The Dead Dog

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.

Young Authors

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!

Week In Review - Too Much to Write About!

I came back from our Christmas trip to St. Louis with more blog ideas than I possibly had time to write about. My buddy Tim gave me a small notebook on our last day of school before Winter Break that read "Fill these pages with important words and thoughts." He might be disappointed because, instead, I filled it with superficial observations and smart ass comments from our Christmas trip.

The first came just a few hours into our drive as we passed into Georgia. One of the very first billboards I saw read:

Make your ONE call to...
1-800-CALL -KEN
Ken Nugent Legal Services

Really? I know that colonial Georgia was basically a roaming prison, serving as a spot for England to send its less desirables, but I would hope that after these hundreds of years things would have changed. I've been to both Alabama and Louisiana and I know for a fact that a good deal of those "less desirables'" descendants are now living throughout the south. So why would Georgia allow Ken Nugent to welcome travelers with such a sign? Are there THAT many people getting arrested? Is there really that much money to be had from these people?

The second blog idea came on our second day with Tricia's parents. I made my first visit to church in five years. I really do not like church. As a child I went as often as three times a week - Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening. There was also church league bowling, softball, and volleyball. And youth group, play practices, and countless lunches and dinners. It wasn't the amount of time spent at church that turned me off, though. I just grew to question the likelihood of all those stories and the reasonableness of all those beliefs.

Tricia's parents church is quite different from the smallish Baptist church I grew up attending. It seats more than a thousand people. has two big screen TVs mounted behind the pulpit, and hosts religious and social events most, if not every, night of the week. The service lasted a little over an hour but the sermon itself was ten to fifteen minutes tops. The sermon was all about "breaking down the walls that we build around ourselves." The walls were a metaphor for our need for a sense of comfort, safety, etc. There were very few mentions of God or Jesus so it went well enough. The other fifty minutes were spent singing songs and listening to announcements. My mom asked how it went. "It went okay. Maybe I'll go back in another five or six years," I said. But probably not.

The third blog idea came when Tricia and I went out for a date night. We went to one of our favorite restaurants in St. Louis - an Indian place in the Central West End called Rasoi. Afterward we headed over to the Chase to see True Grit. As always, parking in the Central West End was nearly impossible. We finally found a spot but had only fifty cents for the meter. As Tricia will attest, I always seem to think that we don't need to feed the meter. "You don't have to pay after 5:00" I might argue. Or, "It's free on Sundays." Or worse, "No one even checks these meters!" I'm generally very much a rule follower. Like Ainsley I think people should follow the rules no matter what. I'll sit through a two minute red light at 3am with no cars anywhere in sight because that's what I'm supposed to do. I often stand on the curb and wait for what seems like forever for the walk signal even though there's no traffic. But for some reason when it comes to paying the meter I find every reason not to adhere to my legal obligations.

As we pulled into our parking spot and Tricia found that we only had two quarters she asked what I thought we should do. The movie didn't start for another hour (we were planning to walk over to the library to browse before heading down the block to the theater) and the movie was an hour and half at the very least.

"It's after six," I said. "You don't have to pay the meter after six."

"You always say that," she pointed out. "You NEVER think we have to pay the meter!"

"But I'm always right!"

Tricia sighed and looked up the street.

"Look," she said. "There's the meter reader!"

She was right. Two cars in front of us was a meter reader writing a ticket. After placing it under a windshield wiper he made his way up to the next car.

"We definitely have to get some change or find a parking garage now," she argued.

"No we don't," I said. "Look, he just checked all the cars on this block. It's 6:07 now. What are the chances he gets back to our block tonight? Euclid is a l-o-n-g street with a lot of meters. If anything we're more safe than ever."

It was dark but I can only imagine Tricia rolled her eyes. I really am hard to live with at times.

"Okay," she said. "But if we get a ticket you have to pay for it out of your own money."


"Ha, as if such a thing exists," I laughed.


We climbed out of the car and, ignoring the meter, pulled our jackets up around our ears and huddled together to head up the street. We instantly saw that the meter reader's car was parked just four spaces in front of our van. More debate ensued but we forged ahead. Once we got into the library I went to the information desk to ask how late you had to pay the meters. The librarian told me that they stop checking them at 7:00. Whether this meant you still have to pay them I wasn't sure but I headed back over to Tricia to gloat none-the-less.


"Well, go out and put our fifty cents," she told me. " At least we'll be paid until a quarter 'til or so."


