BANNER - Bellevue 2008

January 2014

Jean is a
Miracle Worker

I spoke with Jean the day before the Wednesday, January 29th dress rehearsal for The Miracle Worker. She said that, while the preparations and practices continue, she felt ready for opening night. This image graced the SPU home page on homecoming week at the end of January.

On opening night, January 30th, Nancy, Susan, Nathanael and I sat in the middle of the second row of the James Leon Chapman Stage in McKinley Auditorium, (where I looked Nancy up 34 years ago.)

The cast was surprisingly large but Jean stood out with the lead role that had her speaking with an Irish accent and even singing the play's only song. She was amazing. I don't know why I got nervous for her. Opening night was a sellout and ended in a standing ovation.

< One of my portraits for one of Jean's Theatre class assignments.

Praise for Jean is already coming to me from faculty and staff from across campus.

Dick – Just wanted to tell you that my wife and I really enjoyed last night’s performance of “The Miracle Worker” – and especially your daughter’s acting. I didn’t know she was your daughter until someone told me this morning, but she was a definite standout. I’m sure you’re a proud dad. — Bob Elmer, University Communications

Kathy Stegman said members of her carpool raved about the play, especially about the girl that played Annie. Kathy was able to connect the actress with her employee father.

Dr. Keuss, who leads the University Scholars program, said this in an email to all SPU faculty:

       From: Jeff Keuss
       Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎February‎ ‎1‎, ‎2014 ‎11‎:‎31‎ ‎AM
       To: Braden, Kathleen, Facnet

       Agreed – wonderful, wonderful performance. We took the University Scholars last Wednesday. We had some great discussions after the show on the
       steps of the theater for another 40 minutes after the show… one of those ‘teachable moments’ we all cherish. Kudos especially to Jean Sleight for her
       wonderful job as Anne Sullivan!

Jeffrey F. Keuss, PhD

Professor and Director

The University Scholars Program

Seattle Pacific University

And numerous faculty poked their heads into my office throughout the day to say much the same. The day after opening night was made especially nice, through no effort of my own. And The Miracle Worker has another week to run.

The story from the school paper is copied at the bottom on this page.

BUS 1700 Spreadsheets

This month I restarted my class on Microsoft Excel. With three sections and over 70 assignments to grade each week, it's a big job. Each weekend finds me updating my lessons and designing new homework assignments. I've learned so much more over the past six years while I wasn't teaching BUS 1700 and have so many more good examples that, at least so far, I've not been able to fit my lessons into the 50 minute periods I have each week.

My students are slowly learning (as of week four) to stop by when they get stuck. As far as homework goes, I certainly err on the side of more rigor rather than less.

On to the Super Bowl in February: Go Hawks!

The Seattle Seahawks won the NFC West and finished the 2013 regular season with a league leading 13-3 record, earning a first round bye and home field advantage in their two games leading up to Super Bowl 48. On January 11th, they defeated the New Orleans Saints 23-15, and followed that up with a second battle in Seattle on January 19th. ESPN described it this way . . .

From ESPN, January 20, 2014

SEATTLE -- Richard Sherman wasn't playing. Michael Crabtree wasn't going to make a play on him, not on this night, not ever, not when a trip to the Super Bowl was on the line. So Sherman waited. And he waited. And he waited, until San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick couldn't help himself. Kaepernick threw the fade into the end zone that Sherman knew was coming, and Sherman was ready for it.

With the NFC Championship Game on the line and Seattle clinging to a six-point lead with less than a minute to go, Sherman tipped Kaepernick's pass away from Crabtree and into the outstretched hands of linebacker Malcolm Smith. Smith caught it. Sherman would have, he said, had Crabtree not shoved him on the play. It didn't matter. With the ball in Smith's hands, the game was essentially over. Russell Wilson took one knee, then another, and then another, and with that, Seattle won 23-17.

The Seahawks will make their second trip to the Super Bowl in franchise history and face the Denver Broncos, who beat New England in the undercard on Sunday. There in the New York/New Jersey Super Bowl, the Seahawks will try to answer that age-old question about what wins championships in the National Football League, prolific offenses or stingy defenses? Seattle has the best defense in football. In Denver, the Seahawks will face the best offense in the history of the game. Seattle's reaction: Bring it on. "It's going to be good on good," Seahawks safety Earl Thomas said. Yes, it is. Good on good. Or make it great on great.

