This "about me" stuff is the most awkward part of putting together a personal website.  How much do you as the reader want to know?  How much do you need to know?  At what point does it go from helpful background information to babble?  Do I talk about myself in the third person like an omniscient narrator of my own life?

"Rich Lane is an English teacher in a small town in Northwest Pennsylvania. "

That just feels weird to me.  There's an aura of pompousness there I'm not comfortable with. So do I abandon the illusion of a narrator and talk about myself in the first person? Seems more natural, but there's the potential to try to get too clever and become enamored to the sound my own "voice."  Still of the two choices, I guess I'll go with natural.

Hi.

My name is Richard R. Lane. You can call me Rich or even "Ricardo" (my wife's name for me) if you like. I answer to both. Don't ask me my middle name. I won't tell you until I get to know you better.

I'm in my mid-forties, and I teach high school English in Pennsylvania (didn't the omniscient narrator already say that?). I've been doing this for more than fifteen years now, and I enjoy it quite a bit despite the No Child Left Behind Act and it's efforts to thoroughly drain any kind of individual thought from education.

I was born and raised in PA, but I lived for most of the 80s in Albuquerque, NM, where I received a B.A. in Journalism from the University of New Mexico and met my wife Dolores. We moved back to Pennsylvania in 1989, and I picked up my teaching credentials from Edinboro University.  Dolores and I have four kids, Dale, Linda, Patrick, and Kathleen, as well as a feisty Lhasa Apso named Scooberto Antonio Doo Lane.

Like many bloggers, I'm an aspiring writer. I did manage to check at least one thing off my "Things to do before I die" list a few years ago; I wrote professional for Wizard magazine for almost a year right before the bottom dropped out of the comics market and they had to cut all their freelancers. Currently I'm working on a comic book that I hope to pitch to publishers soon. As that's a big part of the reason for this blog, you'll probably be able to read quite a bit about the process here.

The title of this blog comes from my favorite poem, "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, specifically the lines:

I am part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move.

I've never had a problem telling my classes when we hit a poem or work that I'm not particularly enamored to, mainly because I want them to know I'm serious when we begin something that is one of my favorites. This unit we're doing a number of works that I'm very fond of, but none more so that Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Ulysses." Ulysses, of course, is the Roman name of the Greek hero and protagonist of Homer's epic poem The Odyssey. It tells the tale of the king of Ithaca's ten year voyage home, and though he never stops trying to reach his kingdom and family, he enjoys the many adventures he has along the way. Tennyson's poem is continuation of that story that picks up several years after his return. Ulysses tires of the mundane and tedious duties of tending to his homeland and yearns for a return to the adventurous life he once knew.

"How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!"

I took the name of my blog from a line in this poem, so I thought it apropos to post the entire thing here for the benefit of those who may not be familiar with it.

Ulysses

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Today my seniors read “To An Athlete Dying Young” by A. E. Housman. Housman, for those who need a BritLit refresher, was a Victorian era homosexual whose spurned feelings of love during his youth lead him to write some great, horribly depressing poetry about unrequited love and decay brought on by age. “…Athlete…” is perhaps his most famous work.

It’s about a star runner who has died at an early age and the poet’s thoughts on how the runner was fortunate in that he has escaped the ravages of age not only on his physical being, but also on his athletic accomplishments. I was always a bit twitchy about how to approach this one in class.

I really thought it sends the wrong message, but it was difficult to argue with it. After all, we have celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Kurt Cobain, John Belushi, and now Heath Ledger who will always be remembered in their prime. Meanwhile, we have folks like Ozzie Osbourne, (shudder) Michael Jackson, and Muhammad Ali who it could be argued have had their legends degraded simply be living past their expiration dates.

Again, I knew in my heart that this message is plain wrong, but I really didn’t know how to counter it. Sadly, several years ago I realized exactly why it was wrong. I had a student that I knew for several years. He was one of my first students when I started teaching at my present school. I had him in seventh grade, then when I shifted to ninth two years later, I had him again, and I finally had him during his senior year. He was a great kid who could not only be counted on to say something humorous when appropriate, but also to add a salient observation about what we were studying when it was time to really crack the book. One day in April he was absent.

I didn’t think too much about it because “senioritis” hits a lot of twelfth graders in the last two months of the year, and he missed infrequently. Classes went on as usual, but at the end of the day the principal came over the speakers asking all teachers to report to the library after the last bell for a short meeting. This is never a good thing. Getting that message is akin to getting a phone call at 3 AM. No one’s ever calling to tell you good news. Though I was prepared for something bad, I wasn’t ready for what it was. This bright young man had committed suicide earlier in the day.

Though it always affects me when a student I have or have had in the past dies (and it has happened far, far too often), this hit me harder than most because of how long I knew him and how much respect I had for his potential. To make matters worse, when I got home and had to get ready for the next day’s lesson, I realized what I had on the agenda.

