Deb Lewis

***I'm going to play a little fun trivia game with my college students -

find out what they know about Harriet Tubman and Amelia Earhart. And
Mohammad Ali, too.***

Dylan knows about Amelia Earhart, not because she was "studied
thoroughly" but because of the sick and twisted humor of his family.
We watched a documentary a few years ago about Coconut crabs. They're
fascinating, big crabs with claws so strong they can crack coconuts.
Two of the coconut crab habitats mentioned were Gardner Island and
Howland Island. The area of Gardner and Howland Islands was speculated
to be where Earhart and Noonan crashed. (You can see where this is
going, right?) Some hopeful Amelia Earhart fans have suggested she
somehow made it to one of the islands and survived for some time,
somehow. We speculated that if she'd had reached the sandy shores of the
island, exhausted, and had fallen into a coma like state... (remember,
she'd been ill in the days leading up to her disappearance and probably
injured when the Electra crashed) Coconut crabs, mistaking her head for
(what else?) a coconut may have snipped her open. (CRUNCH) Then, upon
discovering yucky brains inside instead of lovely coconut milk, realized
their mistake and buried her on the beach. This would explain why her
body was never found.

That's how Dylan knows about Amelia Earhart. And the Electra. And
Coconut crabs. And Fred Noonan. And Howland and Gardner Islands. And
the Phoenix group of Islands. And the coast guard cutter "Itasca." And
the mild and (we still insist) harmless form of insanity that runs in his
family. <g>

And here, bizarre as it may be, is a web site about female human remains
found on Gardner Island:
http://www.tighar.org/TTracks/13_1/tarawa.html

If you Google "Phoenix Scheme" or maybe "Phoenix Theories" you will find
more stuff you'll wish you hadn't. <g>

Deb Lewis

Nancy Wooton

On Mar 13, 2006, at 7:47 AM, Deb Lewis wrote:

> That's how Dylan knows about Amelia Earhart. And the Electra. And
> Coconut crabs. And Fred Noonan. And Howland and Gardner Islands. And
> the Phoenix group of Islands. And the coast guard cutter "Itasca."
> And
> the mild and (we still insist) harmless form of insanity that runs in
> his
> family. <g>

Works for me. (But then, I can never pass up a History Channel program
about the Donner Party.)

What I remember about Amelia Earhart, at least from childhood (not
school), is a book I had about her, particularly an incident in her own
childhood in which she tried to recreate the recipe for manna from the
Bible. Being from a non-biblish church, that may have been where I
first learned about manna from heaven.

I think my public school education may have preceded studying women in
history, other than First Ladies and Betsy Ross, since Women's Lib was
just taking hold of the country and hadn't made an impact on the
curriculum. African Americans were Frederick Douglass. I read a book
about George Washington Carver on my own, though. Think how abysmally
ignorant I'd be if it hadn't been for those Scholastic Book Sales they
held each year. <g>

Nancy

Sandra Dodd

On Mar 13, 2006, at 8:47 AM, Deb Lewis wrote:

> The area of Gardner and Howland Islands was speculated
> to be where Earhart and Noonan crashed. (You can see where this is
> going, right?)


And the way the ballad came to me, his name was "Newman" (not that it
would be hard to FIX such a traditional slippage,) but we have that
it was "the second of July."

"With her partner captain newman
on the 2nd of July
her plane fell in the ocean far away"

The song was most likely composed by someone in the 1950's or 60's or
something and I could look it up, but I learned it from frequent
repetition at regular folksinging get-togethers, and it still comes
around once in a while, but my favorite singing partner is old now,
and has cancer, and I might not sing it many more times with someone
who knows it so well.

Maybe it wasn't even the 2nd of July, but what they say ("they" being
folklorists) is that what survives in verse can last a long time.

The Greenland Whale Fisheries survives because it has a really great
tune, but it preserves a date very badly. <g> "It was in eighteen
hundred and fifty five (or three or something) and on June the
fourteenth day (or someteenth day)..." All that needs to rhyme is
"day" with "sailed away."

Sandra

mamavegg

--- In [email protected], Deb Lewis <ddzimlew@...> wrote:


> That's how Dylan knows about Amelia Earhart. And the Electra. And
> Coconut crabs. And Fred Noonan. And Howland and Gardner Islands. And
> the Phoenix group of Islands. And the coast guard cutter "Itasca."
And
> the mild and (we still insist) harmless form of insanity that runs in
his
> family. <g>


*****************************

Hey, I think this is the way my son would learn best on this topic!

So, here I am this afternoon, reading this thread, and trying to rack
my brains for an inkling of memory of what history I *did* learn in
gradeschool. I'm drawing a big fat blank. Being almost 46, I wonder
what the curriculum really consisted of back then (dark ages to me).

Anyway, somewhere along the line I did even learn about these two
women. Not the Titanic ballad, though. But living up here along the
shores of Lake Superior, I know the Edmund Fitzgerald ballad probably
by heart, as Gordon Lightfoot can be heard every November on just about
every radio station in town.....

Deanna

Betsy Hill

**I'm going to play a little fun trivia game with my college
students - find out what they know about Harriet Tubman and Amelia
Earhart. And
Mohammad Ali, too.**

When I search my brain about all 3 of them, it's surprising how
little I know. I remember "float like a butterfly, and sting like a
bee" and "Rumble in the Jungle" and "Thriller in Manilla" about
Ali. That tells me that repetition and rhyme encourage learning.

Songs stay in my brain when everything else has leached away.

I want to seize this opportunity and drop in some song lyrics by Al
Stewart referring to Amy Johnson, who was the British Amelia
Earhart (or Amelia was the American Amy Johnson, depends on your
POV).

From the song Flying Sorcery, which has a whisper of an unschooling
flavor.

"With your photographs of Kitty Hawk
And the biplanes on your wall
You were always Amy Johnson
From the time that you were small.
No schoolroom kept you grounded
While your thoughts could get away
You were taking off in Tiger Moths
Your wings against the brush-strokes of the day"

(I like the imagery of the mind flying free of school.) The song is
hauntingly beautiful, but sad.

Betsy