they received from the label before the February 12th issue date.

Elsewhere, on eBay I ordered a copy of Busoni’s opera Doktor Faust, featuring Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the title role. It was a recording I’d had on my to-buy list for years. When I opened the package and inspected the contents, I was again dismayed – this time to discover that the booklet was missing. I wrote to the seller to ask if he had simply forgotten to include it in the package. “No”, he wrote, “no booklet came with the set”. Impossible. Every opera recording ever issued by a major record label has included a booklet of some sort to, at the least, show the track list. This particular recording came with a full libretto and translation. The seller was just wrong, and I was particularly annoyed that he had listed the item as “like new”. Fortunately, though I did have to go through the trouble to return the package, the seller has refunded my money. Sadly, I do not have the Doktor Faust recording.

Now, do not misunderstand me. I totally get that these are trivial problems. Especially compared to the problems faced by Spartacus*. But my point is that I have spent a lot of money lately and not enjoyed the things I have paid for. I count myself very lucky that these are the sorts of problems that I have.

*I apparently have a history of sleepily dismissing people’s problems if said problems do not strike me as severe as those faced by Spartacus.

But what is most upsetting to me, and what causes genuine annoyance, is how the Postal Service is treated in electronic media. I am reading stories that suggest that this is no big deal, and who cares, because nobody sends letters anyway. Indeed, judging from what I read on the internet, mail, books, CDs, and so on are totally outdated technologies that should die already so we can live in a blissful world of tweets and tumblr. This is ridiculous.

The United States Postal Service still delivers tens of billions of pieces of first-class mail each year, and billions more periodicals and bulk-rate items like junk mail. And while dispatch first-class letters is on the decline, shipment of parcels is on the way up, as more people order items online. I personally receive several packages and letters each week. Most other Americans do, too.

I strongly feel that some subjects are poorly covered by the media precisely because those in the media are so unlike the majority of Americans. That is, reporters and bloggers are early-adopters. They are much more connected to technology than most other people, and, in fact, are more connected than most people want to be. While many of us are comfortable paying our bills online, most wouldn’t trade a handwritten birthday greeting to some cheap e-card. And while some people are content to read magazines and books on tablets, and listen to music on iPods, etc., the overwhelming majority prefer physical media. Like, it’s not even close. Now, that doesn’t mean it will always be that way, or that I am putting down people who like their Kindles and MP3s. I’m not. I’m just saying that the same people who are glued to Twitter all day aren’t the best people to write about these kinds of issues.

I believe this Postal Service matter will be resolved. And even if Saturday delivery doesn’t resume, Congress will finally reexamine the facts and address the issue of unnecessary benefit pre-payment, and the United States Postal Service will once again be in the black.

Sure, my job involves work, and that work requires mental energy. But, by and large, my time now belongs to me, and I can choose to do with it what I will. And that gets me back to the writing. I thought I would be doing much more of it, but I haven’t.

Part of this is because I have been using my free time to do a million small projects, and a few major ones. Designing and building my improved music library was, obviously, an enormous task, and consumed all my free time for an entire month. I’ve repaired my washing machine, television, dresser, and so on, and refurbished my bicycle and installed mini-blinds in all the windows of the house.

But a larger part of it has been a lack of discipline. School made me so tired of writing that even fun writing felt a little too much like work. When I am sitting before a computer, I have lately found it easier to read Wikipedia than write. But that’s about to change: I am going to make a more concerted effort to write frequently.

Or not. We’ll see.