Ordinary Guy

The Rebel Jesus

2012-01-27T20:42:00.000-08:00

It has been my tradition to write a few posts about Christmas every year. Most years however, it is well after the Christmas season. For one thing, it is hard to consider the actual Christmas message for me right at Christmas time. Does that sound silly?

At Christmas we are inundated with creepy stories of people going into violent frenzies, hurting each other in Walmart or Kmart so they can get the best deals on Christmas presents for their loved ones. Hmmm.

This is from the Christian Science Monitor on 11-26-11

ATLANTA

Aisle-bumping, line-cutting, and parking lot rudeness is to be expected on Black Friday, the annual post-Thanksgiving shopping extravaganza. This year's event, however, saw more mayhem than usual as throngs of competitive shoppers tussled and growled over waffle irons and Xboxes, with altercations turning violent in at least seven states.

As in years past, stories of "competitive shopping" gone bad abounded, but with a new edge.

In Los Angeles, a woman pepper-sprayed at least 20 fellow shoppers to save some money on an Xbox console, paying up and getting out before cops arrived. In Ohio and Michigan, women "came out swinging" over discounted bath towels. The results were at times serious, with several shootings reported and one confrontation ending with a grandfather lying bloodied and unconscious.

The hustle and bustle, the pressure for getting the right gifts, getting out Christmas cards, the regifting, the gift exchanging, the gift cards for those we care a little about but not enough to think deeply about a present. There is a national sense of economic well-being from people overspending at Christmas and a darkness that falls when sales aren't what we expect. If we, as a people, spend less than the year before it is a bad sign for our economy.

Even the term 'BLACK FRIDAY' is sort of creepy. "Black Friday" indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are "in the black". (Wikipedia)

How many times have you seen signs that say, "KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS" or "JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON" or hear of people who get angry at stores because their employees are saying, "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"? To me, Christmas is the time when we wear our hypocrisy on our sleeves. We may put a bumper sticker on our car or cry out against the commercialization of Christmas, but what do we really do to demonstrate our sincerity? It seems to me that most of us go out and define materialism by our annual habits.

At Christmas time this year, the Downtown Church in Columbia, SC stood out from the messages I have heard over the years at the many other churches I have attended. The band played one of my favorite Christmas songs, Jackson Browne's "The Rebel Jesus". My son Colin played in that service.

Realizing that I too buy into the materialistic aspect of the holiday season, I write this thinking about the real meaning of the season and in an effort to make myself more mindful of Jesus' message that we must all be about the business of making this world a better place.

For everyone.

Merry Christmas!

(I didn't get out my cards this year.)

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants' windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes
They'll be gathering around the hearths and tables
Giving thanks for all God's graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus

Well they call him by the prince of peace
And they call him by the savior
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
And their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worshipped in
From a temple to a robber's den
In the words of the rebel Jesus

We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why they are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

But please forgive me if I seem
To take the tone of judgement
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In this life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus.

My Mom's Porch - (unfinshed)

2012-01-21T06:10:00.001-08:00

I wrote this piece in October 2011 while my 3^rd grade class composed their own stories about a favorite place. A few times each year our district requires an “on demand” writing sample so we can score their writing with a rubric – or list of qualities we wish to see present in their writing. So we all chose and wrote about one of our favorite places.

This piece of writing is not finished. “My Mom’s Porch” means something different to me now that she has passed on. This writing is a time capsule, a window into thoughts of another time.

A couple of weeks from now I’ll visit my mother’s home, and my mom’s porch, one final time, with my brother Dan and two of my sisters, Ruthie and Anne. We’ll settle things with some banks, meet with the realtor, and likely finish up some painting and cleaning. We’ll probably give her last few remaining possessions away and just enjoy time in each other’s company.

We’ll spread her ashes.

It will be the last time we meet together in that beautiful house, the final time we’ll laugh, and perhaps cry a little, on my mom’s porch.

This piece ends without proper closure. Just like life.

My Mom’s Porch

One of my favorite places of all is my mom’s back porch. It is a simple structure in a magical place. The floor is made of two-by-fours with enough space between to see the deck below. Behind are the wooden walls of the house and large glass sliding door. Ahead is a large screen. Beyond is the canopy of mixed hardwood trees of the North Carolina mountains. Beyond that is a beautiful, clear mountain lake with sun sparkling off its surface or the reflection of clouds or a shimmering moon.

A few days ago, when I awoke there on the living room couch, it was still dark and cold. I sat on that porch alone, with a cup of strong black coffee, while the morning light eased across the low gray clouds. The small lake below was covered with fog, which rolled over the dam as a slow motion liquid into the river valley below.

A great blue heron emerged from that low hanging cloud; a prehistoric ghost, silently pulling feathery wisps of fog behind it. It was a scene so peaceful, so serene and real that I wish I could have shared it with someone. But then again, maybe those few moments alone on that old porch are an important memory because I was alone. My mom would be awake soon. I would tell her about it. She would appreciate it.

The company kept on that old porch is also what makes it one of my favorite places. My mom is my best friend. The time we share there also includes other family members, but the time spent with my mom alone is among the most precious moments in my life. On that porch we speak tenderly of the past and loved ones who have died. On that porch we laugh until our faces hurt and we gasp for breath. On that porch, late at night, lit by a single candle flame, with wine glasses between us, we cry and hold hands and wonder about the future and count ourselves lucky to still appreciate each other’s company.

I never spend enough time on that old porch. It slants down – away from the house. That has always bugged my mom. But she is finally convinced that it was built that way on purpose. There are always a few spider webs in the corners. But I don’t mind. They never bothered me. I sort of like spiders. There is a glass table on that porch and some outdoor chairs. The screen doors are a little uneven due to the slanting floor. There are some two-by-fours stacked under them to keep out the chipmunks and other creatures. I remember when there were nesting birds in there.

The most important people in my life have spent time together on that old porch. My own Devin and Colin and Heidi, my step-dad, Big Jim Burns, my brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews – have often hung out on that old porch making each other laugh, one upping each other’s wise cracks, sipping wine and smirking, poking fun and getting serious. We relive the old days when we were young and our folks were young. We share stories of the crazy people we used to know and all of the ridiculous things we got away with. My mom smiles and is forgiving of us all. What else can she do?

We’ve shared many meals on that porch. Big Jim’s famous goulash, Heidi’s grilled chicken salad, my pasta. My mom was never crazy about cooking, so often it is sandwiches and salad and lots of fresh fruit. But it isn’t the food that makes these meals among the best ever. It is the company. And it isn’t just the people. We share that tree-top porch with birds and raccoons and squirrels.

In the fall that porch is nestled into brilliant colors that can dazzle you and take your breath away. When the leaves have fallen you can see the lake with occasional ripples from surfacing bass, or trout, or bream. In the winter there is often snow and ice glazed branches and sun on that sparkling lake. In the summer the light on that porch is just… so… green. My folks often refer to their home as a tree house. And it is.

When we are on that porch we speak the truth in unguarded words. There is such honesty and love there that it hurts my heart and stings my eyes to think about it. We talk politics and religion and news and all of the topics you don’t touch in polite company. We are brash – we tease and make fun and share everything that is in our hearts and on our minds. On that porch there is no pretense, few filters between us and what we really mean to say.

Perhaps the most important part of being on that porch is the loving companionable silence between the words, the time we spend together gazing out at that natural beauty, as we share that time, that space, that air…

When my mom and I said good bye to that old porch for that last time, just before she got on the plane with my brother Dan that took her from her beautiful tree house in North Carolina to New Mexico and her last few weeks - we held each other. There was nothing we could say. We looked out through the trees and felt the beauty and magic of that place.

But she was strong. Much stronger than me.

There will always be special places in our lives, right? Places where we spend precious time with people we love. But that porch, in those mountains, will remain with me forever.

Grieving

2012-01-18T19:10:00.000-08:00

Heidi found this little pink slip of paper taped to my mom's window just in front of her sink when we went to her house the other day. On it were words I'm sure she used for comfort when her beloved husband died last summer. Now that she is gone, I find comfort in knowing just how natural it is to grieve.

I miss my mom.

Grieving is as natural as
crying when you are hurt,
sleeping when you are tired,
eating when you are hungry,
or sneezing when your nose itches.
It's nature's way of healing a

broken heart.