“To An Athlete Dying Young.”

I didn’t know what to do. I wondered if it would be appropriate; would the students think this was validating their classmate’s actions? Would I be condoning suicide as a viable option? Hell, I wondered if I could even get through it without breaking down myself. I probably tossed in bed until 4 AM debating myself over what to do. By morning I came to my conclusion.

I taught the poem, but I took a different approach than in previous years. We read it as usual, though the class was more somber than previous years’. We listed the celebs and sports stars who will always be remembered in their glory years, and we listed those that probably wish they could be. And when our friend’s name came up and the question was asked, I was ready.

I asked my class exactly what they felt Housman’s reason was for thinking the athlete was “lucky” to die young. They all agreed that it was because he would be remembered for his fame. Then I asked if fame is the most important thing in a person’s life. Where does family and friendship come in? I said that yes, I would always remember that student, our friend, as a virile eighteen year old. I’ll always remember him for the accomplishments he had in school and on the field that were still green and new when he made that tragic mistake. He was locked in amber with the laurel still upon his head, just like Housman said. But what’s missing is that now I will never have the joy of seeing him return in later years with a paunch, perhaps a receding hairline, glasses…and a wife and child beaming with love from behind him.

Houseman’s poem assumes that we live for the renown we can gather, that glory is the only thing that makes life worth living. I now argue that those things are great, but they’re mile markers, not the destination. An early death robs a person of all the other things in life that at the very least are just as important as athletic, youthful achievements. So I guess that while I appreciate what A.E. Housman said, I have to say I disagree with him vehemently on it. That’s the beauty of some works of literature; we can learn as much about life and ourselves by deciding the author had it wrong as when he has it right.

Rudyard Kipling was always one of my dad's favorite authors. I remember him quoting "Gunga Din" and "Charge of the Light Brigade" from memory when I was growing up, and I knew the plot of Kim long before I ever read it. There was a time when he was considered one the premiere authors of the Victorian age. Yet when you page through the literature books we use today, he's barely a blip.

Where Gerard Hopkins gets an individual entry and four or five poems, Kipling is relegated to a bio page he shares with three second stringers, and we only get one poem, "Recessional." While I realize that much of what he wrote is an uncomfortable reminder of the era of brazen empire building during the reign of Victoria, I also believe that Kipling's work gives us meaning that is extremely relevant today.

I doubt there is a high school literature book published in the U.S. that contains "White Man's Burden," but I find that work eerily prophetic. Kipling wrote the poem as a way of giving the United States some advice when he saw that we were dipping a toe into the pool of military expansionism. He saw what Britain had gone through and wanted us to be fully aware of what we were in for if we followed in their footsteps. Which we did. Boy, did we ever. Whether he was for our involvement or was warning us not to engage in empire building is beside the point. Take his name off the poem, remove the date and show the poem to anyone in the country and I'd bet you'd find that most would guess that the poem was written within the last seven years. Screw Nostradamus, Kipling is the true prophet of 911.

I just find it sad that so many academics who preach that to ignore history's lessons is to repeat their mistakes are so willing to hide one of history's potentially great teachers simply because they're embarrassed of the period in which he lived.

Two weeks until final exams. Geez I think I only finally got all my students' names right last week. How do you determine in one test how much your students are taking away from your class?  Unlike President Bush, I don't feel that one single test can do such a thing, especially for the complex issues and ideas we discuss in my senior class.  The closest I've been able to come is this essay question.  This is what I gave my seniors about a week ago:

There is an unsettling trend in government today. Politicians have either been making overtures toward replacing the humanities (Art, Music, Literature, etc.) with more “relevant” material (composition and math), or pushing out the humanities with their insistence on copious standardized tests.

Assume that the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) has announced that they are going to remove literature from the English classroom and make it straight composition writing, vocabulary, grammar and mechanics. You have the opportunity to write a letter that will be read by the determining body of the PDE. Defend keeping literature in the classroom. You must use at least one work from each of the periods we covered in class during the course of the year and explain how it is a good example of what literature has to offer our society.

You may use your notebooks as reference during the writing. You may not have a prewritten composition when you come to class. Your best bet is to have a well thought out outline of your points when you come in.

A good grade on this final means that you not only did well in this class, but that you have the potential to go out into the “real” world with the ability to think critically and question authority rationally—skills which will enrich your life no matter what your eventual career may be.

As the year wraps up, I always try to reinforce one last time to my seniors how important literature and poetry have been to the health and well being of humanity. After one of my spiels, a senior in my fourth period class sent me the link to this peom that was featured on HBO's Def Poetry series.

Freestyle isn't normally my cupa'joe, but this one did raise the hair on the back of my neck.