May 14
Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 4:30PM Haven’t had time to write much; busy eating.
—John Ransom’s Andersonville Diary, 1881
Dear Dixie,
That Sequoyah. He was a smart man and I’ll bet he knew something like this would happen when the vision of those beautiful symbols filled his head and imagination.
Now that Fatima gets all that free candy for the rest of the year—and come to find out she loves candy—I’ve been begged to offer up more Cherokee language research projects that involve me saying the new phrase as slowly as possible and as often as possible during the busy day, not just when I’m handing their point sheets back.
So they can write it down. So they can try to figure it out by typing it into a couple of Cherokee language translation web sites they’d already found.
Unlimited candy as an educational motivation tool for seventh and eighth graders with learning disabilities and mild to moderate behavior disorders.
Works real well for them.
For me, money well spent.
So here’s the way the competition went down this week, with a trip to the grocery store planned for this weekend to get more danged candy for Monday. As you know, Dixie, Fatima finally deciphered the phrase, do no da go hv i, which means Until we meet again. I really thought they wouldn’t get it at all, or until they were juniors in college, but they have shocked me. That pesky Spike came through on the second one Tuesday. I really believe he’s got a computer for a brain because nothing seems to stump him except turning in his homework I hear. I laid this one on everybody and Spike got it within twenty minutes … di ga lv wi s da ne di a s da ya … or, Work hard.
Spike freaked and I told him not to tell his parents he would be eating untold amounts of candy.
He said he wouldn’t.
I believe him. He’s the kind of kid who ain’t going to blow a good thing. He’ll rat the teachers out for their always well-timed and under-their-breath cussing, sure, but he knows when it’s definitely time to keep his own yapper bunged.
Next Entry ... May 17: Huckleberry Has Something To Say