planning

I sit in a meeting, out of my element, surrounded by ninth grade teachers brainstorming ideas for some not-exactly-a-study-hall class, and amidst the talk of panel discussions and get-to-know-you games and parent contacts and syllabus, I feel a vague sense of shake-my-head wonder drift into my expression: how simple to plan what they'll all understand, at least in the most basic, bottomline way. When at least they all speak English.

Not that I have any interest, really, in teaching what we try not to call "regular" classes. "Content," we try to say, accent on the first syllable, not even, "mainstream," avoiding some kind of presumed insult. I prefer a different standard. And as soon as I figure out how I'm going to do something productive for the mishmash of needs --have I mentioned the six language disabled? the new Vietnamese girl? the 14 freshmen and 3 transfers? the selective mute? -- that populate my ever-growing class lists, I'm sure I'll remember why.

broken

My seventh grade daughter was in kindergarten when my grandmother died; to remember the year, I have to count back, do the math. Every time, the answer is a surprise. And so are the feelings that welled up when the handle of that depression glass plate snapped off as it slid off the loveseat and hit a stool on the way to the floor. That's what we get for dusting.

"That was my gradma's," I said more quietly than the girl frozen with "Am I gonna get it?" expected. I may not have replied to her meaningful, "Oh," though I managed to laugh at an offer to get scotch tape that may or may not have been an attempt at comic relief. But I could cry, easily and right now, for no reason at all. Except one.

It's not as if I picked out that tray as a token; my aunt sent it over with the companion bowl that I keep filled with napkins on the kitchen table. They aren't rare pieces, far as I know, and, once glued, that plate will still serve as well as it ever did as a candy dish, or tray, or collector of end-table detritus. It's not as if I'd ever sell it. And it's not as if she'd have cared, either, about its new flaw, especially one caused by her only great grandkid. It's just that once upon a time, long before the Alzheimer's that really took her away years before she died, my grandma filled it up with Christmas fudge and that awful fondant and set it out on that antiqued green buffet and, I've been reminded, I miss her.

Friday Afternoon Copy & Paste: Bill Maher

New Rule: Smart President ≠ Smart Country
from the HuffPo

New Rule: Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country. A few weeks ago I was asked by Wolf Blitzer if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country. It was amazing - in the minute or so between my calling America stupid and the end of the Cialis commercial, CNN was flooded with furious emails and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!! It's how they get the blood circulating when the Cialis wears off. Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which A) proves my point, and B) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him.

Now, the hate mail all seemed to have a running theme: that I may live in a stupid country, but they lived in the greatest country on earth, and that perhaps I should move to another country, like Somalia. Well, the joke's on them because I happen to have a summer home in Somalia... and no I can't show you an original copy of my birth certificate because Woody Harrelson spilled bong water on it.

And before I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Four years later, 34% still did. Or take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.

I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket.

Not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife's name right on the first try.

Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll says 18% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid. They're interplanetary mavericks. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen, and a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, which is an absurd sentence because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge."

People bitch and moan about taxes and spending, but they have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It's actually less than 1%. And don't even ask about cabinet members: seven in ten think Napolitano is a kind of three-flavored ice cream. And last election, a full one-third of voters forgot why they were in the booth, handed out their pants, and asked, "Do you have these in a relaxed-fit?"

And I haven't even brought up America's religious beliefs. But here's one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.

And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls. There's a lot of populist anger directed towards Washington, but you know who concerned citizens should be most angry at? Their fellow citizens. "Inside the beltway" thinking may be wrong, but at least it's thinking, which is more than you can say for what's going on outside the beltway.

And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.

Which is the way our founding fathers wanted it. James Madison wrote that "pure democracy" doesn't work because "there is nothing to check... an obnoxious individual." Then, in the margins, he doodled a picture of Joe the Plumber.

