The Childish Adult

Hometown Heroes

2012-02-12T13:26:00.003-05:00

When I was growing up, my heroes - like those of my friends - were athletes. Ozzie Smith, Tommy Herr, Willie McGee, Jim McMahon. In my years as a teacher I see many other young boys do the same. Any given day at school will find bunches of Carolina jerseys walking through the front door. As my boys get older they are beginning to notice this and consequently changing their own preferences to match that of the established norm.

This past Christmas Muluken received an Albert Pujols Cardinal jersey and a Marcus Lattimore Carolina jersey. Ty got both a brand new David Freese Cardinal t-shirt and a hand-me-down Chris Carpenter jersey. They are beginning, it seems, to make athletes their heroes.

I imagine this is pretty typical. Many kids over the past century have grown up worshiping Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Dr. J, Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, or Wayne Gretsky. With time most of them outgrow this.

At least in part.

A few months ago St. Louis lost it's best baseball player - Albert Pujols. After helping the club to win it's eleventh baseball championship in franchise history he bolted for Los Angeles where the Angels were willing to pay him $240 million dollars over the next ten years. Though he was deeply rooted in the St. Louis community he felt "disrespected" by the Cardinals and their paltry offer of about $200 million over those same ten years.

The Cardinals are not cheap but they are certainly not among the biggest spenders in Major League Baseball. While the Yankees top the majors in payroll ($210 million per season) the Cardinals generally rank somewhere between 9th-12th (in the ballpark of $100 million per season). To construct a 25-man roster this would average out to about $4 million per player. Of course some make more and some make less.

Over his eleven seasons with the Cardinals Albert Pujols was considered a hero to all, not to mention the face of the city. This was due in part to his willingness at the time to accept a "hometown discount" to help the Cardinals secure other players and field a competitive team. What does a hometown discount mean? Surviving on $12 million a year rather than $15 million? Or $20 million?

Albert Pujols was a stand-up guy for sacrificing a bit of his own gaudy riches to help other obscenely rich ballplayers make a few extra bucks as well. For this he was seen as a true team player.

But what about the team members who extend beyond the clubhouse? The ones who collect the tickets, clean the bathrooms, sell the merchandise, and pick up the trash? The ones making $7.25 an hour (if not working on commission).

How much of a hero would Albert Pujols have been had he decided that instead of squeezing out an extra $2 million dollars a year for himself or other privileged ball players he would help provide a livable wage for the stadium workers that make it possible to host 30,000 guests each night?

Estimating there are a thousand of these minimum wage workers he could secure them an extra $4 an hour for 5.5 hours per night over the span of 81 home games for just under $2 million dollars. That would mean an extra $1,782 for each of those thousand workers over the course of a single baseball season, or $274 per month.

Better yet, if instead of taking his contract for $24 million per season over the next ten years he could have told the Angels he would play for just $8 million a season and used the remaining money to fund the livable wage for stadium workers over the next EIGHTY years (and longer when considering the investment opportunities of that money).

Assuming owners don't treat these new wages as an opportunity to save a buck down the line, continuing to raise the pay rate in relation to inflation, what would Albert Pujols' legacy be? What would we remember most - his homeruns or his dedication to improving the lives of those that support his right to make millions of dollars hitting a baseball?

In the next year or two some new elite player will agree to a hometown discount and, like Albert, become a hero - the new face of St. Louis. His jerseys will fly off the racks, thousands will chant his name, and countless children will learn that this is what it means to be successful. To have done something truly good. Truly heroic.

Perhaps we need new heroes.

What I Hate: S - U

2012-01-29T13:10:00.001-05:00

A week or two ago I was asked to introduce myself to a group of teachers in an "alternate" way. This was to mean I could not talk about my classroom, my school, or my degree program. I'm really not good at introductions - of any sort. I generally say very little which produces, at the end, an awkward silence in which everyone wonders if I am finished. Not knowing how to let people know I'm finished talking is one of the many social cues I have yet to learn. Am I supposed to make the pitch of my voice go up, or maybe down? Am I supposed to finish with a flurry of rapid talking followed by jazz hands? I suppose I should consider creating a catchy sign off to help people know that I have no more to say. Maybe something along the lines of "That's it. If you want to know anymore you'll have to read the transcripts from the arraignment". Somehow, though, I suspect this would only lead to more awkwardness.

So I was challenged to go outside of the obvious this time around and offer up an introduction of myself that helped people know more about me than just my role as a teacher and a learner. What to do???

"My name is Chris and I'd like to introduce myself by telling you all the things I hate...from A-Z."

Ha, this list may be childish but it paid off beautifully within the context of an introduction. Not only do I think there might actually be some value in using the things we "hate" to learn more about ourselves and others but the mere fact that someone would create such a list is telling as well. Of what I'm not certain. But definitely telling.

So to further my journey into my deepest thoughts and feelings I present the letters S, T, and U.

S- Seesaws. Do you remember the first time you climbed onto a seesaw? You had probably seen them on television and thought they'd be SO MUCH FUN. Then you climbed on only to find out that, sadly, it's just a trick to get you to do a bunch of deep crunches or else feel the jarring discomfort of having your ass repeatedly dropped into the ground. The only saving grace was to take comfort in the fact that the incessant squeaking of the "seeeeeee.....saaaaaaaw.....seeeeeee.....saaaaaaw" drove your parents nuts.

Others: sailor uniforms, saluting, scones, Scottish terriers, secrets, shaving, shopping, sickness, silverfish, slippers, smugness, snoring, splinters, suits, syringes

T- Tickling (but only as the recipient).Why do kids love being tickled so much? It's terrible. I HATE being tickled. When our kids try to tickle I do my best not to let on that it's bothering me in hopes that they'll soon give up and come to the conclusion that I'm not ticklish. Seriously, it gives me the creeps. Yet Ty will let you tickle him until he can hardly breath and then ask you to do it again. I don't get it.

Others: tanks, tanning beds, tartness, termites, thorns, tiaras, ties, tobacco, tobacco companies, toupees, tuxedos

U- Ultra-sound photos. Are these truly necessary? I'm convinced they're a scam perpetrated on poor unsuspecting insurance companies. Only a parent, or perhaps grandparent, could get so excited about a smalll white fuzzy blob that looks like nothing at all. How many poor children have had to endure years of being called Peanut as a result of these "photographs"?

Others: uniforms, urinal cakes

An Incomplete History Leads to an Incomplete Present

2012-01-22T21:48:00.000-05:00

What do you know about the U.S. war with Mexico? The years it took place? Events leading up to the war? The effects it had on each country? Chances are you know very little. You can blame your history teachers for this. Well, that's probably unfair because there's more than enough blame to go around. History textbooks devote only a couple of paragraphs to this war and the powers that create such documents as state standards are just fine with this. To read anymore might well lead one to question the morality of this conquest.

Take, for instance, this account of facts from Bill Bigelow (www.rethinkingschools.org):

The U.S. war with Mexico (1846-48) “gave”—in the words of history textbooks—California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and part of Colorado to the United States of America. And the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, formally ending the war, ratified the annexation of Texas, which had broken away from Mexico largely because of Mexico’s policies against slavery.

Most Mexicans know that the war against Mexico was another chapter in U.S. imperialism—a “North American invasion,” as it’s commemorated in a huge memorial in Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park. But don’t take Mexicans’ word for it. Here’s what Col. Ethan Allan Hitchcock, aide to the commander of U.S. forces Gen. Zachary Taylor, wrote at the time in his journal about the war’s origins: “I have said from the first that the United States are the aggressors. … We have not one particle of right to be here … It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on a war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses.”

Exactly. President James K. Polk, himself a slaveowner, had ordered U.S. troops into an area claimed by Mexico and inhabited by Mexicans and waited for them to be attacked. And when they were, Polk claimed aggression and the U.S. had its war. The invading U.S. Army actually called itself the Army of Occupation.

The abolition movement regarded the war as a land grab to expand slavery. The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass denounced the Mexican invasion as “a murderous war—as a war against the free states—as a war against freedom, against the Negro, and against the interests of workingmen of this country—and as a means of extending that great evil and damning curse, negro slavery.” Henry David Thoreau coined the term “civil disobedience” in defense of his position that people should not pay taxes to support the war against Mexico. Thoreau argued that a minority can act against an unjust system only when it “clogs by its whole weight.”

Here’s a U.S. infantry lieutenant who wrote his parents after a U.S. officer named Walker was killed in battle, quoted in Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States: “Gen. Lane … told us to ‘avenge the death of the gallant Walker’ … Grog shops were broken open first and then, maddened with liquor, every species of outrage was committed. Old women and girls were stripped of their clothing—many suffered still greater outrages. Men were shot by dozens … their property, churches, stores, and dwelling houses ransacked … It made me for the first time ashamed of my country.” In his memoirs, Ulysses S. Grant wrote that this was “one of the most unjust [wars] ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation …”

Any study of history should include the inclusion of multiple perspectives. However, this rarely happens. We learn of our history through the lens of the victors, or oppressors as it may be. We make heroes of slave holders and killers alike with little concern for their oppressive beliefs and practices. I've never been any more aware of this than last week when the following statement was made by Newt Gringrich in the Republican debate where good ol' South Carolina Republicans applauded like mad:

"We're in South Carolina. South Carolina in the Revolutionary War had a young 13-year-old named Andrew Jackson. He was sabred by a British officer and wore a scar his whole life. Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear-cut idea about America's enemies: kill them."

The fact that it was actually "Stonewall" Jackson who said "kill them" aside, it's scary a presidential candidate would try to evoke the sentiments of a man responsible for the Indian Removal Act, a piece of legislature that led to the death of thousands of Native Americans. But should anyone really be all that surprised Gingrich would communicate an "us versus them" mentality that places himself in a superior role? Consider the fact he openly, and proudly, demands that "Blacks need to stop demanding food stamps and begin demanding jobs." Or that he argues the "fact" that the poor have no work ethic. Or that marriage is not a civil right - at least not if you're homosexual.

I wonder how people like Newt Gingrich come to hate, belittle, and work to oppress others. Do they learn it from their families? The church? The media?

Their schools?

I'm becoming much more aware of our role as educators to teach not just tolerance but love and appreciation and respect. Part of doing this is to think about the language we use about those who are different than us and the underlying beliefs that fuel these statements. Another part is to engage in a critical study of our past (both the good and the bad) in hopes of better understanding our present. And the third part is to begin seeing ways in which our society marginalizes populations based on race, gender, religion, sexuality, class, and so on.

Maybe if our students learned to see the world for both what it is and what it isn't we'd find ourselves with far fewer Newt Gingriches.

You Know There's Something Wrong with America...

2012-01-12T22:27:00.001-05:00

I was initially tempted to intro this video by sharing interesting excerpts from the conversations my kids at school have been having about the election and the differences their parents see between the two primary parties. However, I don't want to associate anything we've done in the classroom with this ad. This may be the worst ad I've ever seen. Within half a minute he attacks gays and then turns around to talk about a liberal war on religion - suggesting a denial of rights. I'd love to see him pull another 0.7% in South Carolina. However, that would require our state getting something right.

What I Hate: P-R

2012-01-08T21:10:00.000-05:00

My first tough letter - Q. I was tempted to include the band Qeensryche on the sole basis on their terrible power ballad "Silent Lucidity." It played almost non-stop in the early 90's. However, given the fact they've had only that single hit yet have still found a way to release eleven lps, sell more than 20 million albums worldwide, and still tour to this day I'll give them a pass. Here are the losers...

P- PADDLE BOATS. At no other time in your life will you work so hard to produce so little. Tricia and I once paid to paddle boat in Forest Park in St. Louis. We made it about a half-mile away from the dock when a sudden thunderstorm moved in. We started to pedal like mad only to see a few glaciers pass us by. It was ridiculous. When you consider they charge you by the half-hour it's actually pretty genius.

Others: painting (or at least cleaning up afterward), paisley shirts, parades, parasites, political ads, photographs of me, pickles, pigeons, pipes (except maybe the corncob type), poison ivy, pollution, Pomeranian's, potpourri, prunes, pumice stones, and power ballads.

Q- QUENTIN TARANTINO. Go ahead. You Tube him and try to listen to him talk for more than five minutes. At best it will produce an epileptic seizure.

Others: quiche, questions in the final minutes of a meeting or class, queen bees, quicksand

R- RECEDING HAIR. A few of my students keep telling me that I'm going bald. I thought they meant I had a microscopic bare spot on the crown of my noggin but when asked to show me they proceeded to point out my growing forehead. This reminds me I should have included the "comb-over" back at the letter C.

Others: raccoons, rashes, Ronald McDonald, razor burn, rodeos, rust, R. Kelly, rude people

What I Hate M-O

2011-12-22T11:55:00.000-05:00

It has been suggested I might follow this rancorous list with a more polite compilation of things I love. I don't know. That might be harder. There are certainly many things I love but to accidentally omit just one could be costly. I mean, I forgot to include Hitler in my current list but no one decided to give me the cold shoulder or stop talking to me all together.

M - Mustache. This is best referred to as the "porn-stache" because it can make any respectable guy look as though he has been transported to the world of 1970's adult entertainment. I find mustaches to be distracting, at best. Of course, there's many kinds. There's the bushy 'stache (Einstein, Sonny Bono, Tom Selleck, John Oates, Dr. Phil), Fu-Manchu (Hulk Hogan), Overgrown (David Crosby, Gene Shalit, Frank Zappa), Overly manicured (Freddie Mercury), Flamboyant (Geraldo Rivera, Vincent Price, Salvador Dali), Small (Charlie Chaplan, Hitler), Thin-Lined (John Waters, Clark Gable), Bushy Sideburn/Mustache Combo (Richard Roundtree), Handlebar (Rolly Fingers), and fake (Groucho Marx). Few men have successfully pulled off the mustache: Clint Eastwood, Richard Prior, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Yosemite Sam, to name a few.

Others: maggots, malted milk balls, mannequins, manure, messiness, mink coats, mosquitoes, murder, and Michael Bolton

N - N-SYNC, NWA, Naughty by Nature, Nick Lachey, and the Notorious BIG. This is a hateful tribute to most, if not all, boy bands and gangster rap groups. While I generally feel as though I like all kinds of music (although to differing degrees) I doubt I'll ever come around to either of these genres.

Others: nausea and neck tattoos

O- Ostentatiousness. For a period of time my dad would come home from work each week with a new word he and a friend had looked up in the dictionary. Their goal each week was to use this word a predetermined number of times each day until it became part of their vocabulary. I think, too, they hoped to annoy those around them. The only two words I remember are "ostentatious" and "facetious." It's been at least twenty-five years but I still use both words from time to time. The definition of ostentatious is "pretentious or conspicuous show in an attempt to impress others." I wonder if my dad found this to be ironic?

Others: opossums and the Oakridge Boys

The Speed Trap

2011-12-19T13:04:00.001-05:00

We spent yesterday driving from South Carolina to St. Louis. As always we woke early, climbed into the van, and were on our way a few hours before the sun would rise. 4 am.

As everyone settled in and fell back asleep I stared off into the blackness ahead. There's little to see when driving down unlit roads in the dead of night. The only thing to break the silence is the rhythmic hum of the tires on the road.

Not too long after finding the interstate and passing into North Carolina the tranquility of the night was broken by the blinding blur of flashing blue lights behind me. Perhaps I became too lost in my daydreams. The trooper told me I was doing 85 mph in a 60 mph zone. I thought 60 mph was a ridiculous speed limit for any stretch of interstate. I thought I had the cruise control set to 75. I thought I probably wasn't going to get by with a warning. I was right.

He asked "Why'd you just zoom right past me? Didn't you see that I was a state trooper?" This, I thought, was a rather stupid question so I chose not to answer it. I also chose not to debate his accusation that I was driving 85 since my only defense was that I thought I was doing 75.

This ticket is crazy-expensive. A sever punishment, for certain. However, it hasn't so much taught me not to speed as much as it's taught me not to speed in total darkness.

Later, Tricia took over the driving. She looked over and asked "How fast do you think it's safe to go without getting pulled over?"

"We're good," I said. "We already have a ticket. I think it kind of serves as a voucher against future tickets within the same trip. Kind of like 'I'm sorry but we already gave at the office.'"

Poor logic, perhaps, but we made it the rest of the way without incident.

What I Hate: J - L

2011-12-15T23:00:00.002-05:00

J - Jersey Shore. In all fairness I've never actually seen Jersey Shore. However, I've never seen a concentration camp either but I'm pretty sure they're both awful. One of the people on the show is named Snooki. Really. I'm not clever to make something like that up. I've been told there's an episode of Beavis and Butthead in which the boys try to create a chart tracking which of the Jersey Shore characters have hooked-up with one another. Beavis studies all the intersecting lines and deadpans "I bet if you stared at the chart long enough you could find out where gonorrhea came from."

Others: Ju-Ju Fruits, Jerome Bettis, jelly, jealousy, jingoism, jigsaw puzzles, Jack Daniels, Jumping Jack Flash (the movie, not the song), Journey, and James Joyce.

K -Kate (and Ashley) Olsen. They're both bazillionaires and celebrities but I'm not all that certain how either of these came to be.

Others: KKK, Kip Winger, KIT, and Kevin Costner.

L - Late night commercials. It's not just that they're really bad that makes me hate these commercials. No, it's that they're selling products and services that are designed to appeal to forty-five year old men living in their mother's basement. Knowing that they strategically place these commercials to reach their target audience, I hate realizing it might be me!

Others: landmines, laser shows, laundromats, leeches, limousines, line dancing, litterbugs, locusts, losing, and loud neighbors

What I Hate: G - I

2011-12-02T21:32:00.001-05:00

Hate is a strong word. I mean, do I hate Gary Busey or am I just wildly disturbed by him? It's a fine line I'm walking here.

Here's the next installment:

G - Great Expectations. I've tried to read this book, by Charles Dickens, three different times in my life. The first was in high school. I admit I probably didn't give it much of an effort but, still, it made no sense what-so-ever. I wasn't even all that certain they were speaking English. I gave up after a few chapters and then paid just enough attention to the class lectures to squeak out my usual "C." A few years later I tried reading it again because I didn't want to admit failure. I abandoned it after less than a hundred pages. The last time I tried was in my early thirties. I somehow convinced myself that another ten years of life experience would help me enjoy this book. I couldn't have been more wrong. It was still awful and made me feel like a bad reader. Anyone who says they love this book is lying or trying to appear smarter than they really are. I, on the other hand, vow to never try reading it again.

Others: guilt, guns, grapefruit, grenades, Gatlinburg, TN, Gucci (and all it represents)

H- Hard Liquor. Why does anyone ever drink this stuff? It essentially tastes like fingernail polish smells.If, to consume it, you have to shoot it down your throat as fast as humanly possible and then squeeze your face up tighter than a bull's ass on fight night then it's just not worth it. But at least it's cheap, right?

Others: haircuts, hearses, hockey, hospitals, hot air balloon rides, horseradish, hoola-hoops (only because every one I ever tried didn't work right), and humidity

I - IRS. This might seem too obvious but I have a particular beef with the IRS. It is now early December and we still have not received our sizeable tax refund from last April. Every few months we get a letter saying "We apologize but we are still reviewing your file. You will hear back from us on (insert random date) with our findings." Only guess what? We don't hear back from them until about three weeks after that date and the only thing we receive, even then, is yet another letter saying they haven't had enough time to look over our return. And because they have a sick sense of humor that even I cannot appreciate, yesterday they sent us a bulky envelope (never a good sign) that said they're charging us a 20% interest penalty for the fact that our tax situation was not resolved by April 15th. Yes, 20% in penalties for money they actually OWE US. I enjoyed an hour long discussion with them on the phone last night. The guy on the other end actually started laughing at one point, stopped, and said "I'm sorry, this probably isn't a laughing matter." At this point maybe that's all you can do. This week we will send in yet more adoption documents to them and wait another three months.

Others: identity theft, idiots (as well as ignoramuses and imbeciles), and igloos (I'm really supposed to believe those things keep you warm?),

I'M DONE!!!

2011-11-25T17:36:00.001-05:00

“Whatdoes it mean to be a winner at learning? Winners are judged by some externalcriteria set by anyone other than the learner. If you answer more of someoneelse’s questions, score higher on someone else’s test, or complete more ofsomeone else’s assignments according to their specifications, then you will beconsidered a learning winner over your peers. Under these circumstances, thegoal of such schooling is to do more of someone else’s bidding. This separateslearners from their learning because they control neither its content nor itsconsequences. In classrooms that feature learning competitions, learning isabout winning – about gains, prestige, and satisfaction. It has more to do withego involvement than with performance, coming to know yourself, your own andother cultures, and the workings of the world”

I love this excerpt from Patrick Shannon's book Text, Lies, and Videotape. It was one of many I've read (or at least browsed) over the past month in preparation for a theory paper I was writing for one of my classes. This paper took far longer than I expected .

However, I'm proud to say that after holing up in the library on Wednesday I was able to finally finish the paper, as well as a research proposal and accompanying Power Point presentation. By the time I entered that final reference and hit "save" I was almost in disbelief that I could actually be done with everything. It's been a long, but rewarding, haul.

After attending my final classes on Monday and Tuesday I'll have five weeks off before classes start up again. As overwhelmed as I get at times trying to keep up with my coursework I have to say that I do enjoy it. I like having lots to do. When I don't I feel kind of lost, not knowing exactly what I should be doing. I imagine I'll probably play more guitar, clear out some fallen trees and limbs around the house, and go for bike rides with the kids. It's not such a bad job trying to find ways to spend downtime!

While I won't share my paper on critical literacy I will pass along three or four of my favorite quotes (as pulled from the writing of some seriously smart people).

*****

"If the mass media are showing kids how to resolve their conflicts through violence or unfettered consumerism, we have to encourage them to reflect. We have a responsibility to help them question their ideas and values, to figure out where these ideas come from and whose interests they serve."

“Whatknowledge is most worthy? and its corollary, What should we teach our children?are deceptively simple questions….In recent years, the question of whatknowledge is most worthy has emerged as part of the contemporary debate oneducation and schooling. It is related to the larger questions of who and whatis an American? Contemporary conservative critics…believe they have the answer.America is what its most successful and powerful people have been- theirliterature, history, personal stories, and traditions”

“Educationis suffering from narration sickness. The teacher talks about reality as if itwere motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable…His task is to‘fill’ the students with the contents of his narration – contents which aredetached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them andcould give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and becomea hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity”

What I Hate: D - F

2011-11-19T20:32:00.001-05:00

So I learned from last week's post that Dan Akroyd has a few fans left. I can only guess they're easily amused by the likes of Christmas with the Kranks, Earth vs the Spider, and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Even in his heyday he was making gems like The Great Outdoors, My Stepmother is an Alien, and Trading Places (which was good despite him). If you ever see that Dan Akroyd is a new movie you can pretty much guess he's going to play a pompous jerk. Again.

This week I'm going to tackle the letters D - F. I'll steer clear of old SNL favorites (although I now regret not putting Jane Curtain in with the C's because I don't think she's funny either).

D - DENTAL HYGIENISTS. It's not the dentist I dislike as much as the hygienist. From the bitewing x-ray to the scraping, it's really off-putting. Worse yet, the hygienist feels the need to make small talk while your mouth is full of latex fingers and a spit tube. I don't know how much they make to stare into people's mouths all day but it can't possibly be enough.

Others: dampness, diarrhea, diamonds, dust, Def Leppard, discount cards, and Dr. Who

E -ENGLISH MOVIES WITHOUT SUBTITLES. How is it they speak English in England yet I can't understand half of what they say? A number of years back Tricia and I rented the Robert Altman movie Gosford Park and had to turn it off after about fifteen minutes because we had no clue what anyone was saying.

Others: evangelicalism, Elvis Costello, eels, electric razors, emus, and the tailcoat-riding E-Street Band

F -FACEBOOK. "You can find me on Facebook." This is what I find myself hearing more and more. From the Farms to Schools program I found in an exhibit hall at the SC State Fair to the guy selling homemade cutting boards at the All :Local Farmer's Market on Whaley Street, more and more people are using Facebook as a means to communicate and even do business. I frown when I hear this. I don't have a Facebook account. A few years ago I tried it for a month or so but I kept getting friend requests and messages from people I don't remember being friends with in high school. The only thing I liked about Facebook was the silly quizzes you could take. That is, until I took one to find out which character I would be on the TV show Lost. I really wanted to be the smart-mouthed Sawyer but was told, instead, I was most like Hurley, the vanilla sidekick. Screw Facebook!

Others: funeral homes, false praise, flu, false teeth floating in a cup, ferris wheels, fist fighting, flies, frigid temperatures, fringe, Ferris Bueller's sister, and Friday the 13th Part VIII

What I Hate from A to Z

2011-11-13T20:41:00.001-05:00

New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast recently published a book detailing the things in life she hates, or at the very least make her uncomfortable. Hearing this I thought...Gee, I could do that. I hate things too! Not a whole lot of things. But surely at least one thing for every letter of the alphabet. Right? Well, I thought I might find out. So here goes my list...

A - ABBA. This one almost seems too easy. Bjorn Ulvaeus, before forming ABBA, played in a group called the Hootenanny Singers. Benny Andersson played keyboards in a band called the Hep Stars. During a time when the US music scene was exploring sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll Sweden was falling in love with groups called the Hootenanny Singers and the Hep Stars. What a bunch of squares! I'm tempted to put Sweden on my list.

Other contenders: abacuses, abstract art, accordions, airports, allergies, alpacas, ammunition, armpits, and the entire American Pie movie franchise.

B - BALLET. I once worked in a district where every third grade classroom had to attend a performance of The Nutcracker as performed by a local ballet company. It was terrible. It was slow, made no sense, and really long. The kid next to me fell asleep less than half way through. I was tempted to do the same but felt that, as the teacher, it would be inappropriate.

Other contenders: baboons, barbed wire, barking, Bassett Hounds, baths, billboards, baby blue, and the Boston Red Sox.

C - CANADA. First, it's really cold in Canada. I once heard a comedian complain about all the Canadians who visit California and say "I really love it here but I could never stay because I love the seasons too much." His response? "Yeah, I love the seasons too. That's why I live somewhere that skips all the shitty ones!" More reasons to hate Canada? Dan Aykroyd, Justin Bieber, Tom Greene, Corey Haim, Norm MacDonald, Alan Thicke, and William Shatner.

