Taking a Moment to Personify Death

Out of respect for the passing of Robert Redford, Perry and I watched an old episode of Twilight Zone (Season 3, Episode 16) called "Nothing in the Dark," in which Redford was cast as the personification of Death. It first aired in January of 1962. 

Even though I knew ahead of time who he was and what he represented, I watched the story unfold with a bit of anxiety. I wasn't sure how the elderly woman—who for years had been living her life in seclusion behind locked doors, terrified of meeting Death in person—would react when she finally recognized who she had invited inside her house. 

If someone reading this post hasn't watched the episode (we hadn't, so it was new to us), I won't go into many details. But I did want to comment on one aspect of Redford's character (named Harold Beldon). Though his character was kind, gentle, even vulnerable, knowing who he was and why he was there, I kept waiting for him to become evil or bad. Like a demon in disguise. 

When that never happened, when, like a gentleman, he offered the woman his arm for her to take as he escorted her out the door, I realized I was conflating two things unfairly: death and demons. But this episode seems to be suggesting that death, in and of itself, is not evil. Death did not enter her house to hurt her. He entered to escort her to the next life.

I won't bother to explore spiritual or Biblical questions about the afterlife, or faith in God, or sin or hell. Rather, I prefer to stay focused on what this one little 30-minute Twilight Zone episode seemed to be exploring: Death seems terrifying to those of us who are clinging desperately to this life, breathing in and out and living day to day. But what if it's not so terrifying? What if it's simply just the next step?

Anyway, not that I don't want to keep on breathing and living day to day. But these are the thoughts that came to mind this morning. And I was reminded of this lovely poem by Emily Dickinson, who also took a moment to personify Death.

Reflections on the Craft of Teaching Writing

"Skyrocketing tuition has turned students into paying customers 

who expect to be praised, not challenged.”

~Solveig Lucia Gold and Joshua T. Katz 

Some years ago, I was on the community college campus where I taught, walking to the library or something. I remember stopping briefly to say hi to a student I knew. Just as I started to walk away, another student approached me, and after apologizing for interrupting, introduced herself as a former student. 

"You probably don't remember me," she began (I didn't), "but I took your English 100 class years ago. I just wanted to thank you. You kicked our butts." 

I remember laughing out loud and thanking her for saying hello. 

Best compliment I've ever received. 

I taught English Composition (both transfer and non-transfer level) as an adjunct professor for a little over 20 years at a local community college. Prior to that, I taught Grammar and Composition for about 10 years to a combined 7th and 8th grade class at a private Christian school in Escondido. 

That adds up to maybe a little over 30 years of my life devoted to the craft of teaching writing. During those years, it's safe to say I read and commented on every submitted paper, both rough drafts and final submissions. 

It didn't hurt that in both scenarios I was a part-time instructor, nor that in both scenarios, class size was relatively small compared to most public schools. But when it comes to teaching writing, I honestly don't know any shortcut. 

Reading student papers, providing personal, concrete, substantial feedback, designing reasonably clear rubrics for grading, is time consuming. But to me, it’s the only way students can learn the craft of writing. I don’t know how full-time teachers or professors do it. 

At the college level, I gave out quite lot of Ds and Fs, particularly at the beginning of each semester. Most students learn pretty quickly what they can and can’t get away with and adjust accordingly or drop the class. 

As semesters progressed, the grades were mostly Cs. This grade often meant the paper was rote, unimaginative, repetitive, or otherwise lacking in originality and freshness. Lower grades reflected more glaring problems having to do with structure, or sentence level issues, or failure to meet the basic requirements of the assignment. 

A and B papers were rare, but you knew them when you saw them. You could hear the writer’s voice. You knew they’d been well-taught even before they arrived in your classroom. As writers, they could only get better from this point forward. Teaching at the college level, you’d think this should be the rule rather than the exception. Alas . . . 