Perspective

2012-01-09T17:15:00.000-08:00

Father

It's not time to make a change,

Just relax, take it easy.

You're still young, that's your fault,

There's so much you have to know.

Find a girl, settle down,

If you want you can marry.

Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy,

To be calm when you've found something going on.

But take your time, think a lot,

Why, think of everything you've got.

For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.

Son

How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again.

It's always been the same, same old story.

From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen.

Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.

I know I have to go.

Father

It's not time to make a change,

Just sit down, take it slowly.

You're still young, that's your fault,

There's so much you have to go through.

Find a girl, settle down,

If you want you can marry.

Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

(Son-- Away Away Away, I know I have to

Make this decision alone - no)

Son

All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside,

It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it.

If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them they know not me.

Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.

I know I have to go.

(Father-- Stay Stay Stay, Why must you go and

Make this decision alone?)

This Cat Stevens (now Jusef Islam) song was my absolute favorite as a kid. When I was 12 or 13 this was my anthem. From an album given to me by my rebellious, anti-Vietnam War sister Ruthie. I WAS the son in this song. My parents would never understand my heart. We were simply worlds apart. We would always be. To say that I was a contrary kid would be an understatement. If something was black to my parents, it was white to me. If they were Republican, I was a Democrat (even though I didn’t have much of a clue as to what that meant). They wanted me in Catholic school – I knew it wasn’t right. Short hair? Long hair! Straight legs? Bell Bottoms!

Was it biological? Do kids, as a way of transitioning away from their parents, naturally push back to prove their independence; to make the inevitable break from home easier?

When I got my first guitar, a three-quarter sized Toyota for 60 bucks from a pawnshop, “Father and Son” was one of the first songs I learned. And I sang it loud. With a purpose. I was the Son. How can I try to explain? When I do he turns away again.

While my parents took care of every one of my basic needs, there were long stretches of time when our conversations did not go very deep, when we were passing ships, when we tolerated each other but did not really connect. If they were right, I’d agree, but it’s them they know not ME. Now there’s a way, and I know that I have to go away.

When it came time for me to leave to go to college I was ready to go. It was time. And I carried that song with me. Some of my friends knew it and we sang it together. We were the sons. Our parents couldn’t understand us. We were on our own and glad that we no longer had our folks hovering over us. And I know that I have to go away. I know - I have to go.

After college, when Heidi and I were a couple of DINKs (Double Income – No Kids), I still played that song but I was ambivalent. While I was still a son, I wasn’t the Son. My folks and I came to love and appreciate each other. I still played that old song, but I did not feel that huge divide.

Years later, when I had kids of my own and I played them lullabies and my old folksongs, “Father and Son” was still in the mix. By then, it was just a great song from the old days and brought back the memories of my foolish anger and pride. I was a father but I wasn’t the Father. Not yet.

Now that our boys have grown to young men I have this peculiar knowing that I am on the other side now. At 54, having now lost both my parents, I find myself looking into the eyes of our kids and wondering where did that time go? And how did this happen? Because our guys are just about ready to both be gone for college, and while I know they’ll come back – it won’t be the same. They will be the ones happy to be on their own, independent, wanting to move forward into their future and not thinking much about looking back. While we have provided everything they needed through good times and hard times, they’re on their way. And I am the one who doesn’t understand - my Sons.

It's not time to make a change,

Just sit down, take it slowly.

You're still young, that's your fault,

There's so much you have to go through.

Find a girl, settle down,

If you want you can marry.

Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

I know that I have said it before, I LOVE these two handsome men. But I will always miss those two cute little boys who played naked in the surf and woke up with messy hair and crawled into bed with us when they needed to. I miss those guys who cared about what we thought, who sought advice and asked for help, who I bathed and read to and sang silly songs with.

But it is THE WAY. I know that now more than ever. They will have these feelings too one day. And while “Father and Son” is not their anthem. I recognize the Son’s feelings in them. And I also know that some day they will probably connect to the Father.

Stay Stay Stay, Why must you go and make this decision alone?

Lessons From My Mother

2011-12-21T19:32:00.000-08:00

My mom died yesterday, December 20, 2011. Ruthie and I were there holding her hands, telling her that we loved her. Telling her that she was the best possible mom.

She died the way I wish I could go when my time comes. Fearlessly. Painlessly. In love with the people around her. She had straightened out as many of life’s complex affairs as she possibly could, giving away a great many of her possessions, making sure she had a living will, making sure her beloved house in the mountains was closed up and safe.

She said no to any additional tests, chemotherapy or transfusions, knowing that they would do nothing but prolong a very uncomfortable life. She took nothing for pain besides Tylenol until the day before she died.

The very last words I heard her say were, “I love you,” before she could talk no more. She was more concerned for those around her than for her own personal comfort. She was modest until the very end, declining my help in getting her into the bathroom when she could barely walk.

“Don’t cry,” she told me recently. “You can’t be sad.” But she herself did cry sometimes. She worried about all that she would miss; graduations, family relationships, the happiness and accomplishments of others, seeing her grandkids grow up. Several times in the last month, when it was clear that she didn’t have much time left, on the rare occasion when she allowed herself to be sad, she said, “I just want to know how it all turns out.”

But it never really turns out, does it? Life is just so complicated; families and friends just keep spinning out and out. Life is a process, a journey. It builds in complexity until the end.

You could never say good-bye to everyone you want to, make sure that all life’s accounts are closed, every possession is passed on. But she came close. She worked at it.

And until right before she left us, she laughed and reminisced, loved and received love. I am a better man for having known this remarkable woman. All of us who knew her are better off. As I write this, hovering over my writer’s notebook, somewhere between Albuquerque, New Mexico and my South Carolina home, many of my mom’s lessons are coming to me.

Here is a list of some simple truths and bits of wisdom that she passed on through her words and actions. There is no order here. I am too sad for order. But my sadness is softened by the knowledge that she left this world a better place.

My mom, ever the teacher, did more than teach me how to live a good life. Through her grace and humility, her courage and her openness, she even taught me how to die.

I could write for the rest of my life and never capture her essence, and if I have any good qualities, I learned them from her. While this is the saddest time I have known, I am grateful to have had this strong, simply good woman in my life for 54 years.

Lessons From My Mother

· Be thrifty. Our blessings can be more efficiently shared if we are careful with our resources

· Be generous

· Find your causes and follow through with them

· Give a lot – not just money but time and energy

· Find new friends wherever you are

· Remember to stay in touch with old friends

· Love nature. Spend time in the woods and near water

· Leave a small carbon footprint

· Recycle everything you can

· Walk a lot

· Write real letters with pen and paper

· Don’t collect too much stuff

· Find reasons to laugh

· Love a lot of people

· Keep up with current events

· Have an informed opinion about social issues and politics

· Be active politically

· Be honest and sincere

· Forgive easily

· Work to make the changes you want to see in this world

· Stand up for those whose voice has been silenced

· Keep your hands busy doing things for others

· Don’t waste time on sadness, but cry when you need to

· Read constantly

· Don’t give a book you haven’t read

· Don’t hold on to a book if you have read it

· Discuss books that move you

· Appreciate music and all of the arts

· Be creative

· Never stop learning or teaching

· Understand that a person’s worth is directly related to their willingness to serve others

· Tidy up after yourself – don’t leave a mess for others to clean up

· Say “I love you” often and mean it

· When something bad happens move on to the next chapter

· Listen carefully when someone is speaking to you

· Appreciate life’s simple pleasures

· Enjoy spending time with children

· Be modest and self-deprecating

· Have a strong work ethic

· Wake up early – some of the best conversations happen before sunrise

Peace

2011-12-20T06:40:00.000-08:00

peace.

it does not mean to be in a place

where there is no noise, trouble

or hard work. it means to be in

the midst of those things and still

be calm in your heart

These Hands

2011-12-17T12:04:00.000-08:00

These hands are quilting even now

The last she’ll ever sew

A gift for someone very dear

A love he’ll always know

These hands have brought great comfort

To a beloved husband at his death

These hands held seven babies

As they took their first breaths

These hands held the first books

Many children learned to read

And crafted letters late at night

Just what we would need

These hands were raised in anger

At injustice in our days

Pressed gently on piano keys

In the evening as she played

These hands gave me great comfort

And strength when I was weak

They lifted me when I was down

As she kissed me on the cheek

These hands could be so gentle

These hands could be so strong

These hands have taught me lessons

I’ll keep my whole life long

And if my hands are worthy

And if my hands do right

It’s because my hands have been in hers

And I’ll try with all my might

To do with them the right things

That I could make her proud

To pull these old guitar strings

And raise my voice out loud

To let my hands be gentle

To let my hands be strong

To help raise others to their feet

To help right what is wrong

And if my hands could only

Go where she would reach

Then when my time to go is here

Then I could go in peace

To leave this world a better place

Is how she used her hands

And if I could only follow her

I’d be a better man

Chopping Wood

2011-12-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

"Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water." Ancient Chinese Proverb

I love to chop wood. There is something spiritual about it. Chopping wood is real and useful, demanding yet simple. There is sweat involved, always a good thing. It is clean, honest sweat. Even when it is cold outside and you start out bundled up, after a while the layers come off and the perspiration cools you the way it is meant to.

