SewaneeLetters.com

From Sewanee local and SOL vet Pete Trenchi:

The next porch party / jam is set for Saturday, June 20, 2009 starting at 5ish ish - which means you can come earlier, esp. if you need kitchen facilities to prepare that which you are bringing to supplement the - 5
(five, count ‘em) beer can chickens and mess of cheap hamburgers that I will provide. Also - a free beer to anyone who can identify the make model and year of every car I have. Hint, you must find them all first.
If the above food plus spring based tap water doesn’t meet your needs (entirely) you should bring it with you. If you are musical bring it on.

Directions: take University Ave (as if you were going to the Sewanee Inn) to turn left onto Texas Avenue.  Take Texas Ave past the Fowler center & to the football field (equal to maybe 3 blocks or perhaps 1/4 mile) & turn right onto Roarks Cove Road (directly across from the football field - which is surrounded by stone pillars, one of which Abbot hit back when he used to live in the house where Meg lives. That put and end to Abbot driving his 1957 (Confederate Gray) Chevy pickup truck around town terrorizing pedestrians. Yeah, I know, back to the directions, but if Prunty can have Abbot flashbacks, so can I). Once you have turned right, go 1.4 miles (to 1431 Roarks Cove - okay, 1.43 miles if you are into precision address matching) & look for the slightly obscured sign & driveway immediately before the pond & willow trees (one of which just died, @#$%^ global warming). If you overshoot the drive, or just want the convenience of overflow parking, you can pull in below the pond, park there & walk up. You will have passed Old Mine Road on your left and Junk Lane on your right just before you get to my place.

Pete Trenchi submitted this clip from the Winchester Herald-Chronicle. Tina’s making history…

Current home: Sewanee, TN
Age: 55
Program: MFA
Year in the program: 3 Years; 6 Courses Complete (both arbitrary measures or indices of expected completion – GO Tina!)

Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
School: Dixon Kindergarten; Bel-Aire Elementary; West Junior High; Tullahoma High School; University of the South, Sewanee, TN, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN; Auburn University, Auburn, AL; University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AR; University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff, AR; University of Arkansas, Monticello, AR; University of Arkansas, William Bowen School of Law, Little Rock, AR; University of the South, Sewanee, TN.
Work: Dishwasher, paperboy, sack-boy, newspaper pressroom, potato farm, lifeguard, psychology research assistant, cafeteria worker, bartender, waiter, busboy, liquor store clerk, cafeteria cook, bus mechanic, cafeteria line worker, Forestry lab assistant, timber cruiser, firewood salesman, Forestry teaching assistant, Forestry research assistant, Forester, Operations Research Analyst, Timber Sales Assistant, Planning analyst, manufacturing consultant, slumlord, Natural Resource Research Specialist, cook, waiter, bouncer, Law Clerk, Attorney, substitute teacher, & probably some other stuff I have forgotten.
Etc_1: Ex-wives = 2; kids = 3; grandchildren = 3; Dog = 1; Cats = 2; Cars = 14; Trucks = 2; Bus & Winnebago = 1 each. Hobbies: Local politics; International Visitors; building stuff; cars; bicycles; hiking. Locally: Vice pres. Tim’s Ford Environmental Education Association; youth sponsor – Otey Parish Episcopal Church; Denizen of the Blue Chair coffee shop; and host of occasional and recurring themed parties including the new series of porch parties / jam sessions.

What led you to the School of Letters program?
Figured I needed to learn to read & write. Given my transportation situation, it had to be somewhere nearby.

What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
I am writing occasional appeal briefs. Most of my time now is spent learning and knowing and speaking.

Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
Some folks might call this a tough question. I say it’s a BS question. If your experience(s) can be so easily ordinally ranked and so simplistically evaluated, the problem is with YOU! Yes, if, on the other hand, you continually push the envelope so hard that you are too exhausted for precise quantitative reflection, then you have achieved value. There is no need for: Win; Place; & Show. The true glory is to have made it across the perpetually undulating finish line at all. Seriously, though, how can one compare an Angus course with anything? Yep – incomparable. And John Gatta clutching the table edge like a shipwrecked whaler while ranting excitedly about hundred year old books – can’t touch that either. All three of the writing workshops I’ve had have been both useful and challenging. & getting to rip on some pompous wannabe’s written drivel. . . huh? Complete sentence? What for? Nobody talks that way! KnowwutImean?

What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
Since I prefer new experiences of unknown composition, I cannot answer this question until it has already happened.

What advice would you give to any prospective students?
1) Do not take offense at the crazy people also enrolled – after a couple of years, they’ll grow on you.
2) Be nice to Sammy & he will look out for you.
3) Hike.
4) If the presentation is an academic paper to be read by the author, take No-Doz (or sleep thru it).
5) If, after a couple of years, the crazy people have not grown on you, shed them like a space shuttle tile. You are not suitable habitat
6) Do not follow any advice given by knowitall old timers, they are just dumbasses like yourself with more time invested.

What are you reading these days?
A cheap biography of Kafka, Restored Edition of Ariel by Sylvia Plath, a couple of books by Andrew Lytle, a few TN Wms plays, an Anne Lamont thingy & some free books the library was giving away.

Here’s the invite from Pete Trenchi, who knows how quickly our schedules fill up in June:

Since a yard party at my place is part of the deal & since I have been having monthly porch party / jam sessions, the two should converge into one yard party / jam session on Saturday June 20, 2009.  Save the date.  It will start in the afternoon & continue; food will be basic plus what folks bring; drinks will be spring untested spring water plus what folks bring.  etc.