As for those D and F papers, I often allowed students to re-submit failing papers, as long as they included for final grading all previous drafts and preparatory notes (from what I understand, not all professors do this). If the re-submitted paper looked essentially the same, the grade stayed the same. On the other hand, if a student was willing to work with me, listen to my comments, demonstrate integrity in the effort of the rewriting task, then I felt obligated to respect the effort and adjust my grades accordingly. 

In my way of thinking, this is what writers do. It's hard work, writing. “You kicked our butts.” 

I read articles like the one I read in the Wall Street Journal (link below), and I worry about what's going on in today's classrooms. I worry about kids in grade school, junior high, college, kids raised in a world of technology, immersed in an academic environment of easy access to information and the reductive influence of artificial intelligence. 

I worry about students who may end up in schools like those described in the article below, where instructors don’t seem to have the time or incentive to insist students master a craft that seems to be at risk of vanishing. 

And yes. I worry about children I know. Some still too young for the classroom. My children’s children.

I hope it's not too late to turn this ship around.

***

America Needs Tough Grading, by Solveig Lucia Gold and Joshua T. Katz (September 2, 2025, Wall Street Journal)

A Poem about Passings

Passings

how sad

the passing of time

and with it

the passing of those

we love 

eem/September 2022

Remembering Ruth Finley: Remarks at my Mom's Memorial (2002)

My mother died 23 years ago at the age of 79. She was a lovely and in some ways remarkable woman. I say this from the perspective of having observed the so-called Second Wave of the Women's Movement influence my mom's gentle evolution from traditional housewife and stay-at-home mother of three into the well-respected member of her community that she became. 

At the time she passed, I was a busy mother of three myself, living several cities away, and preoccupied with my own life changes and attempts to figure things out. Consequently, I was only marginally connected with my parents' day to day lives. 

Not that we weren't close--we were. And not that I wasn't proud of her accomplishments--I was. But my attention was turned elsewhere. I was distracted. Busy. And consequently, less involved, less aware. I regret this self-absorption. 

We commemorated my mom's passing in January of 2002 at a local park in Huntington Beach. There were a lot of people in attendance, including former mayors and council members who had worked alongside my mother over the years in local politics. Several of them approached the podium and spoke highly of my mom. They spoke of a woman I only knew from afar.

As the ceremony neared the end, I also approached the podium. I had prepared my remarks and read from my notes. Then, as they say, the years passed. I never thought to save my comments. I either lost or misplaced the document, not thinking (at the time) of a future when I might want to recall my words.

But, funny the things you discover when you start the process of preparing for your own end. A few weeks ago, clearing out boxes of old papers, I found the document. I apparently hadn't saved it on any accessible computer or hard drive, so I had to re-type it. I'm posting it here. 

For the kids. 

And their kids. 

Maybe they'll be better organized when it's their turn to step up to the podium.

****** 

Memories of Ruth Finley 

Central Park 

Huntington Beach, California 

 January 20, 2002 

I think, if you were to ask my friends what they remember most about my mom, the first thing they wouldn’t say is, “strong leader” or “quick-witted, feisty councilwoman,” or even, “great Girl Scout leader." What they would probably say is, “Mrs. Finley never really did learn how to drive a stick shift.”
 

For those of my friends who suffered through stomach-churning years of carpooling back and forth in the Volkswagen van or the Volvo sedan, all I can say is, “Talk to my dad." He’s the one who didn’t get any of us a car with an automatic transition until we kids were grown and gone. 

What my mom lacked in the area of smooth transitions from second to third gear, she amply made up for in her own unique life-saving technique. If you’ve ever been the lucky passenger seated beside her in the front seat during a moment of (too) rapid approach to a stoplight, you’ll know what I mean. In the days before seatbelts became mandatory in cars, that strong right arm thrust firmly across your chest was, if not dignified, at least reassuring. 

