Week was a communal experience

A week is such a flexible measure of time.

It can stretch on and on or zip by.

In normal times, a week can be the comforting reckoning of our routines. Perhaps more than even the 24 hours of a day, it is the brackets we place around the cycles of our lives.

But we usually start counting on Sunday or Monday, not Tuesday morning.

In normal times, the events that determine what grade we assign a seven-day duration tend to be individual, highly personal stories. Good news or bad, we mostly face these peaks and valleys in an essentially private way.

Weaving through a world of strangers, our thoughts are our own.

But of course, these are no longer normal times. And in the week just passed, the concept of a shared consciousness has been made real.

Did it seem to go by quickly or plod past in slow motion? It doesn't really matter because, in a sense, it was week that might never end.

* Slice answer: "Maybe it is the Irish in us, but like Jack O'Brien, my family is inundated by teachers," wrote Judge James Murphy. "My wife, her sister, her sister's husband, her dad, her dad's two brothers, his sister, my sister's husband and my son.

"Just to make sure everyone had work to do, my sister was in charge of School District 81's truancy program.

"To prove to all of them that I haven't forsaken their profession entirely, I visit their classrooms and speak to their students about the law."

He added a P.S., "I neglected to mention my sister the truancy cop also has a son who teaches and coaches and a daughter-in-law who teaches and another daughter-in-law who is working on her master's in education. How in the world can I account for all of them?"

* Feedback: "What's with the unprovoked attack on Keith Jackson?" wrote Kene Larson. "I am a 22-year-old WSU student who has followed college football since I could sit upon my Daddy's knee . . . and I still think Keith Jackson is a fine football broadcaster."

* Grade School Confidential: "School is under way, and after two weeks of students being on their best behavior, things got a little noisy the other day," wrote Glenna Ainley in Adams County. "I had to give my first lecture of the year using my best teacher voice, sternly reminding the kids of the rules and my expectations."

A little girl named Rebekkah raised her hand.

"Mrs. Ainley," she said. "Does this mean the honeymoon is over?"

* Today's Slice question: Could you have ever imagined the New York Yankees as sentimental favorites?

Copyright 2001 Cowles Publishing Company
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