After some recent surgery, as a way of deciding when I am finally healed enough to resume “normal” activities, I asked the surgeon, “When can I chop wood?” His response indicates how authentic and purposeful wood chopping is.

“You can chop wood as soon as you feel up to it. If it becomes painful, then stop.” A simple almost Zenlike response. I can simply gauge the path to renewed health by my ability to swing an ax. I like it.

When you are chopping wood, you are outside – usually in a forest. There are very few human influences. It is a solitary occupation for the most part. When one is chopping wood there are no cell phones involved, no computers, facebook, email, TV, radio, no electronics whatsoever. There is only the natural world and one of man’s first tools. An ax (or axe if you prefer). A wedge fastened to a stick. There is something so primitive about it, something so primal. There are very few pastimes so close to the earth, so basic.

I love the smell of chopping wood. Each species of tree has a different smell. We have lots of old oaks on our property so that is our main wood. But I am not above splitting pine for our firepit. My neighbor gave us an old dogwood tree that is covered in sapsucker holes. Sweetgum is very plentiful but it is hard to split as the grain is gnarly and swirly and unpredictable. But if the logs are short enough, and it is dry enough, it’ll split alright. And it burns just fine. It just takes a little more effort. When I start out chopping, I smell the first pieces, raw and fresh. It is like nothing else.

There is little else so satisfying. You begin with large round logs and end up with something that is tremendously useful. It is your muscles working in harmony with your tool and God’s gift from the ground that yields a stack of cut wood. It is such an obvious enterprise. The harder you work, the more energy you put into it, the faster and more effective the process. There are few more gratifying sights than a pile of freshly split wood.

When I was a kid we always had a fireplace. A real one with a grate and a screen and fire stirring tools. Most places I have lived as an adult I was fortunate enough to have a fireplace. As long as I remember we had bonfires on the shores of Lake Michigan with hastily collected driftwood. Campfire songs and laughter. I courted my first girlfriend by beachfires and snuggle at night with Heidi by a fire.

The warmth provided by a wood fire is sublime. Heat from a register from the floor is, of course, necessary in most places. But heat from a fire is pure. You get close, you get warm. Too warm? Back away. And the light cast into the room, or the forest or the beach is something special and alive and different from moment to moment.

We have a fire pit down at the bottom of our hill. Around that special place we have had parties, shared wooden music and songs, cautioned little ones and roasted marshmallows. We listened to night sounds of animals and sat in companionable silence. All the while we gazed into fire as people have done for all time from the heart of Africa, to the plains of America, from icy Norway to the southern tip of Argentina. Fire is universal.

Chopping and splitting wood is one of the oldest activities of humans. And not much has changed. Muscle, simple machine, tree, motivation. As long as humans have been around - and been truly human – there have been evenings gazing into fires. The simple act of squatting down and losing focus, frontside warm, backside cool, listening to the wood sighing and popping and cracking, smelling smoke, avoiding swirling sparks – is an act performed essentially unchanged from the beginning of time. There is something comforting in knowing that this same pastime has been enjoyed by billions before me and will be appreciated until the very end of time.

The fire is the main comfort of the camp, whether in summer or winter, and is about as ample at one season as at another. It is as well for cheerfulness as for warmth and dryness. ~Henry David Thoreau

Newt Gingrich's Plan To Help the Poor - Seriously

2011-12-09T15:42:00.001-08:00

OK, no one can say that this was taken out of context. Mr. Gingrich has doubled down on this a few times when he thought he was among friends. There is nothing that I can say that would clarify or extend, synthesize or poke fun of this. Mr. Gingrich is his own worst enemy. Every other thing he says is just plain nuts. What do you think?

Letters From Children

2011-12-05T15:23:00.000-08:00

Occasionally I will write a blog post and think that my students' parents might be interested in reading it, especially if it has to do directly with school. This is the reverse of that. I wrote this newsletter and thought a few of you might be interested as well.

Part of the rhythm of teaching where I teach is having interns and student teachers. So far I have worked with 32 young teachers. My students always have an intern in the fall and a full time student teacher in the spring. At The Center for Inquiry we are all teachers and learners and having preservice experiences in our classrooms is part of that model.

My students write letters of advice at the end of each semester. And they should. Their point of view about what is important in classrooms is possibly the clearest one. What they have to say is sincere and fairly unclouded by the lens of propriety that most grownups wear. I always write a letter too, but my insights are rarely any more caring or accurate as those of my students.

Here is last week's news to parents...

The World Is Our Classroom

12/2/11

Dear Parents,

This morning was one of those magic times in the classrooms where, for

about 15 minutes, it didn’t matter if I was there at all. We wrote our farewell

letters to Trina. Today was technically her final day with us, but her

mother-in-law died recently and she and her family are in Mississippi right

now. I am sure that she’ll be back by next Tuesday, when the MATs meet here

for their final USC class with Heidi. So Tuesday will be her gift shower. Many

children have already brought gifts and they are waiting for her in the corner

of our reading area.

Today we wrote our letters. We spoke together about what would be

appropriate topics. Certainly appreciations are in order. Trina subbed for me

a day when she did not have to. She has been here to take the kids to

lunch for our curriculum conversations, here to greet the kids with a smile

and a hug every day she has been in the classroom, here to plan activities to

participate in conversations, to teach math and to contribute to news and

journals. She has been our teacher as well as our friend and she will be

missed.

The kids are also in a position to offer wonderful advice for a new

teacher. They have insight about the teaching and learning process that Trina

won’t get in her university methods classes. Of course there will be those kids

who say to have recess all day, but there are also the serious ideas about

making time for reading books aloud, for writing and publishing for workshop

and for having plenty of hands on science demonstrations.

There was also the suggestion that we write our condolences for the

death of her husband’s mom. Garrett said that he thought it might make her

sad if she was reminded of this family tragedy. But the consensus was that it

makes us feel better to know that someone else is thinking about us in our

own sadness, that they are holding us in their hearts when we need comfort.

And so we wrote. With quiet music in the background, the kids thought and wrote

and asked each other how to spell. They used their new best cursive

handwriting (OK, I had to insist for some) and paragraphs. They filled pages

with their ideas and good wishes and sympathies. You can read books so

well… I would not take anything to trade for you… I’m very sorry your mother-

in-law died. I feel that pain… I appreciate the wonderful things that you did for

me like giving me an awesome little notebook… It is like you are locked up in my

heart and you are the only one in that special place… I will miss your nice hugs.

I will miss your warm welcomes… When you are a teacher be kind to your kids…

When you come in you look goooood!... Thank you for helping us develop as

readers and writers… Make up games that require throwing balls at each

other… I really appreciate when you helped me edit my piece about William… I

think you are smart, joyful, sweet and kind to others… I would be a little funny

and teach where the kids will understand. I’m saying you don’t teach like that,

I’m just saying it’s some advice… It was fun to look at writer’s notebooks with

different eyes… Never let the class get too wild… You gave us writer’s notebooks

and inspired us to take them wherever we go… Love and care for your new

class… Next year I hope you get a teaching job because you are a good teacher…

I bet you will be an amazing teacher and you will teach the kids such wonderful

things… You always smell good. That is probably why your skin is as soft as a

blanket… I know you are not gonna be mean like those other teachers… Don’t

be mean to kids because they might kick you out… Don’t let my brother be

crazy… I am sorry about your mother-in-law. We are hoping that you are OK…

I hope the cloud of sadness will go away soon… You are in the choir in church.

