Don Cerow

My Back Pages

Don Cerow Info

The purpose of a bio is to give folks an idea of who you are. The following is a story from out of my past, which, while it is only a small piece, is one that helped to shape my worldview and enriched my appreciation of different schools of thought.

   The following was a paper written as a senior in high school for an English class. It later ran in the school paper, but was about an earlier time, six years earlier, when I had been attending school in England. Dad had been transferred to a British Army base in Didcott, and for three years, we lived in England and I became, as much as is possible for an American, an English school boy. This paper had been forgotten until I ran across an old copy of the school paper tucked away in my yearbook.

Struan House School

   There are many ways, besides education, in which English schools differ from the American; their form of punishment for instance. In America, when a young boy does something wrong, it's "I will not talk to Tommy during class, I will not talk to Tommy during class, I will not..." etc., for 100, 500, or 1000 times or whatever. If the situation demands more action, then perhaps suspension, or even expulsion, is the school's verdict. But in England... ah yes, in England... the penal system is quite different.

  "Wait here," a professor will threaten. The doomed schoolboy, knowing his fate, nervously awaits while the professor leaves the room only to return all too quickly.

Yours Truly

   "Bend, BOY!" comes the command, whereupon the condemned youth quietly begins a closer inspection of the floor.

  "Whack, whack, whack!" The repeated blows from the professor's bamboo cane come insistently one on top of the other. The English find that pain is a much better means of communication with the pupil. Before leaving England, I was to become quite familiar with this quaint old English custom.

  Naturally, I was not the only one to experience such hardships. There was a large, slightly over weight boy in our class by the name of Puvie. His overbearing character rather matched his girth. Having nothing better to do during one of our math classes, he removed his sandal, this being the required in-door shoe, and placed his compass, point first, through the hole in the front. Then, replacing the shoe on his foot, he proceeded to give the chap in front of him, a rather small boy by the name of Bone,

Bone

a good swift kick. Poor Bone yelped uncontrollably. The headmaster, teacher of this particular class, turned to find Bone fruitlessly trying to suppress his spasmodic sobs.
  "What's the matter, Bone?" demanded the old boy, for this is what we affectionately, or perhaps unaffectionately, called him.
  "N-N-Nothing, Sir" sobbed Bone.
  "BONE! What IS the matter?" thundered the old man. At this point Bone, in no shape to argue, gave in.
  "S-S-Someone j-jabbed me with a compass, Sir." The old boy's gaze immediately became fixed on the two students behind Bone, for in England, each desk holds not one, but two boys.

The Old Boy

  "Well, Kent?" he demanded, his eyelids coming together as if taking aim. John Kent, seated beside Puvie, cringed and actually retreated from the piercing gaze, if that's possible from a fixed, sitting position.
  "Who, me Sir?" N-No Sir, not me Sir!"
  "Well, Brind?" interrogated the old boy, calling Puvie by his surname.
  "An, well Sir, I-ah-did drop my compass, Sir, and-ah-I guess I might have accidentally touched him with it on the way up..."
  Needless to say, Mr. Brind did his part to further an English tradition that afternoon when he and the cane became as one.
  A rather interesting incident presented itself around a Shakespearian play that we, as the school, presented. Because the play was being performed during the evening hours of an ordinary school day, we were obliged to remain at the school and have supper there. The entire cast managed to rise to the occasion and we were able to begin the meal without any ado.

Kent

Everything proceeded normally, the teachers being seated at their table and we at ours, until the conclusion of the meal. The teachers, having finished their main course, arose and slowly filed out in one's and two's. I'm not sure who it was that first noticed that they had failed to eat their desserts, but in a trice there appeared seven or eight boys, myself being one, pushing and shoving about their table, grasping at the rectangular pieces of iced cake and stowing them into either our mouths or the pockets of our school blazers. Running out of the dining area and back into the classrooms (it was an exceedingly short distance as it was an exceedingly small school), we proceeded to consume our ill-gotten booty. Having thoroughly satisfied ourselves that there were no more crumbs to be found in our pockets, we paused to relax and discuss the upcoming play. No sooner had we done so but in came the old boy smiling to himself. He there informed us that he would see the lot of us the next morning to answer for our hasty, irresponsible actions. It hadn't occurred to us that we might have done anything wrong, but it certainly had to him.
  The next morning came, as most mornings do, and found me not only pregnant with anticipation, but also with underwear. I was determined to be well prepared, not to mention being well padded.
  Before the start of school that morning we were all asked to file into the study. We lined up much in the manner of a firing squad, with the old boy as the victim, facing us, from across the room. As it turned out however, he was the one who was to do the firing.
  "Right, then!" stated the old boy. "I've only one question to ask. Who started it? That is t'say, who took the first piece of cake?"