Listening today to the reflections and tributes from people who remember my mom both personally and professionally, I marvel at the woman you knew. Unfortunately, self-absorbed teenager and young adult that I was, I missed out on a lot of what Mom was doing when she was in her prime. My sister Laura and I spent this past summer going over newspaper clippings and articles of my mom. It’s been fun reading about the woman you know. 

Of course, none of those articles highlighted the details of the woman I knew. 

The woman I remember is the one sitting somewhere—anywhere—it could be a quiet corner of a room, a small boat on a lake in Maine, or the crowded bleachers of Dodger Stadium—reading a good mystery. 

It’s the woman you might occasionally find at the end of a hectic day, seated at the piano, plunking out a few chords of a favorite hymn. 

The woman I remember is the one who always promised to “keep her fingers crossed,” who never hesitated to apprise you as to the contents of your head (usually it was “rocks”), and who was always quick to reassure new and sometimes frustrated young mothers that “this, too, shall pass.” 

“Housewife” may not be the first item on my mom’s resume, but the Ruth Finley I knew was, in addition to her outside involvements and commitments, a full-time mom. If all dinner consisted of was iceberg lettuce tossed with Wishbone Italian dressing, really overcooked pork chops, and a bowl of buttery, salted peas, dinner was on the table every night—even on those nights my dad came home from work at 8:15.

 

Betty Crocker she was not. She admittedly hated housework. But she was there when we got home from school. There are a lot of things that I admire about my mom, but for some reason, that ranks among the top. 

It’s possible my mom might have accomplished a lot more in life than she already has were it not for a husband, three kids, and a couple of dogs. But if you were to ask her today if she has any regrets, I think she’d raise her eyebrows, look at you as if you had rocks in your head, and say, “Not a one.”

Notes on Mom 

Born November 30, 1923 in Ramsey, New Jersey 

Died January 14, 2002 in Long Beach, California 

Laid to rest 

 

Redeemer Cemetery 

Church of the Redeemer

Mahwah, New Jersey

Published Obituaries

Daily Pilot 

(may be behind a paywall, sorry)

Dayle McIntosh Center

Pictures

A family classic

Mayor Ruth with my sister
(where was I?)
July 4th Parade
(1981)
Huntington Beach, California

The Little Prince and the Merchant: A Lesson for Today

 "Good morning," said the little prince. 

"Good morning," said the merchant. 

This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst. You need only swallow one pill a week, and you would feel no need of anything to drink.

"Why are you selling those?" asked the little prince.

 

"Because they save a tremendous amount of time," said the merchant. "Computations have been made by experts. With these pills, you save fifty-three minutes in every week." 

"And what do I do with those fifty-three minutes?" 

"Anything you like . . ." 

"As for me," said the little prince to himself, "if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water." 

The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (chapter 23)

Small chapter, big message. 

There's a metaphor here. I realize the author's life pre-dates our current technological advances, but the message here resonates with my suspicions regarding artificial intelligence. 

It all sounds so novel, so convenient. It saves us time. Frees our brains from the tedious minutiae of thinking. 

Adults are beguiled. 

Merchants see dollar signs. 

But I worry for my children's children. Babies, toddlers, kindergartners, school children, growing up where information is available instantaneously. What's not to like? Today's "merchants" make it all seem so marvelous. I read recently about Bill Gates fantasizing about the time when people will only have to work two days a week. Think of the time saved. 

But, at what cost? I've heard it said that work, no matter how menial, has its own rewards, that too much leisure has its downsides. Work—things like reading, building, creating, thinking. Things AI can now do for us in half the time. 

Perhaps the story of the little prince's encounter with the merchant is a metaphor for today:  the physical act of drawing water from a well, the pleasure of tasting, swallowing, drinking water, represents the satisfaction of being productive, of work, creativity, thinking, learning. 

 Time consuming, maybe. Laborious, perhaps. 

But has its own rewards?

*****

For a similar view, here's an article by a journalist in Paris. 

How I Realized AI Was Making Me Stupid--And What I Do Now

by Sam Schechner, Wall Street Journal (April 3, 2025)