You should sing with your kids… I always appreciate your read alouds…

I will always love you…

There is something so sweet about how young children look at the

world. They are so much less inhibited than us adults, so unguarded and

honest. I think when I grow up I want to be like a little kid.

I ran across this poem the other day. I think it says a lot about how

great it is to have little ones in our lives. Thanks for all that you do. Have a

great weekend. Tim

WHOSE CHILD IS THIS?

Author Unknown

"Whose child is this?" I asked one day

Seeing a little one out at play

"Mine", said the parent with a tender smile

"Mine to keep a little while

To bathe his hands and comb his hair

To tell him what he is to wear

To prepare him that he may always be good

And each day do the things he should"

"Whose child is this?" I asked again

As the door opened and someone came in

"Mine", said the teacher with the same tender smile

"Mine, to keep just for a little while

To teach him how to be gentle and kind

To train and direct his dear little mind

To help him live by every rule

And get the best he can from school"

"Whose child is this?" I ask once more

Just as the little one entered the door

"Ours" said the parent and the teacher as they smiled

And each took the hand of the little child

"Ours to love and train together

Ours this blessed task forever."

Crying, Part 2

2011-12-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

I am not saying that I am the best teacher. I do work with some teachers who take my breath away. And I'm not saying that I have the best management skills in the world. There are teachers I know who are far better than me at classroom discipline. But one thing I do well is love my students. Even when there are issues, even when I have to be hard and think of consequences, my kids know there is caring there

Sister Rachael Marie is there with me in my second and third grade classrooms for she taught me how NOT to teach. So I am thankful for her. Here is part two of a memoir I wrote in my own classroom probably 40 years after having Sister Rachael Marie as my second grade teacher.

Crying - Part 2

“What did you put in your hair?” Each of her words made me cower lower in my seat. He didn’t speak. “Answer me!” she yelled.

“Bacon grease, Sister,” James choked out. “I’m sorry.”

“What on earth were you thinking? To the office!” By this time she had jerked him out of his seat by the ear. James winced in pain as he rose to his feet. But he did not cry. That boy had a high threshold of pain. I would have been blubbering like a baby and begging for forgiveness, for release. He simply wouldn’t or couldn’t cry. Then she pulled his hair.

“How dare you do that to yourself? That’s filthy! It’s disgusting! What will your father say?” If his parents were anything like mine, they would have probably laughed about it and called him a goofball. It really wasn’t that big of a deal. Somehow I think she felt like she owed him, like he had gotten away with too much lately. Why else would she have pulled his hair like that?

“I… don’t… know…Sister…” The words came out with little spaces between them, little puffs. Spaces that I knew were filled with pain. I could see his scalp rise at the front of his hairline. His clip on bowtie was askew. His eyes were squeezed shut. He was waiting for her to let go. We all knew that she wouldn’t until she got what she was looking for.

“What will your father say?” she repeated. Now she shifted her grip from the front of his hair to his sideburns. Of course we were too young for real sideburns but Sister knew what to do. She grabbed that little piece of hair just in front and above his ear. This was the foolproof way to make someone cry. She knew it and James knew it too. She grabbed that little piece of hair and pulled it hard.

James shut his eyes even tighter. He wasn’t trying to be brave; it was just not in his nature to cry. We all knew she wouldn’t stop pulling until he did. It was her currency.

I said a little prayer for James. I prayed that he would cry. I prayed that Sister would let him go. Perhaps I should have prayed for Sister to have a kinder heart, for her to have mercy on this little boy. James, who was so cool. James, who was my friend.

After what seemed like a very long time a tear welled up in the corner of one of his eyes. He never squealed or moaned. But he did begin to cry. All of us who could see that tear hoped that it would signal the end of Sister Rachael Marie’s discipline. That tear grew slowly until it slipped down his cheek and onto his handwriting paper. A big round wet spot that blurred the pink and blue lines.

When she saw this she simply let him go. James’ face was blotchy. He sat back down. Respectfully. Now there were tears in both of his eyes. His nose was runny and he wiped it with the back of his sleeve.

Perhaps she had forgotten her demand that he go down to the principal’s office. Or maybe she figured that her discipline had worked. After all, she had brought James to tears, something I’d never thought possible.

“Well, now,” Sister sighed. “Where were we? Oh yes, the letter Q. You may think that it looks like the number 2 but there is a difference…”

At some point in our lives we stop crying for pain. I’m sure it’s different for everyone but as adults we reserve our tears for the death of loved ones or bitter arguments or particularly sad movies or books. At some time we forget about crying for pain. We may cry out in pain when we hit our thumb with a hammer or close a finger in the door but, for most of us, physical pain does not bring on tears as it did in our youth. But, in second grade most children cry tears of pain. Everyone I knew did. Everyone but James.

Did Sister know this? Is that why she was so hard on him? Was she conducting a subconscious experiment on human nature or was she just curious to find his threshold?

We learned lots from Sister Rachael Marie. We learned beautiful cursive writing. We learned our addition and subtraction facts forwards and backwards. We learned to sit up straight and to keep our desks in order. We learned to line up our desks in straight rows. We learned to, “straighten up and fly right”.

We learned to look into the face of Sister when she was talking to us and not to whisper to our neighbors. We learned respect for authority.

That year my dad taught me how to tie a real necktie. The girls learned how to clip their beanies to their heads with bobby pins.

In second grade I made my first confession and took First Holy Communion. I had my first real crush on a girl. It was real to me.

That year I learned how to build a model car from my brother Pat. I learned how to bunt a baseball from my neighbor Rick and to play kick the can with my neighborhood boys. I learned how to catch lightening bugs without squashing them and how to catch a garter snake without being bitten. I learned how to catch tadpoles from the swamp and to change their water so I could watch them change into froglets.

I learned to cry that year too. Of course I had cried countless times before (I had two older brothers and three older sisters who honed their teasing skills on me).

On my way home from school the day that James cried, I cried too. I didn’t ride the bus home as I usually did. I didn’t want to be around my friends. I remember sitting down in a weedy empty lot, setting my books down next to me and sobbing for James. I cried until my head ached and my nose ran. I cried until I coughed. Then I pulled myself together, gathered my things and walked home.

When I saw James in school the next day he didn’t even mention the incident. I never saw him cry again.

Crying, Part 1

2011-11-28T19:15:00.000-08:00

I am reposting a story from a few years ago. I didn't have any comments on it at the time (and may not now), but perhaps there are a few of you who might see it for the first time.

I sent my mom a copy of this story years ago when it was new. She dutifully filed it in a big envelope marked MEMENTOS. A few of these envelopes fell into my charge and I reread this little story. It is rather long so I'll post it in two sections.