Other contenders: Conway Twitty,cancer, croutons, camels, cellulite, Chevelles, camouflage, cannibalism, and Celtic dance.

...to be continued.

Driveway Moments

2011-11-04T19:32:00.002-04:00

NPR introduces you to all kinds of stories, books, people, movies, and musicians you'd probably never hear about otherwise. I don't really listen all that often anymore. It's too risky when the kids are in the van because every once in a while they'll drop a story in there that isn't really fit for young ears. And when driving alone, a true rarity, I find that, more than not, I prefer the sound of silence. Between teaching and home there aren't all that many quiet moments to be found. My drive to and from USC on Monday and Tuesday nights are pretty much it. These two drives account for the two hours each week when I don't have to solve a problem, move children from one place to the next, answer a question, or correct a behavior. It's not that I mind any of these things - I don't - but it is refreshing to enjoy a moment of absolute silence and not worry about whether or not I should be making plans, reading assigned texts, writing newsletters, researching articles, writing papers, or assessing student work.

That's not to say I never turn on the radio anymore. In fact, while I avoid auditory stimulus on the way to class I actually look forward to it on the way home. That's because I know when I get into the car around 7:20 Terry Gross will be on. Fresh Air is my favorite of all the NPR programs. Terry Gross is far from being a great interviewer - in fact, she can be quite awkward at times. Still, she brings in people I rarely, if ever, hear about anywhere else and I somehow find myself becoming completely engrossed in their story.

This past week she interviewed Tom Waits about his new CD, Bad as Me. I'm no Tom Waits fan. I can't even begin to imagine how others can stomach his gravelly voice. As I got into the car Terry was introducing a track in which Waits uses a falsetto voice. I'm not sure if this was better or worse than his natural growling. Yet I still listened the whole way home.

The week before, I listened to an interview with Tom Irwin who found a diary written in 1893 hidden away in his Pleasant Plains, Illinois farmhouse and set the words he found inside it to music. He created an entire album of these songs (hear it here). It was an odd story but, again, I didn't want it to end. It was fascinating.

About a month ago I learned of chef Grant Achatz who charges diners at his Chicago restaurant, Alinea, more than $200 to enjoy an ambitious 23-course meal. Achatz is one of the "leading members of the molecular gastronomy movement, which uses unexpected flavor combinations and exotic laboratory tools to create foods based on the molecular compatibility of ingredients." He has a machine that can capture the aroma of an item. He places this gas into a bag, pricks tiny holes in it, slides it into a pillowcase, and puts it under the plate just before it is sent out into the dining room. The weight of the plate pushes down onto the bag, slowly forcing out the aromatic gas. It's the combination of this aroma (say, leather or grass) and the food that helps to elicit memories and feelings in the diner never before imagined in a dining experience. The hook on this piece was the fact that Chef Achatz has lost his ability to taste after being diagnosed with stage four tongue cancer. How ironic.

These are the types of stories that make you sit in the car for an extra minute or two after you pull into the garage. They're far more interesting than an interview with Russel Crowe, Barack O'bama, or Paul McCartney. They're even worth giving up those coveted moments of silence.

Blinded by Science

2011-10-16T22:23:00.000-04:00

There was a time I didn't enjoy teaching science. My first few years in the classroom I didn't know what to teach. It's hard to imagine now but at the time I didn't even know what state standards or standardized testing was. For better or worse we were allowed to teach from our interests. In my classroom this meant we did some really cool things with astronomy but once that topic of exploration was exhausted we were left with a few random studies or experiments to fill out the year.

Part of the problem was probably the fact my own experiences with science in the classroom were sub par, at best. While I don't remember a single moment of science instruction in elementary school, I vividly recall six years of middle and high school classes that called for the memorization of terminology, cell parts, and the periodic table of elements. My only positive memories are of dissecting a frog in biology and then later using a strobe light to measure the distance between ripples in a tray of water in physics. That's not a lot.

By the time I entered my science methods course as an undergraduate student in the elementary education department I had all but given up on science. Nothing about it held any interest for me. The course surprised me. It was fun. However, I didn't think this was entirely fair because all we did in the class was play with science tools, develop and conduct experiments, and pull apart little foil balls to discover a mouse skeleton inside (we later found these came from owls). All this playing around didn't really seem like teaching. Certainly not the teaching I was accustomed to.

My final course before graduating from college was an earth science class. It would generally have been the type of class you'd take first. Not surprisingly, I had put it off until the bitter end. To save money I took it at the local community college and really didn't expect much. Early on that's about all I got - no much.

However, a few weeks in we began to learn about space. I became really fascinated not just with everything to be found outside the earth's atmosphere but with the incredible predictability of it all. Equipped with a few charts and a little math you could accurately predict where the moon would be and what it would look like next Tuesday at 10:10 pm. You could figure out what time of day Mars would come into view and which constellation it would be hiding in. It wasn't something you just memorized but something you could go out and actually do yourself. Before long I bought my own telescope, sky chart, and red flashlight. After graduating I continued to read books on both physics and astronomy and even went back to college to take a few advanced math courses.

And despite this I still walked into my first day of teaching feeling the science blues. This continued after moving to South Carolina. Here in the Palmetto state I was introduced to strict state standards that told me exactly what I should be teaching and sometimes even when I should be teaching them. This would have been a relief except for the fact that half of what I was charged with teaching was topics I knew little to nothing about: states of matter, rocks and minerals, the physics of sound. Fortunately my new school had a science lab equipped with an assistant who would pull together materials for me and even help teach the lessons. There were a lot of experiments. They came from a popular science program and weren't really all that bad. The kids were getting to use all kinds of tools, record data, and make connections. I slowly began to learn that science in a classroom doesn't have to be boring at all.

I've since moved to a school that is about as science-oriented as any school could possibly be. In the place of the old programs are lots of time spent exploring, playing, asking, reading, and experimenting. I've had the incredible fortune to teach next door to my buddy Tim who has taught me that teaching science isn't as much about memorizing or conducting a series of set experiments as it is about living in wonder of the world. I've learned to be amazed by a caterpillar building its chrysalis, curious about grass seed growing in pencil shavings, and inspired by the many artifacts and creatures brought in each day by seven and eight year olds who have learned already how cool science really is. More than anything, I learned that to be a good science teacher you just have to spark an interest and get out of the way.

I've been thinking about all this over the past few weeks. The kids have been observing animals, studying seeds, designing and conducting experiments, inquiring into fruits and vegetables, learning about nutrition, and mucking through non-fiction books in search of really cool facts to delight their friends with. Their excitement and curiosity has no limits. What was once a disappointment has turned into a highlight of the day. Here's a few pics from our studies...


An opportunity to observe flamingos in an unnatural setting - the zoo.


Setting up an experiment with seeds from home.

These apples came from New Zealand. We actually grow apples in SC.


Thousands of heads of lettuce grown in downtown Columbia.

These microgreens are grown completely chemical free.

Feeding the fish in our pond.

A visit from the executive chef of Richland 2 schools.

We found out our school lunches are INCREDIBLY healthy.

The chef told us you can plant the top of a pineapple and it will grow. We're making sure.

I'll end this post with a big thank you to Tim for helping me to see how much fun science is. If that thing takes off we'll send the first pineapple your way!

Reading the Signs

2011-10-10T21:25:00.000-04:00

There were a number of things I didn't particularly care for when we lived in Lake Carolina. Cookie-cutter houses, neighborhood gossip, and community by-laws, to name a few. But perhaps my biggest beef was with the silly street names.

There were street names designed to make you believe you were living near the beach:

Harborside Lane...Nautique Circle...Shoreline Drive...Mariner's Cove Drive...Windjammer Lane...Sailing Club Drive...Penninsula Way...Marsh Pointe Drive (I particularly love the use of a fancy silent-e).

There were other street names designed to make you think this was some sort of elite community:

Ashton Hill Drive...Laurel Bluff Court...Avington Lane...Wescott Place...Austree Drive...Granbury Lane

I think you could throw the words Way, Court, Place, or Lane on just about anything and make it sound uppity.

"After you pass through the security gate you'll want to make a right turn on Weepy Colon Court and then an immediate left on Dingleberry Lane. It's a cobblestone. You'll probably see our Porsche parked out front."

When we were in Lake Carolina we lived on Berkeley Ridge Drive. The fact that we were neither on a ridge or anywhere near California obviously escaped the developers. However, as pompous as the street name was what bothered me even more was having to constantly spell Berkeley for everyone. Two e's, not one.

I guess you at least have to give credit to the developers in Lake Carolina for using a bit of imagination. My sister-in-law lives in a St. Louis neighborhood that consists of streets named Clear Meadows, Cool Meadows, Dear Meadows, High Meadows, Lea Meadows, and Shady Meadows. And as you can probably guess...there's no meadow to be found anywhere near this collection of single-story ranches.

Our new address is on Stone Ridge Court. A bit pretentious sounding, perhaps, but at least there are thousands of stones and it's actually located on a ridge. If not modest, it's at least accurate.

On my way to the recycle center yesterday I found myself paying close attention to the names of the streets I passed along the way. They weren't suburb names. No, they sounded like names you'd expect to find in the country...

Broom Mill
Cowhorn
Winesap
Peach
Hungry Hollow
Gum Springs
Roddy
Old Ruff

These are names with character - and probably a story.

But of all the roads I passed, my favorite by far was a gravel road winding away from US 331 into a stand of trees. It's name?

Devil's Racetrack

Now, how cool would it be to have that printed on your driver's license?

Waste Not...

2011-10-02T22:50:00.001-04:00

Our new house does not have trash pick-up service. Given that our driveway is a two hundred foot gravel incline to the street above I'm not really that disappointed. I can't even imagine hauling a can or two up there each week. Instead, we load our trash and recyclables into the van and take it seven miles down the road to the trash and recycling center.

The trash and recycling center is about the coolest place on earth if you really love organization - and I do. There are different bays for house waste, yard waste, and appliances. There are also recycling bays for cardboard and paper, plastics and glass, batteries, electronics, tires, steel, and more. I couldn't wait to get home and tell Tricia all about it after my first trip. I guess I'm easily amused.

Hauling your own trash really helps you to be more aware of the amount of waste you create in a week. Because it took us a week or two to figure out how and where to get rid of our trash our first haul was a pretty big one. We had to put all the seats in the van down and cram everything in.

My last trip to the center was last Sunday. A few days ago, maybe Thursday, I was walking around the side of the house and opened up one of the trash cans to drop in a scrap of trash I found lying in the woods. When I lifted the lid I noticed there weren't any bags of trash inside. Confused, I opened up the other trash can and found it, too, had no bags. I went inside and checked the kitchen trash can. It was mostly full but still had a bit of room left. Wow, in five or so days we hadn't filled even a single bag yet. I was amazed. Knowing this changed my trashy habits. I began avoiding making trash and crushing what I did make down to the size of nothingness.

Finally on Saturday the kitchen trash was on the verge of overflowing and had to be taken out. We almost made it a whole week. Almost. Though it wasn't on purpose I was proud to see we were somehow minimizing our waste. I say it wasn't on purpose but we do try to avoid things that are heavily packaged and single serving items. Last week I was on a trip where more than two hundred Capri Suns were handed out to a group of kids. Now that's wasteful.

A great way to avoid creating waste is to fix broken things rather than buying new ones. Or fighting the temptation to have the newest version of something that works perfectly. Or finding a new home for unwanted things. There's actually a website for giving your old stuff away. It's called Freecycle and can be found at www.freecycle.org.

We joined Freecycle for the first time in St. Louis. We used it to get rid of our treadmill after we realized how miserable it is to walk inside. After listing it on the site we had about eight or nine interested parties contact us within a few hours. We chose one randomly and it was picked up from our driveway the following Saturday.

A few weeks after getting rid of the treadmill our new dog jumped on our new mattress and made a new deposit right in the center of the pillow top. She completely saturated it. Thinking the mattress was a lost cause I jumped on Freecycle and placed a "Wanted" ad for a queen sized mattress. Someone replied and a few days later my buddy Tim and I drove to their house to pick it up. Standing at their front door we looked down behind the bushes and saw a whole army of cigarette butts. It might be reasonable to believe these people only smoked out on the front porch and that the mattress wouldn't smell like cigarette smoke but I wasn't about to find out. We high-tailed out of there before anyone could answer the door.

Though we are members, we haven't had the chance to use Freecycle here in Columbia just yet. We generally call the Salvation Army to pick up any large items we're getting rid of and the smaller stuff is delivered to Goodwill. Still, I love the idea of Freecycle and look at their listings from time to time. Looking at it tonight I saw the following items offered or requested: wedding stuff, a dog who barks loudly but listens a little, serving dishes, a lawnmower, and a kitten. But by far my favorite was this...

Wanted: Sandpaper
I need a piece of sandpaper to sand out some scratches on my dining room baseboard. Maybe someone has an extra square or two from a small job they just completed? I'd be able to pick it up tomorrow, if convenient.

Ha. While I love the idea of sharing resources and all, I'm not sure a single square of sandpaper warrants a drive across town. Is it just me or is this a bit fanatical? There's always a crazy to make the rest of us look bad.

At the Movies

2011-09-25T21:11:00.000-04:00

When a delusional loner buys a life-size sex doll over the Internet, promptly falls in love with her and starts telling people that the doll is his girlfriend, his brother and sister-in-law decide it's time to intervene. Patricia Clarkson co-stars in this offbeat feature film debut about love, loss and human relationships from director Craig Gillespie.

This is the description provided on the Netflix DVD slip for the latest movie to arrive in our mailbox. It's called Lars and the Real Girl and is surprisingly rated PG-13. We haven't seen it yet but I'm excited to. I remember having seen commercials for it at the movie theater a number of years ago.

When we lived in St. Louis there were a handful of great theaters that showed independent films like this one each week. Refusing the bigger ticket titles such as Sex and the City or Armageddon, the Tivoli, Chase, and Plaza Frontenac theaters chose to show small budget films that were, more often than not, a lot of fun.

It would be easy to become disheartened by the fact Columbia doesn't offer many opportunities to see movies like Limbo or The Lost Boys of Sudan. But we're not. Because of all the great inventions of the past 100 years perhaps none are quite as life changing as Netflix. Any movie delivered straight to your house. Keep it as long as you want and send it back in when you finish. They'll send another! Who goes to a video store anymore?

A few years ago an old friend extended an on-line request that we set our i-Pods to shuffle and then list the first ten songs to appear. My ten songs included, among others, Simon and Garfunkle, Elliott Smith, The Beatles, and Radiohead. I enjoyed reading everyone else's playlists. I think it'd be cool to see these lists from a whole variety of people I know now. Would I be surprised?

In the same vein, and thinking about movies, I thought I'd share ten movies from our queue. I don't think the music we listen to or the movies we watch define us all that much but it's still interesting to see our choices in list form. Here they are...

***
100 Years of Horror: Disc 1

Christopher Lee hosts this chilling anthology of clips with commentary from stars such as Robert De Niro and Charlton Heston, assessing some of the most memorable -- and horrific -- scenes in cinema history. This collection rounds up more than 10,000 monstrous moments featuring scream queens, maniacs, demons, sorcerers, witchcraft, the walking dead, Frankenstein and many more.

***
Waiting for Superman

Dynamic documentarian Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) weaves together the stories of students, families, educators and reformers to shed light on the failing public school system and its consequences on the future of the United States. In this Sundance Audience Award winner for Best Documentary, Guggenheim deftly examines the options to improve public education and provide America's teachers and students with the help they need.

***
Bill Cosby: Hiimself

Bill Cosby, television's favorite avuncular funnyman and one of the longtime masters of stand-up comedy, treats his fans to this funny, satirical and heartwarming live concert from Canada. Riffing on such varied subjects as the trial by fire of marriage, parenthood and the side-splitting antics of toddlers, and even a hilarious encounter at a dentist's office, Cosby will tickle your funny bone until you hurt from laughing!

***
King Corn
In Aaron Woolf's thought-provoking documentary, friends Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis move back to America's Corn Belt to plant an acre of the nation's most-grown and most-subsidized grain and follow their crop into the U.S. food supply. What they learn about genetically modified seeds, powerful herbicides and the realities of modern farming calls into question government subsidies, the fast-food lifestyle and the quality of what we eat.

***
God Grew Tired of Us
After raising themselves in the desert along with thousands of other "lost boys," Sudanese refugees John, Daniel and Panther have found their way to America, where they experience electricity, running water and supermarkets for the first time. Capturing their wonder at things Westerners take for granted, this documentary, an award winner at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, paints an intimate portrait of strangers in a strange land.

***
The Fighter
After a string of defeats, Mickey Ward rediscovers his fighting will with help from trainer and half-brother Dicky, a once-talented pugilist and small-town hero now battling drug addiction.

***
Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog
When he's not busy breaking the law or trying to get close to his secret crush, Penny, supervillain wannabe Dr. Horrible boasts about his exploits via his Internet video blog and dreams of defeating his nemesis, Captain Hammer. Conceived during the 2008 Hollywood writers' strike, Joss Whedon's quirky musical comedy originally debuted as an online miniseries.

***
National Geographic: Return to Everest/Surviving Everest
National Geographic offers an insider's look at the history of Mount Everest -- the highest peak on Earth -- and the remarkable athletes who dare to scale it. Climbers Peter Hillary, Jamling Norgay and Brent Bishop battle the extremes 50 years after their fathers made successful treks to the top in this one-hour documentary, which includes interviews with Sir Edmund Hillary and others who have answered the mountain's call.

***
The Most Dangerous Man in America
Revisit a pivotal point in American history in this documentary that chronicles Pentagon insider Daniel Ellsberg's daring endeavor to leak top-secret government papers that disclosed shocking truths about the Vietnam War and Nixon's presidency. Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith direct this absorbing, Oscar-nominated account that features compelling interviews with Ellsberg, retired New York Times editor Max Frankel and other key figures.

***
The New Recruits
Tag along with brash business students Suraj, Heidi and Joel as they attempt to help poor communities in Kenya, India and Pakistan through a social entrepreneurship initiative that focuses on saving the world through capitalism instead of charity. Narrated by actor Rainn Wilson, this unflinching documentary reveals what happens when jet-setting idealists attempt to force underprivileged people to pay for essential goods and services.

Out of My League

2011-09-18T17:08:00.000-04:00

I've been finding life to be a bit busy of late. This is due, in large part, to the new degree program I started this semester at USC. I decided to try taking two courses at the same time. When I was working on my masters degree I never took more than one class in a semester. Classes require a weekly drive downtown after a full day of teaching, getting home just as the kids are climbing into bed, and a good deal of reading, researching, and writing on the weekends. One class is very doabe. Two, I'm finding, is quite a lot.

I don't mind too much, though. I love the readings and often enjoy the discussions that take place afterward . Even the assignments aren't so bad. The professors work hard to avoid assigning busy work and I always feel proud when putting the final touches on a paper.

The classes I'm taking look, so far, to be more challenging than the ones I took in the masters program. There's a whole lot more reading each week and the language in the texts is more multi-syllabic than I'm used to. I have to read very slowly at times and often I go back to reread sections because I haven't a clue what I just read.

I've found I can't read any of the books from my qualitative research course before going to bed. Not that I don't enjoy them but once the clock reaches 10:00 I can't make it more than a page or two without falling asleep. The words start floating around the page and nothing makes sense. On weekend mornings I wake up, reach down for these same books, and try to get ten or fifteen pages read before starting the day. Suddenly it all makes sense again.

I'm relieved by this because my first day of class had me wondering if maybe I wasn't fit for this program.

Class started on a Monday at 4:30. This is less than ideal because we have faculty meetings at school on Monday afternoons and I have to duck out after only ten or fifteen minutes to make it to class on time. I left even earlier for the first class because I needed to stop by the bookstore to pick up my texts. I had ordered them online earlier in the day and when I walked into the bookstore I knew I was in trouble. The line for textbooks was about forty deep.

I asked the girl in front of me for the time and she told me it was 4:10. Ugh, I was either going to be late or have to drive back down later in the week to try the line again. I opted to wait it out and get the books. After twenty-five minutes of inching toward the help desk I found out they didn't have my books ready.

"Sometimes we don't have the books in stock," the kid behind the kiosk explained.

"How can you not have them in stock?" I asked. "This is the university bookstore and the professors tell you which books to order."

"Sorry," he said. "You'll have to come back in a couple of days."

Dejected I walked to class. The class was in Wardlaw College, just across the street from the Horseshoe. I've had a number of other classes in this building yet still get lost every time I'm in there. This time was no different. I pulled a scrap of paper out of my pocket to find the room number. 2740, it read. I walked around looking at signs and door numbers and couldn't figure out if I was getting closer or further away. A professor came walking around the corner and spotted me for the deer in the headlights that I was.

"Do you need help?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I can't find this room. It's number 2740."

She looked at me with a puzzled look.

"Are you sure it's 2740?" she asked. "There aren't any numbers that high on this floor."

As she looked at my slip of paper another professor ducked her head out into the hall.

"It's 274-O," she said. "The letter O, not zero."

One of them walked me to my class and wished me luck. It was like being five all over again.

When I walked into the classroom it looked as though every seat was filled. Everyone was turned to another person talking with great focus. A few people were even jotting some things down. As many of them turned to look at me, I walked up the center aisle looking for a seat. I was regretting my decision to stay in line at the bookstore.

I found a seat at a table in the second row. As I sat down two women looked over at me and said hello.

"Hey," I returned.

One's name was Selina and the other I didn't catch. It was something really long that I had never heard before. They asked me a few questions and I made small talk about the bookstore, teaching, and my family. I assumed we were just spending a few moments getting to know one another while the professor prepared something. I didn't take this time seriously at all.

"Okay," the professor said, walking to the front of the room. "Now we'll go around and you can introduce your new classmates to the rest of us. Tell us their name, their program, where they are in their coursework, and other interesting things that we might all like to know about them."

Oh shit!

Some people like to joke that I'm not a good listener. As much as I hate to admit it I think they're probably right. At this very moment I KNEW they were right. I looked over at Selina's notebook and saw that she had written notes about the other lady and about me as well. I looked down in front of me and saw nothing. No notes. Nothing.

The first few people to share provided nothing short of a full biography of their partner. My heart sank. I didn't have the books I needed for class, I walked in really late, and now I wasn't going to be able to complete the first minor task set before me. Faced with failure I did what anyone would do.

I cheated.

I began looking over at the notebook of the woman whose name I couldn't remember and copying down the things she had written about Selina. I was only able to get a few things down before Selina raised her hand and volunteered our group to go next. Though my introduction of her was less than stellar no one yelled at me so I felt it all came out pretty good. Considering.

After introductions Dr. Jay launched into a lecture on qualitative research. I wasn't sure if this was the type of stuff I should be writing down or not. I looked around and saw that many of the others were scribbling away in their notebooks and binders. I reached into my bookbag and realized I hadn't brought a notebook. I didn't have a single piece of paper. This wasn't like being five years old anymore. At five years old your mom makes sure you have the supplies you need. No, this was like high school. Only being an airhead isn't quite so cute in the eyes of other students when they're forty year-old professionals holding multiple degrees. Asking for paper at this point wasn't going to be cute or endearing. It was going to be embarrassing.

I dug through every pocked of my bookbag hoping for something. Anything. Finally, I found a tiny pad of paper in the side pocket. The type you might expect a small police officer to use to jot down the details of a home burglary, I flipped open the cover and began writing. I was able to fit maybe five words on each line. I looked ridiculous hunched over this miniscule thing.

Many classes begin with a dumbed-down introduction to what you're going to study. Dr. Jay must have skipped this part. She launched into discussions of epistemology, internal scripts, content analysis, and clarification on the fact that "higher occurrence doesn't necessarily signal greater importance." I wanted to raise my hand and say, "HUH?" but I couldn't because everyone else was nodding their heads in agreement and even offering ideas and reactions from time to time. Knowing I had nothing to contribute I lowered my head and tried my best not to look dumb.

Can the others tell, I wondered.

It wasn't until my drive home that I realized most of the students in the class are at the end of their program. They've had a number of other research courses and are preparing to write dissertations. Only one or two others are like me, at the very beginning with little to no experience with research. I couldn't tell you which ones they were, though. They weren't escorted to class by a surrogate mom or taking eighty-nine pages of microscopic notes.

Priceless Pets?

2011-09-08T16:00:00.002-04:00

A number of years ago, while still living in St. Louis,Tricia and I went to the Humane Society in search of a dog. We already had afour-year-old German shepherd at home but worried he needed a playmate. Whatmade us think this, I have no idea. He really had no trouble filling his time.Large parts of Cosmo’s day were spent ferociously barking at the mailman,neighbors, and pretty much any and everyone who passed down the street. He wasn’t that dangerous, though. Much like avampire, once you were invited into the house Cosmo could do you no harm.

Concerned for his mental well-being, we went in search of asecond dog. The Humane Society had a room for male dogs, a room for femaledogs, and yet another room for puppies. After visiting both the male and femalerooms – where we found that most dogs were more interested in eating us thanmaking a good first impression – we swung by the puppy room. We had alreadydecided that a puppy wouldn’t be an option because of all the time involved intaking care of one.

Just a note – if you keep telling people that you reallydon’t want a new car but you find yourself walking around dealerships “just tosee what there is” you’re either a liar or you’re stupid. We were stupid.

We were stupid because we thought we could look at all thoseincredibly small and wrinkly puppies whimpering up at us and somehow make ourway back to the male room where a couple of Dobermans were sharpening theirteeth on the concrete.

So forty-five minutes, and seventy-five dollars, later wewere on our way home with a tiny brown raisin the lady claimed to be achocolate lab. We named her Lexy and soon found out she had worms. After a tripto the vet we came home with some medication that quickly, but notinexpensively, took care of the problem.

Lexy was happy running around the house - sliding across thewood floors and into the walls. Cosmo followed her the first few hours but soondecided she was more trouble than she was worth. He decided to keep hisdistance. If Lexy noticed you’d never know it. She was too busy chewing oneverything in the house that would fit in her mouth. Candy, rugs, furniture.One month after we brought her home we were into her a lot more than thatinitial $75.