Matthews

Visiting a Scottish Loch

  I think it was the common belief that Matthews, the first boy into the study and therefore the one who had the wall on one side of him and us boys on the other, had been the first to take the cake. With the question thus put to us we all looked down the row towards Matthews who stood there, eyes forward, waiting for someone else to answer the question. Glancing up the line, he noted to his horror that he was being regarded by six other, not so smiling faces. Perhaps in a subconscious effort to throw the blame from himself, he turned his head and eyes in the same direction as ours, only to be met with the blank face of the wall. His mind racing, and realizing the 'buck' had been passed to him, he quickly stated,
  "Yes, Sir. Well, Sir, I believe it was Kent, Sir." Unfortunately for Kent, he was absent that day and was therefore not able to defend himself. As a result, we all received a single whack and were instructed that we were not to be so foolish again. When Kent did arrive the next day, he received two whacks without question.
  These and many other incidents like them, were to become my fond remembrances of England. For as one professor put it when confronted with the question,
  "What, Sir, would you say are the qualities that go into young English lads, to make them such fine English gentlemen?" He replied,
  "Why, that's easy; a little patience, a little understanding, and a lot of beatings."

The Original Webb School

  Another slice of bio can be found on the Web under a column entitled My Old School, occurred during the spring of '69, at a boy's school in Bell Buckle, Tennessee entitled 'The Webb School.' Athena's WEB School was a distant echo of The Webb School.

Modern Viewz

  After the initiation of the radio show in 1978, Don was asked to write a column for the Campus Connection in 1983, a local paper published in Amherst, MA and serving the five college community. During that year, Rob Rainey, a local cartoonist, ran the following strip. Don went on to write for the Advocate Newspapers beginning in 1984.

Big Boots

Inner Light

   An astrologer since 1972, Don holds a BA from the University of Massachusetts, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude with a major in Classics, and a minor in Astrology in the Ancient World. He continued his graduate work at both Boston University and Brandeis. In 1983 he was voted 'Best Astrologer' in the Valley Advocate's "Best of" series, and in 1992 lectured before 50 astronomers and physicists in a presentation he calls, 'Athena in the Lion's Den.' Athena's Web is currently being carried by the Amherst Bulletin, and has appeared in various papers in a weekly format since 1983. Don is an NCGR Level IV professional astrologer, and has also written and produced shows for radio and television. Together with his wife Gail, he has led groups to Belize from 1998 to 2000 where we studied both Mayan medicine and the stars. He produced two one-hour videos, Myths, Dragons and the Ages in 2003 illustrating the weave of wisdom throughout pagan cultures around the world.

   Life has changed considerably since Gail's passing in July, 2000. Since that time, Don has been traveling across the country, journeying out to Nantucket, New York, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina,

High School

High School

as well as Texas, Arizona and Colorado, which he visited three time in 2001. Driving across country repeatedly, the beauty and majesty of this land has become increasingly apparent. With Venus in Cancer, his love for home and family has been expanded to a love for the country. In the spring of 2003, he moved to Boulder, CO, and then in 2005 to Santa Cruz, where he now resides.

   His two children are kt (Kathryn Megan Cerow) and Andy (Andrew Alexander Davis Cerow).

  (Pre-2006) kt (sic) is currently pursuing a liberal arts degree while studying at the University of Massachusetts under a full academic scholarship. She works at Radio Shack, feeds the cat, and rents out her own house on the banks of the Connecticut River. She is happiest on the other end of a fishing pole.

  (Post-2006) kt has now graduated from the University of Mass and has entered and is working at BU on a forensics career. Currently she is working on her Master's.

  (Pre-2007) Andy is working his way through both college and the Hampshire Mall. He spends a good deal of his time keeping in shape, whether at the gym or designing his own programs of running and calisthenics along the farm roads around his house. He's looking forward to putting the studious years of academia well behind him.

  (Post-2007) Andy has now entered the University of Massachusetts, having earned two associates degrees from Greenfield Community College. He, like his sister before him, is working at Radio Shack when not at school where he studies, and is the co-captain of a soccer team with the little time he has left.

Translate to: Français | Deutsch | Italiano | Português | Español