I knew when to play nice and headed toward the front door. On the way I debated whether I should actually head out into the cold for what was certain to be a wasted effort (and wasted money) or if I should just hang out in the vestibule area for a few minutes and then head back in. Half an hour later, as we were heading out for the theater, Tricia, knowing me all too well, asked whether I had actually paid the meter or just pretended to. True to form I refused to say.


My fourth blog idea came a few nights later when attending "Christmas Eve" with Tricia's extended family. Due to busy schedules this party is never really on Christmas Eve but it's close enough. We haven't been able to attend this party the past few years so this was the first time we had seen these families in quite a while. Even when we lived in St. Louis we saw most of them only once a year, at this very party. They were like sometimes relatives.


I'm not much good at small talk and at no other time is this more evident than at this party. Tricia tried to coach me on the way.


"Talk to my Uncle Dennis about the food dehydrator you got from your kids at school," she suggested. "He used to have one too and talked about it all the time."


She's worse at small talk than I am and I wasn't too sure why she felt a need to offer help given that the one person at that party that I was usually pretty good at talking to was her Uncle Dennis. We generally talked about vacation plans and running. It was perhaps the only two things we really had in common but we could talk endlessly about both topics.


As we walked into the party the room fell silent and all those strange faces turned to stare at us making our entrance. Only five seconds in and it was already awkward. This would prove to the be the high water mark for the night as things only went downhill from there. I started by seeking out Dennis. I figured I should start strong and move on to the others from there. Unfortunately our conversation didn't go as planned. Someone else I didn't know too well was part of the conversation too and I didn't feel comfortable talking about running for fear of leaving him out. I wanted to talk about vacations but they were just finishing up a conversation on this topic as I made my way over. I was baffled. What to do?


"So," I said. "I got a dehydrator from my kids at school for Christmas!"


"A what?" he said.


"A dehydrator," I repeated.


"What's that?" the other guy asked.


"You mean a dehumidifier?" Dennis asked.


I stammered.


"It dries your food out," I explained. "You know, it takes all the water out."


"Why would you want to do that?" the other guy asked. It wasn't the type of question that made you feel as though he really wanted to learn more about the subject but, rather, that he wondered what in the hell was wrong with you. As if you making this all up.


"It's to help preserve the food for hiking and backpacking," I explained. "You dehydrate it, pack it up, and then rehydrate it on the trail."


"Oh," they both said, simultaneously. They both looked around uncomfortably and walked away.


I stood there for a moment playing with the food on my snack plate. Tricia and her parents were talking with someone else across the room. I was tempted to join them and take comfort in numbers. Around this time Tricia's cousin Michael walked by to freshen up the snack table. He and I have had just a handful of conversations over the past fourteen or fifteen years. We have little in common and he's not all that talkative anyway. Still, I felt I needed to try. I had to prove to myself that I was capable of this simple social skill.

"Hey Mike," I said.  

Doh, I thought. He goes by Michael you idiot!
 
I saw that there was a book on his television titled The Elf on the Shelf. I knew of this book from school and had a funny antecdote concerning a conversation I had with my kids about it. I shared it with him and he said nothing. He didn't even offer up a chuckle. It was a good antecdote too. But still he didn't smirk.


"Yeah, well...I oughta be finding Tricia I guess," I said.


"Alright," he answered and turned away to return to the kitchen.


I was 0 for 2. My ability to make small talk didn't much improve from there. I later found myself in conversation with another teacher but we had an entire discussion where I don't think either of us really understood what the other was trying to say. Later I talked with a lady who took great interest in everything I had to say. She's known for this. In fact, she takes so much interest in what you have to say that you almost feel uncomfortable. She leans in real close, has a perpetual smile, and never breaks eye contact. Ever.

She really liked that the kids had spent time backpacking last summer.


"Now they will know how to fend for themselves and find food if they're ever lost in the woods," she commented.


She was serious. I didn't break it to her that backpacking was more about high tech cook pots and fuel canisters than berry gathering or squirrel hunting. She wanted to know about the bears, too. I may have disappointed her when letting on that we hadn't seen any bears but we had seen a  lot of snails.

"Tons of them!" I assured her.


The only highlight of my ability to make small talk was when I later told of our encounter with the parking meter for Tricia's sister and brother-in-law. They laughed and laughed. I suddenly felt like a bad poker player. The one who stays in to the bitter end of every hand and only to lose nine times out of ten. Why, then, does he stay in so often? Because he remembers that ONE TIME when he pulled the perfect card and won. Tricia's sister and brother-in-law are my perfect cards. They keep me wanting to try again.


So there it is. More stories than I could ever write about.

Roadside Museums

A few years ago I came up with a theory that when pulling off the interstate to fuel up you can generally tell a lot about the area you are in by the stuff they sell inside the gas station. These gas stations serve as small cultural museums of their local communities while making a few bucks on the side pedaling fuel, tobacco, and booze. This did not come to me randomly but, rather, while making a pit stop in the middle of nowhere. Also known as Tennessee.

Entering the station, I grabbed a Snicker bar and  made my way to the back to find a small bottle of milk. However, the milk was nearly impossible to find. All but one of the coolers were being used to house what equated to a small warehouse of beer. But not just any brand of beer. While there may have been a few spare six-packs of Corona or Ice House there were cases upon cases upon cases of Busch, Budweiser, and Old Milwaukee.

On my way back to the front I stopped by the magazine rack. Now some gas stations, feeling these publications are ethically or morally wrong,  refuse to sell pornographic magazines. Others place them behind the counter to protect the innocence of young children. This one, however,  put them all - and there were many - right next to the multiple car and truck magazines and just above the single copy of Newsweek. I want to believe that Newsweek was such a hot item that they had trouble keeping them in stock. I want to believe it, but I don't.

After making my way past the assortment of fishing hats - my favorite sporting two large Styrofoam breasts protruding from the front - I finally reached the counter. Standing in line, I noticed that just beside me, one shelf above the Little Debbie snack cakes, was a box of beer bongs. On my other side was a large washtub full of iced down cans of beer. I can't say for certain that the two were meant to be impulse buys or even to be bought in tandem but, in all honesty, what's the use of one without the other?

I choose to stop just short of saying that the people of small town Tennessee are ignorant, macho alcoholics who, while in a drunken stupor, beat their wives. I choose to believe that all these tell tale signs could be wrong. In fact, they have to be wrong because just the other day I decided to take a closer to look at our own gas station. The one we always use to fill up our cars. The one with the faded sign out front that reads:

POPS
  POPS
    POPS

On the entry door was a handwritten sign, barely legible, that read "We WILL prosecute anyone caught stealing ANYTHING from this station!" It wasn't written as though they were hoping people wouldn't start stealing from them but rather as though people regularly did. I suddenly felt a need to keep my hands out of my pockets.

The three people in front of me in line were all buying scratch off lottery tickets and cigarettes. Nothing else. Just lottery tickets and cigarettes. For what may have been the first time in my four years as a customer of this station I turned around, against my better judgment, to look around the store and see what they sold.

And that's when it hit me.

Either my theory is all wrong or my neighbors are a bunch of lazy black-lunged convicts puffing themselves toward certain deaths but on too much of a sugar high from their Moon Pie addictions to even notice. Being that I hate being wrong I'm left with just one option. I'm now taking the longer route to everywhere. The one with the yuppie Circle K that sells designer coffees and has faux-wood floors.

I feel like a better person already.

Searching for a Sign

Ainsley recently celebrated her seventh birthday. She invited a few friends over from school and from the neighborhood to play in her room, watch a movie, and sleep over. The running deal with each of the kids is that they can invite four or five friends over for their birthday - four for the boys and five for the girls. This may seem unfair but we've long observed that girls are much quieter - and gentler on our house - than boys. To further remedy this Muluken's last birthday sleepover was a "campout" in the backyard. The boys set up a tent near the garden in the back of our yard and despite the fact that the windows were closed, the air conditioner was running, and we had the television on, we could still hear them out there.

The boys' and girls' parties differ in one other way too - the unwrapping of the gifts. While the boys tear open one gift after another, paying no attention to the cards attached or who they are even from, the girls seem to read over each card carefully, smile, and offer a sincere thanks.

I can't blame the boys too much for this, though. I really don't like birthday cards either. I only half-heartedly read them. Then there's the question of how long I will have to keep the cards before dropping them into the recycling bin.

Perhaps the reason I don't like cards is that they're not very personal. If it were a blank card with a personal message, written from the heart, it would be one thing. Or if it were funny or wildly inappropriate (I once gave my sister a "Sorry your dog died" card for her birthday - demonstrating humor that evidently not many people find all that funny).

But what cards offer, instead, are corny poems and saccharine passages intended for every man - literally. It could easily be argued that greeting cards represent some of the worst writing to be found. And I would probably agree with this, too. At least, I would if there were no such thing as church signs.

Growing up in Granite City, Illinois, there were churches on nearly every corner. While most felt secure using their signs out front to advertise upcoming events and services, there were a dedicated few who reserved the use of the sign for messages. Some were inspirational, others were funny, a few were somewhat frightening, and many others were beyond my ability to understand.

Yet as bad as church sign messages often are I can't stop from reading them. It's like slowing to gawk at a car accident - you don't really want to see it but you're kinda curious.

So, with that in mind, I offer a few favorites and un-favorites...

Corny/Almost Too Predictable
God Answers Knee-Mail
Get rich quick. Count your blessings!
Forbidden fruit creates many jams
God wants full custody not just a weekend visit.
Fight Truth Decay...Study The Bible Daily
God grades on the cross, not on the curve
Autumn leaves - Jesus doesn't
Need a lifeguard? Ours walks on water!
Down in the mouth? It’s time for a faith lift




We'll Scare You Into Going to Church
A fire is HOT. The Sun is HOTTER. Hell will be the HOTTEST
A bad day at work is better than a good day in hell.
If you think it's hot now, just wait
ETERNITY: smoking, or non-smoking?



Too Long or Difficult to Understand While Driving
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
Coming soon: Manufacturers recall. Are you ready???



Gives Me the Creeps
God: The perfect lover



Really? You thought THAT was a good idea?
A good place for the "buck to stop" is at the collection plate.



Trying Too Hard to be Hip
Always remember that Hell is un-cool
Get off facebook and take out faith book



Stealing From Others (or: "Breaking our own commandments")
Got Jesus?
God is like Allstate, you’re in good hands
God is like Coca-Cola, he’s the real thing



Huh?
If man came from apes... Why are there still apes?



Kind of Clever
Google can't satisfy every search
God expects spiritual fruit, not religious nuts



Actually Pretty Funny
Now open between Easter and Christmas!
Honk if you love Jesus. Text while driving if you want to meet him.
FREE bread and juice inside!!!
Church. Cheaper than NFL tickets.


And then there's my favorite of them all...

"Cant sleep? Come hear a sermon."

What's in a Name?

We recently made a trip up to Devil’s Fork State Park for some camping and kayaking. Like nearly all our trips out of town we headed up Interstate 26 for about three hours. When we chose to move to Columbia one of things that drew us to the area was that it was centrally located – just a few hours to the beach or a few hours to the mountains. We now find that while there are many things to love about Columbia one of the problems is that it is a few hours to the beach and a few hours to the mountains. While the distances have remained the same, our perspectives have changed.

The kids pass the time on the road in a variety of ways. They enjoy listening to their i-pods, drawing, writing stories, or making up games. This past trip they decided to keep a tally of the different license plates they saw along the interstate. There were a collection of plates from Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia. There was even one all the way from Wisconsin.

I pass the time differently. I find that I break up the monotony of the road by reading all the signs along the way. When we lived in Missouri there were highway signs littering most of the roadways. You couldn’t go more than a half a mile before you’d be bombarded by a series of over-sized advertisements. It seems by the sheer number of billboards advertising them that every rural Missouri town must have built their economy, in part, on the sale of walnut bowls and antiques.

South Carolina is a bit different. Better really. There are not nearly so many signs. In fact, you can go for tens of miles and see nothing but the interstate and an endless stream of tall green pine trees. So in place of the missing billboards I find myself reading the exit signs instead. Every few miles you find the names of the nearby towns that are hidden behind the curtain of trees lining the roadway.

My favorite town name in Missouri was Knob Lick. You could barely say it without some juvenile snickering. I always wondered if the people there were embarrassed to live in a town with such a ridiculous name. Knob Lick. How does a name like that even come to exist?

I once played for a little league baseball team that was named for our sponsor – Miller’s Meats. It was printed in large letters across our chests. The guys on the other teams had a field day with this. It seems the word meat, with its double meaning, is extremely funny to ten year old boys. I can only imagine what the wrestlers for the Knob Lick wrestling team must have to endure.
My favorite town name here in South Carolina can be found along I-26. The name is much better:  Prosperity. Here’s a town that was obviously, at some point, looking to drum up some new residents. Or maybe the town’s founders were just that optimistic.

We’ve never stopped to see Prosperity. I’d like to believe it’s a small oasis with a quaint downtown area that is still perfectly intact. The deputy probably even carries a single bullet in his pocket just in case he ever needs it.

I imagine there are no deserted gas stations hidden amidst a forest of overgrown weeds, rusted out trailer homes sliding off their foundations, or crumbling buildings- all of which are very common in small town South Carolina. I imagine it must be very nice there.

And for that reason I’ll never allow myself to pull off the interstate to find out.  If I did, and it was a dump, I'd be so disappointed. It would just serve to prove that names mean nothing. And if this were true then I'd be far less excited to one day visit places like Crapstone, England,  Shag Harbor, Nova Scotia, or even Hell, Michigan.