I have to admit that I've rarely been so emotionally invested in the outcome of a sporting event. Well, at least this year's Super Bowl rivals the Westside Classic Cross Country races in which my children ran. Getting to the Super Bowl is akin to Annie, Jean, and Nathanael each helping their teams win through to a place at State in Pasco.

A Birthday Present for Randy

Just in time for the February 2nd Super Bowl, and because we both have birthdays in February, I got us Seahawks jerseys to match the numbers we wore in West Seattle junior football. I wore #4 and Randy seemed to always wear #53. I get the XL and Randy gets the 2X.

This is certainly an extravagance. But it's the right thing to do for a good brother living alone in Everett and facing a significant hernia surgery in February.

I told him I'd looked for his number without success, but I finally found it online at nflshop.com.

Bits and Pieces

♦ On Saturday mornings we completed our study of Hosea and began Psalm 119 on January 25th.

♦ A much appreciated windfall of over $4700 came to me this month. When Don called to say he'd spoken with Randy and Laurie first about a matter, I wondered if bad news was about to follow. Then he announced that, as Executor of Dad and Mom's estate, he had overlooked the condominium "points" they had owned that had significant financial value. Each of my siblings agreed to pay me a third of what would have been my quarter share of the value of those points. What a wonderful legacy — not the money, but honest and loving brothers and sister.

♦ I got myself a birthday present, a second Botero collapsible 5'x7' background for portraits. My original, in light grey, has given great service. But I wanted a darker and more colorful one. Not all my portraits need to look the same.

♦ For Nathanael's 25th birthday, I passed on to him Grandpa Dick's Colt Woodsman target pistol. I knew it was the one firearm in my collection in which Nathanael had expressed an interest. Passing on my treasures to my children and their spouses will no doubt become a common practice in the years to come. Ideally, it would be wonderful to divest myself of those things of value I own, so that when I am elderly, I may be rich in friends and family rather than in things. I wrote this note to Nate.

This Colt Woodman .22 LR was always "Dad's pistol” (Grandpa Dick’s). It is a target model, probably manufactured in 1967 based on its serial number, 229800-S. This is a "Third Series" Woodsman. That series ran from the year I was born to the year I graduated from college, 1955-1977. The first Colt Woodsman was made in March 1915 and the last one was made in April 1977. Grandpa Dick probably bought this gun for around $100. It would sell for around $800 today. It is a very accurate pistol and an elegant first gun for any right-handed shooter.

It is hereby presented to Nathanael Rutherford Sleight on January 21, 2014, your 25^th birthday. This gift is presented with a compatible leather Smith & Wesson holster and, as always, your father’s love.

Happy 25th birthday.

♦ I made an interesting wardrobe change this month. I was browsing Streicher's Police Equipment web site and saw a clearance on shirts for $4.88 each. They are very high quality but have a uniform cut, including epaulets. I surely don't need any more shirts now.

♦ I am not a big drinker, but I had two stiff drinks right before President Obama's State of the Union address. It helped.

But I'd sobered up by the time of the Republican response. I was so impressed with Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington State.

The top-ranking woman in the Republican congressional leadership gave birth to a baby girl two months ago and is the only woman in American history to have had three children while serving in the House of Representatives. On Tuesday night, that five-term congresswoman, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, introduced her personal and professional accomplishments to the nation when she gives her party’s official response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. (from Yahoo News)

My Quotes from January

Why lies He in such mean estate,
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christians, fear, for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

What Child is This? (v.2)

William C. Dix, The Manger Throne, 1865.

On The Miracle Worker . . .

Production brings light to darkness

by Kelsey Chase, January 29, 2014, The Falcon

The story of Helen Keller is the stuff of elementary school primers — the deaf, blind, mute girl who, through the help of an innovative and persistent teacher, learns to speak. But as The Miracle Worker opens this Thursday at E.E. Bach Theatre in McKinley Hall, Keller’s silence is given character and brought to life.

“It’s the opposite of everything they tell you in acting,” said senior Amy Helmuth, who plays the 6-year-old Keller. “It’s a challenge to remember all those things: I’m blind. I’m mute. I’m deaf.”

