Daytona Beach

Monday, May 19: Yesterday morning, as I went outside early to drink coffee by the koi pond, the sky was different. Maybe it had rained, maybe it was going to rain, but the particular shade of pearl gray triggered a flashback of those beautiful sunrise walks at Daytona Beach during the annual AP readings. I don't attend those readings anymore. Now that the College Board has gone on-line, I prefer to do the SAT gradings from the house, so I don't have to be away from the family for a week. But do have incredible memories of those weeks in Daytona, of the private beaches by the ocean, the collegiality and fun, and the professional development.

I had a memorable experience during my first Daytona reading sometime in the '90's...I had already attended one San Antonio AP reading and had flown back with a stray cat who looked just like our Gus, which is another story for another time. But then the College Board moved the AP reading to Daytona to whet the appetites of landlocked teachers across the country. Since College Board obviously has funds to burn, they flew readers from around the country and even some from international sites to the readings, so I had no objection to flying down to Daytona that first year in June. They flew me into Orlando and then bussed a group of us over to Daytona. By the time I crawled off the bus, registered at the hotel, and fell into bed, I had taken little notice of my surroundings. All I wanted was a nice clean bed! When I awoke the next morning, I went to the window, wondering if the hotel overlooked a parking lot or mall, snapped the curtains open and stood, dumbfounded, as I saw the most breath-taking sight! It was like an oil painting, so bright and perfect. Before me was the ocean splashing onto a clean white beach, and in the distance, the rising sun, just cresting over the horizon, was sending streaks of pink and orange color across the pearl sky. No buildings, no power lines, no cars---just the sea. Eagerly, I dressed and went down to the beach. Never before had I felt such a strong feeling for the ocean. Times in my life that I'd been to beaches, they were always crowded with people and noise, and I'd never felt much of a connection. But this time, at first light, the beach was deserted, aside from a few other AP readers, and the only sound was the roar of the waves splashing in. I was transfixed as I strolled up and down the shore smelling the salt breeze and watching the colors unfurl across the sky. The sky seemed higher and wider than ordinary skies. The cloud formations looked as though they were painted on. I was in awe.
Each morning for the rest of that grading week, I set the alarm for 5:45 and made it to the beach as the light was dawning. This became a very important ritual for me, not only that week, but every year that I returned to Daytona. One year, I brought P. and L. with me; other years, colleagues from GSU came to that particular reading. Phyllis and other GSU colleagues were there during years when they were assigned to Language AP instead of Literature AP. Patti Swartz was always there. After getting to know people who would return each year, I felt as though I was attending a reunion, as people became more familiar. One year, my sister flew down to meet me and stay for a few nights. We had dinner with David, who was also there that year, as a matter of fact. When I told her a year ago about his death, she knew who he was because of that one dinner, and that same night she learned of his death(she told me), he appeared to her in a dream and told her about a certain poem that I should read.

The College Board always provided lots of nighttime entertainment, such as dances, poetry readings, dinners, and the like. These offerings, combined with the restaurants and tourist traps on the beach side of the Daytona strip, made us all feel so spoiled during that week. They have a bungee jumping set-up near the peer, and it was fun to stand around with the crowd at night, ocean splashing in the background, and watch the daredevil teenagers leap from the high platform and bounce, screaming bloody murder, up and down. I asked my sister jokingly, "Would you do that for $50,000?" and she replied, "I'd do it for $5,000!" One year, Phyllis and took a much milder ride. It was a ski-lift type of device that carried its passengers out from the beach onto the ocean, then swirled around and came back.

Oh, yes, and there was the grading too. The 300 or 400 graders were divided into three groups, based on which of the three AP essay questions they'd be grading. Each sub-group occupied a different gymn-sized room in the convention center. Then, everyone doing the same question was assigned to a certain table. Each table of graders became like a family as the days went on. After the initial lengthy calibration on the first day, we'd spend the rest of the week sitting at our assigned table, replete with bowls of candy and other goodies, and reading pile after pile after pile of AP essays and grade them, based on the rubric. The Table Leader would check everyone's accuracy and move around the table telling everyone if any papers were too low or two high. After a stack was finished, a runner would pick them up and hand you a new stack. The Question Leader, the person in charge of the whole room, would announce stretch breaks every hour. In addition, we had official morning and afternoon breaks which involved feasts in the hallways. At lunchtime, we were herded to a dining room for even more luscious food.

It was not easy grading in that assembly line fashion. Even with all the breaks, it became tiring to read all day. I also found it distracting to my concentration to be in a room with hundreds of other people. When two people at the table would start talking or decide to read some portion of a students' paper to everyone else (which I also thought was unprofessional, to joke at the students' expense), I'd have to start re-reading from the beginning again. After I retired Georgia Southern and started in the secondary system, I suddenly lost my urge to go to Daytona. Maybe it was because for the first time, I had a job that paid through the summer and I felt I now had the luxury of choosing family over professional life, or maybe because the school system has sucked all the energy out of me and I had/have none left for traveling 500 miles to work all week, beach not withstanding. Just about the same time I left GSU, the College Board went on-line with the SAT's, and when I tried that, I found it to be one hundred percent easier to concentrate. I am much faster and more accurate while grading SAT's in my own house.

The last time I went to the Daytona reading, June of 2004 I think, L's two sisters, the one who lives in Florida, and the other who was visiting from Venezuela, picked me up on the last day and drove me back to Savannah. On the last morning of the reading, I convinced them to get up early with me and walk the beach at sunrise. I remember standing at the water's edge posing with the two of them as the sun rose in the background and some nice passerby took a photo with G's camera. I can hear the waves and smell the saltwater now!