Crying - part 1

I learned a lot in second grade. I learned how to ride a bike. A two-wheeler. It was a hand-me-down. It went to my big brother John first, then to Pat. Finally to me. I painted it so it sort of looked like new.
I learned how to sing. I was in the second grade choir for a couple of months.
I learned how to shoot a basketball into a ten-foot goal. The real deal.
I also learned how to play the clarinet. At least I was beginning to learn. My mom told me that all the girls went for clarinet players. At the time I thought girls were yucky so that didn’t have much bearing on my ambitions as a musician.
I learned a lot about human nature that year. I was quiet in second grade. I was a good student. I was afraid not to be.
My brothers and I went to Saints Peter and Paul Elementary School. It was a big Catholic school in Merrillville, Indiana, just outside of Gary. We may have had a Gary mailing address back then. I was born in 1957, so I was in the second grade in 1964 and 1965. It was a strange time in our history. JFK was assassinated the year before. The US was becoming involved in Vietnam. The Beatles were just beginning to be huge.
Sister Rachael Marie was my second grade teacher. She was not a big woman but she was a terror to me. There were some tough kids in that school but everyone was afraid of her. Beginning in second grade, I was one of those children.
Sister Rachael Marie pulled hair for talking out of turn and slapped faces when boys forgot their ties or the girls forgot their beanies. Sister Rachael Marie tipped over desks if they were too messy to suit her. She would accompany the tipping with shouting and in-your-face intensity. One could miss a lot of recess time for having a messy desk.
Sister Rachael Marie knew how to make kids cry. It was kind of her specialty. It was harder to make some kids cry than others. Me? I cried when she just gave me the evil eye for forgetting an assignment. I was easy. I was rarely hit, rarely had my hair pulled and I learned quickly to keep my desk clean. I cried quickly as a way of defending myself. Sister seemed to go easier on you if you could bring on the water works.
My friend James was a boy who would not cry easily. I had seen him slide into second base on the asphalt playground, ripping his trousers and skinning his knee, thigh and hip. I mean I could actually see him bleeding through his tattered pants. I would have been bawling at the sight of my own blood let alone the pain. Not James. He was tough. He was also safe at the base.
James was cool too. He had shoes that you could slip on with no laces. His hair was considerably longer than the rest of the boys. He had a brother in the public school junior high who was into the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. James’ brother was kicked out of Peter and Paul, I never knew the reason. That’s why he went to Merrillville Jr. High.
James usually had his hair slicked back. This bothered Sister Rachael Marie. She ridiculed him about his hair. She questioned how his family could even send him to a Catholic school looking like that. She tried to embarrass him by saying that he looked like a girl. James didn’t care what she thought. That must have been what really bothered her about him. I thought James was cool. I wanted to be like him. We played together at school and once he even came over to my house. Nowadays we would call that a play date.
His brother wore Brylcream in his hair. Brylcream is the equivalent to today’s styling gel. Sister called it grease and thought it was disgraceful. Sister despised him and often picked on him. He didn’t care.
James was likable. We all sort of looked up to him. He was a nice kid. He was tough. He was my neighbor in school, that is, we sat next to each other.
There was this time when Sister was walking up and down the aisles while we were busy doing seatwork. She had the most beautiful cursive handwriting I had ever seen. She even offered to give my father handwriting lessons after he sent in a written excuse for my having missed school once.
On that day, Sister Rachael Marie stopped by my desk. She sniffed. “What on earth is that smell?” she demanded. She glanced at me accusingly. I shrugged my innocence, getting ready to cry if she interrogated me any further. Body language was the best strategy with Sister. Words often got you into trouble.
She looked to her right. James looked up shrugging innocently. She bent over him and sniffed again. She turned to me. I shuddered. Then she snapped back to James. “It’s you!” she shrieked, grabbing James by the neck. He dropped the fat black pencil he was holding onto the floor. That pencil, with its chewed end just rolled down the aisle.
“What did you put in your hair?” Each of her words made me cower lower in my seat. He didn’t speak. “Answer me!” she yelled.
“Bacon grease, Sister,” James choked out. “I’m sorry.”
“What on earth were you thinking? To the office!” By this time she had jerked him out of his seat by the ear. James winced in pain as he rose to his feet. But he did not cry. That boy had a high threshold of pain. I would have been blubbering like a baby and begging for forgiveness, for release. He simply wouldn’t or couldn’t cry. Then she pulled his hair...

The Day The Leaves Fell

2011-11-20T14:13:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday I had some surgery. Nothing too major, but enough so that I would be out of school for a spell. My students know more than some of them want to know about inguinal hernias I’m afraid. But you know – we must seize any opportunity to teach. It is what makes one year different from the next, right?

So that Wednesday morning when I was fasting and awaiting my noon admittance, I arose quite early. My biological clock is set for 5 AM during the school year and I rarely sleep into the alarm. I had some time to kill since Heidi was taking me to the health center, and she was very busy preparing for a big conference this weekend, I struck out on my own. I did not even take the dog.

It was an overcast day. The light was diffused, the perfect kind of day for taking pictures. The fall colors were just at their peak. It was balmy, gusty, beautiful. Most of the other adults in the neighborhood were at work. Since it was the week before Thanksgiving, no one was playing hooky except us pre-op people and the few retirees in our hood.

I took the camera and just set out to see what I could see. Now Heidi and I walk through the road in our neighborhood almost every day. But because I was all by myself, I walked through woods, cut across corners, tromped through the meadow, I trespassed. The world was just so beautiful that day. It was actually one of the most beautiful days I remember in a long time. It’s easy to find summer days pretty. There is a certain amount of laziness that goes along with the warm weather and the sunrises and sunsets are so full of southern summer haze that they are irresistible. The occasional snow in winter is worthy of many photo opportunities as well. It’s just so different. Spring flowers, with all the pollen, are also breathtaking. There is not much prettier than dogwood flowers – at least in my opinion.

But this fall day was so incredible because it was the day that the leaves fell. And I was there to watch and be a part of it. And I was alone with the world in a way that I hadn’t been in a long while. It was just what the doctor ordered.

I played this game when I was a kid. I just called it leaf. It was a game of solitaire. Every fall I tried to catch at least 10 leaves legitimately falling from trees. It wasn’t fair to shake the tree or toss leaves up in the air and catch them again. I set myself a goal of catching 10 leaves as they naturally fell to the ground. It is a way of guaranteeing that you are in a place where you will be a little uninhibited, somewhat unguarded. It is a means of assuring that you will be outdoors when leaves are falling. Not working. Not playing or conversing with others. This is a game between nature and me. And I always win - even when I lose.

It’s not that hard; you just have to be in the right place at the right time. Of course it looks goofy if you’re an adult standing around under trees, looking up at the sky, waiting for a breeze to stir the leaves. And catching them can be kind of tricky because if you take your eyes off them as they sail by, you miss them. And depending on the kind of leaf, they can be unpredictable. Some of the almond shaped ones spin sideways as they fall making them torpedo forward. Now the larger oak leaves are easier to predict, but they often stay aloft for a while making it easy to trip and fall as you gaze up and follow them anticipating their decent. I admit that I fell twice on Wednesday morning but it was in some tallish meadow grass. No harm done.

I had already caught six or eight leaves on different days so far this fall. A couple in NC where my mom lives. A few down here on walks with Heidi. A couple at school when we were eating our lunch outside on clear warm fall days. But this day? The day the leaves fell? I caught 10 more. Just because I could.

And while I didn’t pay bills or write curriculum, while I didn’t have a personal or professional conversation, while I was playing hooky from the classroom, a little stressed about the anesthesia and recovery to come, I took a long walk in our woods and through our neighborhood catching leaves. The leaves were easy that day. They showered down in great brilliant miniature storms. There were swirling iridescent tornadoes of leaves on that walk and no one was there to see them but me. It made me wonder at all of the times just like this that I miss. There are a million "important" things to do. I always feel a little behind. But on the day the leaves fell, nothing was more important than being outside in that meadow, in those woods and under those trees.

I didn’t do anything with the leaves after catching them. I just looked closely and wondered at the beauty of our creation. Then I let them drop from my hand.

Of all the leaves in this big old world

there are none exactly like the ones I caught

on their way to the ground

spinning, spiraling, swirling

so softly – with no sound

and no peace quite so right

as on that day I found

The Poor Letter X

2011-11-18T14:23:00.000-08:00

I feel a little sorry for the letter X. Of course it’s as well known as its more popular brothers and sisters, but poor old X just doesn’t have much of a home.

I was flipping through my mom’s dictionary the other day. She’s into this word game with her friend Joanne. It’s called Quiddler. It’s sort of like Scrabble, but you play with cards. Anyway, you declare words and lay down cards when you have them and your opponent can check your words to see if they indeed exist.

My mom said there is a word xi. Now my mom has taught me the art of speaking with authority as a way to convince someone of your accuracy (even when you could be bluffing). Because I am on to her game, I had to look up the word to be sure myself. Sure enough, xi is a real word. According to Webster’s, not only is xi the 14^th letter of the Greek alphabet (I should have known that I suppose but I was never in a fraternity), it is also an unstable element of the baryon family existing in negative and neutral charged states, with masses respectively 2585 and 2572 times the mass of an electron.

