Down with Bowne (The Uncut Version)

Only 17 and 20, my brother and I followed the call of the Piper. This is an excerpt from Day 5 of our three-week trip across the country with my mom, my brother, and my sister in 1989. I was 20. Throughout the trip with the pop-up camper, I kept a handwritten journal and typed the journal soon after. The journal is over 200 pages. This excerpt was only moderately edited and updated from the original.

In these uncertain times in education, we have to remember why we’re here. 

In memory of Robin Williams, the man who inspired so many.

A simple boat ride on The Chesapeake Bay reveals more about the divisions in the family than the problems with the boat. A short story by Walter Bowne. First published in Inkwell. Fall 2010. 

Allow James Joyce to take you away from politics and COVID-19. It’s 1904. Welcome to “Ulysses.”

Department of Education   Washington, DC.    Office of the Secretary of Education   The Honorable Betsy DeVos

RE: TOOLKIT UPDATE: IMPORTANT MEMO TO SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS! FORM LETTER FOR INEVITABLE TEACHER DEATHS WILL DECREASE YOUR WORKLOAD.

Dear School Administrators, 

In order to safely reopen schools across the country, a “tool kit” is essential for every school administrator who wants to stay on top of the proverbial curve of the pandemic. Our suggestions include a 'closure” form letter for students and teachers. An “exposure” form letter. Let's say Substitute Bob gets COVID-19, and he possibly “exposed” COVID-19 to 200 children and 50 teachers. You see what we mean?

Do you want to write that many letters? We also highly recommend a form letter when “teachers or students” take a ride on Charon's old ferry boat, to use a pleasant euphemism for those sudden and grisly COVID-19 deaths. Again, think of all those letters!

Administrators can happily and easily use this form letter for the community if a teacher, sadly, but necessary for the health of our economy, passes due to COVID-19. Moreover, an administrator who happens to take over for a recently dead or retired administrator, untested in times of strife and death, will be thankful such a letter exists. An updated form letter will be forthcoming for any potential student "passings" into the Shades to parley with Achilles and Mentor, let's say. We love our mythology here at the Department of Education. My associates here affectionately call me Hekate. Isn’t that adorable? But in all seriousness, here it is: (Add date)

Dear community,

It is with (tender/utter/complete) sadness that I write about the loss of (Teacher A). (Teacher A) was a (fine/excellent/dedicated) teacher. (Teacher A) will be missed by all, except for (Student A) who thought (Teacher A) was too strict and gave too much work. If there was a bar, (Teacher A) set that bar to (10, 11, 12). (Teacher A) loved teaching (subject). (Teacher A) was born to be a TEACHER.

There was nothing else (Teacher A) lived for. (Teacher A) worked (forty/fifty/sixty/seventy) hours a week, and graded (types of assessments) on weekends while (add friends) were out partying or playing (tennis/golf/pickleball) with (husband/wife/special someone). (Teacher A) worked at this (amazing/wonderful/supportive) school for (# years). (Teacher A) gave the last full measure of devotion to the incredible craft of teaching, our noblest and most honored of professions in The United States. As you (may/should) know, America treasures its teachers more than any other country, with the possible exception of (Ireland /Finland /Poland/ South Korea/ Russia /Japan /Germany/ Denmark/ Mexico/ Spain/Chile/Guatemala).

We here at (add school, duh), did (everything/ everything possible within budget/ everything possible within the laws of science and virus mutation) to ensure the safety of not only (Teacher A), but all those who still remain in our (time-honored, precious, God-projected) (abode/ house/ refuge/ institution) of (learning/ baby-sitting service). (Teacher A) leaves behind not only an empty (classroom #), but also (amount in pension and sick days) and (add wife, husband, children, cats, dogs, fish, long-time paramour). 

(Teacher A) wanted to do (add three things) in retirement. Colleagues who remain in the classroom said (Teacher A) was a (good/ great/ phenomenal/ God-like) teacher and “(loved/dearly loved) the students.” (Teacher A) was (hell-bent/determined like a Crusader) to return to (classroom), even knowing the (danger/risk/utter fear). Our reopening plans were (amazing/ well-considered/ half-baked/ forced by gunpoint by budget cuts).  

Let's talk about the stereotypical characterization of Meyer Wolfshiem and the read life Arnold Rothstein.

Dan Norbury and Walter Bowne sat down by a fire outside on Halloween 2020 to talk about what happened back in 1988 during Spring Break in Atsion, New Jersey. 

Dan Norbury and Walter Bowne sit down by a fire outside on Halloween 2020 to talk about what happened back in 1988 during Spring Break in Atsion, New Jersey. It's Down with Bowne: Friend, Beers, and Spirits. 

Walter Bowne and his wife, Mary Jane, discuss, on a nightly walk, what scares them the most about modern society.