There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar;
For the Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling place there.

Refrain:
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore;
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

We shall sing on that beautiful shore
The melodious songs of the blessed;
And our spirits shall sorrow no more,
Not a sigh for the blessing of rest.

To our bountiful Father above,
We will offer our tribute of praise
For the glorious gift of His love
And the blessings that hallow our days.

At work I’ve taken to signing certain emails “TcT” instead of using my full email signature. (I think my dean knows who I am. As do people with whom I’m having a lengthy email conversation.) I thought today that folks unfamiliar with my employment and family history may not know what “TcT” means. It’s even possible that my family doesn’t really know how it got started.

It all got started in the yellow-walled backroom of The Good Book Shoppe in North Olmsted, Ohio. I was a youngin’, 14 maybe, when I started working for an actual wage doing actual work at the stores my family owned. Previously I had been handed a quarter to go dust books or straighten pencils, but I was now being trained in actual bookstore operations and being paid hourly. My grandfather was teaching me the shipping/receiving procedures. At some point, there was some confusion over a packing slip or something that I had initialled. I was supposed to initial the paper, but the problem was that my father and I have the same first/last initials: TT. Also, in typical son-copying-father tradition, I was even making my initials in the same fashion as he; I made something that looked like the Greek letter pi, or stonehenge. Obviously, having both of us making the same sign was going to get confusing, and equally obviously my dad was not going to be the one to change since he did have the very true claim of having “done it first.” So, I decided that I would continue making the TT like a “pi” but I would insert a “C” (my middle initial) between the uprights. I’ve continued to initial items this way ever since, even when one around could ever confuse who TT is.

When I handwrite the initials, the “C” sinks a bit, the “C” beginning half to all the way down the stem of the “T”. When it came time to start doing this electronically, I thought the lower-case “c” hinted at the stylishness of the handwritten version. Is that vain? Yes. Probably.

Now you know not only who TcT is, but why it’s TcT.

And knowing’s half the battle.

Of course, what all this does for me mainly is make me think about the fact that there seem to be many more school closings and delays today than when I was in school walking barefoot in two-feet of snow uphill both ways.

I know it’s just about the middle of January, but I’m finally getting my act together in re: photos. I just sprung for the Flickr Pro account, so I must be a pro. At any rate, for the fam out there, I’ve uploaded pics from the two Christmas celebrations we attended.

BLTs, you can go here.

Members of the GJLMTW clan can go here.

Enjoy!

Seriously, we’re very excited.

Charles L. Crow, Professor Emeritus of English, Bowling Green State University, is also impressed. He’s written:

Professor Truffin’s elegant study defines a literature about school days.
Since the Gothic always reveals an alternative history, the hidden underside of experience, these are not the bright happy times of school anthems and graduation speeches, but a history of power abused and trust betrayed. Schoolhouse Gothic makes us looks at education and American literature with new eyes. This is an important book, and it will be widely read and admired.

I hope he’s correct in his predictions.