And that’s the thing about X, most of the words are so obscure that no one ever uses them. Oh sure, you’ve got x-ray and its derivatives (x-ray astronomy, x-ray diffraction, etc.) which account for 9 of the X words. And you’ve got your xylophone, the percussion instrument made of different sized wooden bars. It’s a very pretty sounding instrument, we had one when we were kids. But all of the rest of the X words are almost never really used in conversation – unless you’re some kind of scientist I suppose. But without x-ray and xylophone, what would we even be able to put on the picture alphabet cards in our early childhood classrooms? And when you read the definition of many of the X words, you have to look up even more words in those definitions to understand them. That's not really fair.

When was the last time you used xanthic in casual speech? It has a red squiggly line under it for goodness sakes. Doesn’t my Mac realize that xanthic means of, relating to, or tending toward a yellow color? Or how about xanthrochroi? (Another squiggly red line, by the way.) It’s a noun meaning white persons having light hair and fair skin. Could you possibly see xanthrochroi on an alphabet card in a Kindergarten classroom? Believe me, that is one of the only likely contenders for the ABC cards compared to the rest of the X’s.

I am not sure that X should even have regular letter status. It’s more like a letter-territory than a letter-state. Or maybe a letter-district, as in the District of Columbia. It is certainly there holding down the 24^th spot in the alphabet, but is it really a letter? I mean even Rhode Island has people in it. When I counted, X only started 84 different words and some of them are sort of cheating words like Xe (for the element Xenon – that’s an abbreviation, right?) and xing – marked with the letter X. Those are not even really definitions. And X-mas (probably the third most commonly used “word” for X) is only a lazy person’s (or non-Christian’s) way of writing Christmas. And Xerox is really a proper noun like Kleenex or Tampax (hey, 2 more words with x’s), but it had to make it into the dictionary because there just are so few X’s. They have to put something on those one-and-one-quarter pages.

So here’s a little quiz for you. I’ll give you 5 words with definitions. See how many you can match up.

(A) – xeric (B) – xiphosuran (C) – xylan

(D) - xylophagous (E) – xylotomous

1. 1) 1) feeding on or in wood

2. 2) 2) a yellow gummy pentosan, abundantly present in plant cell walls

3. 3) 3) any of an order of arthropods, comprising the horseshoe crabs and extinct related forms

4. 4) 4) requiring only a small amount of moisture

5. 5) 5) capable of boring or cutting wood.

I guess we’re so used to having those precious 26 that it would seem silly to demote poor old X just because it really doesn’t have many members. Thank goodness for xylophone and x-ray. But just think how cool it would be to have 25 REAL letters in the alphabet. 25 is a perfect square (5 x 5). It’s a quarter of a hundred. Everyone can remember 25. It’d be like having the 50 states. I’m just saying.

(A) = 4 (B) = 3 (C) = 2 (D) = 1 (E) = 5

Trust

2011-11-06T18:35:00.000-08:00

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable of joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. – Hiam Ginott –

I was walking around in our computer lab at school while my third grade students were taking a standardized test on the computers. It was a really hard test. Math. If the kids did well on a few problems, it took them to a higher level - sets of problems that were way over their heads. I think there was around 50 problems altogether. It is the kind of situation that is frustrating at best and could easily make you crazy.

The concentration among the children was amazing. Breathtaking really, considering what we were asking them to do. What I was asking them to do. While there were a few audible sighs, a lot of stretching and looking around to relieve eye stress, no one whined. No one complained. No one fussed or questioned why they had to go through this.

I wrote about this before, and I continue to be humbled by the trust kids have in teachers.

Day after day we give them exercises and projects. We teach them algorithms and facts. We ask them to read the stories that we choose and to write how we want them to write. They go by our schedule, use the restroom and go to lunch and recess when we say. We ask them to be quiet at certain times, and then insist they share what they are thinking with the group.

When I reflect on it my plans, no matter how open-ended and full of choice – are still THE plans for the day. “Boys and girls, it’s time to clean up… Let’s get our Charlotte’s Web books out and meet up front… Don’t forget to write down your homework… You guys, I need your attention…”

That must be the rhythm. Someone must be in charge. But there is a level of trust from kids that is so complete. It’s true for parents too. No one gets to choose me as his or her child’s teacher. They take who they get. I was lucky in that our sons were in the classrooms of our best friends, teachers we knew to be professional, caring individuals. But my kids’ parents don’t know me from Adam when their child ends up in room 104.

So here we were in this somewhat ridiculous testing situation, with the kids working so hard, pushing a boulder up a hill as Sisyphus did, only to have it roll to the bottom again when they got challenging questions correct. When we reached the room afterwards it was just a normal day to them. “Can we read The Wizard of Oz? How much time before lunch? Can we publish some of our memoirs?” They were all just fine. I didn’t make a big deal of it, we just forged ahead and taught and learned and talked and shared as we always do.

It was another reminder of how much power teachers have in the day-to-day lives of kids. I try very hard to keep that trust in mind and never take it for granted.

Notes to the Teacher

2011-11-02T17:23:00.000-07:00

I am not out of school very often. I take a couple days off every few years to go to a conference. It is rejuvenating. I took a personal day last year when my brother Dan came into town on a Friday. But other than those, I don’t remember taking a day off school. For years.

I am not tooting my own horn. I have been blessed with good health. I have been able to schedule doctor visits after school and during vacations. I had a pretty serious health scare summer before last, but I didn’t have to miss any school.

For one thing, writing substitute plans is a pain. I don’t really teach from textbooks, so I can’t just say to turn the page in the teacher’s edition (you know, the book with all the answers) and do what comes next. It’s fairly hands on, the way we teach and learn at my school. There are lots of conversations and lots of exploration and sharing out. It is a challenge to get that kind of thing down in writing for a sub.

I get an occasional cold or sinus infection, but I cover the symptoms and tough it out. I’m not a tough guy; it’s just that it’s not all that easy on the class – and definitely not that easy on me.

But the other day I went to NC to see my mom who has not been feeling that great. It turned out that she had an important doctor’s appointment on Monday and I wanted to be there with her for it. So, I arranged for a substitute and discussed it with my intern, Trina. I called school around 10:30 from my mom’s and the secretary put me through to the room. I talked to the children on the speakerphone. It was fun and I felt good knowing that the kids were in good humor and in good hands.

When I got to school the next morning I was earlier than usual. I hadn’t slept great the night before and so I was in a bit of a haze. The room was tidy. The chairs were still up on the tables so the custodian could vacuum effectively. Even my own table, usually messy, was tidied up. It was good to be back.

There, right where I usually sit, was a pile of notes the children had written to me while I was gone. OK, it wasn’t on the lesson plans, but as I sat down to read, I could tell that it was time well spent…

I hope that your mother is feeling better! I really miss you today but you are probably helping your mother right now... I give you good wishes for your mother… It’s not the same in this classroom without you. I really hope that your mom feels better. It’s important to you so it’s important to me… I know what you must be feeling. I’ve felt that way before… I really miss you a lot. When you get back, let us know how your mom is doing, OK? I don’t think O-Ball [our homemade version of dodge ball/capture the flag] will be as fun as it is with you. I miss you so much that I think I want to cry… If your ma feels better then I know you will feel better… I missed you today and I want you to come back soon. Trick-or-Treat, smell my ____ What comes next?... We missed you today, a lot! I think it’s OK that you were out because your mother is sick. I don’t want to leave you at the end of this year. We love you sooooo much!... I missed you a lot. And I wish you were here. It is sad that you’re gone but you’ll be back tomorrow and I’ll see you again, but I miss you!... I miss you soooo much. I want you to come back. You’re a good son but I can’t handle one more day without you…

Almost every one of these little notes was signed with the most important word of all.

Love.

And, I think they meant it. I certainly love them. And they know it. No one was sucking up. They were sincere.

You know, not every day is an awesome day. There are afternoons after school when I am plum worn out. I get cross sometimes. And demanding. And sarcastic. I have my faults. We all do. But I always feel like a lucky guy to be doing just what I am doing. Who else gets to hang around and think deeply about real important stuff with a big old group of best friends?

I am blessed. And I am loved.

The Hat

2011-10-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

I wrote this little piece a couple of years ago when my third grade class was working on memoir.

It was gray when I woke up; misty, foggy, cool – no, cold. Not a great day for the beach. It was chilly and gusty. The kind of day that made my ears ache when I went swimming. Michigan City, Indiana. 1968. I was 11 years old.