Until we admit there are things we don't know, we can't even start asking the questions to find out. Until we admit that America can make a mistake, we can't stop the next one. A smart guy named Chesterton once said: "My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'" To which most Americans would respond: "Are you calling my mother a drunk?"

place holder

I wish I could remember how to write.

In my mind's eye I see half-formed phrases stacked up in ragged piles, the words too fuzzy and vague to decipher. I type and delete, type and delete, type and delete: none of it is what I meant or how I intended it to sound. I click back in time to when I had the hang and find no clues or instructions, just a barely familiar voice. I can't decide if it's a comfort. Meantime, the blank page is a bane.

$15K

8 years later, books.

going back

July 31. End of the summer, regardless of the calendar, or the weather, or that popular three-month refrain. August is definitely Fall. I am trying to be ready. My trunk is full of school supplies, both for me and for them. I've made my first reconnaissance trips into the timewarp of my classroom, the place where time seems to have stood still even though May 2009 is now "last year." It happens the same way every July: I make the long drive with a renewed awareness of the distance, the annual thought running through my mind as the odometer blinks forward: "Do I really do this every day?" It seems impossible and foreign, some one else's life. But then I arrive, finally, unlock my door and plunge in to the darkness, walking foward with my hand out to the light switch on the other side. I feel along the wall, surroundings not quite familiar, routine not quite remembered, but once I find the switch, flip it on, and look around, it's as if I never left.

The carpet is clean, true, my desk is uncluttered, the whiteboards are blank. There's a bit of blank slate in the air, but as my mental to-do list begins to fill itself in, the place mostly feels like home.

as a picture

The outfit was merely the era: some polyester print--wagon wheels, maybe?--blouse with a blue spread collar that matched the skirt. It's the countryside background, hands posed on a rail "fence", and the unfocused expression that make the photo unmistakably a school picture. That and the bangs climbing across my forehead at a steep though unsteady angle-- an unfortunate home haircut (not by me, but my mother) that would never otherwise have been recorded. For years I cringed at that portrait, hid the christmas ornament on which it was pasted on the back of the tree, but at least it clearly showed a moment in time.

My soon-to-be-seventh-grade daughter has had her share of "We paid for this?" pictures; I expect nothing different tomorrow. I will not, for one thing, be ponying up twelve extra dollars for Premium Retouching, or even eight for Basic-- yes, there are two levels of photoshop available for the middle school set. And again I say, "Seriously?" According to the graphic on the flier, Basic will remove what appear to be felt-tip pen spots added to the sample picture, while Premium "whitens teeth, evens skin tone, and removes blemishes, scars, and fly-away hair." And again I say, "Good grief." It's almost tempting, though. If the cleaned up packages weren't all near fifty bucks, I might buy one just to see if I recognize what I bet more closely resembles her future, post-middle school self.

so far

Everything is relative, and ain't that the truth. The money you have or the time you don't, the degree of surprise or disappointment. Whether it's worth it or whether it's not. Everything just depends.

Reaching what must be the midpoint in my marathon training, I've hit double digits. Two weeks ago, ten, and this weekend twelve. Miles, that is. At once. An eight-miler is somehow now recategorized as, "short," an adjective that I can still recognize as ridiculous even as I know it's now true. In the same way, all these numbers are big enough to inspire in others that slow shake of the head that's a cross between, "you're crazy" and "I'm impressed." My own reaction is more tempered. Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased with myself, but at the same time, the goal is 26.2. Less than half is not all that relatively speaking, which, we are.

I'll be curious to see how my perspective changes, or if it does, when I get to the end and look back. A year ago I had no earthly concept of what I could do; today I take it as a given. I find it hard to say, "I can't" and lately substitute, "I haven't." Because when I choose to, I'm certain that I will. What I've done is huge compared to what came before, but, still, it's only a fraction.

another pair

Scuffed rubber toes of red canvas Keds, one in front of the other on a gum-splattered sidewalk: that's the image in my mind. My feet, age five. The dirt path across the field that separated our subdivison from the shopping center, that wide plaza sidewalk that we strolled every day to the dime store-- McCrory's, not P.N. Hirsch--to buy candy bars or toy gunpowder caps or short-lived fish, the mosaic threshold of the Kinney's Shoes store a bit further down: it's all my recollection of a trip to the store to buy big kid shoes, white leather with suede racing stripes of red or blue, maybe green. As if I could run. As if all the pictures that I see with my mind's eye were gathered in that one day, or that one shopping trip. Could be. Either that, or my memory has conjured the visuals that accompany the story that I know is true. Could be. I remember sprinting down the carpeted store aisle to see how fast they would make me run.

A lifetime later, I sit next to two pairs of running shoes. Real running shoes, from a real running shoe store. One pair is months old and nearly worn out-- a first for me, ever. The other pair sits new in the box, laced and ready. My miles for today are already complete, but the little kid, or, maybe, the runner in me is tempted.

messages

"You must feel great. Good for you!"

"I do. Thanks! Now what are you going to do about school?"

His text had arrived out of the blue, as always. Always unexpected, never unwelcome, his notes always bring a smile and a question. "Slow night at work? Bored at home? Alone?" I can't help but wonder what prompts him to punch in an unpunctuated, "how are you," from two rivers away, but I never ask, and, sometimes, it's obvious.

But at first it's just the mandatory, "Not much," in response to my, "What's new?" so I tell him 160 characters of my can-you-believe it marathon story, and he tells me of 10 miles in Chicago and a 5K run for cancer, but the tone is too used-to, too don't-anymore. "Can't" doesn't suit him, so I pull out a reminder as tired as it is true:

"If I can do this, you can do anything," though the converse is equally true. More.

Later, he breaks what is likely an insignificant silence with college questions he's asked before. He has credits, hard-earned before the law changed again; to continue, he must pony up his trust along with inflated tuition in a different state, at a different school. I offer to make a few calls, to ask the tricky questions about ID and residence just to make sure. I tell him, "I know some people. It's no problem," and his, "yes, please," sounds relieved, though perhaps I am projecting.

By rights, he should be tired. He must be. He is. By now, he should have thrown his hands up and conceded. He won't. But by rights, he is wary. Skepticism keeps him safer, but all of it's so wearing. And yet wavering between determination and doubt, he once more sends me a message. How else could I reply?

a different era

I can picture it, easily. Grandma, Grandpa, Mom and Dad. A Sunday afternoon. A then-new portable black & white TV in the living room that must have been cramped. The original transmission of men walking on the moon, with Walter Cronkite setting the stage. I can picture it, though I wasn't a witness: my mother had some crazy idea about 10 week-old babies and naps.

I've often told her she should have propped me up in front of the television, just so I could say that I saw. Not that there would be in purpose in that; that history still wouldn't be my memory. As most of the events narrated or explained by Cronkite, it was just a little before my time. My image is from late in his career, sitting at the anchor desk with a symbol of the Iranian hostage crisis over his shoulder: an eagle in a cage.

Years hence, Iran's in the news, again or still, but now virtually all the headlines and commentary that come into my home arrive via individual screens; news on our televisions is rare, save elections and the occasional catastrophe. Besides Obama, I'm not sure what my daughter will remember from the history of her childhood. I made sure she had no first-person memories of 9/11: she was only four. She hasn't complained about that yet, but, being her mother's daughter, I expect some day she will.

in print

I'm not entirely corrupted, but close. I'm kind of, more or less, doing my part. I still pay for the delivery of the local paper, four days, if not seven. Not that I ever unfold the newsprint as I carry it to the recycle bin from the yard. If it were still possible to cancel a subscription through the newspaper's website, it would already have been done. But as it stands, I read its stories online, the subscription fee nearly a charitable donation to a futile cause.

Books, I figured, were still less fragile than the fourth estate. Despite the fact that I've read fewer of them this year than ever in my life. A handful, no more. Few enough, I bet, to count on one hand. I am entirely out of the habit. Or at least I thought I was, until in three days I read two. It was like old times: I sat and read until I was finished, and then, the urge renewed, I went on to something else. It was like old times, except for the fact that I never laid hand on a book. Instead I read the Kindle versions using the freebie app for my iPod.

My 12 year-old is pretty sure this is a desecration; she may be right, but I'm not so sure. I'm positive there are consequences, unintended and otherwise, of this electronic shift. But to go from, "I need something to read," to possessing a new book in seconds? That's pretty much magic, to me. Not needing decent light in the room or even two free hands are bonuses as well. So far, I seem more likely to pay up for the convenience than for the paper version, so much that the ease of spending another $9.99 every time a craving or even boredom hits could in fact become a problem. I've been resisting the urge all day. Perhaps the bottom line will get me back to the library. In the meantime, there are worse habits than giving a writer another sale.

all wet

Yesterday, as I finally stepped out to run, the sky began to clear and the steady rain that had fallen all day slowed to a sprinkle then quickly disappeared. I was disappointed. A week ago, I ran further and more easily than I ever had in my life, and by the end of those eight miles, I was soaked to the bone. I trust you see the connection. What the heat and humidity had been taking out of me, a cooling rain put right back in. Finally, I felt like a runner, one who had a reason more concrete than just sheer power of will to believe she'd get to the end of 26.2. I may have even made a wish for every remaining summer Saturday to be equally wet. I should have thought that one through.

Or at least been more specific with my precipitation requests. Because I would never have asked for a summer storm to mark the beginning of a 32-mile bike ride, but that's what we got today. One wouldn't think anything could be that cold in July, but perhaps that's why some of it came down as hail. And yet instead of running for cover, we got on and pedaled through, eyes half-closed against the wind-driven water. "It's better than being hot," was more convincing after the downpour slowed and then stopped, but in the end, despite squishy shoes and a damp car seat-- perhaps the third time, I'll remember dry clothes-- I'm pretty sure that's still true.

Visiting

I may be a tourist, but at least I am a tourist who walks fast, stays out of the way, and knows how to use public transportation.

I'm just sayin'.

But then again, given that a fair number of establishments here can also be found at Disney World, maybe it's too much to expect visitors to act any different. Just an observation.

Not that I don't love the Chicago part of Chicago, as my resident friend once described it. Except for the sports teams, it's got so much goin' for it if I'd ended up here as part of that twenty-something Midwest tour, I don't think I'd ever have gotten home.

Another life, perhaps.

Meanwhile, it's time to head back to where the pizza is cracker-thin and the public transportation is non-existent. I'm looking forward to being there, too.

Happy Independence Day

That was a good day, too.

more like it

It's the phone ring, the door bell, the in and out, the up and down. It's the door standing wide open. It's shouted good-byes and, "Will you please take us?" and a flip-flopped walk down a hilly half-mile that no longer seems too long. It's swimming and skating and long, convoluted stories that don't mean anything to anyone else. Pit stops for frozen custard or tacos. It's conversations that start in the middle; it's notes left in the mailbox. It's showing up uninvited but not unwelcome, it's ten hours later and then, "See ya tomorrow." It's summer, suddenly, with a friend in the neighborhood, finally. The girl is happy, and so is her mom.

a definition

Progress:

Before, I never rode my bike in my neighborhood because it's hilly. Now I ride here because it is.

kids today

I first noticed him out of the corner of my eye as he rode lazy circles out close to the highway. And then again, one hill ahead of me, standing as he pedaled to the crest. Two thoughts: the first a kind of wordless satisfaction that the climb took the kid some effort, and then, as we both left the neighborhood and crossed through the new subdivision to the blacktop behind:

"Does your mother know where you are?"

Not that I knew where he'd come from or where he was headed or even that, really, he was going that far. I guess I've been brainwashed, too, as I had to remind myself that roaming around was once a vacation birthright, and still a good thing to do. Because I never see any kids out, despite summer, despite beautiful days. And I know they live here. I see the swingsets and free-standing basketball hoops drug out to the curb. I've waited behind school buses delivering from door to door to door-- one even stops at my house. And now and then, she'll walk to her friend's, or they'll hang out on the docks, or go down to the park. Even go for a walk with me. But more often than not, she's in while I'm out, and it's just me and the landscape crews traveling the too-quiet streets, except for that one day and that one kid who somehow discovered the right idea.

for life

I understand it's only a gesture, and a meager one at that. My contribution was minimal, my participation limited. In the scheme of things, it won't matter. Unless maybe, somehow, it does.

Four weeks ago, a man I never met received a diagnosis. His cough was not just a cough, but lung cancer, stage 4. His funeral was today. As I pulled back my hair to head out into the lingering heat, a friend who helped write his eulogy told me this blunt story, and I could not help but picture his daughter, a long ago classmate, sitting in the same funeral home parlor where my family gathered twice before.

Tonight as my mother and I circled my high school track amongst the survivors and fund raisers, our conversation turned, as it does each year, to another man gone too soon. "He was kind, and, funny, and generous to a fault." It's a litany I've memorized after thirty-one years. "Of all of us," continued my mom, describing her father-in-law, "he was the best person. So why did he have to die?" That unanswerable question, multiplied, is the reason for our walk, the reason for luminaria lit in the names of family, friends, and tonight, one complete stranger. Celebrate, remember, fight back.

Today was an off day for me according to the schedule that maps out my miles. Three yesterday, six tomorrow-- multiplied by 102 degrees, or maybe by 78 air conditioned laps. So this evening, instructed not to exercise, I instead laced up my shoes. Not to run but to Relay, an effort that trumps the rules.

tragedy

I admit I only knew the outlines of the story. I knew that Aaron Kampman, a Packer whose number 74 hangs in my closet, is one of four NFL players to play at and graduate from a tiny high school in Parkersburg, a tiny Iowa town-- remarkable in itself. I knew of the monstrous tornado that devastated Parkersburg in 2008, and I had read stories of coach Ed Thomas, and his role in putting that town back together.

But until today, when Ed Thomas was shot in the head, in front of players, in his team's weight room, I'd never heard too many of Ed Thomas's words. My loss.

Ed Thomas, in his own words, compiled by Mike Hlas of the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

I’ve always said my job is not to prepare our kids to be college athletes. My job is to make football a learning experience, and there are so many things they can learn from being a part of our team that will help them be successful later in life as a father, member of a church, or member of the community. There are so many intangibles we can teach that they can take with them.

I don’t have captains anymore—I went to a system of senior leaders. Around the end of February, I go over our senior leadership program with all of the next year’s senior football players and ask if they want to be involved. For seven weeks, I teach a morning leadership class to those who do. They are then responsible for the other players—whether it’s behavior, succeeding in the classroom, or working in the weightroom, they provide leadership for our program. I decided to teach leadership because I think it’s something that isn’t present in kids as often as it used to be. We have to show kids how to be leaders today.

I talk about leaders setting an example, the responsibility of being a leader, and the idea of being a servant and a giver. I talk about standing up to do what is right when nobody else will, and letting other players know when they’re doing something wrong. I also explain the importance of being a role model—that leaders have to set the tone for other players to follow. I talk about the respect that they have to gain with other young people. I tell them that everyone might not always like you, but you should act in such a way that they respect you.

Ethics is doing what’s right. It’s following the rules, and teaching football the way it ought to be played. Ethics is teaching young people about sportsmanship and how to conduct themselves in a first-class fashion regardless of whether they win or lose. I tell our kids that we’re going to go out and play hard, and we want to win as much as anybody. But when the game is over, we’re going to line up, shake hands, and be gentlemen, knowing that we did the very best we could. To me, that’s all part of ethics.