Quoth The Raven - Never like this before!

WHATEVERMORE!

Sitting in my basement next to my tanning bed, I have a 900 page "Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe.


For medical reasons (psoriasis tends to pop up in places that receive no natural sunshine!), I have to SIT on my tanning bed for 15 minutes and then LAY on the tanning bed for another 15 minutes - everyday.

While LAYING on the bed, I can't do anything but lay there with my protective eye goggles on with my arms down by my side. listing to radio or MP3s via my headset.

However, while SITTING on the bed for 15 minutes a day, I have worked on my knitting, worked on "Brain Games" books, and read MANY books - all in just 15 minutes a day.

During those 15 minutes per day, one of the books that I read was The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe.

I have always loved Poe, if, for no other reason, because I love and respect a person that is truly more of a made genius than myself. I fall under the category of "Mad Genius Lite". Mr. Poe, on the other hand, is categorized under "Hard Core Mad Genius"!

I had an 11th grade English teacher (Nona Clark-Long, GOD LOVE HER!) that would recite - from memory - Mr. Poe's works, including, but not limited to:

"The Raven"
"Bells, Bells, Bells!!"
"The Masque of the Red Death"
" The Cask of Amontillado"
"The Tell-Take Heart"

While reciting these works from memory, Ms. Clark-Long would start by standing in front of her desk. Then, within a couple minutes into the work, her face would turn red, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she would go into apparent convulsions - all while reciting this wonderful literature, and never missing a word. During "Bells, Bells, Bells!", as one example, when she reached the part that talked about tiny sleigh bells, her voice would turn very tiny and mouse-like. When she got to the Funeral Bells, her voice would be get as deep and booming as she could reach.

Almost always, while reciting Poe's works, Ms. Long-Clark would roll around on TOP of her desk, falling to the floor, and landing flat on her back, foaming at the mouth, eyes rolled back, turning red all over her body - and never missing a word of the literary piece that she was so masterfully delivering.

It was many years later that I finally realized the talents of this fantastic teacher. If ANYONE can maintain the unbroken attention of a class of High School Juniors for an hour straight - and never hearing a peep from them, that, my friends, is, indeed, TALENT!

The fact that I had :

1) Ms. Clark-Long in Quincy High as a teacher
2) her father (Dale Long) as a grade school principle in Ellington Elementary - across town
3) and her aunt (Mrs. Merle Jenkins) as my 1st grade teacher in Hannibal's Oakwood Elementary School....

....3 educators from the same family in 2 different states and 3 different schools - is another story for a different day!

Thank you, Mrs. B. Una Riley, for the fantastic memories of an educator whose quality we will never again see, and for providing me with a good way to help me to get through my cervical traction time !

- Michael