In early summer the downtown area was home to a bazaar, a fancy name for giant sidewalk/garage sale. All of the shops had racks and shelves of bargains outside. People were invited to bring their used clothing and household items and set up tables to sell their wares.

My mom was a bargain hunter. With seven children she had to be. My brothers and sisters decided to stay home that day. I’m sure they had better things to do. I wanted to go with my mom.

This was the kind of day my brothers and sisters loved to swim. There was a cold northwest wind blowing and the waves on the beach would be enormous, way over my head. I loved these days as well. There was danger involved in swimming these waves. They towered over you, threatening to squash you into the sand if you didn’t catch them just right. If you went out too far, the undertow could snatch you up and pull you out.

This latter danger was for people who didn’t grow up on the beach. Almost every day that the wind whipped up from the northwest during swimming season someone along the beach would be swept away. Chicago, Gary, Miller Beach, Porter Beach, the Indiana Dunes State Park, Beverly Shores, Michigan City. We would read about it in the paper, occasionally see a helicopter flying by on these days. When we did we knew someone had probably died. We pretty much knew what we were doing. We never ventured out far. Still there was the danger.

As for being smashed into the sand if we didn’t get on top of the waves we were body surfing, that happened all the time and we routinely walked back into the house with bad scrapes and sand rashes from this hazard. Those wounds were all right. Those scabs would become badges of bravery.

I got ear aches on these days. I could have worn ear plugs but that would be a sissy thing to do. So I chose to go with my mom to the sidewalk sale. With six brothers and sisters, I didn’t get much time alone with her anyway so this would be my chance.

The bazaar was very busy. Vendors, crowds of people, the smell of sausages and popcorn, laughing, bargaining, little kids clinging to their mothers’ dresses, occasional babies crying. Teenagers, parents, old people.

My mom let me wander around by myself for a while. There was a huge clock tower so, even though I didn’t have a watch, I could see to meet her at noon. I only had a quarter with me so I was just looking. I’ve always been intrigued by crowds, always been a people watcher even as a kid.

There was a table of old used clothes in front of St. Anne’s church. They were musty and wrinkled and piled on the tables not folded neatly or hung on racks as the clothes were in front of the stores. The poorer people were drawn to this area because the prices were so low. There seemed to be something for everybody. They were practically giving the clothes away.

One old man was wandering between the rows of tables. I’m not sure why I was drawn to him especially. He was one of so many. But I watched him carefully for the next few minutes. His clothes were very worn. Gray pants frayed at the cuffs and pockets. They were pleated pants. My mom would have called them trousers. He wore a tired old jacket which could not have kept him warm on this chilly day. His fancy old dress shoes were terribly worn. He needed a shave. His cheeks and throat were covered with short gray stubble.

His head must have been cold. It was early summer, but that northwest wind… He was very bald and the gray fringe that surrounded his head was shaggy and blew in the cold gusty wind. He could have used a hat.

I wished that he had newer clothes. In those few moments that our paths crossed I felt sad for him. I’m not sure why I remember him after all of this time, after all the years and distance; his windblown hair, his disheveled yet somehow classic clothes, his stubbly cheeks and the smile lines around his eyes. I don’t think I could pick him out of a lineup after all this time, but I remember the feel of him.

It was chilly. His head, shiny on top, was blotchy from the cold. He must have been freezing with his threadbare jacket and his thin, worn pants.

As he walked down the long tables in what I thought of as the poor peoples’ section in front of the church, he would pick up one item then another. He would pick up a woman’s scarf, turn it over in his hands and, almost as if he were having a conversation with himself, would shake his head and return it to its place at the table.

Finally he came to an area on one table with hats. There were stocking caps and baseball style caps, earmuffs and old fashioned felt hats like the one my dad wore to church. The old man stopped at these, meticulously searching through them for just the right one.

Why was I concerned about him finding the right hat? I had never seen him before, would probably never see him again. But I was mesmerized, silently urging him to find something comfortable to warm his bald head.

He picked up a gray felt hat with a wide brim. Is it called a fedora? He tried it on and it fit snugly. He sort of swiped his hand around the brim in an automatic gesture. I had seen people do that kind of thing in movies. They were rich people or gangsters.

The hat looked great on him. A lady at the end of the table was eying him suspiciously. She had a gray metal box in front of her – the money box. Perhaps she thought he would walk away with the hat without paying for it. The old man didn’t look at her. I could tell that he was pleased with the hat. He had this dreamy faraway look in his eyes like he was remembering something from long ago. His fingers went around the brim again. He smiled a small stubbly smile, a satisfied smile, the smile of a younger man. It was the look of one who has found a jewel.

The money lady continued to glare at the little man. He reached up and took the hat off. There was a little piece of masking tape on the band inside the hat. A price tag. I couldn’t make it out but the man stared at it unbelieving. I could see his disappointment.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out some money. All change. It surely wasn’t enough. I could tell by the look on his face. I wanted to buy it for him. I only had a quarter. It wouldn’t help much.

With a look of quiet disappointment and even embarrassment the old man put the hat back on the table - slowly, almost reverently. His shoulders drooped and he shuffled softly away. The money lady smirked.

All these years later I wonder why the image of the old man stays with me. Certainly I have witnessed sadder moments. On the news. In the papers. In books. So many tragic stories with greater magnitude. Why this man? So long ago and so far away.

Perhaps in a way this little story has served to make me aware of the small sufferings all around me. Perhaps this little memory reminds me of all the rich blessings in my own life. I pray that I never take them for granted.

I Believe In Music

2011-10-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

Aldous Huxley

Music must be the purest form of human endeavor. Think about it. We take an empty space and silence (or at least quiet) and fill it with sound, the only purpose for which is to make something pleasant, to share emotion. It marks our lives in such a way that we can be taken back into our pasts in just a few measures of a song. Music is truly the universal language. It brings very different people together – for good. Music touches this healthy emotional core of many of us. It allows us to express feelings that are difficult to express any other way. There are songs that inspire, songs of praise and worship, protest songs, love songs and lullabies. Songs are sung at birthdays, weddings and funerals. What would our lives be like without it?

From the time children are quite little, they experiment around with their voices in a quiet room. Babies in cribs coo and gabble, sometimes running their voices into incredibly high registers. When they get old enough, they hum or sing to themselves. They make rhythms on tables and chairs and any other surface around with their fingers, pencils or anything else that happens to be around. Mothers and daddies sing to the children from the very beginning, creating our own lullabies as we rock and caress and soothe.

A few weeks ago, Heidi and I went to Colin’s chorale concert at the high school. There were actually five groups singing, and Colin’s was last. The auditorium was very filled with parents and brothers and sisters. There were grandparents too. Although it was still the beginning of the school year, the high schoolers were amazingly prepared. From pop songs to ancient Latin songs, the effects were mesmerizing. Tall and short, stout and slender, the young adults worked together to create something beautiful and inspiring from nothing. It worked. Maybe it was just me, but the power of those voices washed over me and made my heart race. During that time, there was no place I would rather have been.

I have a few friends, Kevin, Thomas, and others - whom I have taught their first few guitar chords, maybe their first song or two. They have proceeded to zoom past me in technique. I have had some students in the past who, when we cross paths again, have told me that they picked up guitar or bass because of the songs we sang together back in second grade. There is no finer feeling than knowing that I might have started a little musical echo in someone's mind that became an avalanche. But it really wasn't me. I know. It is simply music.

When my dad dropped me off at college, on my very first day, when I was scared and lonely for my neighborhood gang, when I felt like my family would be thousands of miles away – I had my old Toyota guitar with me. I know that it sounds syrupy sentimental, but there was comfort knowing that that little wooden box strung with simple wire (thanks Harry Chapin) would take me home any time I pulled it out. And it did. Within the first half hour of getting to my sweaty little dorm room I heard guitar chords coming from down the hall. I picked up that old $60-six-string and invited myself into the room of another freshman guy, sitting on his bed, looking a little afraid. Pat Gallagher and I became best friends for many years from that one chance moment.