Yet to a familiar story, the cast of SPU’s winter main stage production brings a perspective saturated with understanding and sparkling with vitality. Helmuth handles the guttural sounds and incoherent movements of Keller with sensitivity, and the plot is an engaging journey of scenes traversing time and space.

“It’s a show that goes all over the place,” director and theatre professor George A. Scranton said. “It has to move with the fluidity of cinema without the flexibility of cinema.”

The action opens as the Kellers discover their 6-month-old baby has been robbed of both her hearing and her sight by a raging fever. By age 6, she is an erratic, wheeling and tempestuous tyrant, upsetting everything from dresser drawers to dinner plates and placated only through sweets and cakes.

Into this melee steps Annie Sullivan, played by junior Jean Sleight. Sullivan is a young Irish woman recently graduated from the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston. Inexperienced, bashful and admittedly inadequate, Sullivan begins her relationship with Keller by giving her a doll and spelling its name in sign language on her hand, only to be locked in the upstairs bedroom by a devious and rebellious Keller who throws the key in the well.

From the beginning, it seems Sullivan’s fiercest battles are not with Keller but with her family — “What good will your pity do her?” she asks. “Obedience is the gateway through which knowledge enters the mind of the child.” Yet Sullivan’s attempts at teaching Keller obedience are seemingly futile. In addition to her youth and inexperience, Sullivan fights an almost constant battle against Captain Keller’s prejudice toward Northerners and his exasperation at the up-ending of his household. Freshman James Lynch plays Captain Keller.

Because Sullivan herself was blind as a child and treated by numerous procedures to restore her sight, she wears dark glasses to protect her eyes from strong light, but this incites little more than pity, the worst handicap, from the Captain.

In perhaps one of the most vivacious and tension-riddled scenes of the show, Sullivan asserts her control over Keller’s progress. Banishing the family from the dining room, she and Keller engage in an over-six-minute-long battle of the wills. The intricately choreographed fight scene is one of the highlights of the show, replete with biting, slapping, kicking, thrown dishes and spit food — and Helen finally eating breakfast with a spoon.

“The heavy breathing during the fight, that’s real,” Sleight said. “That’s the most concentrated physical effort we’ve ever done in a show.”

But such clashes of will convince the young teacher that Keller can only be taught to obey if she is removed from her familiar environment — “She must depend on me for everything,” Sullivan says. “For the very air she breathes.” Sullivan readily admits she does not love Keller — her heart has refused to love since the death of her little brother, and she is plagued by nightmares of his voice.

Grudgingly, the family agrees to move Sullivan and Keller to the garden house and issue an ultimatum of two weeks to achieve a change. Against such odds, Sullivan’s success is nothing short of a miracle. She teaches Keller 18 nouns and three verbs, how to sit up straight and eat with a spoon, to stitch and to pet a dog.

But still there is a disconnect between the words Keller feels and what they mean. Sullivan mourns the inability to connect the words and meanings: “Obedience without understanding is a blindness, too,” she says.

It is not until after Keller and Sullivan move back into the house, after a raucous homecoming dinner in which Keller attempts to return to her old ways, that the miracles Sullivan wished for begin to take place. In the satisfying resolution to a tension-filled side plot between Captain Keller and his son Jimmy, Jimmy is the one who stands up to his father and advocates for Sullivan’s control of the child.

And in a cinematic finish, the attention swings once more to Keller. Running her hand under the well faucet while Sullivan spells water into her hand, Keller’s eyes change from their glazed-over vacancy to puzzlement and then delight. She begins to spell words back to Sullivan, to ask her for new words. In a frenzy of excitement, she learns the meaning of “mother,” of “father” and of “teacher.”

The play concludes on the abrupt upswing of Keller’s comprehension, but is also intended to signify Sullivan’s progression, as well. She signs to Keller, “I love you, forever and ever.”

For Scranton, the message is clear.

“People with disabilities are still made in the image of God,” he said. “They’re loved by God, and they should be by us.”

The Miracle Worker runs Jan. 30, 31, Feb. 1, 6, 7 and 8 at 7:30 p.m., and Feb. 1 and 8 at 2 p.m. Student tickets $10 and general admission $12.

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