Lexy grew and grew, losing most her wrinkles but none of herenergy. She still loved to chew but I found that keeping her tired helped atleast a bit. One day I was in the backyard throwing tennis balls for the dogs.Lexy was tearing across the yard in pursuit of the ball when it took a strangebounce to the side. She tried to stop all her momentum and cut to the left whenher leg suddenly buckled underneath her. She cried out in pain and hit theground. Stunned, and unsure what to do, I watched to see if she would get up.She did, but slowly. Lexy limped a few steps and fell to the ground again. Iwent over and carried her back into the house.

After visits to the vet and surgeon we found out she hadtore her ACL. It would cost about $2,000 to have her knee fixed. Two. Thousand.Dollars.

“The dog only cost seventy-five dollars, dude,” a friendtold me. “Just get a new one. You’ll save $1,925.”

How much is a dog worth? The price you pay to get her? Thecost of all those visits to the vet and bags of dog food? The amount of joythey bring you?

We decided Lexy was worth $2,000. She had the surgery andfully recovered.

This all came back to me yesterday when Ainsley came down towake us up. She was sitting on our bed telling us about the baby deer she sawout her window when she woke up, the picture she colored for her bedroom door,and her plans to get her guinea pig, Charlotte, a snack from the kitchen.

“Go ahead and get her a carrot,” Tricia told her.

“Okay,” Ainsley said. “She loves carrots and she also likeswhen I give her some hay.”

“Hey,” I said. “We have plenty of hay outside!” A few weeksago I bought 1,000 pounds of hay from a local farmer for just $30. I wasawfully proud of this purchase because it seemed like such a bargain.

“No, Dad,” Ainsley corrected me. “Charlotte eats TimothyHay. That’s just normal hay.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked. “Hay is hay. They feedcows and horses with the hay we have out in our yard. I don’t know why a guineapig would need anything better. “

“No, Dad,” Ainsley argued. “We’re supposed to give herTimothy Hay.”

“Yeah,” Tricia added. “Charlotte isn’t a wild animal. She’sa pet.”

“How is that any different,” I asked. “She should be happyto eat whatever we get her.”

Later in the day I was out for a walk with the very samefriend who had, years earlier, suggested we get a new dog rather than pay$2,000 for reconstructive surgery.

“Let me get this right,” he said. “You can pay $5 for apound of Timothy hay or $30 for a thousand pounds of this other hay?”

“Yep.”

“Dude, you gotta go with the thousand pounds for $30,” heargued.

“Tricia and Ainsley seem to think there aren’t enoughnutrients in it, though,” I said. “They think she wouldn’t be healthy.”

He thought on this for a milli-second.

“Even if she died,” he said, “How much is a guinea pig? Likeseven bucks or something?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“So,” he argued. “A thousand pounds is going to last youforever. Just keep buying new guinea pigs. You’ll come ahead!”

A New Beginning

2011-08-29T08:47:00.001-04:00

Long time no blog. While 99.99% of our new house isabsolutely wonderful the other 00.01% leaves us temporarily without internetaccess. I’m so disconnected. Fortunately we’ll be back online in just a fewweeks. Until then I’ll have to rely on free wi-fi (which I’ve found is becoming pretty commonin more and more places).

In the time since my last post a lot has happened. The boysand I hiked fifty miles through North Carolina. Some highlights included onesix-mile climb, three observation towers, and twenty-one really cool mushrooms.We again escaped the rain and, although I crammed an air cast into my pack, Isomehow avoided yet another ankle sprain. Good times.

Not long after returning we began school. Having spent acouple of weeks moving about from place to place (while we waited for our houseto be finished) it was nice to return to some normalcy. Well, the sights,sounds, and rhythms were normal. The kids were not. After three hundred and sixty days of learning, laughing, and playing together,my group from the past two years moved on to a new teacher. They are just twodoors down (literally eight feet away) but it’s weird to see them walk by andnot come into the room. Many wave, and a few even run over for a hug, butthey’re on to bigger and better things in fourth grade. They’re on their way tooutgrowing me.

In the meantime I’ve been busy getting to know a new group.New groups take a while to adjust to. There are always a few days where you’rekind of mourning the loss of your old friends and wondering just who these newones really are. Who are the funny ones?Who’s going to recommend books to me? Who loves to share stories? Who has a bigvoice that will lead us all in song?

The big voice is actually quite important. I can’t hit morethan two or three notes so it’s always critical to have someone able andwilling to lead the rest of the class in song without having us so far off-keythat the neighboring teachers come barging in with hands clasped over theirears. It winds up this year it’s Laila. She sings out strong and has abeautiful voice. I’m so thankful for her. She has us all sounding prettydoggone good for only two weeks together.

We’re taking it slowly. The first week we learned two songs.This past week we learned two more. We’re generally a bit shaky for a day ortwo but we figure them out in time. Hoping to help, I asked my old class to come in this past Friday to singwith us. I was hopeful they would jump in to help this new crop of singers findthe melody and develop enough confidence to sing out strong. Boy did they ever!

The fourth graders could have forgotten the smaller nuancesof the songs. They even could have comein and acted a bit too cool to sing with us. But they didn’t. They sang so loudand so joyfully. It was such a touching moment. It was another small reminderof how special our time together was.

This new group is warming up. They’re about ready to shakeoff the rust of summer and do some wonderful things. Among them will be to singa lot of songs and even write a few together along the way. I can’t wait to seetheir personalities come to the surface as we develop a strong bond of our own.And, rest assured, we will. Two years from now I’ll be watching them pass byour classroom door as they steal a quick peek on their way to fourth grade. AndI’ll long for the days we will have spent together.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Week

2011-07-27T22:43:00.005-04:00

I've mentioned before that we're in the process of building a new house in the (kind of) country. We'll soon be living in the middle of seven acres of tall trees, short ferns, and all the critters that call them home. We're anxious to share this space with the turkeys, deer, snakes, rabbits, hawks, beavers, and other more secretive animals we've yet to see.

While the house isn't ready just yet we've been out there working hard this summer. The first thing we did was to build a fire ring. The boys and I spent the good part of an afternoon collecting the stones to frame the pit. It's big. Real big. When the lot was cleared we asked the workers to haul a log over to the fire ring. We can't wait for the cool weather of fall and winter.

We've been working on another project as well - a trail leading to the 15-acre lake at the back of our property. The trail is about two hundred steps (I'm estimating this to be somewhere in the area of a tenth of a mile). We're using the thousands of rocks that are scattered throughout the property to establish the trail until it meets the creek. At the creek we've set some boards down temporarily but will soon be constructing a small 14-foot bridge.

And while we're hard at work so are the builders. At least most days. There are some frustrating days when no one is out there working and nothing changes. At this point they still need to finish the screen porch on the back, paint the walls, install the floors, hook up the air conditioners, bring in the septic system, put in the stone that will skirt the front, and take care of all the finishing details. That's a lot. We were hoping they'd be finished already but it's looking like we'll have to wait until mid-August - around the time school will be starting.

To make things more interesting we have to be out of our current house this Friday. Having no home, the girls are all headed to St. Louis to visit family and friends and the boys and I will spend the week walking in the North Carolina woods. I'm usually not one to get stressed by much but this week has tested me. Tricia and I have spent the past few days packing, loading, cleaning, making phone calls to utility companies, packing for our trips, attending a party, retooling our budget, arranging for a temporary home when we return, screening incoming kindergartners, mowing the lawn, trying to get nail polish out of the carpet, and driving Harper to the upstate for Girl Scout camp. There have been days when I feel like we've worked nearly all day long and nothing looks any different than when we first started. Fortunately, we're nearing the end of the week and everything is just about in place.

I spent this afternoon getting the food prepared for our seven-day hike. This will be the longest trip we've ever taken on the Appalachian Trail, both in terms of days and distance, and I generally spend about a week or two preparing. This time I've had only a few moments here and there to throw everything together. This includes figuring out our ride to Deep Gap (this is where we left off last trip), securing a ride into Franklin in the middle of the week to resupply, planning out a rough itinerary that ensures the boys will have fun, and getting the food together. Planning seven days worth of food that you can carry on your back is a bit tricky.

We'll be eating oatmeal or Pop-Tarts for breakfast each morning. Lunch will be a lot of homemade beef jerky, peanuts, dehydrated fruits, and Cheez-its. Dinners are a combination of noodles, chili, and spaghetti. A few nights we'll even have pudding for desert. This all seems simple enough but it's really not. I have a binder where I keep recipes I've found on-line over the past year. Having a variety of food that is appetizing is important. We're not quite there just yet but we're getting closer all the time. Muluken looked at the menu I created on the computer and said "We're having noodles TWICE?" Little does he know some backpackers have them every single night for weeks at a time.

When the food is all laid out on the counter is looks like a lot. However, once it is sorted into bags for each day it's looking pretty light. To help keep the boys hiking up all those mountains I add a bag of candy to snack on throughout the day. I'm not sure if the sugar helps but the excitement of leaving our limitations on sweets at home sure does. "Hey, let's stop at the top of this mountain and have another piece of candy!" There are few rules in the mountains. Whatever gets you to the top is fair game.

It is now Wednesday night and I believe we are on the verge of having it all together. The backpacks are packed, the suitcases are full, and we have one-and-a-half days to move out the rest of the furniture. I hope it all gets done. It'll have to.

This will most likely be my last post for a few weeks. I'm not sure when exactly we'll be in our new house and when we'll get the internet access set up. In the meantime we'll finish our hike, "camp out" on the floor of an empty house in our neighborhood, and start school. There should be plenty to write about.

How Do I Kill a String of Thought Provoking Blogposts?

2011-07-19T14:23:00.008-04:00

My buddy Tim has a link on his blog for a really clever daily cartoon called "Basic Instructions." Each day you learn from topics such as "How to Be Kind to the Least Among You," "How to Refer to Someone's Not-Spouse," or "How to Recover From a Bad Shave." In all honesty, if you were to take this advice seriously you would quickly find that you have let your appearance go and all but alienated your friends and family.

There's lots of advice and how-to found on the internet. Much of it is very helpful. Just last week I mentioned to Tricia that I wanted a haircut but didn't want an ultra-short cut with the clippers. Not knowing how to give a scissor-cut, I half-jokingly suggested she find a video on You Tube. The next day she told me she found one titled "How to Give Your Man a Haircut." Sure, people go to school to both learn and hone this craft. But after a brief 4-minute video she felt good-to-go. She wrapped an old sheet around my shoulders and began to snip away.

A few days later we were preparing to replace the linoleum floor in the laundry room. After tearing back a few strips and seeing all that glue and paper still stuck to the subfloor we realized we had no idea what we were doing. Again, within minutes we had found and watched a video on the computer that showed us what to do. Seriously, how did mankind ever manage to survive the years before the internet?

I use the internet to find out lots of other things as well. I follow the news, baseball scores, blogs, and trail journals. I learn to play new songs on guitar and find recipes and tips for dehydrating food. I research things I've heard about in conversation, books, or movies. Most recently I researched Community Supported Agriculture - a partnership between consumer and farmer for a given growing season. After learning more about the advantages of knowing the very farm from which our food comes I again used the internet to find a nearby farm that offers Community Supported Agriculture. Within minutes I found Pinckney's Produce in Vance, South Carolina.

Is there anything you can't find on the internet? I think back to the olden days of encyclopedias and have to laugh at the simplicity of our curiosity and the vast limitations of our ability to quench it. How would we ever have been able to answer such crucial questions as "How do you diffuse a bomb," "How do you howl like a wolf," or "How do you steal your neighbor's wi-fi?"

With so much information at our fingertips, it's hard to understand how we can be portrayed as knowing so much less than the many generations who have come before us. How could that even be true?

I bet I know how I could find out!

Running Out of Gas

2011-07-12T14:56:00.007-04:00

A number of years ago I was talking with our neighbor about a growing concern, in the face of a new war in Iraq, that we should begin conserving gas.

“How are you supposed to save gas?” he asked. “If you have to go to the store to get something for dinner or to pick up a prescription there’s not much you can do. It’s not like we drive around just to drive around.”

The fact that he was in the practice of pouring gasoline into the cracks of his driveway to kill weeds spoke to the fact he was not necessarily concerned with environmental issues. This, obviously, would have been a good place to start but one I chose to overlook at the moment.

“Well, I think the point is you try to combine trips whenever you can,” I argued. “If you need to go to the store and you know you’ll be picking up the kids from school later in the afternoon you could wait and do both in one trip. Or if you have to make a separate trip maybe you wait until you need more than just one or two things. I bet we'd both be surprised to see how much this would save.”

“Yeah…,” he said. “I guess that’s true.” Still, he sounded doubtful. I think he saw this as an imposition. He was not alone. Many people see conservation as a hassle or an attack on both their freedom and their lifestyle. Many others see conservation as a political issue.

We've been thinking a lot about conservation and sustainability lately. We're excited to be moving into a house that is 25% smaller than our current house. At 3,000 square feet it is still awfully large but given the fact we have eight people living in our household that puzzles out to only 375 sq ft per person. This is equivalent to a family of four living in a 1,500 sq ft house.

Large houses have become the norm. In 2009 the National Association of Home Builders reported that the average American home was 2,700 sq ft. Considering we average around two children per family that's pretty big. Gone are the 1950s when one bathroom was considered enough and growing boys shared bedrooms. Now days there's an expectation of private bedrooms for the kids and separate bathrooms for everyone - guests included.

I'm in no way arguing for one bathroom. I'm happy our kids have their own bathroom if for no other reason than the fact they are seemingly unable to rinse the sink out after they brush their teeth. But I'm concerned about building bigger houses just because we can. We made this mistake with the house we have now. It was convenient, but not responsible.

So as we prepare for a fresh start in our new house I think about all the shade those trees will provide us in the summer. I think about how nice it will be to sit back off the street, away from the heat absorbing concrete. And I think how great an opportunity this will be to make some changes that will benefit our environment. Changes that require little to no extra money or effort. Here's our plan...

1. Since we will be further from our schools Tricia and I have planned to carpool three times a week. This will save us 3,505 miles of driving over the course of a 36-week school year. We will conserve around 155 gallons of gasoline at a savings of $533 for the year.

2. Since we pass two grocery stores on the way home we'll plan to stop and do our shopping rather than make a separate trip (16 miles round trip) later. This will be 648 fewer miles on our engine during the school year and will conserve another 22 gallons of gas. That's a savings of $75. If we also stop to pick up an extra gallon of milk or loaf of bread on the way home (rather than making an extra trip or two each week) we'll save even more.

3. We're buying our own shower heads for the new house. At a cost of only $12 apiece (Niagara 1.5 GPM Massaging Shower at Amazon.com) we will reduce our water usage in the shower from two gallons per minute to one and a half gallons per minute. Seven of us will use these shower heads and will save a total of 16,125 gallons of water each and every year. At a total cost of $24 they will pay for themselves in just a few months while shaving the amount of water we use, reducing our pull on the hot water heater, and decreasing the amount of waste water going back out.

4. We're installing ceiling fans in each bedroom so we can remain comfortable while keeping the thermostat set at 79 degrees during the summer. We do this already at our current house but this time we're buying fans that have light kits attached. Each light requires three bulbs. Counting the fan we'll have on our screened porch there will six in all. That's 18 light bulbs! We're purchasing compact florescent bulbs for each fan as well as for the five can lights in the kitchen and the two lamps we'll use in the living room. That adds up to 25 energy saving bulbs. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, if every US household replaced just one regular incandescent light bulb with a compact florescent light bulb it would prevent 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. That's the equivalent of pulling 7.5 million cars off the road. Replacing light bulbs at this same minimal rate would save enough energy to power 2.5 million homes for an entire year. With our 25 bulbs we'll save the equivalent energy of running ten 100 watt bulbs each day for two hours. Given these bulbs generally cost less than a couple of dollars that's quite an impact.

5. Six percent of our electricity use goes to washing and drying clothes.The number of tumble dryers has doubled every ten years. In 1981 only 13% of homes had a dryer. By 1991 this had increased to 27%, and in 2001 to 56%. Now, in 2011, 79% of homes in the US have a dryer. After refrigerators, dryers are the second most energy-drawing appliance. But unlike most other appliances there is no real difference, energy-wise, between models. The expensive ones use about the same amount as the cheaper ones. Some do have a feature that senses when clothes are dry and automatically shut-off, thus saving energy and costs. We plan to install clotheslines in our backyard (we're only allowed because our house is not within sight from the road). We generally do about ten loads of laundry each week. If we air dry three or four of these loads, thus avoiding the dryer, we'll reduce the energy-use and costs of running the dryer by 30 - 40%.

6. If we were to catch the rain that falls on our new roof each time an inch of rainfall fell from the clouds we would have 17,000 gallons of water. That is far more water than we could possibly use. However, if we add two more 50-gallon rain barrels to the one we already have (and purchase a small water pump to push it through a hose) we could water our lawn, wash our cars, or watch the kids have a water gun fight. All using 150 gallons of free untreated water. There are now even downspout diverters ($30 at Gardener's Supply Company) that route the rainwater into your barrel until it becomes full and then allow the excess water to continue down the downspout and away from the house. If we used these three barrels only 15 times over the course of an entire year we would save another 2,250 gallons of water.

We have other plans. They include...
* Using window fans to push out hot air and draw in the cool night air at the beginning and end of summer
* Buying Smart Power Strips that block power from flowing to electronics that are turned off or "sleeping"
* Making sure the refrigerator is set between 41-50 and the freezer is set between 23-28
* Letting dishes air dry rather than using the heated dry
* Only placing full loads in the dish washer and clothes washer
* Placing an insulated jacket on the hot water heater (or maybe even see about getting a solar water heater)

Most of these are relatively small and easy changes to make. Some we already do but many we don't. All-in-all I hope to see our power bill show a reduction of 25-30% kilowatt hours and our water usage drop by an even greater percentage.

Living in America, our global footprint is never going to be in harmony with that of the rest of the world. For everyone to live as we do we would need a total of 5.3 earths (you can find out your own number by visiting the Footprint Calculator). We could reduce that even more by eating less meat (one of the most significant changes to be made in terms of energy use when you consider the resources that go into producing and transporting it) or avoiding products that use too much packaging. But this will have to be gradual. And everyone will have to make their own choices along the way. We saw an interesting documentary called Radical Simplicity that showed how Jim Merkel, engineer and director of Global Living project, works to minimize our impact on the earth and its millions of non-human inhabitants. What stuck with me most, though, was how careful he was to not judge others or pursue courses of action that would force them to comply with drastic changes. He decided, instead, to educate people and trust that they'll make whatever changes they can. That seems like a great place to start.

***Update***

Just a day after writing this post I opened up the newspaper and saw an article about new light bulb standards being set by the government. The article talked about how traditional incandescent bulbs convert about 90% of the energy they consume into heat and only 10% into light. These new standards would require a higher level of efficiency than the classic bulbs could produce, basically forcing them off the shelves over the next two or three years. This would save nearly $6 billion in 2015 alone and, at the consumer level, would save a homeowner somewhere around $50 a year.

While this seems like a no-brainer, some politicians are quite angry. They see this as government sticking their noses into places where they don't belong. Rep. Joe Burton, of Texas, stated "I'm not opposed to the squiggly tailed CFLs." Burton is a leading force against these new standards. He said that forcing out the old inefficient bulbs "seems to me to be overkill by the federal government." He went on to add "If you are Al Gore and want to spend $10 for a light bulb, more power to you." Just to clarify, these bulbs cost nowhere near $10 and last much longer than the old bulbs.

Representative Michael Burgess, of Texas, said "Now the government wants to tell consumers what type of light bulb they use to read, cook, watch television or light their garage." It seems some, like Burgess, feel it's okay to govern family values but to regulate the efficiency standards of light bulbs is a sign of government going too far.

There are occasionally times when I feel issues are over-simplified by both the media and politicians to create good guys and bad guys in Washington. However, there are many issues such as this that truly baffle and frustrate me.

Dad and the Girls

2011-07-02T15:28:00.006-04:00

I remember when Tricia first became pregnant more than ten years ago everyone assumed I was hoping for a boy. "It doesn't really matter," I'd say. "I'll be happy with either."

I can't say exactly why people would assume this. Is there a general belief that dad's want boys and mom's want girls? If anything, I was probably a bit relieved when I found out we were starting with a girl. I felt I knew what to expect from little boys but a little girl would be something altogether new.

A few years later, while also looking into domestic adoption, Tricia became pregnant again. The question now turned into a statement, "I bet you're hoping for a boy," they'd say. "Otherwise you're going to be surrounded by a house full of women!" Again, I didn't really care. When Ainsley came along I was as thrilled to have two daughters as I would have been to have one of each.

Eight years later, we've since found symmetry - two boys, two girls. It'd be easy to say that parenting boys is different than parenting girls but the fact of the matter is that it's different parenting Harper than it is Ainsley and likewise with both Ty and Muluken. They are all very different, regardless of gender.

One thing that I do notice with the girls is that it's a bit trickier to spend time with them. The boys and I have baseball and backpacking. The girls and I have...well, I 'm not sure. We play games, read books, and wrestle around but I do these same things with the boys as well. I wonder if maybe we shouldn't have something special that's all our own?

A few weeks ago I planned a special day out with the girls. I packed our bikes into the van and told them we were going to head down to the trail that runs along the Congaree River for a bike ride.

"Are there going to be a lot of hills?" Ainsley asked.

"I was going to play at Madeline's," Harper said. "Could you pick me up from there later?" When I did pick her up she didn't necessarily look too happy to be leaving.

Thirty minutes into our ride we already had a bloodied knee, a scraped hand, and a blown out back tire. No one looked to be having any fun at all - with the exception of me as I tried my best to convince them both how much fun this was. We ended the day by taking off our shoes and socks and wading out into the river to rock hop. Being something we do as a family quite often, they giggled as they splashed their way out into the water. While I'm not sure this was enough to make the day all that special, we did at least make it back home without the glum faces.

A few weeks ago I came home to find a big banner the kids had made for my birthday taped to the dining room window. There among the declarations of "I Love You" Harper had written "I Love Backpacking - as long as it's not 80 miles!" I suddenly remembered that I had promised the girls we would go on a backpacking trip together over the summer. I scrambled to put it together.

Backpacking with kids who are not necessarily big fans of heavy packs or doing their business behind a tree is a challenge. It needs to be short. There needs to be water to play in. And the pace needs to be s-l-o-w with plenty of breaks and snacks. I decided to take them to Virginia's Grayson Highlands State Park. We had visited the park for a day trip last summer. GHSP is well-known for the wild ponies that roam the mountains grazing on grass and any other items a nearby hiker may offer. The girls love horses so it seemed like the perfect fit.

We hiked four miles each day and although our only water source turned out to be a dud and I badly sprained an ankle, we had a great time.

Harper measuring out our food for the trip.

The trail was often quite rocky.

This short stretch was nice, soft grass.

There were many rock outcroppings to climb along the way.

A happy hiker.


These were the first of about twenty feral horses we saw.

Ainsley found some flowers for she and I to place in our hair.

Harper logs us in as we head out of the state park and into the National Forest.

A "cave" - the boys will be SO jealous!

Ainsley follows the blazes.

Rocks really kill your feet - and your ankles.


Our destination - Thomas Knob Shelter - was a disappointment. No good water.

We boiled the gross water and backtracked to a nice grassy spot to make camp.

A pretty nice view from the site. Sure beats a crowded campground.

At 60 degrees, the girls were COLD.

Bedtime atop the mountain.

Proof that Harper can, in fact, wake up with a smile on her face!

There were many gates to pass through along the way.

See the white blaze at the top of the wall? Up we climbed.

This was the other side of the that same rock wall.

Excited to be finished. The girls were ready for some indoor plumbing!

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

2011-06-24T09:24:00.002-04:00

Funny, but just after writing my last post about working harder to be content with what we have I started reading a new book by Grace Lin called Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. It is a truly wonderful read about a young girl who goes on a quest to find the Man of the Moon so she can ask him how she can change the fortune of her poor family. Along the way she meets a variety of animals and people who help her along her way. The book is filled with many smaller folk stories that help to advance the story. I'm going to share one of my favorites here as it seems to speak so well to my earlier post.

**********
The Story That Ma Told

Once there was a woman who had a kind husband and a beautiful daughter. A great mountain shadowed their home, making the land that they lived on poor and their house small. But there was always enough to eat, and the water always flowed in hot months, while a fire always burned during the cold ones. Yet the woman was not content.

The woman begrudged the barren mountain and the meager land and swallowed her plain rice with bitterness. She frowned at the humble cotton of their clothes and sighed in resentment at the tight rooms of the house.

Day after day, the woman grumbled. When she heard stories of treasures of gold and jade, she was filled with envy. "Why do we have nothing?" she sulked in frustration. "We have no treasures, no fortune. Why are we so poor?"

Her husband and daughter worked harder every day, hoping to bring wealth to their house. But the unfeeling land did not cooperate, and the house remained cramped, the clothes stayed modest, and there was always only just enough rice for the three of them. The woman also remained unhappy; her displeasure grew like weeds - uncontrollable and tangling.

The woman was so caught up in her dissatisfaction, she did not realize that she was planting seeds of discontent in her daughter as well. Until then, her daughter had been pleased with their life, but now she began to feel troubled. The rice that filled their bowls began to taste bland, the clothes she had liked for their colors now felt rough, and the house that she had run freely around in had become stifling.

Finally, unable to bear the growing frustration, the daughter stole away in the middle of the night - vowing not to return until she could bring a fortune back to her family.

And it was only then that the woman saw the stupidity of her behavior. For without her daughter, the house became too large and empty, and she was not hungry for the extra rice. As the days passed in loneliness, fear, and worry, the woman cursed herself for her selfishness and foolishness. How lucky she had been! She was at last able to see that her daughter's laughter and love could not be improved by having the finest clothes or jewels; that joy had been in her home like a gift waiting to be opened. The woman wept tears for which there was no comfort. For all the time that she had been longing for treasures, she had already had the one most precious.

Now wiser, the woman could do nothing but go to her husband, beg forgiveness for her actions, and hope to someday do the same with her daughter. She did not know if she would receive compassion from either, but she vowed she would wait for it. If necessary she would wait like the mountain that shadowed them.

**********

I would highly recommend this book to those of you building a summer reading list. Here is a trailer...

Naive Parenting 101

2011-06-22T12:05:00.006-04:00

Tricia and I were so idealistic when first becoming parents. We had a strong vision for the types of parents we wanted to be, the relationships we wanted to build with our kids, the types of people we wanted them to grow to be. We (or at least I) thought everything could be carefully planned and executed. Cut-and-dry. Like plugging in a formula.

We prepared for parenthood. We cut back on things like TV and sports and cleaned up our diets. We read parenting books and closely watched other parents that we respected and admired. We looked into daycare possibilities only to decide after being exposed to a number of chain smokers and blaring television sets that one of us should just go ahead and stay at home.

Once Harper was born we started hoarding milk and soon after learned to make our baby food, free of dyes and additives. We rocked and sang and talked and read and hovered. Actually we did a lot of hovering. We were going to prove our worth as parents by spending every waking moment at Harper's side. This would be a decision that would come back to haunt us later (as she struggled to learn to play alone) but parenting is like that - you learn from your own mistakes. You just hope none of them are so big that you, or your child, can't recover.

When our first Christmas as a family rolled around we set a rule for our families: No more than one or two toys. "Buy books or CDs or add a little extra to her college savings," we pleaded, "But don't fill Harper's room, and life, with tons of toys." We didn't feel she needed a life of plenty, but a life of enough. This wasn't necessarily well-received by everyone. No one said anything, at least not verbally, but their body language spoke volumes. People like to buy gifts. I think it's, in part, because they feel kids need them to be happy. We sensed some people may have felt we were depriving our little girl. "The more you spend, the more you have... the happier you will be" is definitely a part of our culture. All of us who have the means live by this motto, if only at varying degrees.

Over the years I feel we've all but given in to this mindset. As we get ready to move to a new house in the coming weeks I look around at all we have accumulated (all of us) in the past ten or fifteen years and it's too much. I wanted so badly for our kids to grow up with a sense of what it is to want for something. Certainly not food, water, or shelter but at least a new this or improved that. I didn't want everything to be at their fingertips or for them to ever feel entitled to anything. Instead, I see that when they are in "need" of something more often than not it is produced rather quickly - and in a shiny new package. This is wrong.

I was reminded of all this yesterday as I sat and listened to a presentation from a teacher who had just finished a three-year teaching stint in Vietnam (see Vietnam Days). She lived there with her husband and two small girls. Near the end of her presentation she showed a photograph of them leaving their apartment. Although she didn't make mention of it, I noticed that their belongings fit into four of five suitcases and a few backpacks. All of it. And yet they all looked awfully happy and fulfilled. From a global perspective they had plenty. From our perspective they maybe had enough.

Ours is a world of multiple belongings that serve the same purpose: computers, i-pads, and wi/fi phones, gaming systems for home play and gaming systems that are portable, collections of guitars that offer not only different sounds but different styles, colors, and finishes, or chairs specialized for the porch, the campfire, and the beach. I'm not saying that any of these these are necessarily wrong or that I don't enjoy some of them. I do.

But I wonder where we draw the line. I wonder when enough becomes plenty and when plenty becomes too much. I wonder when "I want" becomes "I need" and when "I need" becomes "I'm entitled to." I wonder how "I'm entitled to..." shapes our policies and changes how we see and react to the needs of our own community and the world.

There are many times when I think I was naive to ever believe we could create a small vacuum in which accumulating stuff wasn't so important. How could I possibly expect it from anyone else when I continually fall into the same traps myself? I don't, for a second, think that it is necessary, or even noble, to live a life void of the things you want. But I do think there's a line that needs to be drawn, somewhere. There should be a point at which we feel content with what we have.

Perhaps we need to find that point for ourselves before we can even begin to think about teaching it to our kids.

To Hell in a Handbasket

2011-06-12T17:39:00.006-04:00

Like most teachers I know I've been spending a portion of these summer days preparing for next fall. I read professional books, look back over some of my notes from this past year, and dream about changes for this next group coming in. I hope to be a better teacher. And well I should, given the state of education today. Just today I read...

If you read the newspaper, you know the American education system has gone past the point where it is simply failing to educate our young, and is now actively reducing their intelligence. Hardly a day goes by when you don't see an article like this:

WASHINGTON -- The National Association of People Who Worry About These Things (NAPWWATT) today reported that this year's graduating high-school seniors are even dumber than last year's, many of whom are still stumbling around the back of the auditorium trying to get their commencement gowns off. NAPWWATT reported that 66 percent of this year's seniors failed a nationwide scholastic test consisting of the question, "What does a duck say?"

This is pretty pathetic. When I was in high school, we were expected to know what a duck says. Oh, sure, I've forgotten a lot of this stuff, but at least I used to know it, which gives me the right to express smug contempt thinly disguised as grave concern for the young people of today.

This is Dave Barry sarcastically poking fun at our education system. The fact that this piece, Why Johnny is Dum, is making light of the fact that the media feels as though American students are getting less and less intelligent each year isn't such a surprise. What gets me is that this was written twenty-six years ago. If our kids were on the downward slide in 1985 imagine how dim-witted they must be by now.

I, of course, would have to disagree - at least with regards to the kids I've known over the past ten or fifteen years. Each spring I see what my students are capable of doing and know full-well that they are much more complex thinkers than I ever was in grade school. Though that's not really saying much. I was in grade school back in 1985.

But like all of us, teachers included, Dave Barry truly wants to see our kids become better learners and achieve more. Although, his motives for this may be a bit misplaced:

Like any responsible parent, I want my son to get the best possible education, because I am sick to death of having to read his Masters of the Universe comic books to him. All the male characters wear loincloths, all the females have breasts like grain silos, and all the dialogue sounds like this (from The Stench of Evil):

SKELETOR: Stinkor, with your powerful SMELL, I would like you to spread your FOUL ODOR where the air is clean, and bring MISERY to a place that is full of happiness!

STINKOR: YES! YES! I revel in all that is FOUL!

Our goal as a nation must be to develop, by next fall, an educational system that will teach my son how to read this drivel for himself, ideally on his first day.

A lofty goal, to be sure. Maybe I oughta get back to work.

Survey Says...

2011-06-10T23:12:00.010-04:00

There are few phone calls more annoying than a survey. They always promise to be brief but in reality never are. Half this time is spent having the response choices explained, "Rate the following from 1-5 with one being your lowest approval and 5 being your highest approval" or "Would you say you're more likely or less likely to..." Running the risk of not having my voice heard I often just throw out a quick "No thanks" and hang up. I only wish my fellow South Carolinians would have done the same this past week.

According to a survey of 741 South Carolina residents, as conducted by Public Policy Polling, we are a state struggling to move out of the past and into the present. Of course, the rest of the nation already knew this. Here's what the poll revealed:

* 16% of those polled said that interracial marriage should be illegal. Another 14% were not sure. While some states move closer and closer to same-sex marriages three out of every ten of our statesmen aren't even prepared to allow a mix of races. Call me crazy but the fact that our only defense is to point out that both Georgia and Mississippi have even higher percentages isn't really all that comforting.

* 46% of those surveyed were "glad the North won the Civil War." Is it just me or shouldn't that six have had a nine in front of it? 24% wished the South had won while another 29% haven't had enough time yet (150 years) to decide. Only 60% of state Democrats and independents, where you will find many of our state's African-American population, were in favor of a Union victory. Who are those other 40%?

I could easily make a combination of jokes and snide remarks but, sadly, these numbers speak for themselves.

The Bucket List

2011-06-06T14:19:00.010-04:00

This afternoon, while eating lunch, I did something I rarely do - read the Parade magazine that comes in the Sunday paper. There's rarely anything in there that I'm all that interested in. Today, however, there was a photo of Jimmy Fallon, dressed like Elvis, driving a motorcycle with a large bear seated behind him. I was kind of curious.

After flipping through the pages to find the article I saw that it was all about his "bucket list" - the things he wants to experience or accomplish in his lifetime. I don't know if the term bucket list is a new one but I don't remember having heard it prior to a few years ago. It seemed, at the time, as though this phrase was being used everywhere. As is generally the case, because creating a bucket list became so popular I decided to avoid it at all costs. This is really a juvenile way to act but I doubt at this point there's much chance that I'll change.

So for whatever reason I sat there and read, while picking at leftover chili and some fruit, Jimmy Fallon's list of hopes and dreams. Well, I read a few (It'd be fun to do Wii bowling with the Queen of England), became bored, and let my eyes wander to other things. At the side of the page I saw that the author of the article had created a list of items he thought everyone should have on their bucket list. I was surprised to see that the first few I noticed were ones I had already completed. Feeling like a success I decided to read on. It actually wound up being pretty interesting. Here's the list (with a few reactions mixed in for good measure)...

1. Eat real barbecue, like at Shealy's Bar-B-Que in Batesburg-Leesville, SC, famous for its fried pulley bone-the part of the chicken around the wishbone. Or go to one of America's BBQ meccas, like Memphis, Austin, or Kansas City, and dine your way from joint to joint.

We've had BBQ in Memphis. I don't recall it being that memorable though. Perhaps we just didn't hit the right places. We spent most our time on Beale Street where the blues pours out from nearly every door. Strangely enough, Memphis is where I learned how much I love tamales. Go figure.

2. Watch a lawnmower race. Find one by consulting the website of the United States Lawn Mower Racing Association (letsmow.com), the country's oldest and largest sanctioning body for lawn mower racing. Its motto: "We turn a weekend chore into a competitive sport."

Sadly, this really sounds like something I might enjoy. It reminds me a bit of the movie "The Straight Story" about an old man who rides his lawn mower across the country to make peace with his estranged brother. I thought this sounded like a really sweet idea for a movie but never saw it because Tricia feared it would be too depressing.

3. Visit a farm. Meeting the men and women who grow your food can be fascinating and fun. To locate a nearby farm, visit localharvest.org.

Coincidentally Tricia mentioned that she saw something in the paper last weekend about visiting local farms and thought we should to do this.

4. Participate in a tradition that's so odd, it has to be American, like the Mermaid Parade, held in New York City's Coney Island (June 18), or the sidewalk egg-frying competition in Oatman, Arizona (July 4).

Does the Polar Bear Plunge count? I've thought about doing that one. They have it each January here in Lake Carolina. Being that it's usually in the mid to upper 40's when everyone takes the leap I wonder how much street cred this actually gives you.

5. Stand at the base of a really tall tree, like one of Northern California's redwoods or giant sequoias. Gaze up at its branches. Be amazed.

Of all the items on the list this is the one I'd most like to do.

6. Own a pair of cowboy boots.

Of all the items on the list this is the one I'd least like to do.

7. Attend a religious service of a faith different from your own.

When I was much younger I attended Sunday church service with a neighborhood friend. I won't mention the faith but they didn't own a TV and never wore shorts no matter how hot it was outside. Their church had a full band on stage, or I guess they probably called it the pulpit, and the drummer was doing all he could do to snap his sticks on the drumheads. The men in the congregation slipped off their shoes and started wandering around the sanctuary mumbling until a number of them fell to the floor and started to convulse. The women dropped to their knees and placed their heads on the seats of the pews - alongside the children. Thinking they were taking cover I did the same. After what felt like an eternity we finally went home. Needless to say I never went back.

8. Invite someone new to Thanksgiving. Your guest could be a neighbor, a coworker, a foreign visitor - anyone who's not having a celebration of his own.

A couple of years ago we invited the Spanish teacher from my school to Thanksgiving dinner. He was from Columbia, had no family here, and had never celebrated Thanksgiving. At the time we also had an exchange student from Saudi Arabia. So counting Ty there were four different countries represented at our Thanksgiving table. That was pretty cool.

9. Read the constitution. Considering how much time we spend arguing about it, why not bone up on what it actually says?

This wouldn't be a bad idea given that I barely passed the Constitution test before graduating high school. Still, I think I'd rather watch paint dry. Or grass grow. Watch coal turn to diamonds. Any others?

10. Volunteer to be a poll worker on Election Day (Nov. 8 this year).

After the 2000 election where a number of eligible voters were reported to have been turned away (in an election that was excruciatingly close) I decided to become an election judge. There was a new job at the polls created to help anyone turned away. Feeling this was an opportunity to help the system work the way it should I volunteered for this post. For thirteen hours I sat at my own little table off to the side and took care of those who had stood in long lines only to be turned away. A good title for this job would have been "Guy who gets yelled at." It seems standing in a twenty minute line to be told you aren't allowed to vote really fires most people up. Some of them were simply in the wrong place. Others had moved and failed to update their information or register in a new precinct. My favorites, though, were the ones who hadn't voted for years (or decades) and thought all they had to do was show up on election day. A common excuse was "I though I was automatically registered to vote when I got my drivers' license!" While that would have made all the sense in the world it was definitely not the case. It's amazing how completely numb you can become to people griping and yelling at you.

11. Enjoy a minor league baseball game. For teams and schedules, go to minorleaguebaseball.com.

We go to one or two college games each year. I think this is even better.

12. March in a parade. You don't have to pull a Ferris Bueller and commandeer a float - tagging along will do - but big smiles and waves are a must.

I hate parades. As Daniel Tosh jokes "All anyone ever does at a parade is rubberneck down the road wondering when this stupid thing is going to end so they can go home and wash the 'lame' off them. You want to make parades more interesting? I say they do one more lap but at ten times the speed. The midgets start flying off the floats because their stubby fingers can't hold on to the railings. Their tiny bodies whip out into the crowd and a little boy catches one and asks if he can keep it. 'I don't know why not,' his mom says. 'They're not real.' What? They're not. They can't even vote. Well, okay...they CAN vote but have no idea who they voted for. And that is the story of how George Bush became president!" Wow, that was a long joke just to get to George Bush!

13. Take a kid to Disney World.

We took four the summer before last. I fear Disney may have paid to have this one placed on the list. Would you be surprised to find out that was true?

14. Learn the second verse of our national anthem. One little-known fact about "The Star Spangled Banner": It's melody was based on "To Anacreon in Heaven," a popular British tune dedicated to a wine-loving Greek poet.

I don't know this verse but I do know the verses to Take Me Out to the Ballgame. Were you aware that song even had verses? (Katie Casey was baseball mad...Had the fever and had it bad...)

15. Ride the Ferris wheel at a country fair.

By country fair I assume they mean really rural. I've done the state fair and while I haven't been on the Ferris Wheel I did make myself sick trying to eat something called an elephant ear.

16. Seek out the best Fourth of July fireworks within 50 miles of your home.

We used to watch the fireworks in St. Louis and they were among the biggest and best in the country. They were set against the backdrop of the Arch.

17. Get a passport - there's a whole world out there to explore.

I have a passport but there's a glitch in the digital photo that makes it look as though I have a piece of spinach or something in my teeth. For fear of showing this to anyone I will not be leaving the country until it expires in another five years.

18. Send a letter to your US senator or representative. Maybe even be nice.

I haven't sent a letter but I have sent a number of e-mails. The fact that an assistant sends back a form reply or a quick "The senator is very concerned about this issue and thanks you for your input" I don't know that it did all that much. But it's still good to keep trying.

19. Mail a care package to a service member. Learn what to send and where to send it at anysoldier.com, an organization that helps Americans boost the spirits of military personnel.

This one is a really good idea so I won't make any snide remarks. We were lucky enough this past spring to receive regular letters to our classroom from a soldier stationed in Afghanistan. He was there providing medical care for both soldiers and Afghanees. His letters were beautiful and full of so much interesting information about the people and places he encountered.

20. Make your own Halloween costume.

A few years ago I helped Harper make a Lego costume out of a cardboard box, some cottage cheese containers, hot glue, and spray paint. It was by far the best costume any of the kids have ever had because it was simple, clever, and homemade. I've tried each year to convince them to make another but they'd rather be a Power Ranger or something along those commercial lines. Too bad.

21. Tailgate at a football game.

Uh, no.

22. Go on a road trip. Choose a classic route - the Pacific Coast Highway, the Great River Road, the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Great Lakes Circle tour, Maui's Hana Highway - and pack the car.

I've been on great road trips with friends and have driven along the Great River Road and Route 66. However, I've never taken any of these roads as part of a road trip. Sadly, like most Americans I stick to the interstates that get me there the quickest. Tricia and I drove the Road to Hana and it took us a few hours to navigate more than 45 one-lane bridges as we looked down at the ocean below. It was only fun after it was all over because we could say we did it.

23. Explore America's ancient ruins. The US may be a mere 235 years old, but humans have lived here for millennia. One treasure left behind: the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado, carved out by the Ancestral Puebloans between 600 and 1300. For one of the densest concentrations of Ancestral Puebloan ruins, head to Chaco Canyon, NM.

Since I've never been further west than Kansas City I imagine there's a whole lot left to see.

24. Sleep beneath the stars in one of more than 50 national parks. See a list at nps.gov/findapark.

This one would seem as though it'd be a given but I'm not sure I've slept in a national park. Plenty of state parks and national forests though.

25. Dip a toe (at least) into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Done it. The Pacific was far better.

26. Write a gratitude letter to a teacher who's made a different in your life. Tell her (or him) of their impact on your life.

A great idea. I had already planned to do something similar to this over the summer.

27. Bake a real apple pie - from scratch. Get a great recipe at dashrecipes.com/applepie.

Maybe blueberry or cherry, but not apple.

28. Catch a concert by an American legend - James Taylor, Dolly Parton, and Jimmy Buffet are all playing dates this summer. Or get tickets for a future legend - Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga - or for any act where you're enough of a fan to sing along to the music.

How did "Amercian legend" and Jimmy Buffet wind up in the same sentence? In what world is Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga a "future legend"? What constitutes being a legend? I did see Ringo Starr and his troup of All-Stars but I guess he's not American so it doesn't count.

29. Appreciate fall's foliage. It doesn't matter where you live - when the leaves explode into color, take a walk outside.

Tricia and I backpacked through the Virginia mountains last fall and enjoyed seeing the changing colors. This is one worth repeating every year.

30. Admire the pyramids of Las Vegas, and ppull at least one slot machine arm - you might get lucky!

With limited time and finances I can't see how Las Vegas would ever make my list of places to go. In fact, I think I'd rather stay home.

31. See a bald eagle soar. This is easier than it sounds - after being brought back from the brink of extinction, our national bird can be found in every state except Hawaii. The biggest convocation is in Alaska, where the best viewing time is October through mid-December.

I was told I was watching a bald eagle soar overhead as we parked alongside the Great River Road near Grafton, Illinois. In all honesty, though, it could have been just about anything for all I knew. Maybe binoculars are a must have when birdwatching.

32. Plan a vacation - and use it to cross an item off your list. Twenty-eight percent of Americans surveyed in a recent poll took no vacation time the previous year; 65 percent took less than two weeks. Research shows that days off can eases stress and increase creativity.

I love that this list ended at #32. This never happens. Everything in magazines seem to come in 5s or 10s. Kudos to the crew at Parade magazine for bucking the system, or else just running out of ideas.

So I think perhaps I can give in and create a few "must dos" of my own. However, in true Bucket List fashion I'll plan to put this off for now in hopes of getting around to it another day. Maybe tomorrow.

Saying Goodbye

2011-06-02T21:22:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow is Day 180 - our final day of school. After more than 2,000 hours of working and laughing alongside this group of kids I know it's going to be hard to say goodbye. They've been anticipating this. Yesterday they shared with me a song they wrote for me a few weeks ago while I was away on an overnight study with the 4th and 5th grades. Written to the tune of We Will Rock You, it was titled We Will Miss You. Just as they started to sing it to me Madison brought me a box of tissues.

"Here," she said. "You're going to need these!"

As it turned out I didn't. The song was really fun but to their dismay I was a rock. Today they were excited to reveal my end-of-the-year gift. They gathered around our classroom window to block my view of what awaited me out there. Just before the big moment someone called out, "He's going to cry!" I sure was grateful to find a lovely new bench sitting beside our pond and garden (last year's gifts). There was even a thoughtful plaque for the bench thanking me for all the great learning and music we've experienced together over these two years. Knowing that next year I'm going to have kids climbing in and out of our window each day to enjoy that bench I was both thankful and touched. Yet still no tears.

"Mr. H, I'll give you five bucks if you cry tomorrow!" Madison said. It should be noted here that Madison's favorite books are the ones that make you cry at the end.

"Yeah," Rose said. "You have to cry tomorrow."

"Just wait," I assured them. "You never know."

Statistically speaking I'm pretty much a sure thing when it comes to tearfully saying goodbye when someone moves away or when I have to say goodbye on the last day of school. I remember a couple of years ago, while teaching at a different school, I couldn't bring myself to tear the classroom down. The kids were already gone for the summer yet I couldn't bring myself to stack the desks and chairs in the corner of the room until the very last moment. I didn't want to work in an empty room. I was as excited as anyone to begin my summer but at the same time I sort of hoped everyone would just come back on Monday morning for another week together.

In many ways I'm ready for this summer to begin. We're building a house and are excited to be moving out into "the woods" in a little over a month. The kids all have fun camps and baseball tournaments planned. We'll be driving down to Florida to visit my sister over Father's Day weekend. I have lots of books I plan to read and look forward to playing many, many games with the kids.And I'm really looking forward to staying up "late" and sleeping past six.

But I'm not in too much of a hurry. I don't want tomorrow to go too quickly. We have a few chores left to do. I want us all to get cozy on the floor one last time to fall into our books. And most of all I want to make sure there's plenty of time to sit together in a circle and say goodbye. And at the very end I'll insist they each take a turn coming over to give me a hug.

After all that I'm sure they'll get just what they wanted.

Good Reads

2011-05-31T21:17:00.005-04:00

Have you read anything good lately? I just finished a really great book titled The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. It tells the story of Calpurnia, a twelve-year-old girl in 1899, who feels trapped by the fact that she is coming of age as the twentieth century nears yet her life offers her no hope of doing anything more than cooking, cleaning, sewing, and throwing parties. Over the course of a year she develops a sweet relationship with her cantankerous grandfather as he teaches her to observe and inquire into the natural world. She soon falls in love with science but struggles to see how she will ever be allowed to pursue this passion now that her mother wants her to begin learning the "science of housewivery."

Speaking of good reads, we spent some time in class today thinking about the many good books and other texts we've shared together over the past two years. We keep a chart, smartly titled "Texts We've Read", where we try to document each of the texts we read together in class. Listed are a collection of picture books, chapter books, informational books, newspaper articles, poems, songs, excerpts, and so on. Each nine weeks another of my students inherits the job of "Book Recorder" to write these down for us. To date we have 289 texts recorded. We figured today that there are many other texts we forgot to record along the way- especially the droves of original pieces the kids created and shared out. Still, 289 is a pretty good number. Our goal is to get that up to 300 by Friday.

We began preparing for these final eleven reads by revisiting the titles we've enjoyed in the past 357 days. The kids created a table in their notebooks and began reading through the charts to tally each book under either: Loved It, Liked It, It Was Okay, Didn't Care for It, or Don't Remember It. I did this too. In the end there were more than 80 books that I loved, another 80+ that I liked, around 20 that were okay, three that I didn't care for, and a surprisingly high number that I forgot about.

We didn't get a chance for everyone to finish but we did take time to create a list of our favorite books. From these the kids voted on which they'd most like to revisit in our final days together, as they prepare to move on to the fourth grade. They offered up a really nice list, put their heads down, and then cast five votes. When all was said and done I was amazed by their selections. There were some really wonderful books in there with beautiful language and stirring story lines. Given that many cubbies are filled with the sophomoric likes of Captain Underpants, Dear Dumb Diary, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid it was nice to see them pick some better quality books as their favorites. Had they filled our queue with The Recess Queen or Click, Clack, Moo I might have dropped into a deep depression. Okay, maybe not a deep depression, they are both fine books, but I would have been disappointed.

Here's a sampling of our favorites:

All the Places to Love is a beautiful book by Patricia MacLachlan that tells the story of a family teaching their newest member, a baby girl, of all the wonderful places to love on and around their prairie farm. As with all MacLachlan books the language is poetic. I used to have the first few pages of this book memorized so that I could look right into the kids' eyes as I read those powerful lines and slowly turned the pages. This book has become a go-to book for many purposes. It's funny but I actually forgot reading this book to the kids but thankfully they had not. They not only remembered but also put it in their top eight.

A very, very funny book! This story tells of the power structures in place when a new baby comes home. Soon the baby is making demands and setting up his "office" in the middle of the living room. You'd think the kids would fail to catch most of the humor but they don't. They laugh and laugh the whole way through. This book is the perfect gift for any expectant parents. However, it'd be even better a few months in. Only then could they truly appreciate it.

In this story Jane Yolen tells the story of a small northeastern town who decides to sell itself to Boston so that it can be scooped right out of the Earth to make way for a reservoir that will provide the big city with the water they so badly need. Graves are dug up, trees are cut down, houses are demolished or moved. In the end a little girl sits in a canoe with her grandfather as he points down into the water reminding her of all those important places that helped shape their lives and families. We've read this one three times already yet they still voted, by a very wide margin, to read it again before summer sets in.

After Lester Laminack's mother-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease his son became confused as to how she could remember the smallest details from her past but could not even recognize his face. Faced with how best to help him understand, Laminack wrote this book. There are a lot of books about Alzheimer's out there but this one is among the very best. The first page is among the best first pages I've ever read. This is the type of story, both serious and sad, that you would expect might make kids uncomfortable. Yet, they love it. I'm always a bit surprised by how warmly they embrace it yet so thankful they do.

There were a few others on our list. We have eleven books in all to read in just three days. Given that two of those days are early dismissals and there's a bevy of other things going on right now I know our work is cut out for us. I'm sure we'll manage.

The Morning After

2011-05-22T09:44:00.002-04:00

Well, Harold Camping was wrong. Come to find out the world did not end last night at 6:00 pm. I suppose this means the estimated 200 million people (about 3% of the world's population) that his followers claimed would be raptured to heaven yesterday are probably waking up a bit disappointed this morning. To think this very moment they could have been traipsing along cloud tops with their great-great grandparents but are left, instead, to mow the lawn.

I joke but some people took this whole business very seriously. Faced with the awful task of a long distant move, some believers lightened their load by selling all their worldly possessions. Others, not wishing to get screwed by heaven's unfavorable currency exchange, decided instead to drain their savings accounts.

I prepared by not preparing. This was all a build-up to a party I knew I wasn't invited to anyway. Like the other 97% of the world's population I was just waiting for the righteous to leave so I could take to the streets afterward and raise a little hell. Literally.

But, alas, Harold Camping was wrong and now he is nowhere to be found. I can't wait to hear his excuse. Even more, I can't wait to hear the follow-up stories on those fools who sold their houses, left their families, or made pilgrimages to California to be near the wise soul who owns the multi-million-dollar Christian media empire.That empire, by the way, is sandwiched between an auto shop and a palm reader's store front.

I act as though I believe there will be some amount of vindication to be found in hearing their reactions. But of course there won't. Too many of them are blind followers who will be quick to rationalize this all as a test of their faith. I don't fault them their faith in a greater being. I do, however, fault them in allowing this greater being to be Harold Camping.

Blog Posts from the Soul

2011-05-14T22:06:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago I headed down to our school computer lab to pick up something I had sent to the printer. As is generally the case, there was a sizable stack of unclaimed copies sitting on top. After grabbing my document I flipped through the others to make sure none were mine. Amongst the usual lesson plans and reading logs I found a piece of paper that read:

Haikus from the Soul

Framing a photo of an unnerving robotic alien threatening to attack with razor sharp teeth and claws were two poems.

Alien you're weird
Don't cross the street when he's there
Watch out citizens

Weirdos are freaks
The weirdos come out at night
Do not talk to them

Haikus from the Soul? I didn't know whether to be tickled or concerned. Either way, I couldn't resist. I had to have it so I grabbed the copy and ran. This kid may grow up to be the next Ray Bradbury and I'll have an original copy of one of his earliest works.

Writing is a curious thing. Most people never attempt to write, or at least refuse to share any of their writing, for fear of rejection or ridicule. This most likely came from their experiences in school when every piece they turned in was given back full of red marks and corrections. It's amazing what you can come to believe about yourself when all you ever hear are reminders of what you've done wrong rather than what you've done right.

A few years ago I had the fortune to spend three weeks of my summer participating in the Midlands Writing Project's Summer Writing Institute. For seven hours each day a group of twenty teachers came together to read, talk, think, and write.We wrote poems and advertisements and memories and instructional books and letters and fiction stories and much more. Some of it was pretty good but the vast majority of it was terrible. That was lesson #1...not everything we write needs to be perfect, or even good. We write to write. Along the way an idea or a line or even a single word sticks with us and maybe becomes something of value. Something worth exploring.

At the end of fifteen days together we gathered in a circle to share one of our pieces. Everyone was very nervous about exposing their writing selves in front of the others. No matter how often our teacher had told us we were writers none of us truly believed her. We suspected it in others but certainly not within ourselves. Still, we each took a piece we felt represented our best work and shared it with the class. I suspected we just might prove her wrong.

I quickly volunteered to go first. I've learned this is the easiest path. No one had anything to compare my writing to and since everyone was so nervous about their own pieces they were more than willing to be complimentary of mine in hopes of creating good karma.

I sat in the "author chair" and shared my piece about visiting the beach and losing one of the kids. Even though it was a piece of fiction I started to cry a bit as I read, becoming consumed by the emotion of the story. I looked up and others were crying too. Not because they were laughing, but because they were sad. I realized that, with my written words, I had made that happen. I had made them feel something. My confidence grew just a tad bit.

A few months later I met a new friend, Tim, who convinced me to try keeping a blog. Writing on a blog is less risky than reading your pieces to others. When it's bad you never have to cringe after seeing the reader's reaction. Over the past twenty-two months I've written some stinkers. That's inevitable, though. If you write often you'll get to experience a little, or maybe even a lot, of everything. I think the easiest pieces to write are touching ones because the mere fact that you would share a piece of your soul makes others prone to forgiving awkward sentences. Trying to be funny, on the other hand, is very hard. There's no emotion attached so when you fail it just sits there like the elephant in the room that NO ONE is ignoring. I don't shy away from it though. I tend to go for more quantity than quality. A lot of my humor may miss the mark but if I do it often enough I'm bound to hit the mark a time or two.

I set a goal for myself when I started writing on the blog to publish a piece each week. Many weeks have been easy while a few others have been quite a challenge. A challenge to decide on a topic. A challenge to communicate my thoughts clearly. A challenge to remember what the piece was even supposed to be about.

I didn't want to write "updates" like you might see on social networking sites, but essays with a few memoirs and other genres mixed in. Having a small handful of readers who check in from time to time has helped keep me honest on my piece-a-week deadline. Because Tim has been so dutiful to comment on nearly every piece I've ever written I find that he's generally the audience I keep in mind when writing. However, there are other pieces - say, about Ty - where I think about how I want it to sound in his head as he reads it when he gets older. That's one of the cool things about writing- it lasts forever.

This is my 100th post. I've been looking forward to it for months. Over that time I had all kinds of ideas of things I might write about. I knew I wanted the topic to be writing but how I was going to share that was the real challenge. I've had many great ideas but, as happens all to often, I forgot most of them. I have two small notebooks for keeping notes but too often I forget them in my bag or in a bedside drawer. Perhaps by my 200th post I'll have mastered the habit of always carrying a notebook.

Carrying a small notebook, I hear that's what writers do.

Mother's Day

2011-05-08T14:41:00.009-04:00

What if you could write a letter and deliver it to your former self or someone you love, at some key point in the past, warning of mistakes to avoid? Or encouraging yourself to persevere? Or hinting at the many good times that lie ahead? My classroom kids and I recently gave this a shot. With Mother's Day quickly approaching I was determined to have them create something special their moms would enjoy (especially after having forgotten to do anything at all last year).

The kids and I created prewriting notes around our childhoods: stories you've been told about when you were a baby, accidents you had, great vacations you've been on, the best gifts you've ever received, cute things you've said, trouble you've gotten into, sad things that have happened, and things your mom has done to make you feel loved. We took these notes and used them to write letters to our mothers. Letters that might be delivered the morning before our own deliveries - our birth day.

I was worried this might be a little difficult but what they came up with was both amazing and heart-felt. Their notes moved from humorous to nostalgic to touching.

"Don't be alarmed by those pains in your stomach. You're just having a baby. Me in particular."

"Some day you're going to decide to have another baby for me to play with. I'm going to hit her and even push her off the couch. Remember that I still love her though."

"We're going to go on some great vacations together. Don't be surprised if I never want to leave. We'll visit..."

"You might be tempted to buy me socks or underwear for my birthday but I'm going to like toys. I'm going to really LOVE toys!"

"You're going to be the best mom. And I'm going to be your 'special' girl."

After we had our first drafts complete we worked hard to create our own stationary for these letters. The kids carefully drew hearts and swirlies and dots.

"Please don't draw Gamecocks or footballs," I pleaded.

"But my mom LOVES the Gamecocks and football," a few protested.

"I'm sure you think she does," I countered. "That's part of what makes her such a great mom. But for this one day let's give her something other than sports."

After completing their stationary we took more than an hour to meticulously transfer our drafts onto the paper. I was so amazed by their work I ran them down to the office to make copies for my files before the originals were laminated and sent home. I hope they were well received.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

June 11, 1974

Dear Mom,

Today is a BIG day. You are about to give birth to a tiny baby boy. He won't stay tiny very long, though. Soon he will become fat. Really fat. He's going to cry a lot too. Even more than most other babies. Nothing you do will help. He will scream through your very best efforts to rock him, walk him, and sing to him. Remember that this is not his fault. He cannot help it. With time and patience this will pass and he will fill your days with laughter and smiles.

You'll want to keep a close eye on this little guy as he learns to crawl. Keep him in your sights - especially when going out of the house. He might one day crawl away from you, pull down his diaper, and leave a "present" on someone else's floor. Though it may not seem like it at the time this will one day be very funny. There will be other mistakes made. Should you decide to dress him up for a studio photograph you may want to consider having him use the potty first. This will save you some frustration and him some shame.

There will be many good times ahead. He will say silly things like "pamshoo" for shampoo and "mertmane" for airplane. He'll cruise the house on his Tike bike. He'll grow to be a good listener and baseball crazy. Time will fly as you take family trips to the Ozarks and to Arkansas. You will celebrate the excitement of new pets and cry together when they die. There will be church gatherings, movies, and games. Most of all there will be laughter. Hold on to as many of these moments as you can. They are easier to forget than you could ever imagine.

You're going to make a great mom. You'll give him lots of hugs, plenty of Band-aids, and a lot of love. All your hard work will help him grow up and go to college, become a teacher, and have a loving family of his own.

So brace yourself not just for this one BIG day but for the many smaller ones that will follow. They are all just as important and just as special. Enjoy your journey!

Love,
Your son, Chris

All the Latest News

2011-05-01T21:51:00.004-04:00

I really enjoy the newspaper. As long as I can remember Tricia and I have had a subscription. Before we had kids we'd spend every Saturday and Sunday morning in bed reading the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Being the only paper in a relatively large city, the Post Dispatch was a beefy paper. The front page was regularly fourteen to sixteen pages long and there were a wide variety of sections from which to choose.

We now live in a smaller city and have found it somewhat difficult to adjust to a smaller paper. The State has three daily sections: Front page, Metro, and Sports. And that's on a good day. Monday's paper often combines Sports and Metro so that there are only two sections. Two very thin sections.

World news is largely omitted - seemingly to make as much space as possible for football articles. Though the college football season is only five months long it dominates the paper year-round. Today when I opened up the paper I wasn't surprised to see that there was a large picture of a Gamecock football on the front page that took up half of the top fold. My class and I studied this once and found that more days than not the top fold is dominated by college football headlines.

Yet I still love reading the paper. Each morning I eat a bowl of Mini-Wheats, drink a tall glass of orange juice, and browse the headlines for something of interest. Today there were a number of things that I thought were, for better or worse, interesting...

Crystal "Shy" Roberts climbed the roughly 10-foot pole at the Penthouse Club, gripping it's metallic surface with her thighs as it swayed a foot in both directions.
Early on a Friday night in April, Roberts played to mostly small groups of men seated in low-slung chairs around small cocktail tables at the Horry County club. Many of the men wore polo shirts and baseball caps and smoked cigars as dancers moved from lap to lap through the room.

This was from an article titled "Golfers Flock to Strip Clubs." I thought at first I was reading a Carl Hiaasen novel. I'm sure, though, Carl Hiassen would be greatly insulted to be credited with such artistic phrases as "gripping it's metallic surface with her thighs."

Though it starts quite steamy the article turns away from stripper poles and lap dances, talking instead about revenue, tourism, zoning, and the migration of North Carolina strippers. Much like a visit to a strip club, I can only imagine, I finished the article feeling dirty and unfulfilled.

*****

Page two of the front page was surprisingly about the recent Royal Wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton. I was careful to skip right past this one. I'm on a quest to be the one and only American with access to television who knows absolutely nothing about this wedding. It's a challenge, to be sure, but worth the effort.

*****

I found that modesty is not something our governor is afflicted with. When grading herself after her first 100 days, Nikki Haley responded "Effort, absolutely A+++. I sleep and breathe this every day. I want everything done yesterday. For accomplishments, I'd honestly give myself and A. We are so excited for what we've done in 100 days. We really, really are."

*****

The classifieds, as always, were a bit strange. There was an ad that read:

Dental Internship
for enthusiastic fast learner considering becoming a dentist. College degree required.

Don't you HAVE to have a degree to be a dentist? Wouldn't an internship be part of that previous degree? Wouldn't the earned degree demonstrate that you have already moved past "considering becoming a dentist"? Is the degree in something all together different - like English or Art History? Can these people learn to become dentists with no more than an internship? Maybe we should all look a little more carefully at those framed degrees in the dentist office.

There were a lot of dogs for sale. Some came with papers that demanded a $500 price tag, or more. Others were mutts. I felt bad for the ones named Pinky, Prissy (who they think is a Border Collie) and Tinkerbelle (who not so surprisingly is a Chihuahua who "likes to sit on your lap all day"). Who'd want a dog with stupid names like those? There was another dog named Zeus. Be honest, which would you rather have your neighbors hearing you call from the back door, Prissy or Zeus?

Others didn't have names but were identified as being pure-bloods from breeds that I can only assume they made up. What exactly is a Golden Doodle or a Maltipoo?

Some guy had the nerve, in the $100 and Under section, to advertise...

Firewood free, you cut XXX-3499 from tree that fell in storm

Talk about nerve. This guy had a tree toppled by a storm and rather than clean it up, or even pay someone to come out and do it for him, he's advertising it as though he's doing everyone else a favor. If this works just imagine the possibilities. Both Tom Sawyer and Mark Twain would be proud.

*****

A bunch of women are getting married. I presume there's a groom but he's not in any of the pictures. Instead, there are a number of women in wedding dresses leaning against trees, standing in formal living rooms, or enjoying a day at the fountain. I can't help but wonder if other people look at these same pictures and sort them into two groups:" really pretty" and "good for you."

*****

You probably won't be surprised to know that more people died yesterday. Quite a few of them really. Some were young but most were old. Sometimes they try to trick you by running a photo of an old person from when they were younger. I'm not sure why they do this but it seems kind of depressing, even for the Obituary page. What really bothers me though is when they don't tell you how they died. When I die I want them to skip all the formulaic "was born...," "received a BS in Education from...," and "survived by..." nonsense and get right down to business. No details will be too sensitive. And if I have the gall to die peacefully in my sleep I hope someone takes the artistic license to spice it up a bit. Make it worth the readers' time.

I wish there was more but as I said earlier it's a thin paper and I don't care all that much about football.

A Kinda Easter

2011-04-24T17:09:00.008-04:00

When I was little nearly all holidays were spent at my grandparents' house. There'd be aunts and uncles to listen to and cousins to play with. Since moving to South Carolina five years ago a number of these same holidays have become somewhat awkward. With no family nearby, days like Easter tend to be just like any other day - other than the fact they begin with baskets of eggs, candy, crackers, toys, and baseball cards (due to Ainsley's request we did not put underwear in anyone's basket this time around).

This year we avoided the holiday all together by planning a trip to the beach. We left home at 8:00 in the morning and were on the beach at Isle of Palms by 10:30 enjoying the waves and sand with all the other non-church goers. By the time the sun rose directly above our heads the non-heathans finished their morning services and crowded in among us. Evidently a day at the beach sounds like a pretty good Easter to a lot of other families as well.
I noticed right away that the kids were different this year. In years past Harper would want me to hold her hand as she fought her way through the surf. Ty would only venture a few feet out and Ainsley avoided the water all together. They are obviously getting older - and braver. Harper and Muluken had to be constantly reminded to go no further than the end of the pier as their tiny heads bobbed up and down out past the biggest waves. Ty and Ainsley both giggled their way out quite far as well. Keeping track of all four was more taxing than relaxing. I'm sure there will be a day when a trip to the beach is filled with lounging, reading, and splashing around in the water but believe me when I say that day has not yet come. One head, two heads, three heads, four. All day is spent counting, recounting, and giving the "Come back, you're too far out" wave.

There was a short time today when Ty went missing. He was supposed to be following me up the beach toward our stuff but somehow took a wrong turn. Muluken found him just a few minutes later heading for the stairs to the boardwalk. As we showered off and changed into dry clothes I thought back to a fiction piece I wrote two years ago about visiting the beach. I'm going to post it here since there are a handful of new readers who check in from time to time. I had originally named the piece "June" and planned to write accompanying pieces for each of the other months of the year. Though I'm still not closer to finishing this it does strike me as a good idea.

***********************************************************************

I hate the beach.

My friend Brooke says it’s her favorite place because she gets to relax and to read and to let the world just peel away from her like bark from a birch tree. There was a time I would agree, looking out over the horizon and feeling the wind sweep across my face and listening to the cadence of the sea coming in to greet me. Everything about it makes you want to stay forever.

Almost everything.

Going to the beach starts out well enough. The first weekend of every June we squeeze everything into the van – towels and blankets and pails and shovels and chairs and snacks and sunscreen. Four kids. Tricia and I. Two-and-a-half hours away is a county park on Isle of Palms that has the softest sand. It never burns your feet no matter how hot it gets outside. I don’t know how this works - it just does. Muluken says it’s because we’re boys and we’re tough but I remind him that his mother and sisters are girls and they’re tough too. He doesn’t look convinced and flexes his tiny brown muscles in protest.

Ty reacts to the beach like a June bug reacts to light. He runs around, wildly bouncing off things. Off people. We try our best to reel him in but our arms are full of bags and coolers so for this one moment – this one day – he gets to act like a child. After a year of time-outs he probably deserves at least as much.

We find a spot to drop our stuff. It has to be close enough to the waterline so that we can see it from the surf yet not so close that we will have to retreat from the rising tide. Tricia says I obsess over the spot too much. She says I’m like an old man circling the mall parking lot in search of the perfect spot by the door. I couldn’t really say, but it is important to me. I do take it seriously.

The first thing Harper does is to grab her boogie board and head off toward the water. The board has a big picture of Dora on it and it’s really too babyish for an eight year old but she doesn’t seem to mind. It’s functional and she knows how hard it is to find money to replace the things that aren’t broken. She bounds through the waves trying to get past the breakers but her frame is small and she has the legs of a reader. She’s knocked to the ground numerous times before she finally wrestles her way to calmer waters. Despite the effort, a smile as wide as a Wal-Mart parking lot spreads across her face and she squeals uncontrollably. She has been waiting for this exact moment all year long.

Tricia and I make our way down to the water to take this all in. By this point Muluken and Ty have joined their big sister while Ainlsey – sweet, little Ainsley – dances around us begging to search for seashells. Not liking to get her face wet, she prefers to stay on dry land. Tricia takes her hand and together they head off toward the pier in search of half-buried treasures.

I breathe in all that salty air and sunshine and then I run out to join the kids. And that’s how the beach starts.

Not a bad start.

But not long after the morning shadows disappear everything changes. My heart somehow knows before my eyes do. I look out at the water. And I look out across the beach. And I count three heads. Just three heads. When there should be four.

And now, I hate the beach.

I hate the beach because when I yell for Tricia I can see that she’s already noticed. She’s looking around and every ounce of blood has drained from her cheeks and her knuckles are bone white as she clenches the sides of her swimsuit. She looks at me and says something I can’t hear. Suddenly I’m very aware of all the noise. And all the people.

I run down to the water as Tricia makes her way across the sand. I glance back over my shoulder hoping to see her signal to me that everything’s okay – that she has found what, at this moment in time, I need to see more than anything else in the entire world. But she hasn’t. I can see that she’s screaming now, moving from towel to towel, person to person, pleading with them to help. But no one does because they don’t understand. No one understands. No one but us. And among all these people I suddenly feel alone.

I turn back to the water and there are so many bodies and the sun is so bright that I can barely make sense of what I’m seeing. I move out further to get a better view. The waves crash down on me so as to make me turn away -but I refuse to. The saltwater stings my eyes and my feet betray me as I fall back and I’m surrounded now by nothing but muddled sounds and murky water and more than at any other point in my life I feel completely out of control.

Tricia gathers up the other three kids and asks them if they’ve seen anything. They laugh at her because they think this is some kind of trick or joke and they don’t understand the seriousness of the situation. They don’t understand what’s at stake. She orders them back to our blanket because she doesn’t have the time to make them understand. Or the heart.

She tells me to go get the lifeguard.

The lifeguard smiles at me and calmly climbs down from her chair. She looks to be all of about nineteen years old and flips her hair from her face as she reaches back to grab a radio. I want to scream: How can you be so calm? She asks a few questions of which I try to answer but I can’t concentrate. My mind is racing. I’m scared and angry and the lifeguard is still acting casually as if this type of thing happens every day. Every day to some kid. But this isn’t just some kid. It’s mine.

She gets on her walkie and begins talking to someone else. I look down the beach to see if one of the other lifeguards is beginning to move or to look toward us. Finally, I see one of them signal to her. She tells me that she has put out an alert and that I need to backtrack through all the places we’ve been. I’m happy to have been given an instruction. Happy to have someone else who knows.

I turn to go find Tricia and see immediately that she is standing at the water’s edge - tears streaming down her face, her heart beating through the purple diamonds that line her swimsuit.

Her entire face is swollen.

She drops to her knees. And she screams.

A numbness falls over me like I’ve never felt before and my heart is pounding and pounding and pounding and I hate the beach.

But then… I see her reach out. Out toward the sea and a wide smile washes over her face, erasing the terror. I realize now that the screams were not of pain, but of joy.

She wraps her arms around a confused set of shoulders that have waded in through the pools of water left from the tide. She pulls those shoulders in to her tightly and squeezes them with all the strength she has left.

I run over and I grab hold of both of them and we sit that way for a very long time.

Afraid to let go.

I look out over their heads at the vast blue ocean and see something I had never noticed before and I wonder: What if…?

And now, I hate the beach.

When Lyrics Go Bad

2011-04-16T14:53:00.006-04:00

A few days ago I picked up my guitar and began strumming it just before the end of our school day.

'I'm thinking maybe we could take what we've been learning about slavery, abolitionists, and the Civil War and write another song together," I said. "A lot of the stuff we've been noticing and talking about would be good to share out. Do you have any ideas?"

This is often how it starts. Not always, but often. I notice something we've been doing that might make a decent song and we start fiddling around with it ten and fifteen minutes at a time until we have enough to really dig in and flush it out. I kept strumming.

"So what do you think?" I asked. "Who has a line to get us started?"

There's a time for hand-raising. Songwriting generally is not that time. A couple of the kids called out the first thing that came to their mind.

"Slavery is wrong!"
"It's not our color but what's under our skin!"
"Our differences don't matter!"

I nodded my head in agreement.

"Those are some powerful ideas," I said. "We just need to make them sound like a song lyric. Something we'd hear on the radio. How about the whole idea that many of the heroes we've been learning about aren't the ones you hear about on television or in the textbook? Could we do something with that?"

Madison's face lit up. "You don't have to be Superman to be a hero."

"Yeah," I said. "You don't have to be Superman. And you don't have to have a gun or sword."

"That's good," someone called out.

That was as far as we got. We threw a few more things around but they didn't stick. Later I shared this with my buddy Tim who teaches next door. Tim writes all kinds of songs with his kids that are often far more sophisticated than our simple rhythms and melodies. I told him about our one line, You don't have to be Superman to be a hero, as well as Jack's idea to include information about the abolitionists we admired and Hannah's idea to end the song with a message that we could all be heroes and stand up for what we feel is right.

"Oh man," he said. "That's it. That song will just write itself."

Except it didn't. We've worked at it a little bit to no avail. Sometimes the process is so easy. Other times not. Songwriting can be a challenge. Even for the pros.

Last weekend Tricia and I were about to go to bed when I picked up the remote and flipped through the stations. I came across Austin City Limits, a live-performance music show that's been around for 35 years (making it the longest running music show on television). ACL features all sorts of musicians, from Willie Nelson to Jack Johnson to Etta James. Some are legends, others are a flash-in-the-pan, and a few are bands you've never even heard of. I imagine it's the variety that makes the show so cool. I hardly ever watch it but I certainly appreciate that it exists.

So I waited to find out who was going to be on and was excited to see it was REM. Growing up, they were one of my favorite bands. I could name at least one or two dozen songs of theirs that I still really love. That's not true of many of the bands I liked as a teenager.

I settled in as Tricia, realizing we weren't going to bed after all, collapsed into her chair and quickly fell to sleep. A few songs in it was obvious this wasn't going to be a "greatest hits" performance. The songs were all new and, sadly, not that great. Worse of all were the lyrics. They were just silly.

I feel like an alligator
Climbing up the escalator
Climbing up the escalator
I feel strong

I feel like an aviator pilot
Thinks you wouldn't buy it
I'm feeling violent
Beat your bleeding eye in
Hey, hey, alligator, you've got a lot to learn
I have, have got a lot to learn

Uh, what? I can only hope the next song is better.

I would dare you, but I know I don't need to
You're going to do just what you want to
You're going to take the leading chair at the fairground
You're going to sing the praises of your fruit

Mine smell like honey, uh!
Mine smell like honey, uh!
Mine smell like hu- hu- hu- honey, uh!

Guess not. Suddenly I found myself doubting my entire taste in music. Could the old songs have been this bad? The power of internet soon helped me find my answer.

Orange Crush (An old favorite of mine)

Follow me, don’t follow me
I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush
Collar me, don’t collar me
I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush
We are agents of the free
I’ve had my fun and now its time to
Serve your conscience overseas
(over me, not over me)
Coming in fast, over me

Radio Free Europe (Another old favorite)

Beside yourself if radio's gonna stay.
Reason: it could polish up the grey.
Put that, put that, put that up your wall
That this isn't country at all

Raving station, beside yourself

Keep me out of country in the word
Deal the porch is leading us absurd.
Push that, push that, push that to the hull
That this isn't nothing at all

Ugh. When I was younger I think I just assumed I wasn't smart enough, or at least deep enough, to understand the meanings of these songs. Now, though, I think maybe they just don't make any sense at all.

So I set out to find other examples of really bad lyrics. Many of these proved that making sense still doesn't make it good...

"There's an insect
In your ear
If you scratch
It won't disappear"

U2 - Staring at the Sun

I guess it was an easy rhyme?

"There were plants
And birds
And rocks
And things"

America - Horse With No Name

This is a popular choice with many people. Things?

"Coast to coast
L.A. to Chicago"

Sade - Smooth Operator

In her defense she wasn't from the States. But still...

He could throw that speed ball by you
Make you look like a fool

Bruce Springstein - Glory Days

A fastball is a pitch in baseball. A speedball....well you'd have to ask Jim Belushi. If you could.

Someone always playing corporation games

Who cares they’re always changing corporation names

We just want to dance here someone stole the stage

They call us irresponsible write us off the page

Starship - We Built This City

Picking on Starship is almost TOO easy. Fight the power, Starship!

Muskrat Susie

Muskrat Sam

Do the jitterbug out in muskrat land

And they shimmy

And Sammy's so skinny

Captain and Tennille - Muskrat Love

This song truly makes me wonder why I was so concerned about the forced rhymes my third graders were coming up with. Compared to this we were pretty much functioning on the same plane as Don McClean.

My all time favorite, though, comes from Alanis Morissette. She wrote a song titled "Ironic." Sadly, nothing in it was at all ironic. A bummer, yes. Ironic, no.

An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
And isn't it ironic... don't you think

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought... it figures

Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
"Well isn't this nice..."
And isn't it ironic... don't you think

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought... it figures

Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face

A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn't it ironic...don't you think
A little too ironic...and, yeah, I really do think...

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought... it figures

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out

There are of course many, many examples of really good lyrics. Some even come from REM. However, this post is getting awfully lengthy so I'll save those for another day. In researching these lyrics I came across a story about Michael Stipe and his lyric writing. He evidently commented during a show in 1999 that people shouldn't spend their time on the internet trying to make sense of lyrics. Some songs, he said, make sense and others don't. I guess so long as they sound good in your ear that should be enough.

So that may well become my mantra as we work to finish our song. It may be pedestrian. It may be trite. But hopefully it'll sound good in our ears.

You don't need to be Superman
To make a difference in our land
You just have to know right from wrong
And trust your heart - - - stay strong

On the Appalachian Trail: Unicoi Gap, GA to Cheese Factory Site, GA

2011-04-10T15:05:00.002-04:00

These next five posts are probably going to be a bit lengthy for most people who check in with this blog. If so, feel free to glance them over and wait for a more typical post next week.
However, I'm still posting these stories here to help preserve the memories of our hike together. Should we someday finish this hike together I think it would be cool to take all these posts and have them bound into a book to give the kids. A history of our hike. And their childhoods.

Last summer I suggested we might set out to hike the entirety of the Appalachian Trial - 2,175 mountainous miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mount Katahdin, Maine. The boys quickly took me up on my offer. The girls weren't so interested; although, they did mention they'd like to do smaller bits of the trip along the way.

I quickly went about devising a plan that would allow us to finish the trail by the time the boys graduated from high school. It was gradual yet ambitious. We'd begin with 50 miles that first summer, grow to 100 within a year or two, and eventually take on 300 - 400 miles a summer once their legs grew a bit longer and their backs a tad stronger.

We did our 50 miles last year with the girls, and Mom, joining us for the final twenty. There were warm days, misguided directions, hard climbs, and a small rain storm. More than that, though, there was a lot of fun.

So this past week the boys and I set out to walk the next 32 mile stretch. This was an important leg of the trip in that we would be passing our very first state border - from Georgia to North Carolina. This would mean one state down and just thirteen more to go.

Each night we sat in our sleeping bags and wrote about our day in our journals. As with last year I'll let the boys help share our journey.

Day 1 Unicoi Gap, GA - Cheese Factory Site, GA (Miles Today: 3; Trip Miles: 3; Total AT Miles: 53)

We left the house this morning around 10:15 to make the four-and-a-half hour drive. Ainsley was sad we were leaving but trying hard not to show it. Along the way we stopped at a rest stop for sandwiches we had packed to bring along, stopped by Ingles to fill up on salad for the night, and hit the outfitter for some last minute supplies.

As always, when we neared the trail head I became lost. I didn't recognize the road we were on from last summer. I had already driven about fifteen miles down the road and feared going fifteen more only to find I was on the wrong road. So I turned around and went back to Neels Gap to get directions. Winds up I was going the right way all along. What a waste.

We arrived at the trail head about 5:15. Someone in the parking lot agreed to take our picture in our nice clean clothes and then we were finally on the trial. About five minutes up the mountain I couldn't remember if I had locked the car or not. ARGHHH. I dropped my pack and ran back down to double check. In what was quickly becoming a theme for the day...it was already locked. I should learn not to doubt myself!

Today was a quick three miles. There were a few climbs but we were fresh and excited so they came and went with little effort. Ty was exceptionally strong. He kept a good pace for us up front and was in great spriits.The sun was quickly dropping below the jagged horizon and the air was getting cool. We had wanted to make it to the old Cheese Factory site. In the mid-1800s an eccentric New Englander established a dairy near Tray Mountain, about 15 miles from the nearest farmhouse. Other settlers eventually sold their land and moved away. The cheese factory remained and evidently did pretty well. There are no remnants of the factory now. Only a story.

As we neared what we thought to be the general area of the factory we were running out of light. We found a small clearing near the top of Tray Mountain and made camp. In the morning we found out that we actually were at the old Cheese Factory Site and didn't know it.Finding out we had hiked more miles that we thought was a nice surprise.

As we sat in our tent Muluken read back through the journal entries we wrote last year as well as what each of us had written about today. Ty had the biggest grin on his face as Muluken read from his own journal "[The climb] kept going up and up but we didn't give up because our good leader Ty was strong and we only had two or three breaks I think."

"I liked the part about our 'good leader Ty'," Ty said.

"Hey man, you were a good leader," I assured him. "You were so strong today!"

(Dad, age 36)

We hiked three miles today. We said a mountain was crying. First we drove to Unicoi Gap. We turned around. We asked two men that had bikes in their truck. We went the right way the next time. Muluken said Dad should have been patient.

(Ty/Flash, age 7)

We drove to Unicoi Gap. There we got our picture from a man. We were in a gap so that told us we are going to go up. AHH! We teased the mountain on the way. Then we thought that we were up to the top. We got fooled and it was not the top. We got fooled twice. That's called stupid. We were aiming to get to the Cheese Factory. That's a cheesy name.

One thing that bothered us was the wind. When we set down it would make us freezing but when we got up it stopped. That's weird. When we had passed a road and a stream we thought the top was close but it wasn't. It kept going up and up but we didn't give up because our good leader Ty was strong and we only had two or three breaks I think. We played [games] on the way up.

(Muluken/Jolly Roger, age 9)

On the Appalachian Trail: Muskrat Creek Shelter, NC to Deep Gap, NC

2011-04-10T15:02:00.016-04:00

Day 5 Muskrat Creek Shelter, NC - Deep Gap, NC (Miles Today: 4; Trip Miles: 32; Total AT Miles: 82)

Snow on the trail. Just two days ago it was in the 80's and I was getting a sunburn and now there's a bit of snow alongside the trail. Crazy.

When I woke up this morning I was afraid to uncover my head. I knew it was going to be frigid. Sure enough, I was right. I climbed out of my sleeping bag and told the boys to stay put until I had all my things packed and the food bags down from the trees. I didn't want them getting packed up too early and sitting around waiting for me with nothing to do but shiver. While there are far worse temperatures to deal with in the mountains than 32 degrees it's still not all that fun to stand still for too long.

Once we were packed up one of the older guys in the shelter, Snake, watched the boys walk off toward the trail and commented to me, "You've got two tough men right there to want to be out here in this."

"Yeah," I said. "They really have a great time."

The first two miles were as flat as any we've encountered on the trail. We didn't bother to remove any clothes before taking off this morning so we each hiked in three to four layers. Ty and I became hot within an hour or so and stopped to shed some layers. Muluken was content to stay bundled.

In the four miles to the gap there was only one climb. By this point in the trip it seemed pretty easy. We knew the drill - go slowly on the steepest parts, take short but frequent breaks, and take advantage of the easier pitches by picking up the pace. After the first two miles we had doubled our normal pace to 2mph. This was due in large part to the fact no one was all that tempted to stop for more than a few seconds at a time because of the cold.

As we headed down our final descent toward Deep Gap I heard Muluken up ahead calling, "It's Harper! It's Harper! IT'S THE GIRLS!!!" Harper started laughing and rushed up to meet Muluken. Happy to be reunited, everyone offered hugs or kisses. The girls took the backpacks from Ty and Muluken and carried them the rest of the way down. In the van was a cooler of cold Gatorade, grapes, and cheese. We packed up our stuff, grabbed a drink and snack for ourselves, and left the rest at the trail side for the other hikers who would be coming behind us. We were happy to repay some of the good karma that had found us days earlier.

We all drove back to a cabin we had rented near Blood Mountain in Georgia. After a shower and some lunch the six of us headed out for a four mile hike to a nearby waterfall. No pack, no boots, no jackets. It was warm and we were enjoying the sandals on our feet and the sun on our shoulders. The kids splashed around in the base of the waterfall before heading back. The following day we all hiked up Blood Mountain and enjoyed the fantastic views together.

As we packed up to go home I found a note in my suitcase that Ainsley had written me while we were gone. She started writing it right after we loaded into the car six days earlier - when she was trying so hard not to look sad. The note began, "Dear Daddy, I miss you. I hope you have a great trip. I love you." She added to the letter each day I was gone and admitted to crying a few nights. We're headed back out in June for 80 more miles. This time we're coordinating it so the girls are nearby and welcome to come out and hike as much as they'd like with us. The more the merrier.

As for our future plans, we'll get through the Smokies next year and maybe all the way up into Hot Springs. From there I realize now we'll have to start doing some serious miles. We'll probably need to get over a thousand miles in the next five or six years and then make a push to do the rest all in one or two summers. The costs and time demands of breaking our hike up over too many summers may be too great.

On the Appalachian Trail: Plumorchard Shelter, GA to Muskrat Creek Shelter, NC

2011-04-10T15:02:00.015-04:00

Day 4 Plumorchard Shelter, GA - Muskrat Creek Shelter, NC (Miles Today: 7; Trip Miles: 28; Total AT Miles: 78)

Last night's storm was crazy. I looked up at one point and saw a big just of wind pick up the coals from the fire pit and spray them into the woods. Orange sparks flew everywhere but thankfully there was no fire. With all the rain that was falling from the black sky I don't know how there could have been. The winds howled, bending the trees back and forth as lightning filled the sky all night long. Finally the storm passed around 4 or 5 in the morning and by the time I woke up everything was calm again. I pulled my sleeping bag around my head and propped the back of my head against the back wall of the shelter so I could look out at the woods and watch the first few people get up and retrieve their things that had blown off the table during the storm.

It was cold, cold this morning. My hands were freezing as I gathered up my stuff and worked to make oatmeal for breakfast. We all headed out of camp at pretty much the same time which is a bit of an oddity. The cold morning had everyone dragging just a bit. We all said our goodbyes and hit the trail. The boys and I wore our rain gear, hats, and gloves to stay warm. After an hour of hiking we stopped to brush our teeth but still couldn't take off any of our layers. It was just so windy we couldn't completely warm up.

Around midday we came across the sign we had been waiting for. Coming into Bly Gap we had finally reached the state line. We were forever leaving the Georgia trail and entering North Carolina. This was to be the highlight of the trip and it did feel pretty great. We climbed up a rock ledge to have lunch. I sat in Georgia. Ty in North Carolina, and Muluken straddled the two. As we sat and ate three other hikers passed through and we enjoyed yelling down the trail to them that they were about to cross the state line.

North Carolina greets you with some crazy hard climbs. They aren't so much long as they are steep. It feels as though they go straight up. By this point we were pretty used to climbing so we took them in stride and enjoyed taking short breaks and laughing at the absurdity of such a steep climb.

As we neared the base of a more steady climb two older gentlemen said "There you are! We've been looking for you." I didn't recognize them and had no idea how they could know who we were. I assumed maybe they had us confused with someone else.

"We came across Zach and Alex a little earlier today and they told us to keep an eye out for you three," they explained. "They told us to tell you guys hello. So 'hello.'"

"How about that, guys?" I asked the boys. "Zach and Alex sent a hello back to us from further up the trail. That's pretty cool." They were both around my age and had kids at home. I hoped we would meet up with them at the next shelter but they wouldn't be there. They had decided to hike on further.

We reached Muskrat Creek Shelter a little before 4. It was far too early to be in camp but we were only four miles from where Tricia would be meeting us the next morning and it made no sense to sit around there all morning and freeze. So we stayed at the shelter and waited for others to come. And come they did. A new group of hikers, many of whom we had seen two nights ago at Deep Gap Shelter before their trip into town, popped up a tent in every clearing to be found. We decided to stay in the shelter again so we wouldn't have to pack up our tent in the morning. The overnight temperatures were supposed to be below freezing and I assumed the morning would be just as cold.

It wound up we didn't have to wait until nightfall for the temps to drop. By five o'clock it was bone-chilling cold. With nothing to do we sat and shivered. Bored and miserable we decided to fix an early dinner and desert, do our camp chores, and bundle up in our sleeping bags to wait until nightfall. With every layer of clothing we had on our bodies we crawled into our bags around six o'clock. We warmed up quickly and Muluken and I even decided we could brave pulling our arms out of our bags to journal. We were asleep before nightfall and each took a turn getting up in the middle of the night to water the foliage. Of the six people in the shelter only Muluken and I didn't snore (the two old snorers from last night were here as well as a younger one we hadn't met before).

(Dad, age 36)

We hiked 7 miles. We passed the state line.

(Ty/Flash, age 7)

We hiked a few miles before we passed the state line to North Carolina. Dad stayed in Georgia to finish his last lunch there and I sat in the middle so that I'd be half and half. Flash sat in the North Carolina for his first lunch there. We sat up a hill under a rock that guarded us against the wind.

After lunch we hiked up a huge and steep bunt not long mountain with the angry wind on us. We had on our rain gear to keep us warm from the wind. The weather was weird today because the sun shined and it was warm but then in a few minutes the wind would be on you. The worse way to go is flat because it has nothing to guard the wind and the top of the mountain is the worse. We said it wasn't as windy in Georgia. That 's a nice way to welcome us.

(Muluken/Jolly Roger, age 9)

On the Appalachian Trail: Deep Gap Shelter, GA to Plumorchard Shelter, GA

2011-04-10T15:02:00.014-04:00

Day 3 Deep Gap Shelter, GA - Plumorchard Shelter, GA (Miles Today: 8; Trip Miles: 20; Total AT Miles: 70)

I didn't sleep all that great last night. Both boys woke me up a couple of times to go to the bathroom and Ty woke up crying a few times that his leg hurt. He does this from time to time at home as well. The doctor says it's growing pains and that they're more likely to occur after a lot of activity. Exactly how much activity is a lot for a seven year old?

We were the last ones out of the shelter this morning. Everyone else here last night was thru-hikers and they were anxious to hike three miles up the trail to Dick's Creek Gap. There's a truck waiting there to shuttle hikers into town at 9:30 for groceries, laundry, all-you-can-eat buffets, and a night in a hotel or hostel. We're not going into town so we weren't in any hurry.

A little into our hike we passed Margaret. Margaret is a woman in her mid to upper 50s who's hiking the trail solo. She wanted her 17 year old son to come along but he decided he didn't like to hike all that much any more. Her husband doesn't like to backpack and even went so far as to try to guilt her out of doing this five month trip. He researched the effects of prolonged separations on married couples. She assured him they wouldn't get divorced and came out to hike anyway. I would think that after thirty years of dreaming about this trip she deserves the chance.

As we passed Margaret and her gimpy knee on the trail she gave each of the boys a hug. "This'll probably be the last I see of you two," she told them. "You take good care of your dad out here."

We hiked on with Muluken going far ahead of Ty and I on the trail. As Ty and I made our way down into Dick's Creek Gap we saw Muluken sitting on the side of the road with a Gatorade in his hands.

"Where'd you get THAT?" we both yelled.

Muluken pointed across the street to an old white van parked at the trail head. "The old guy in that van gave it to me," he explained.

Generally when your kids take something from a stranger in a van you get very worried. In this case I wanted to know if I could have some too. We made our way across the road and ducked our head into the open side door in the van. The old guy inside had a long bushy white beard and didn't get around too well. He asked what flavor of Gatorade we'd like and fished them out of his cooler. As he pulled the lid open we saw he also had pudding cups and a variety of other snacks. He was spending his day passing out treats to hikers as they made their trek north. This was our second experience with "trail magic" and we again very grateful. We thanked him about five or six times and rushed over to eat our lunch near the creek. I can't say enough about the people who volunteered their time and resources to us. They were amazing.

The boys stopped to play in three different streams today. With only eight miles to hike we were in no hurry. Getting to camp early just means more down time to fill. We'd rather spend this time on the trail playing around on fallen trees or in the water. You'd think that stopping more often would make the hiking easier but it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes it slows you down to the point that you feel like you're moving at a crawl along your path. As we hiked up out of Dick's Creek our energy was lagging. The sun was high in the sky and it was getting hot. We also knew that everyone else had headed into town for the night and that we were alone again.

A few miles up from the gap we came across a sign that read "Vista." It was a side trail leading upward toward an unseen lookout. I laughed to myself for some time. Why in the hell would I possibly hike up yet another climb to see out? There were more than enough climbs already without adding another. Pretty much unless there was an ice cream shop up there we weren't veering off our course.

Our last three miles of the day were really tough. The temperatures were up into the 80s and since the trees had yet to leaf out we were exposed to the sun pretty much the entire time. The climb coming out of Coward Gap lasted well over a mile. We climbed and climbed and climbed some more. We took many breaks and lamented the fact we didn't fill up on water at the last creek. We were all just about out and there was still a ways to go before we reached camp for the night with no water sources listed between.

Finally we reached Plumorchard Gap Shelter. It was a small shelter but with three levels it slept about 14 people. We generally prefer to stay in our tent but with threats of electrical storms and perhaps even a tornado moving in we decided the shelter was our safest option. We set up our pads and sleeping bags and the boys went down to the stream to play and throw rocks down the mountainside.

The people at the shelter tonight were great. There were brothers Alex and Zach who were section hiking the trail like us. Nineteen year old Woodstock and Cool Cat were thru-hiking after Woodstock's mother drove them all the way down from Michigan and tearfully said goodbye. There was a young couple celebrating their six-month anniversary with a three-day trip on the trail. They had a mixture of borrowed, bought, and home-made gear that worried me a bit about their safety. There were also two older guys, Snake and Two Steps Back, who didn't say a whole lot but snored really, really loudly all night long. After dinner we all sat around a campfire and talked for a long while. Woodstock let Muluken borrow his headlamp so he could write in his journal as the sun disappeared over the treetops. I've come to realize that the people you meet along the trail are just as remarkable, if not more-so, than the trail itself. This bunch of guys and girls are the kind you hate to say goodbye to.

(Dad, age 36)

We hiked 8 miles today. When we hit 8 miles we came to a shelter in Plumorchard Gap.

(Ty/Flash, age 7)

We hiked up a couple of mountains and got to Cowart Gap and then we went up the highest mountain ever. It went very high and was the hardest mountain we climbed. We drank lots of water. We played in the streams on the way and had lots of fun. At first the water was freezing on our feet but we got used to it. It was good playing in the stream. It cooled down our feet a lot.

We got to Plumorchard Shelter. We got water for the crab chowder for dinner. It was very good. Then we went down for water for the hot chocolate. Very warm and good. I would like a lot more than a little bit. Then we went to the privy and went out to play. We threw rocks down the hill to see how long it will go. It was fun. Then it started to pour and we had to come up. Someone made a fire later and cooked their food. The rain was weird because it kept going on and off. We did 8 miles today. Yay.

(Muluken, age 9)

On the Appalachian Trail: Cheese Factory Site, Ga to Deep Gap Shelter, GA

2011-04-10T15:02:00.013-04:00

Day 2 Cheese Factory Site, GA - Deep Gap Shelter, GA (Miles Today: 9; Trip Miles: 12; Total AT Miles: 62)

The winds howled throughout the mountains last night. It's kind of eerie sounding - like the black smoke from Lost. Even when you can't feel it you know it's near.

Within a few minutes of our walk this morning we passed a group of about ten tents with food bags hanging everywhere in the trees. We thought we were alone last night. Guess not. I stopped to talk to one of the guys. He was college-aged and wearing camouflaged leggings under his brown shorts. In town this would look ridiculous but pretty much anything goes on the trail when it's cold. We found out that he's a thru-hiker (someone planning to hike the entire trail this season). No one else in his group was up yet and we moved on.

Within an hour or so we walked into Tray Gap and came upon a truck with a large trailer behind it. There was a large tent set-up with stoves and grills. Someone called from the tent, "You guys want an apple?" We walked over and a middle-aged man offered us each an apple and a small chocolate bar.

"I've got a scout group out here cooking breakfast for the thru-hikers," he explained. They were cooking eggs, sausage, pancakes, and more. Hikers refer to acts of kindness such as this as trail magic. It's amazing. It was a great way to start our day - knowing all these people had come out help everyone along on their journey. We happily ate our apples on the way up the next mountain.

Ty was strong throughout the day today. There were a number of good hard climbs. Each of the boys are carrying about 13- 14 pounds in their packs and I have somewhere in the low to mid 30s. We could feel this in our shoulders but not too bad. There weren't any complaints. Our last climb of the day was out of Addis Gap. The climb had us gaining 900 feet of elevation in a mile as we made our way up toward Kelly Knob. The climb just felt like it went on forever. After finally summitting we made our way down the other side and into Deep Gap shelter.

There were a lot of thru-hikers staying here for the night with trail names like Baby Ruth, Trolley Stop, and Mountain Goat. We set up our tent, made chili for dinner and banana pudding for desert, and did our dishes. Doing all this for three people means a lot of runs for water. I've been amazed how easy access to water has been. In most cases trail maintainers have placed pipes to help direct the water right into our bottles. This is much easier than trying to scoop from a shallow stream. One problem concerning water: Our purifier went dead. The batteries are shot and I accidentally brought only one new one. This means we'll not be purifying the water here on out. I hope we don't get sick! There are people who hike the entire trail without treating their water so we'll probably be fine. If not we'll be visiting the woods a whole, whole lot over the next few days.

(Dad, age 36)

We had Pop-Tarts for breakfast. We hiked 9 miles today. There was a high mountain. I stopped 6 or 7 times on the mountain.

(Ty/Flash, age 7)

For the record, I'm leaning against a tree - NOT POSING!

We hiked a huge mountain. It probably was bigger and longer than Tray Mountain. It took us a long time to finish. We played "I'm thinking of a number" and still got bored and stopped. We had chili with our new cups and banana pudding for desert. It was fabulous. I cleaned my cup and I ate the rest of Ty's chili. I was filled then so that I couldn't have another helping of pudding.

We went up the trail a couple of times to get water but once we went up there the thing that cleans the water was dead. We had to ask a woman we saw a couple of times on the trail if she could clean the water for us. She did and we went down to tell Dad. He only had one battery but it was supposed to hold two. Dad called himself a dummy and we have learned a lesson.

(Muluken/Jolly Roger, age 9)

Pretty Things

2011-03-27T15:55:00.006-04:00

I'm attracted to things that come in pretty packages. That might make me shallow but it certainly doesn't make me abnormal. If it weren't in our nature to be attracted by bright colors and shiny finishes there'd be no need for male peacocks to strut around looking light Liberace at a Halloween party - minus the Halloween party. The animal kingdom is full of examples of some dope being lured in by a splash of red, a really long tail, or even an evocative dance.

This begins during childhood. My earliest memories of being mesmerized by beautiful things dates back to the candy isle. Thank God I wasn't a kid back in my parents' day. Back when the really cool candies were things like Candy Dots, Pez dispensers, and Circus Peanuts. I remember visiting one of my grandmother's friends as a child and being confused when she offered me Candy Corn, peppermint discs, and candied orange slices. Really, orange slices? This from the generation that brought us candy cigarettes.

When I was a kid we still had a few left-overs from the olden days - candy necklaces, Fun Dip, Big League Chew. Those were alright. But there were far more attractive alternatives. Usually these came shaped as everyday items. A garbage can full of small bits of gum. Worms made from a mysterious gummy substance. Spray bottles full of edible silly string. Aisles and aisles of treasure vying for my seventy-five cents. And to think, my dad used to get excited to find a rock hard piece of gum in the middle of his pack of baseball cards. Ridiculous.

Now that I'm older I try to be a bit more selective as a shopper. I see the transparent marketing ploys for what they are. Being wiser I avoid flash and novelty. Shiny rims on a car. Fancy labels on clothes. Shoes that do something more than protect feet from the elements. I toe the line of responsible consumerism.

That is, until I hit the beer aisle last Friday night.

I really only stopped by the grocery store to pick up some ice cream. But when I walked in and saw the shiny faux-wood floors adorning the liquor section I was drawn like a fly to filth. So many rows of colors. Rushing past the typical selections that are mildly interesting at best I made my way for the microbrews. Fun and wildy over-priced, they sport names like Doggy Style, Dogfish Head, and Horny Goat. The labels feature cartoonish characters and playful fonts. There's no telling what they might taste like but they look a whole hell of a lot more interesting than a six pack of Bud Light.

I opted for Wild Blue. Fitting the description of most every other microbrew, it was advertised as a blueberry lager. Hmm, I really like blueberry, I thought. I set it in my cart and made my way to the ice cream coolers.

When I got home my buddy Tim and I pulled out a bottle apiece and settled in with Tricia to watch a recorded episode of The Office together. I was the first to take a drink. It was god-awful. I thought I might have to spit it back out. Evidiently blueberry and beer were not meant to mix. Normally in a situation like this I would hide my distaste in hopes of letting Tim "enjoy" it as much as I had. However, I couldn't.

"Oh dude, it's terrible!" I cried. "Seriously, it tastes like blueberries that maybe should have been refrigerated but weren't and now they're all thick and gooey and rancid!"

To my amazement Tim took a drink anyway. He found it as disgusting as I did. We joked about just how bad it was for a few minutes and then he, unbelievably, took another drink.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm no quitter," he answered.

He forced down every swallow until his bottle was empty. Not wanting to be a quitter either I had no choice but to follow suit. Thirty minutes later I found out, after forcing down the last few swallows, that it was even worse warm.

"You can have the other four," Tim promised as he gathered up his things to leave. "Tomorrow I'm going to pick up some Hard Lemonade. At least that tastes good!"

So on Saturday Tim stopped by the liquor store to make good on his promise. However, he was taken in by the other colors offered by Mike's. There was the bright red of the Hard Strawberry Lemonade, the purplish tones of the Hard Black Cherry Lemonade, and the orange hues of the Hard Cranberry Lemonade. He opted for the green Hard Lime-Aid.

Excited, he grabbed two bottles last night and headed up to his room to watch basketball. He came back down an hour or two later toting the empty bottles.

"How was it?" I asked.

"Terrible," he mumbled. "I should have stuck with the normal one that I know I actually like. I don't even like lime!"

They say experience is our best teacher. For that to be so, the bar must have been set awfully low.

**************************************

A few notes of interest...

When searching for an image of Wild Blue beer I found that 377 reviewers had given it an average rating of D-. That seems about par with my own assessment. If I had an internet-equipped cell phone I think I might do some research there in the supermarket to avoid such mistakes.

Wild Blue wound up being an A-B product.

It was a lot of fun researching old candies. There were a bunch of them I had forgotten about. Like the wax bottles filled with candy syrup. I remember those barely having any taste but looking really neat (a word I would have used to describe them back then).

Candy cigarettes and candy "chew." Those two novelties warrant an entire essay all their own. I wonder now why no one thought to model those wax bottles to look like small six packs of popular beer brands.

A Blow Pop is a type of sucker. I really wanted to find a picture of what I thought was called a "Blow Ring." I searched that term. I just want to say that if I were to run for president and the feds searched my computer to see what I've been Googling I could be in some trouble. It seems they're called Ring Pops. NOT Blow Rings. Those two terms get you very different search results.

The Dead Dog

2011-03-24T21:36:00.003-04:00

On the way back from dinner tonight the kids and I dropped Tricia off at PetsMart to run in for a bag of dog food. As we started to circle the parking lot I noticed a young couple coming out of the store. Tears were streaming down the young girl’s cheeks as a red leash dangled from her right hand. There was no dog attached to the other end.

They made their way across the parking lot and he opened the door for her. After she climbed in her seat he leaned into the cab of the truck and pulled her into him. She rested her head on his shoulder and sobbed for a long, long while.

Part of me wished I hadn’t seen them yet I couldn’t look away. It isn’t often you see a moment so tender as this from the outside, unnoticed.

Finally the guy made his way over to the driver’s side and the two of them drove away. I wondered if they drove in silence, unsure what to say to one another. I imagined him reaching across the seat to hold her hand. Maybe he would be crying too.

Playing Doctor

2011-03-23T21:32:00.002-04:00

For the past few days I've been holed up in the conference room at school while my student intern completes her two weeks of "intensive teaching." This means she is responsible for planning, teaching, recess duty, and all the other responsibilities that fall in her lap when left in charge of twenty-two nine and ten year-olds. I'm sure she's exhausted at the end of the day. There's a lot to do. And a lot to keep track of - assignments, preparations, notes home, picture money, lesson plans, missing work, promises made, promises forgotten. When she first came to our classroom her only responsibility was to hang out with the kids and get to know them. She would often ask me about a story she had heard from the kids and I'd be embarrassed that I hadn't yet heard it yet. I was busy keeping up with all those responsibilities.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot I spend my days sitting in front of my laptop typing away on the academic paper I need to complete to wrap up my graduate work. I'm also writing a narrative progress report for each of the kids at school. Writing, writing, writing. Generally I really enjoy it but after six to seven hours a day of it I find myself far more exhausted than had I been teaching. It's just too much sitting and not enough doing.

Today I was working really hard to finish up a particularly lengthy section of my progress reports when I had to get up, leave the room, and walk around for a bit to retain my sanity. I didn't make it far. Not more than a step out the door I was greeted by two mischievous smiles at the front desk - one belonging to the secretary and the other our principal.

"Mr. Hass, just who we wanted to see!" they said, almost in unison.

"Oh?"

Not that I'm not a likable guy but it's been my experience that anytime someone says "You're just the guy I wanted to see" it's because they want something. And usually it's not something you're going to want to do.

"We need you to be a dad," Dr. Mueller said.

"Uh, okay," I responded. I peered around the corner afraid that I was going to find Harper, Muluken, Ty, or Ainsley sitting in the small office area. They were nowhere to be found. "Where?" I asked.

"In the health room," the secretary answered.

There were a number of possibilities likely awaiting me in the health room. Fever, upset stomach, nosebleed, splinter, scraped knee. These are the kinds of problems that find their way to the health room each and every day. The kinds of problems you expect.

"We have a kindergartner who says his penis hurts," Dr. Mueller said, breaking into an even bigger smile.

This I wasn't expecting.

"What do you want me to do about it?" I asked.

"You're a man," she assured me, as though ownership of the equipment somehow meant I understood it's workings.

I walked into the health room and this really small boy looked up at me with the saddest brown eyes.

"Hey, what seems to be the problem?" I was really hoping the situation had maybe somehow improved on its own.

"My penis hurts," he explained.

Dang!

Where do you even begin? At home I generally respond to most ailments and injuries with the tried-and-true "Should I go out and get my saw?" Somehow this didn't seem appropriate given the delicate nature of the area.

"Well, is it a burning hurt, a sharp pain hurt, an itching hurt, or a squeezing hurt?" I asked. I'm not even sure these all real kinds of hurt. Even if they are I imagine there are many others as well. But I really wanted to sound as though I might know what the typical course of action might be for a painful penis. For that to be true I assumed I'd first have to be able to diagnose the problem.

"It hurts real bad when I sit down," he explained. The grimace on his face and the death grip on the area surrounding his penis caused me to believe he was probably telling the truth. I looked around the room and thought out our options as to how best to solve this sensitive problem.

"Alright," I said. "Let's have a look at it. Follow me into the bathroom."

Don't these just sound like the last words I might ever make as a teacher?

"What did he say to you?" the detective might ask.

"He told me he wanted to look at it and to follow him into the bathroom!" Cue the music and I'm feeling like my story might wind up an episode ripped from the headlines by Law and Order.

So the world's tiniest kindergartner and I made our way into the health room bathroom. Keeping the door open and positioning myself so that anyone could easily see me I told him to pull down his pants and show me what was hurting. Demonstrating the complete naivety of a five year old he pulled back his pants a bit, rolled back his skin, and showed me the problem area. Peering down my nose like an old lady, while keeping a tremendously safe distance, I looked it over. There it was. A tiny pink area of skin that had somehow been worn raw.

"Yep, there it is," I said.

Now, this isn't the type of area where a band-aid or a wet rag is going to cut the mustard. What do you really do for a small cut on a five year-old's penis?

"I'll tell what we're going to do," I told him. "I'm going to go get some medicine and we'll make it all better."

If he believed me he showed no signs. His look of pure gloom hadn't changed since I first asked him what was bothering him. I walked back to the office and asked someone to help me find some Neosporin. We use that stuff on just about everything at home. I really don't even know what it supposed to be used for. But it goes on smooth and doesn't burn so it seems like the perfect placebo for most any cut, scrape, or burn. The secretary dug it out of a drawer for me and helped me locate the longest Q-tip ever made. I marched back into the bathroom, asked him to show it to me again, and telescopically applied the cream.

"Don't worry," I assured him. "This won't burn a bit."

"IT BURNS!!!!" he yelled.

My credibility had been compromised. I quickly abandoned any hopes of applying the rest of the ointment and told him to pull his pants back up.

"Well that should make it better," I explained. "It'll probably take a few minutes though. I wouldn't expect it to start working until you get back to class."

This was the first smart thing I had probably said since meeting him. Should his problem not be resolved I would be buried once again behind my laptop in the conference room. Let some other unknowing male take a stab at it.

"When you get home be sure to tell your mom or dad that it's hurting, okay?" I said.

I wish now that I had followed this with "And if they ask what we did at school to help be sure to tell them I helped. My name is Mr. O'Keefe!"

Young Authors

2011-03-19T22:29:00.001-04:00

I had the pleasure of spending a day with a really great group of writers today. Sure, there were published authors like Lesa Cline-Ransom, Stephen Swinburne, Anthony Fredericks, and Sneed Collard III. But they weren't my favorites. No, the highlight of my day was the ten fourth grade authors who entertained and amazed me with their antics, smiles, and love of reading and writing.

Together we spent a little over five hours in Ballentine, South Carolina at the Young Authors Conference. This conference provides an opportunity for fine young writers around the state to spend a day listening to the life stories and advice of published authors from around the country. If they had anything like this when I was a kid I sure never heard anything about it. What an opportunity.

Here were a few highlights...

* Not long after meeting one another we sat down to await our first author visit and wrote a poem together. Thanks to the inspiration from Deanna's story about a snake that once blew up in her uncle's microwave we wrote the following acrostic poem together. For those who are not familiar with acrostics, the first letter of each line spells out the topic of the poem as you read down.

Mice should never be put
In the microwave
Cause they will
Royally blow up and get
On your mother's
Walls
And she'll be
Vacuuming guts off
Everything

* At lunch the kids had the greatest conversation about their favorite books. Since only two of them knew each other we were all pretty much strangers. This created the perfect opportunity for each of them to share the authors and stories they love most. "Oh my gosh, Blood on the River is THE best book ever written," exclaimed Autumn. "You HAVE to read it!" This went on and on so I pulled out a small notebook from my backpack and asked everyone to tell me one book that I just have to buy for my classroom. The list they created was great: Blood on the River, Savvy, Percy Jackson, Rainbow Fairies, Taste of Blackberries, The Hunger Games, Found, 39 Clues, How to Steal a Dog, and A Dog on His Own. "Perfect," I told them. "I'll get these and tell my readers how much you loved them. I'm sure they won't be able to wait!"

* "Have you read Little Women," Deanna asked me. I hadn't. "Well, it's really good. I only just started it and haven't read much though. We have to take an Accelerated Reader test after each book to earn points and we have to have 4.2 points every week. So I can't read too much of Little Women at a time because I have to keep reading shorter books to get my points." "How sad!" I responded, trying to bite my tongue and not make a judgmental statement about her teacher. "Yeah, but when I get my points for this nine weeks then I'll be able to read it more."

* On our way back from lunch Jonathan, one of only two boys in our group of ten, told me "I'm writing this series right now called 'Framed.' It's about...". He joyfully told me all about it. You could tell it was important to him. "I've only just finished the first book but I'm going to be starting the second one soon."

* "Do you publish books here?" Ezekiel asked. "What?" I asked. "Do you publish books here? You know, when you finish them?" "Oh," I said. "I don't teach here. But I'm sure they do. At least I hope so. Don't you? My class actually publishes their writing to a blog on the internet so that everyone can read it and respond to it." "Cool," he answered. I later noticed him writing during one of the presentations. He was jotting something down in the back of his writing notebook. During a break I asked him if I could see it. He had created a list of his favorite songs and was adding to it each day. He was currently on #73. Jonathan grabbed the notebook from me and started rifling through Ezekiel's pages. "Chris, you've got to see this!" he said. "He's writing this really long story." Sure enough there was a story titled Jake the Spy. The cover page read A slight of comedy...A lot of action. Flipping through it I saw that it was seven chapters long and consisted of twenty or so pages. "Wow," I said. "Yeah, I've been writing it since I was in second grade. I'm in the fourth grade now."

* "When are we going to write?" Jaden asked during lunch. "Yeah," someone else joined in. "Is this all listening or will we get to write, too?" I didn't know for certain but I was pretty certain it would be all sitting and listening. As great as these authors were, the kids wanted to show what they could do as well. I didn't blame them. During one of the sessions Jaden sat at my side writing poems and passing them over to me to read.

Cats like to
fidget with playtoys
in stores and
cages that may
not hold
gorillas
but do hold
peacocks

She also wrote an acrostic using the word "Boring." I'm not sure it was so much the authors she was frustrated with but the lack of opportunity to write together. There were others sneaking away small moments to write. I saw Autumn working in her notebook as well. I asked to read it and saw that she had a descriptive piece about a lake. A passage from her piece read "Out of the reeds a family of swans glide silently behind each other breaking the lake surface into a pond of ripples. Dragonflies play hide and seek darting behind the reeds." The whole piece was really cool and she was proud when I asked if I could jot some of it down into my own notebook. "I want to share this with some other writers I know," I told her.

* Kylie told me "I'm going to write these two books called Crime Scene Kate and Medusa Vacation. One is a about a girl who solves crime and the other is about Medusa going to the beach and turning people to stone." "Oh my gosh," I said. "Can I write that down? I'd like to share your ideas with my kids. Those sound like they'll make really interesting stories."

* Annelise shared with me a list of "bad" words she had memorized. With the help of Autumn she explained that they weren't really BAD words so much as WEAK words. Words you should avoid in your writing. The list she recited included: very, absolutely, am, is, are, was, were, be, been, bring, do, did, does, have, has, had, may, might, must, can, could, shall, should, will, would, really, bad, a lot, and all right. Hearing this, Jasmine responded "Absolutely isn't a weak word. It's juicy!"

*Kylie shared the drawings of horses she had made a few days ago. They were truly amazing. Everyone was in awe of her artistic abilities. She's clearly going to illustrate her own stories. Her favorite type of story? Animal fiction.

By the end of the day I was a bit exhausted from waking up early on a Saturday and sitting for such long periods of time. However, I hated for it to end. We had a great time together, heard a lot of great advice on writing, and had some wonderful conversations around reading and writing. Best of all, my daughter Harper was there to share it with me. She loved the group just as much as I did and was quick to jump in with her own favorite books and stories. On the way to the conference she sat in the back seat working on a biography she's writing about Paula Deen. After the conference she was anxious to buy a book or two and jump in line to get autographs from the authors. Not athletes or movie stars. Authors.

At some point the kids asked why I was writing down so many of the things they were talking about. I told them I was going to go home and write about our day together and post it to the internet. "All these authors told us to write about what we know," I said. "That's what I'm planning to do." I gave a few of them the address to this blog so they could read about themselves. So here it is guys. I hope you enjoyed it. You all are truly amazing and I hope to see you again next year!

Losing It

2011-03-09T22:00:00.004-05:00

I fear I’m unraveling.

Falling apart.

Coming loose at the seams.

I used to be really on top of things. I always knew where everything was. Where I was supposed to be and when. If fact, I was so good at this I often helped to keep those around me up-to-date as well. Helpful or annoying, I was always busy.

If someone needed a form we had received at school a number of months ago (or even years, really) I could go to my file cabinet and produce it within seconds. If there was confusion as to where a meeting was I could reference my journal and provide the answer. The things I knew I would need next Tuesday were in an assigned spot waiting for me just behind the Monday things, the weekend things, and the Friday things.

Some call it anal retentiveness. Others call it madness. I call it organization and I was very good at it.

But not anymore.

In the past week I have lost both my i-pod and my back-up i-pod (yet again), Harper and Ainsley’s Girl Scout cookie money, both pairs of eyeglasses, and numerous materials at school. And as if that’s not bad enough I also left Ty at school one afternoon. A pretty unimpressive week, I’d say.

To top this all off I drove Muluken to the ball fields on Saturday to have his picture taken with his baseball team. We don’t generally order individual or group pictures from the kids’ sports teams. However, Muluken really wanted a picture and we agreed. In the morning, before leaving, I made out the check, slid it into the picture envelope, and set it on the edge of the kitchen counter until we were ready to go. Not surprisingly, when we got to the field and met his team I soon found that I didn’t have the envelope.

“That’s alright dad,” he assured me. “I can wait and get a picture next year.”

Gee, if I didn’t feel terrible enough already I definitely did now. I shared my pain with a few other parents who explained to me that I could just grab another order form from the photographer and fill it out right there. This would have worked, too, if I were the type of guy who carried a wallet. Which I don’t. More often than you’d expect, this has been the topic of discussion with bank tellers, police officers, and most every other adult I’ve been stupid enough to tell.

Muluken waited until the other boys had their pictures taken to join them for the team photo. The photographer assured me that if I brought money later in the afternoon I could still order him a team photo. This was some measure of consolation.

A little later all the teams joined up on the ball field for their Opening Ceremonies. After about twenty minutes of listening to speeches about how “success only comes before work in the dictionary” I leaned up against the outfield fence and slipped my hands into my the front pouch of my hoodie.

Sure enough, there was the photo envelope.

That just about figures, I thought. Even when I have it together I don’t really.

I ran over to talk with the photographer and he agreed to let Muluken come straight over after the Opening Ceremonies to have his picture taken before his next scheduled team. I thanked him and confessed my stupidity. He half-chuckled and went back to smoking his cigarette and playing with his cell phone.

Walking back to find Muluken I felt a sense of relief. I had lost many things over the past week and even forgotten my own child at school. But this one I had fixed. Perhaps it would provide some momentum going into next week. Which would be nice because I don’t think I could stand to lose much more. Being so disorganized and feeling behind these days, I fear the next thing I lose just might be my mind.

The Birds and the Bees

2011-03-05T21:10:00.004-05:00

A few days ago the boys and I were in the car on our way to baseball practice in Blythewood when out of nowhere Muluken asked "Can every woman have a baby?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You know," he said. "Like can every woman have a baby and how does it start? How does she know it gets in there?"

Ha. I knew this question would eventually come. Ty, who is always quick these days to jump in with an answer whether it's right or wrong, tried to help.

"They just cut that string!" he said.

"What?" Muluken asked.

"That string," Ty explained. "They just cut that string!"

Muluken was confused about this all but knew this didn't sound right. I dove into a really patchwork explanation.

"Well, a girl's body is made so that it can have, uh babies..."

"But this ability doesn't happen until a certain age...like it can't do what it needs to until it's ready."

What am I saying???

"And at some point it goes away and her body can't have babies in it anymore."

There, that about sums it up.

"I don't get it," Muluken said.

"Yeah, me either," I answered.

I remember having the "sex talk" when I was about Muluken's age. I had taken to using some language I had picked up at school that I didn't really understand. Around the time I tried using it at church my dad decided it was time to clear some things up. He explained as much to me as he probably felt I needed to know. The discussion ended with a promise to talk about it again in another year or two. I was in no hurry. I don't imagine he was either. Fortunately he either lost his nerve or forgot.

"What if the girl doesn't want it?" Muluken asked. "What if it's in there but she didn't want it?"

Given what we know about pregnancy and the circumstances that can sometimes lead to it this question makes sense. However, it was clear from Muluken's questions that he thought those babies just magically appear in women's tummies and that maybe sometimes they weren't so pleasantly surprised.

"No Muluken," I said. "They don't get it in there if they don't want it."

I know this wasn't really true but I wasn't so sure this was a discussion to have in front of Ty. Muluken, sure. Ty, no. I imagined his teachers coming to me to ask why he's talking about penises and vaginas at recess.

Confused by our discussion, Muluken turned to a related topic. Marriage.

"When you get married do you have to stand in front of all those people and kiss?" he asked.

"Yeah but it's not a big kiss," I explained. "Although sometimes people don't have big weddings in front of people."

"Will I have to?" he asked.

"Probably," I said. "Girls usually like the idea of a wedding with guests and things."

"That's why I don't like girls," he shouted. "They always want the opposite of everything I do!"

In the end he decided that maybe he could magically turn into a horse for the wedding and then go back to being a boy afterward. Somehow in his nine-year-old mind this made sense and was a logical solution to kissing the bride. A beautiful young woman marrying a horse.

But then again, given my help up to this point in the discussion maybe I should withhold judgment. Rather, I'll take two years to regroup and try again. Or else lose my nerve or forget.

The Worst Kind of Teacher

2011-02-20T21:51:00.003-05:00

I had a bad day last Thursday. I don't mention these all that often because they tend to be minor blips on a much grander screen, not-to-mention the fact that there's something to be said for being positive. Still, I came into school really exhausted from a late night at class and a variety of responsibilities and concerns, beyond teaching, looming over my head.

The morning went well enough. My buddy Tim, who teaches next door, stopped by to talk with us about a favorite book of his that we had just finished reading and loved as well. There were visitors who enjoyed hearing the new Revolutionary War song we are writing and watching the kids discuss and reflect on their reading.

Our day is broken up into two instructional halves by a break in the middle that includes lunch, a special area (such as art or pe), and recess. When we returned from recess the next two hours included: a broken ruler, someone calling a friend "a jerk", another person completely tuning out all of a math demonstration, a group that refused to work with one another, a number of people who didn't listen to directions, and a loud outburst immediately following a small talk about our expectations for one another when working on a particular project.

These types of days are inevitable when working with humans, not to mention the nine-year-old variety. Not so surprisingly these days often occur on the very day when I've not had enough sleep, I'm beginning to feel sick, or I'm feeling a bit anxious about something outside of school. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the thirty-six year old variety is to blame as well. It happens. Fortunately, though, only about three or four days a year.

Perhaps for Natalie Munroe, though, it happened much more often. If you've not heard of her she's a high school teacher in Central Buck, Pennsylvania who, like me, keeps a blog for her friends and family to enjoy. Recently this blog has gotten her into a whole heap of trouble. It seems she took her bad day at school and made it public. Very public.

"They are disobedient, disrespectful oafs. Noisy, crazy, sloppy lazy, LOAFERS."

Ouch.

"[They] are out of control," she wrote. "They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying."

That seems a bit inappropriate.

Listing comments she'd like to write on report cards, she wrote "I hear the trash company is hiring"; "I called out sick a couple of days just to avoid your son"; and "Just as bad as his sibling. Don't you know how to raise kids?"

Now she's gone completely overboard. Oddly enough I shared an article about her blog with my class on Thursday morning, before our problems.

"Maybe the kids are bored because of her," Jillian suggested. "You have to be interesting."

This, by the way, is very true.

"You can't talk about kids that way," argued Brandon.

"Yeah," said Patton. "That's really insulting."

"High schoolers are sometimes...well, they don't listen," suggested Atira. "She looks interesting and fun in the picture but they're all talking. She has the right to share this but not be all insulting."

"Yeah," said Skyler. "She could have not said it in a bad way."

"I don't know," I said. "Do you think sharing this helped to solve a problem or just make it worse?"

Skyler later asked a great question, "Why would she even teach them and then insult them?"

"We were discussing that too," said Jenna. "Why is she even a teacher if she feels like that?"

Why is she even a teacher if she feels like that? I'd love for someone to ask her. Sadly there are droves of people who support her. There are websites being erected praising her for "tough love" and holding the kids accountable.

As for our bad day, we had a twenty minute talk before going home to see if maybe we couldn't find a solution that would ensure a better tomorrow. A few kids talked about consequences but many others suggested helping one another by letting them know when they are starting to head down the wrong path. This made sense.

I finished the day by warning the kids that I would be blasting them on my blog. I tried to dream up some well chosen words that might spark an uproar from students, parents, and community members. They laughed knowing I'd never do such a thing. Perhaps that was the best medicine for the day. Laughter.

Conversations

2011-02-12T14:21:00.002-05:00

I was recently listening to a teacher relate a story about something that had happened in her classroom. She was in the practice, at the end of writing workshop, of allowing her kids time to step up and share a bit of what they had been working to create in their writing journals. At the end of these share sessions she would then open up her own writing notebook and share something she had been writing. A wonderful practice, it was meant to model good writing as well as demonstrate that she writes in a variety of genres and for a variety of purposes. It was also a great opportunity to show her kids how she, too, struggles through many parts of her own writing process.

So one day as the kids finished up sharing their pieces she reached for her journal and someone called out “Alright, now it’s time for the BEST piece!” Stunned, she slumped back into her chair realizing she had done something very wrong. She had sent a negative message to her young writers without ever knowing it had happened. In addition to modeling herself as a writer she had also given the impression that when all of their pieces were out of the way she would show them what really good writing sounds like. Oops!

This can happen awfully easily. I see it occasionally in my own teaching; particularly when I feel the need to have the final say, to set the conversation straight, or to validate everyone’s comments with some sort of response. I find that when I do this too often I teach the kids to speak to me instead of to one another. It creates the sense that I am the one - the only one, really- who determines the importance and relevance of their thoughts, feelings, and questions.

Fortunately, many of us work hard to avoid these interactions and messages. When they present themselves we work to find ways to fix what we’ve done and to move in new directions that will avoid future occurrences. Often times the kids will unknowingly let you know how you’re doing. One of the best ways to find out is to listen to how the kids interact with one another. After hundreds of hours together they tend to sound a lot like you.

We have a neighbor who yells quite often at his kids and not so surprisingly we see his children yelling at one another. Their ears turn crimson red, they step up uncomfortably close, and spike an index finger into the other’s face as they raise a loud and angry voice. They sound exactly like their father. Seeing this makes you worry what your own kids might do or say. Certainly nothing like this!

Sometimes this mimicking is just the opposite, though. It reminds you that you’re doing something right. Something good. I had a really great conversation with one of my kids at school yesterday. One of those conversations that let you get a glimpse of something you’ve done right.

I decided at the beginning of writing workshop yesterday that I should really settle in and try to publish a piece to share alongside the kids. I knew that time was short and that I had a lot of graduate work to do at home so whatever this piece was going to be it would need to be relatively short. I decided on a poem.

I am not one to normally write a poem. Sure, I do my best each year to spend a few weeks really focusing on poetry and its many forms and uses of playful and powerful language. However, I find that once this poetry unit washes away I no longer feel like writing a poem of my own. Read them, sure. Write them, no.

So I sat down at a table next to Kayla, who was also struggling to decide what to write, and opened up my writer’s notebook to a page where, a few days earlier, I had taken some notes on many of the sensory observations to be had when watching fireworks. There’s a poem in here somewhere, I thought. I dropped my head onto my notebook and exhaled loudly. This got Kayla’s attention.

“What are you doing?” she asked, more entertained than concerned.

“Writing a poem,” I answered. I lifted my head to look at her. “Hey, you want to write one, too?”

I showed her how I had assembled and organized my notes on the fireworks. She decided to do the same thing for Captain D’s, the seafood restaurant. We worked alongside one another, doing serious work on poems that would no doubt change the course of humankind. After about ten minutes I had what I thought was a pretty good start but my poem seemed to be getting longer and longer without any end in sight. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where this poem was headed, none-the-less why I really even chose to write it.

I picked up my notebook and walked over to Kirby.

“Hey Kirby, you think you could sit with me and help me with my poem a little bit?” I asked.

She looked up at me.

“Sure.”

I made my way over to the front of the room to have a seat on the carpet and wait for her. Kirby finished up what she was doing and came over looking a tad bit honored and a tad bit unsure.

“Okay,” I started. “Here’s what I’ve done. I started with these words and phrases that remind me of watching a really big fireworks display and I’ve tried to make them into a poem. The problem is that I’m really not sure how to end it. I’m not sure where it’s headed and I don’t want it to just stop awkwardly. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” she answered.

“Well, let me read to you what I have so far and you maybe you can help me think of a good way to end it,” I said.

I read her my poem. It was really fresh and really raw so there were parts where I wasn’t even sure how it was supposed to sound and other parts where I struggled to read my own careless handwriting. Once I had finished I looked up at her and asked, “So, what do you think? How could I end it?”

She sat and thought for a while looking really unsure.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t written any poems in a really long time. Maybe you could find a poetry book and read through it to get some ideas. You could see how other people have finished theirs.”

That was it! What do we do when we get stuck in our writing? We find a piece of writing that we really like and we think about what they have done that we could emulate. She was actually using my own advice to help me with my piece. She was the teacher and I was the learner. Moments like this seem really small and inconsequential to most anyone who doesn’t teach but to those of us who do it’s the stuff that could make an entire day.

“Do you know of any poetry books in particular that I might try?” I asked. I knew this was pushing it a little because Kirby is an avid fantasy reader, consuming every series she can get her hands on.

“No, not really,” she said. “But I did see someone in the room reading a poetry book a few days ago. Maybe you could ask them.”

“Oh, that was Hannah,” I said. “And I think her poetry book was humorous. My poem isn’t really funny so I’m not sure that her book would be all that helpful.”

We sat there and talked about poetry books for a while and then discussed the possibility of finishing with a flourish.

“The finale!” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, the finale,” I said. “That makes a lot of sense. It’s kind of like the natural way to end it.”

She hopped up and returned to her own work and I sat and finished up the draft of my poem. The poem turned out okay but the conversation around it was far better. I couldn’t wait to share this discussion with everyone else. I couldn’t wait to tell them how I had come to Kirby with a very specific question or concern about my piece and how she had suggested finding a book to help and then brainstormed some ideas with me.

After our workshop was over everyone took a turn sharing something they were working on. As always, I was blown away by their originality and their writing. Kayla’s poem about Captain D’s was really great – far better than the restaurant itself, I’m sure. And having learned nothing from that earlier anecdote from a fellow teacher, I shared my piece last. So they could hear the BEST writing.

Okay, definitely not the best. But thanks to Kayla writing alongside me and Kirby giving me some pointers I was able to finish a poem. Quite an accomplishment.

Fireworks

The crowd gathers in so tight

I can barely breathe

Our heads lifted

skyward

in anticipation

Suddenly the first crackles

fill the sky with shimmering

sparkling greens

and blues

and reds

and purples
and whites

Where do all the colors come from?

My chest pounds

with each explosion of light

each tremor of sound

Babies bury their faces

in their mothers’ chests

crying

Wanting it to stop

Seconds turn to minutes

slowly ticking past

and the sky goes still

Clouds of smoke

Sit above us

like an eerie dream

Calm

Suddenly thousands

of flashes spark from

the ground

and sticks of lightning

again fill the air

It’s too much to see

Too much to hear

I wish I could stretch it out

over a million nights

so it would

never

have

end

Street Art

2011-02-06T21:16:00.001-05:00

We watched a pretty interesting documentary this weekend called Exit Through the Gift Shop. It told the story of this really eccentric- and self-absorbed- French shop keeper, Thierry Guetta, who walks around filming just about everything that happens to him throughout each and every day. He tapes his walk home from the bakery, his wife doing the dishes, himself in the tub.

At some point he finds himself in the company of some of the most well known graffiti artists in Los Angeles. He begins following them out at night and filming them doing their work. There is one guy, Invader, who glues characters from the Space Invaders game-as well as others- onto walls, curbs, and signs across the city. Another guy, Shepard Fairly, specializes in pieces that feature the face of now deceased professional wrestler Andre the Giant with the word "Obey" written below. Seemingly unconcerned about his family, Guetta follows these artists everywhere - even overseas.

Guetta's dream, however, is to come in contact with the world's most famous and elusive graffiti artist, Banksy. Bansky is known across the globe for his pieces found on walls in post-hurricane New Orleans, the Jerusalem, London, Los Angeles, and many more. Guetta finally gets his chance to meet Bansky, a man who keeps his identity carefully under wraps. Guetta is even allowed to film hundreds of hours of Bansky at work, though from behind and with a hood pulled over his head.

Eventually someone asks Guetta what he's doing with all this film footage. He claims to be making a documentary but in fact he's throwing them all into random boxes in his house. None of the tapes are ever watched and few are even labeled in any way. Guetta sets out to go through his stacks of hundreds, if not thousands, of tapes and actually put together a film. The result of his efforts is terrible.

Bansky winds up taking the tapes and making the documentary himself. In the meantime Guetta tries his own hand at becoming an artist. Less than a year later he is putting on a big scale art show, sells more than a million dollars worth of this "work", and becomes a force within the Los Angeles art scene. The only problem is that he's not really that much of an artist. In fact, he hires artists to make his visions become realities. The bulk of the work at his first art show are the result of many hired hands. Guetta, now going by the name "Mr. Brainwash," seems to only sprinkle some paint over a few canvases and field interview requests. This heavily annoys all the artists he spent years following. Feeling as though Mr. Brainwash didn't have to pay his dues, or create his own work or ideas, there are many feelings of resentment. The silver lining, I guess, was that this film is the result of Banksy's work and is now nominated for an Academy Award.

It was an odd film. However, as you can see the street art was amazing.

Needful Things

2011-01-28T22:51:00.001-05:00

A few months ago, when we were just beginning to look into building a home, Tricia and I contacted a builder to see about coming in to ask some questions. Our goal was to see how much it would cost to build a house that would provide shelter for four adults, four children, and one very large dog. The salesman asked us to create a list, before coming in, of the things we needed as well as the things we wanted in a house.

This was hard.

"What does he mean by 'what we need?'" I asked afterward.

"I don't know," Tricia answered.

So we did what we usually do when we're unsure or uneasy about a task - we put it off. Days and days went by. A few times I sat down at the computer and tried to start brainstorming things but to no avail. I didn't know how to get started. I grew up in a series of small two-bedroom apartments and houses. Our living space was fairly tight compared to what most Americans have come to expect but we still had a kitchen, bathroom, living room, laundry, and bedrooms - the real "needs" of a house. Should we list more than this as something we absolutely had to have? A garage? Playroom? An open floor plan?

The fact was that we certainly didn't need these things to survive...but we did need them to make going through the process of building a new home worthwhile. This was a chance to get a few things right that we failed to think of four-and-a-half years ago when moving into the suburbs of Northeast Columbia. We wanted less dead space. And rather than a sun room we wanted a screened porch that would allow us to eat outside without having to wage war with an endless army of flies.

There were things we really liked about the house we have now that we wanted in a new home as well. Hardwood floors, open spaces, natural light, a big kitchen with plenty of counter space, and a decent sized front porch. These things were, of course, all "wants." There wasn't a legitimate "need" to be found anywhere on the list. But within the context of what we were trying to do they felt a bit like needs.

I really think our concept, as Americans, of needs versus wants is quite skewed. As skewed as our sense of entitlement to many things. Most likely, the two are closely related. I've always thought of myself as a minimalist. I like to joke that if I lived alone I'd probably have bare walls with lots of empty spaces. I imagine one comfortable chair with a collection of folding lawn furniture surrounding it. Just in case I had company.

The reality, however, is that I have two bikes (mountain and road), a scooter (foot, not motor), and roller blades. One could argue they all serve the same purpose. I also have three guitars (acoustic, classical, and electric). They definitely serve the same purpose. Even my backpacking stuff, which would lead you to think is the ultimate in minimalism, is growing to be quite specialized and expansive. The combination of pack, tent, and gear take up probably half of my closet space with other outdoor paraphernalia stuffed under beds and in corners around the house. I'm definitely not a pack rat (I still wear the same three or four pair of pants and five shirts to school every week and keep very few things for sentimental reasons) but in a global sense I have a lot.

The kids do too. I see this when they struggle to figure out where to keep their toys, stuffed animals, and other things. I know they have probably half of what most middle class kids have but still I cringe every Christmas when I think about where all these new pieces of plastic are going to go.

A few days ago my growing sense of "We have too much stuff!!!" came to a head. I was trying to find my shoes in the front closet and found that over the past few weeks and months it had become littered with what seemed like a million pairs of kid shoes. I marched out to the garage where we keep an "overflow" bucket of shoes and drug it back in. Slightly larger than a recycle bin, I dumped the overflow bucket out and began pairing up the shoes and laying them out in the art room floor. I carefully lined up all little girl shoes in one row and little boy shoes in another. I placed all the boots at one end, grouped the tennis and sports shoes in the middle, and put sandals and flip flops at the other end. When I finished with the bucket I returned to the front closet and began emptying it to add to the rows.

"What are you doing?" Muluken asked as he made his way down the stairs.

"We're playing shoe store," I answered. "Everyone gets a shopping bag and shops for only the shoes they really want and need."

"Oh." He headed back to the closet to help.

Pretty soon the rest of the kids came down with Tricia.

"Oh my," Tricia said when she saw that the front room had turned into what appeared to be a shoe stockroom.

"Not my flip flops!" Harper shouted, knowing the game of shoe store only too well. She went running across the room to protect her most prized possession in the whole wide world. "You're not getting rid of my flip flops!"

"I'm not getting rid of anything," I assured her. "You are."

Soon I started pulling out all of my shoes and making a row just for me. Embarrassingly, it stretched almost across the entire room as well. As I finished up my row I noticed that Tricia was beginning to pull out her shoes also. Now, I'm not stupid. I was not about to suggest that Tricia size up her shoe collection against the rest of ours. I was certain this would be seen as an attempt to guilt her into going without a shoe for every occasion. One of the reasons we hardly ever get upset with one another is because we work to avoid pushing each others' buttons. At least most of them.

"Where's the camera," I asked. "I want to take pictures of all these shoes."

"You're going to put this on your blog, aren't you?" Tricia asked, looking as though maybe I was about to push one of those buttons.

"Heck yeah!" I gloated.

I crawled down onto my belly trying to get all those shoes in one shot but it was impossible. I grabbed a piece of paper and had the kids help me tally up everything.

"Now before you write anything," Tricia warned, "I want you to know that I've only bought three pairs of shoes since we moved here."

"Okay," I said. "How many girls shoes are there Harper?"

"Forty-two."

"My gosh!" I exclaimed. "That's a lot. Definitely more than two little girls need!"

"And also," Tricia continued, "I had some of those in a bag in my closet to donate. I do not have nearly as many shoes as most..."

"Tricia, I didn't say a word," I interrupted. "I haven't said anything at all about your shoes; yet, I feel like I'm on the defensive."

"We have fifteen dad!" shouted Muluken.

"Huh, that's a lot less than forty-two. Perhaps the female fascination with shoes is a learned behavior," I suggested. Because I'm that dumb.

Tricia finished putting her shoes out and said, "Look, I don't have that many more shoes than YOU do!"

She was right. I counted my shoes and saw that I had twelve pair. She had twenty.

"And some of mine were bagged for Goodwill so we probably had about the same amount!" she boasted.

Between the four of us we had eighty-nine pairs of shoes. That's a lot. One could argue that shoes have become a need of our everyday lives. But not eighty-nine pairs. This was ridiculous. From the smallest member of our family to the largest, we all had more than we needed.

"Okay, everyone pull out the shoes they definitely don't want anymore - either because they're too small, too torn up, or you never wear them," I directed. The girls started carrying armloads over to the wall by the stairs. The boys, perhaps too excited by the task, tried to unload just about every pair of shoes they had.

I looked down my row at my twelve sets of shoes. One pair of beat up lawn mowing shoes. Hiking boots. Tennis shoes. "Dress" shoes. Sandals. Crocs for camping. Cycling shoes with a plastic cleat on the bottom. Water shoes. It seemed I had one pair of shoes for just about any activity you could ever want pursue. I pulled out an old pair of hiking boots, an extra pair of sandals, and another pair of shoes I didn't even remember having. I had reduced my shoe count by 25% yet still had nine pair. I wanted to get rid of more but kept convincing myself that I really did NEED all those shoes for one reason or another.

In the end we wound up getting donating about 37 pairs of shoes. Tricia was right. She really didn't have that many shoes. Certainly not as many as just about every woman in her family, and mine.

My mom sat on the outskirts of this little show watching quietly. Muluken asked her at one point if she was going to bring down her shoes.

"OH NO," she was quick to respond. "I'm not putting my shoes into rows!" I suspected she was watching to see if I was going to do or say something stupid. Somehow I hadn't.

After we bagged the old shoes up and put all the keepers neatly away into the closet and bucket my mom disappeared. About half an hour later she reemerged.

"Alright, you guys inspired me to go through my own shoes," she said. "I found a number of shoes I don't need anymore. I put them in a bag and set them by the door with your bags."

"How many did you have?" I asked.

"I'm not telling you," she laughed. "More than twenty!"

We still have far more than we need. But in the end we were able to lighten our loads just a bit and free up some room around the house. Maybe even enough for a fourth guitar!

Belly Achin'

2011-01-22T12:25:00.003-05:00

We were out to dinner a few nights ago at Wild Wings Cafe. We are pretty knowledgeable when it comes to when and where there are "Kids Eat Free" or other special discounts. Our entire family of six can eat for less than $17 at Firehouse Subs on a Wednesday night. Moe's costs us about $25 on a Tuesday night and McCallister's will run about the same on either Sunday or Wednesday.

Our routine is to eat out one night each week. Tricia and I don't eat fast food which means that, by default, neither do the kids. I haven't eaten at a McDonalds in more than nine years and wouldn't even know what Hardee's, Burger King, or Rush's has on the menu beyond the usual burger and fries.

Tricia and I used to eat a whole lot of fast food. Taco Bell was our favorite. However, after finding out about ten years ago that Tricia's cholesterol was high, and then later finding out that she was pregnant with Harper, we decided that we better clean up our act. After all this time it's really easy to avoid foods that are greasy and fatty. Our systems are so unaccostomed to them that if we were to stop by and have a burger from, say, Steak 'n Shake our stomachs would scream in protest the rest of the evening and maybe even the next morning.

The kids don't eat this type of food either. A few of them don't mind because: (1) They don't know what they're missing, and (2) They aren't big meat eaters. A couple of the others, though, do miss it - or at least long for it. This divide seems to be framed by gender which may or may not be a coincidence, I don't know. When their grandparents come in town twice each year they'll usually wind up going to a fast food place while Tricia and I are out running an errand, going for a hike, or seeing a movie. They are also allowed to pick the restaurant each year for their birthday dinner. Ty has talked the past few months about going to McDonalds but fears that "dad won't eat anything there." I made the mistake of telling him this. I promised that I would be happy to take him to McDonalds if that's where he really wanted to go but that I'd probably wait to eat when I got back home. I felt bad about this afterward but I'm still not so certain it was all that wrong.

Because we wind up eating at the same small collection of restaurants over and again we sometimes make a conscious effort to find somewhere new or, at least, less frequented. This is where the decision to go to Wild Wings came from. We eat here maybe two or three times each year. It's not great but it's not bad either. The kids love all the TV screens plastered to every wall. There's no sound and all the programming is sports but they don't seem to mind. Generally Ainsley will sit and color on her placemat while the other three allow their eyes to dance indecisively from screen to screen.

When the waiter came over to take our orders the kids took turns telling her what they wanted. Ty tends to choose anything with the words "nuggets" or "dogs" attached to it. Ainsley and Harper seek out the word "chicken." And Muluken often begins by asking if he can order off the adult menu. He has the appetite of a Samoan. Sometimes we let him but often we don't. We have a very well defined budget for eating out and are careful to stay within it's confines.

However, the waitress explained that Tuesdays are dubbed "Two for Tuesdays" which means that if you order six chicken wings you get twelve, order eight you get sixteen, and so on. I asked Muluken if he wanted to split an order of sixteen with me. He began licking his lips and excitedly agreed. Chicken wings, for me, are like donuts. I hardly ever eat them. But each time I do I wind up with a belly ache and a sense of stupidity for doing this to myself. The problem is that after a few months I somehow allow myself to forget all this.

So Muluken and I looked over the menu at all the sauce options. There were all kinds of crazy choices I didn't even recognize or understand - Red Dragon, The General, Colorado Coppers. All-in-all there were thirty-four different sauces to choose from. Not a big fan of too many choices, I keyed in on the top eight or so at the top. They had simplistic, if not boring, names that I could comprehend - Virgin, Medium, Hot, Cherynobl. These were obviously in reference to each sauce's degree of heat. Liking spicy foods to a reasonable degree, I decided I would try the Hot.

I looked over at Muluken and saw that his index finger was sliding down the menu past Hot and Cherynobl to China Syndrome. "Very peppery, very hot, and very good" it read. He then pointed to Habenero Hots: "Something special for the insane." The last one, with a dark - almost black - picture of a pepper next to it, was Braveheart: "So hot you can lose your head over it."

These last three sauces were, according to the pictures of the peppers, the hottest they offered on the menu.

"What are you thinking about getting?" I asked Muluken.

"Habenero Hots," he answered.

"Buddy, those are going to be REALLY hot," I cautioned. "It says they're for the insane."

"I'm not insane!" he replied.

"But maybe if you order those you will be," I said.

He was not to be undeterred. When the waitress made her way over to him he ordered his wings.

"Oh, those are really hot!" she said with a slight look of disapproval.

"I know," he said and she looked down at me as though waiting to see if I'd override his choice.

I did not.

Once the wings came he ate all eight as he eats everything - fast and efficientlt. There was nothing left but a small stack of bare bones piled on his plate. We kept watching for signs of discomfort but he really hadn't even taken many drinks from his water. He reached across the table and accepted two of my mom's wings, with a more forgiving Medium sauce, and devoured those as well.

And then it hit him.

He started by constantly licking his lips as though he were trying to cool them. Then he started in on his water. Small trickles of tears began emerging at the corners of his eyes and he clutched his stomach. After about a minute or two he was beyond tearing up and full-out crying.

"What's wrong Muluken?" we all asked.

"MY STOMACH," he responded. "I DON'T FEEL VERY GOOD!"

'Was it too hot?" I asked.

"No," he argued. "It wasn't too hot." He doubled over and rested his forehead on the table. "I feel like I'm going to throw up!"

This was about the last thing Ainsley wanted to hear. She too began to tear up and hid her face in her arms. As we made our way out the door Muluken let out a very audible burp.

"I feel a little better now," he assured us.

Three burps later and he was soon in the back of the van with Harper laughing and playing again. And swearing off hot wings.

We'll have to make a deal - I'll keep him away from the wings and he can keep me away from the donuts.

Home

2011-01-13T15:28:00.002-05:00

Before the snow and ice moved through the midlands of South Carolina last Monday our family had started a new morning routine. Tricia and I were rolling out of bed at 5:25 each morning, heading upstairs to get the kids out of bed, and bringing them back down to exercise with us. Tricia and Ainsley made their way into the sunroom to do Pilates while Muluken, Harper, Ty, and I bundled up for a run around the neighborhood.

It was dark. And cold. And early. But still the kids popped right out of their beds excited to join us. Starting with just a short one mile jog, we laughed and chatted to pass the time. Muluken and I counted the number of houses that had someone awake. Ty alternated between buzzing ahead of us and then falling behind. Harper lifted her gaze to enjoy the brilliant glow of Venus. We all made plans for extending our runs to a mile-and-a-half or even two miles.

I kept expecting the kids' excitement to peter out. I knew from my own experiences with running, cycling, and swimming that everyone eventually hits a brick wall. It's at this point that you either give up or push through it and make exercising a normal part of your day. It becomes an important part of who you are.

However, that wall is hard to push through. Early on there are many mornings, or evenings, when it'd be easier to stay in bed or watch TV or do absolutely nothing. That's why I kept expecting the kids to ask if they "had" to go. But they didn't. Rather, each night they asked if we were excercising in the morning as though they were afraid we wouldn't. They applauded and cheered when told we would be getting up.

It's only been a week so I know the moment of truth is coming at some point. This past week we haven't been able to get out for a run because of all the snow and ice covering the streets and sidewalks. Going stir crazy, we've been driving over to the YMCA for a run around the indoor track and a swim in the pool. Harper and Muluken even joined me in the lap lanes for about thirty minutes of lap swimming. Expecting them to just splash around and play, I was very impressed.

I realize we're really lucky to have the YMCA literally right around the corner from our house. We're lucky, too, to live in a place where frigid temperatures and snow accumulation is very rare. We can get outside pretty much year 'round - often times in shorts or t-shirts. Our friends Betsy and Mike moved to International Falls, Minnesota a few years ago. Located near the US/Canada border, it is crazy cold there. Temperatures drop well below zero for weeks at a time and their kids can't stay out more than fifteen minutes at a time for fear of getting frostbite. Their town is also very remote so there are no indoor tracks or swimming pools. It makes me wonder how people in areas such as these get any exercise. Their reality is far beyond snow shovels or snow shoes. Everyone has a snow blower and most have a snowmobile. I can only imagine the amount of time spent watching television or playing video games in places such as this must be far above the national average -which is embarrassingly high itself.

I find more and more that where you live is really important. We moved here from the Midwest because we wanted warmer temperatures and shorter trips to the ocean. Once here, we found that we love the mountains too. And the forests. And, especially, the trees. Like so many other parts of our new home in South Carolina, they have become a part of who we are.

We're making another move in the coming months. But not so far this time. We've found seven heavily wooded acres that we love in a nearby town. It backs up to a small fifteen acre lake where the kids can swim and splash and kayak. There are trees to climb. Trails to clear. Footbridges to build. Animals to watch.

It was tempting to stay where we are, in suburbia. Our house will be paid off in another fifteen years and our budget is much more forgiving than in years past. We are close to the grocery store and restaurants. Our drives into school each day are less than fifteen minutes. We have a neighborhood pool that becomes our second home in the summertime. But in the end none of those reasons were enough. It is important where you live. We're fortunate enough to be in a position where we can be choosy and seek out a home that matches our interests and lifestyle.

I envision many hours spent outside. We're building a screened porch in the back to escape the spring rains. We'll enjoy the shade of tall trees in summer and then watch their colors change in fall.

And winter, we'll take it as it comes. Hopefully, though, it will still find us waking early each morning for a chilly predawn run. This time through the country.

Parenthood: The Book

2011-01-08T11:14:00.003-05:00

From the moment the baby arrived,
it was obvious that he was the boss.
He put Mom and Dad on a round-the-clock schedule,
with no time off.
And then he set up his office right smack-dab
in the middle of the house.
He made demands.
Many,many demands.
And he was quite particular.
If things
weren't done
to his immediate
satisfaction,
he had a fit.

So starts The Boss Baby, one of the newest picture books in our classroom. When I first read this book, chuckling to myself after every page, my immediate thought was "Who do I know that's having a baby?" It seemed like the perfect gift.

Of course someone without children probably couldn't fully relate.

He conducted meetings.
Lots and lots of meetings,
many in the middle of the night.

This story is probably much more humorous a few months into parenthood. In fact, maybe it's better suited for a first birthday. In addition to a nice bedtime story it would provide parents with an opportunity to look back and laugh at all they have survived - so far.

There are many books written to help parents do just that. Survive. Tricia and I read a couple. The first was What to Expect When You're Expecting, followed by What to Expect the 1st Year then ...the 2nd year and so on. This series is like the Dr. Spock's Baby and Childcare for this generation. We read the first book on pregnancy. Or, more accurately, Tricia read it and I browsed. It explained what was happening with the development of the baby in each month of pregnancy. It was fun to follow along and know that whatever was lurking in Tricia's stomach now had fingernails. Fingernails!

"It could start clawing it's way out of there at any moment, Tricia."

We also read the second book on the first year with the baby. We were a bit concerned that we didn't really know anything about babies and how to keep them alive. Later we found that keeping them alive was really easy. It was getting them to sleep that was the impossible part. With Harper we just kept picking her up and rocking her. Each time we would lay her down for a nap we'd gently, and ever-so-slowly, set her into her crib and then embark on the five minute scoot across the floor toward the door, trying our best not to step on a squeaky floorboard or to let the door squeak as we walked out. Many times it didn't work out and she awoke again, screaming her head off.

Harper didn't sleep at night either. We'd have to go get her and rock her to sleep on a fairly regular basis. Tricia probably did this more than I did. I hate to fit into a gender stereotype but I was pretty good at staying asleep - or at least pretending to. By the time Ainsley came along I decided we couldn't do the sleepless nights again. We needed help.

We went to the bookstore and picked up a copy to Dr. Ferber's much controversial book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems. I desperately wanted to know how to teach a baby to sleep through the night. Unfortunately I found that I had to read - or at least skim- four or five whole chapters before I got to the good part. The first hundred pages or so was dedicated to helping us understand babies and their behaviors. This one time in my life I didn't want to understand. I just wanted to be told what to do. In specific terms.

I finally found the right chapter and learned why the book is so controversial. Dr. Ferber teaches that the best way to get a baby to sleep through the night is essentially to allow them to cry it out. The first night you wait maybe ten minutes after they start crying to come in, rub their back (never picking them up), speak softly to them, and walk out again. Each time they cry you wait ten minutes before coming in. The next night it's fifteen minutes, and so on. The idea is that you're reassuring them that you are still there but teaching them to ultimately put themselves back to sleep. We do this as adults. We actually wake up, at least partially, throughout the night and put ourselves back to sleep without even noticing it. Babies can do it too.

It took Harper a year-and-a-half to sleep through the night. After reading Dr. Ferber's book and putting it into practice (you had to wait until the baby was at least six months old or so to do this) Ainsly was "cured" within two nights. I suddenly became a big believer in Dr. Ferber and recommended it to every droopy-eyed parent I knew or met at the playground.

As the kids grow older I find we don't really ever seek out these types of books anymore. We've learned to trust ourselves and to watch and listen to others we respect and admire. And, of course, much of what we do as parents was modeled for us by our own parents who succeeded in not raising us to be pychopaths or even Republicans (a little joke for Tricia's dad).

I did, however, recently come upon a book on raising older children that I really love. Of all places, it was already on our bookshelf. Titled Raising Children: A Guide to Raising Children, by Children, it was written for me nine years ago by my fifth grade students at New City School. After Harper was born I took a six week paternity leave. When I returned my students had created, on their own, a book to teach me all I needed to know about being a parent.

It is organized into various sections:

The Rules About Kids
You don't have to tell us we look like rag muffins when we go to school.
We will shut up as long as we are eating.
We will always love you.
We are only kids.

School Days
Always pick a school where both you and your child feel welcome.

The Top 10 Things That Kids Hate That Parents Do
Hanging up underwear when we have friends over.
Think that the ugly clothes that are cheaper look "exactly" the same as the brand name ones.
Show naked baby pictures.

Interests
Your kid has his or her own interests. They may not be the same as yours but support them fully. Encourage your kids to do fun after school activities...That will give them a chance to do more of what they love.
Also try to share your kids interests. Maybe they could teach you a thing or two.
Always remember that they will explore new things and may like something for a while and then stop liking it. But don't ever force your child to do something that they don't feel comfortable with. Have fun!

Top Five Things that Kids Like Their Parents to Do
5. Let us see PG-13 movies when we are at least 10 years old.
4. Let us get our ears pierced whenever we want.
3. When we don't get such a good grade encourage us instead of ripping our heads off.
2. Buy us things.

and the most important...

1. Love us.

Now that's sound advice.