50th Distinguished Faculty Lecturer

So this morning I drove to the Riverside campus to listen to my colleague, Joe Eckstein, explain maps, all kinds of maps, and why many of them are not accurate. He was articulate, interesting, and at moments quite funny.

In the printed program given to each attender, Joe had written, "E.C. Bentley wrote a ditty, 'Biography is about chaps but, geography is about maps.' My students often think I'm a walking atlas. Are English teachers walking dictionaries? Of course not. I often plead ignorance and have students look up their query in the index [actually, the gazetteer] at the back of the atlas." He explained why places are located where they are by telling that sometimes more than one map is needed for a thorough and complete explanation. He also explained that sometimes one map turns out to be the wrong map and another is needed.

He spoke about population -- telling us that more people live in California than Canada. Joe is a Canadian. He grew-up in Toronto.

He also spoke about the large populations in China and India by discussing their main crop: a four letter word--rice, and compared it with wheat, corn, barley, etc. That was very interesting.

He also spoke about another four letter word--wind. Then he explained why the waters off of Norway's coast are warmer in winter than the waters off of the coast of New York. Joe also explained the term P.O.S.H. -- it comes from the designation of which side of a cruise ship the elite, well-to-do where given years ago when traveling from London to (oh shoot, I can't remember). It means "port" going out and "starboard" going home. It was to keep them off the hot sunny side of the ship, back when ships had no air conditioning.

It was all very fascinating. He will be giving his lecture again this coming Monday afternoon at the campus where I teach and I hope that Mr. Fun will get to attend this presentation. Mr. Fun thinks maps are amazing . . . "They are a way of organizing wonder." He often repeats that phrase to me (I have forgotten where that comes from).

At the celebration luncheon after the lecture, I was seated at the table with the chancellor of our college district, the president of Moreno Valley college, a dean from the Riverside campus and several other faculty members from all three colleges: Norco, Riverside, and Moreno Valley.

Joe did an outstanding job. I am so glad I went to this event. Now it is back to grading student essays.

Good night from Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol

P.S. Thank you for the numerous comments on yesterday's rose.