Next to last person seated in the front row, proudly wearing my Brownie uniform, I was at 9 years old already one of the fat girls in my third-grade class at Noftsger Hill School in Globe, Arizona.
A fat child
For the illumination of those who didn’t bear the sting of the taunt that inspired my title, let me quote:
Fatty, fatty, two by four,
Couldn’t get through the bathroom door,
So she did it on the floor,
Licked it up and did some more.
Six decades of introspection have led me to the firm conclusion that the entire course of my life has been determined by being the brunt of those words–and others that cut just as deep. In high school band, a trombone player called me a “pregnant gazelle” when I tripped and fell on one of the risers in the band hall. (Yes, I remember his name: Gary Ellsworth. These tidbits one does not forget easily.) I once overheard a beloved aunt from Oklahoma tell my mother, “You must get tired of having people tell you all the time, ‘Your girls are so FAT.'” At some point in my adolescence, my own father said I was “a fat sow who does nothing but lay [sic] around and read all day.” Sadly, my memory of one of the other fat girls in my class was recently stirred when I read her obituary in the online version of our hometown newspaper, the Arizona Silver Belt. Virginia Garcia is the first girl in the first row in the picture above. Her family nickname, which spilled over to the playground, was Porky. Continue reading
As I began to ponder the year soon coming to a close, it seemed necessary and fitting that I end the longest hiatus of my blog-writing career with a brief narration of the project–now complete–that has consumed my life for the last four years. During that time, I have focused much of my attention on the effort to commemorate, both personally and professionally, the centenary of World War I. Not coincidentally, I last posted here on November 11, one hundred years after the Armistice ending the ghastly war that gave us the map, the context, and even the vocabulary by which we still understand the ensuing century. As that project came to its logical conclusion during those frenzied days of early November, I realized that I could take the time to breathe, to collect my energies, and to move onto as-yet undetermined paths. So today, I am taking the opportunity to review this project as it came to fruition in 2018–focusing primarily on the last few events that provided me with a sense of fulfillment like no other. 
From July to November 1917, Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was a shell-shocked second lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment, under the care of W. H. R. Rivers at Craiglockhart War Hospital. There, he became close friends with Siegfried Sassoon, who became his poetic mentor and helped him revise the following poem, one of his most memorable: 
Despite the apparent obscurity of this World War I-era postcard, the charm of its rough sketch of doughboys at the front and the accompanying doggerel prompted me to buy it from eBay along with others more charming still–and of much more historical interest. However, I was even more enchanted by the cryptic message on the reverse: