Fiona Siobhan Powell
Kracatoa East of Altoona?
The alphabet? Terrific! I’m terribly pleased that the average three year old can now recite her
ABC's even before she knows what on earth she's talking about. Even as I quietly acknowledge that
I really couldn’t think of a use for my alphabet until I became a librarian. And I actually didn’t learn
my alphabet until I was seven. Long, long after I could multiply by 2 and read very well.
I can still remember my Mother saying to me,
“For heaven’s sake Fiona, put down “Alice in Wonderland” and come and learn your alphabet. You
start at an American school tomorrow, where they are frightfully dogmatic about these things.”
What mother didn’t realise was that I wasn’t actually reading “Alice in Wonderland”. I had slipped
a copy of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” inside it, and was trying to make sense of the startling revelations
of adult life offered up by Truman Capote.
Thank goodness, even though I wasn’t sure if P came after, or before Q, nor why it should matter.
I knew where I was (in France), that I was in Europe and that the German border was a scant few
miles away. Thanks to the hours I had spent pouring over an atlas.
I'm beginning to think that every child should be handed an atlas and a globe as soon as they can
hold them.
I don’t consider myself very learned.
I still get confused over whether it’s the south island of New Zealand that is famous for dairy cows,
and the north for sheep or vice versa; but I did understand why my friend Cindy went via New
Zealand when she traveled to the Antarctic.
I have a vision of where people are, in relation to each other, even if that vision is sometimes a bit
blurred. And when that vision is blurred, I look at a globe, atlas, or these days, an on-line map.
I like to know where people are starving, protesting, or preparing for the Olympics.
I disliked geography at school. Partly because my geography teacher was a sort of two–legged
Komodo dragon. With the temper and breath to match. I remember her bellowing at us, that we
would never regret learning geography, and bugger if she wasn’t right! I never have regretted a
moment of it.
What I do regret, are the many encounters I have with people who are blissfully unaware of the
basics.
When I first arrived in the USA. I was asked the following questions :
“How long did it take you to drive to America? (Well we had to keep bailing the Atlantic Ocean out
of the car, so longer than you’d think)
“What State is Britain in? (Under Maggie Thatcher? Pretty depressed)
“In England, do you have TV? (A Scotsman invented it, but in British solidarity he shared it with
the rest of us fairly quickly)
Are there trains In England? (Sigh! Stephenson, Trevithick, one English, the other Cornish living in
Wales…. So ours as well, thanks) I thought that I had simply encountered a particularly uncooked
batch of Yankees. Alas, would that this were true.
Today, my daughter told me that a woman, with whom she works, had asked her if she’d need her
passport to travel to New Mexico.
Last week, I was blithely informed by a man who was visiting his old University; (from which,
presumably, he had obtained a degree) that he,
“Knows a man in London called Tim” and “did I know him?”
Well, no, surprisingly I don’t know all of the 12 million or so inhabitants of London; and I should
imagine there are a fair few “Tim’s” in London.
Did he, by chance know all of the Tims who live in, say, Philadelphia?
“Why?” he asked “Is London kinda big?”
Well yes, if you consider 600 or so square miles “kinda big”
It is the complete lack of any sense of the world around us that startles me.
Even as I wrote this, I was informed over the phone that “British politics was different than
American” and that “The chances of a Democrat getting into the English White House probably
were not good”
I quipped; as is my wont, that, perhaps an English Liberal Democrat couldn’t get into an English
white house with use of a Harvard, but a Yale might gain him entry.
I’m afraid I confused the graduate of Temple with that one.
This lack of basics of the world view isn’t confined to Americans.
I hate to speak ill of the dead-beat, but my well educated (He was a teacher) ex husband Steve,
when registering our daughter Lydia’s birth at the local Registrars, (in England) blithely informed the
authorities that I had been born in Colombia.
“British Columbia, Stephen!” I said to him “Canada!”
“Much the same thing isn’t it dear?” Was his comment.
Oh my good Lord! Somebody hand that man an atlas, and while you’re about it, pass one out to
every child entering kindergarten.
It’s exhausting, being one of the few, wondering how Australians are coping with their winter.
ABC's even before she knows what on earth she's talking about. Even as I quietly acknowledge that
I really couldn’t think of a use for my alphabet until I became a librarian. And I actually didn’t learn
my alphabet until I was seven. Long, long after I could multiply by 2 and read very well.
I can still remember my Mother saying to me,
“For heaven’s sake Fiona, put down “Alice in Wonderland” and come and learn your alphabet. You
start at an American school tomorrow, where they are frightfully dogmatic about these things.”
What mother didn’t realise was that I wasn’t actually reading “Alice in Wonderland”. I had slipped
a copy of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” inside it, and was trying to make sense of the startling revelations
of adult life offered up by Truman Capote.
Thank goodness, even though I wasn’t sure if P came after, or before Q, nor why it should matter.
I knew where I was (in France), that I was in Europe and that the German border was a scant few
miles away. Thanks to the hours I had spent pouring over an atlas.
I'm beginning to think that every child should be handed an atlas and a globe as soon as they can
hold them.
I don’t consider myself very learned.
I still get confused over whether it’s the south island of New Zealand that is famous for dairy cows,
and the north for sheep or vice versa; but I did understand why my friend Cindy went via New
Zealand when she traveled to the Antarctic.
I have a vision of where people are, in relation to each other, even if that vision is sometimes a bit
blurred. And when that vision is blurred, I look at a globe, atlas, or these days, an on-line map.
I like to know where people are starving, protesting, or preparing for the Olympics.
I disliked geography at school. Partly because my geography teacher was a sort of two–legged
Komodo dragon. With the temper and breath to match. I remember her bellowing at us, that we
would never regret learning geography, and bugger if she wasn’t right! I never have regretted a
moment of it.
What I do regret, are the many encounters I have with people who are blissfully unaware of the
basics.
When I first arrived in the USA. I was asked the following questions :
“How long did it take you to drive to America? (Well we had to keep bailing the Atlantic Ocean out
of the car, so longer than you’d think)
“What State is Britain in? (Under Maggie Thatcher? Pretty depressed)
“In England, do you have TV? (A Scotsman invented it, but in British solidarity he shared it with
the rest of us fairly quickly)
Are there trains In England? (Sigh! Stephenson, Trevithick, one English, the other Cornish living in
Wales…. So ours as well, thanks) I thought that I had simply encountered a particularly uncooked
batch of Yankees. Alas, would that this were true.
Today, my daughter told me that a woman, with whom she works, had asked her if she’d need her
passport to travel to New Mexico.
Last week, I was blithely informed by a man who was visiting his old University; (from which,
presumably, he had obtained a degree) that he,
“Knows a man in London called Tim” and “did I know him?”
Well, no, surprisingly I don’t know all of the 12 million or so inhabitants of London; and I should
imagine there are a fair few “Tim’s” in London.
Did he, by chance know all of the Tims who live in, say, Philadelphia?
“Why?” he asked “Is London kinda big?”
Well yes, if you consider 600 or so square miles “kinda big”
It is the complete lack of any sense of the world around us that startles me.
Even as I wrote this, I was informed over the phone that “British politics was different than
American” and that “The chances of a Democrat getting into the English White House probably
were not good”
I quipped; as is my wont, that, perhaps an English Liberal Democrat couldn’t get into an English
white house with use of a Harvard, but a Yale might gain him entry.
I’m afraid I confused the graduate of Temple with that one.
This lack of basics of the world view isn’t confined to Americans.
I hate to speak ill of the dead-beat, but my well educated (He was a teacher) ex husband Steve,
when registering our daughter Lydia’s birth at the local Registrars, (in England) blithely informed the
authorities that I had been born in Colombia.
“British Columbia, Stephen!” I said to him “Canada!”
“Much the same thing isn’t it dear?” Was his comment.
Oh my good Lord! Somebody hand that man an atlas, and while you’re about it, pass one out to
every child entering kindergarten.
It’s exhausting, being one of the few, wondering how Australians are coping with their winter.
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