In the next week or so I had other happy coincidental meetings. Walking through the lounge of our dorm I heard brilliant piano music. I had to stop and listen. He became my old friend Marty Lucas. I met my old friend Tad Robinson similarly. He was singing Van Morrison’s “Moon Dance” the first time I saw him. Then it was, “Hey you gotta meet this guy…” Bob McCarthy. It wasn’t long before we were jamming and harmonizing. And Jeanne and Joyce would sing sometimes and we would fill our dorm rooms with folk rock and laughter and friendship and the stories of our lives.

It seems like everywhere life took me I was able to find a friend or two to jam with. Some for a short time, some for many years. It might be a sad commentary on my ability to form bonds with adults, but so many of my friendships outside of work revolve around music.

Last weekend my mom came down to visit for a couple of days from North Carolina. We did all kinds of things from bouncing around on the boat watching Colin do amazing feats on the wakeboard, to looking around at condos, to eating homemade pasta for dinner. But we always get around to music. She always asks to hear me play. And I always oblige. No need to twist my arm though, playing and singing for my mom is one of the best things in my life. Because she listens.

My mom is a fantastic musician. When my brother Pat and I were in the CYO band when we were kids (second through eight grade for me) my mom taught us to play the clarinet and tuba as much as Mr. Suroviac our band instructor. Sometimes she would go months at a time and not play and then pull out amazingly complex classical piano pieces. She was always self-deprecating about it saying something like, “I used to play that so well,” or “You should hear that the way it was meant to be played.”

Sometimes at Christmas she would play carols on our old, out of tune, upright piano and we would sing along with the gusto of little kids enchanted by the season and vacation and anticipation of the presents that were always left by Santa when we were out looking at the lights.

My mom is a John Denver fan and I’ll admit it, I am too. I could say that it’s because I am a child of the 70’s, that many of my high school chums were into him too. But honestly, I am a sucker for a troubadour. I love his voice, his songwriting, his fingerstyle guitar, his often used 12-string.

The other day I heard “Rocky Mountain High” coming through the wall of my classroom after school. My buddy Chris was playing a little JD in his room while he was working on progress reports for our students. “John Denver’s cool,” he said. What sold him was a John Denver/Muppets Christmas album they had when he was a kid. Chris is at least 15 years younger than me. I really respect his musical taste. When he asks me to listen to music, I know I’ll like even before I listen. So if Chris thinks he’s cool…

Back to my mom’s visit. I wanted to let my mom hear “This Old Guitar”, one of my favorites by John Denver. She hadn’t heard it, so we went to YouTube and found this old TV special where he explains the song. Great song. Enjoy.

Boys to Men

2011-10-01T06:27:00.000-07:00

There comes a time in every parent’s life I suppose, when your kids grow past you in some important ways. If you know me at all, or if you have read many of my posts, then you know that Heidi and I have two ~~boys~~ sons. I’d better get over the boys part, huh? Devin is 19 and Colin just turned 18.

I don’t mean for this to be a “Gee, doesn’t-time-fly-when-we’re-having-fun?” post. But I do have this very strong feeling of “Where-does-the-time-go?”

We have this big empty lot across the road from where we live. We’ve always called it the meadow. There is a short piece of fencing there set up as a little league backstop and a weedy pitcher’s mound. The whole area, maybe a couple acres, is surrounded on two sides by the road and two sides by dense vine filled forest.

When the boys were little and we would get home from school together, that field was often our play area. We played baseball, although that was a short-lived occupation. Sometimes we played frisbee. For a while we played this silly made up version of football where one of us would throw up the ball and someone would catch it and run away with the others chasing.We’d all come tumbling to the ground in a mass tackle only to get up and do it again. We played something similar when I was a kid called “Cream The Kid With The Ball”, or simply “Cream The Kid”.

Sometimes we’d go to the meadow to catch bugs with a big butterfly net or just our hands. Sometimes we’d bring a jar and take the bugs to school to study or feed our classroom pet turtle, Angelo.

One of my favorite games was our version of soccer. The boys were from about Kindergarten to 3^rd or 4^th grade. It was the two of them against me. I scored by kicking the ball into the short backstop fence. The boys scored by kicking it anywhere into the big wide forest. They had hundreds of feet of goal while I just had about ten.

When kids are little they think of their parents as superhuman. I thought that about my own father. I watched him put an engine in a car once. I helped him build a room off of our basement. He could do anything he wanted to. He wrestled with my two older brothers and me on his Saturday morning bed from time to time, just as I wrestled with our two boys when they were young.

Time The Conqueror catches up to all of us, right? When Devin was 12 he commandeered my little weight bench and started training. Soon it wasn’t good enough and he got a newer one with brackets so he could bench press in earnest. I could lift twice as much as he could. But with relentless training he could outlift me before long. I was too busy at work to train, I’ve got arthritis in my shoulders, and … [whine, whine, whine] the ball took a bad hop and the sun was in my eyes and…

Nope. Not really. Devin got stronger. He became a young man right before my eyes. Last weekend he was washing his car outside with his shirt off. He said, “Dad, check this out,” and he puffed out his lats and did one of those “We’re here to pump you up!” poses that muscle guys do in magazines. He has gotten huge and defined and, frankly, he could take me with one hand tied behind his back.

Colin started playing music when he was really little. He had lots of toy instruments that really worked like bongos, a Little Tykes piano with colored keys, a cool steel drum with eight tones, and a little bamboo xylophone. When he was in third grade he wanted to try drum lessons. I didn’t think they would take. But we went to the music store and then to his instructor’s studio for about five years. When he began he had no real rhythm, he kept speeding up and slowing down.But gradually, with countless hours of practice, he got better and better.

The neighbors were very patient with us for Colin’s room over the garage faces the road and, even with his window closed, they were treated to hour after hour of his practice exercises, and then his drumming to songs while he wore his headphones. Of course they didn’t have the benefit of any of the other instruments.

About three years ago he took up guitar, borrowing one of Devin’s or mine. He studied keyboarding in school and learned theory, which he applied to his playing. Then he started writing songs. Complex melodies and chord structures and alternative tunings. He plays in a band with other really talented guys and they play all of his songs.

He has started playing at the youth services at church in the old sanctuary – where I played years ago. At first he filled in on drums – rock solid. Then he played bass. Then rhythm guitar.A few weeks ago he lead worship, singing lead, getting people to their feet. Heidi and I were in the balcony videotaping. He sang his heart out. And the youth sang their hearts out with him.

I could say that I don’t have the time to hang out for hours a day playing music and that I am making a living here and it was really windy and the ball took a bad hop and the sun was in my eyes… But the truth is, his learning curve is about 85 degrees and mine is about 10. I can still learn new chords, but not very quickly. I can memorize new songs but it takes forever. I can honestly say that he knows more about guitar now than I’ll ever know.

It is not a sad feeling knowing that my sons have outgrown me in some ways. While I DO MISS those little guys who used to chase me around and try to tackle me, one hanging on each leg while I marched along toward some imaginary goal line making the sound of the crowds cheering for Tim O’Keefe (“How does he DO IT, ladeez and gentlemen?”). While I miss carrying them in the dark, still asleep, to the car and buckling them up and tucking blankets around them on cold days and driving them to school so they could wake up to cereal-in-the-classroom-and-kissing-daddy-goodbye-mornings. While I do miss those wrestling matches and those sleepyheads and those underwear-to-breakfast weekends – When I look into the eyes of these men, well on their way to lives of their own and maybe even Saturday morning wrestling matches with their own children – I feel happy, satisfied, like Heidi and I helped them live into lives full of promise and strength and creativity and joy.

So I am older, and they are stronger. I am wiser (air quotes if you will), they are smarter. While my spine is probably curving over, they are still growing in every way. It is completely natural. It is the way. And it feels right.

Rick Perry

2011-09-24T04:11:00.000-07:00

QUESTION: Which scientists have you found most credible on this subject?

ANSWER (?!): "Well I do agree that, uh, there is... the sciences is not settled on this. The idea that we would put American's economy at, at, at jeopardy, uh, based on scientific theory that's not, uh, settled yet, is to me is just, it is nonsense. I mean it, it... And I tell somebody... I said, "Just because you have a group of scientists that have stood up and said here is the fact"... Galileo got, uh, outvoted for a spell. But the fact is to put America's economic future in jeopardy, asking us to cut back in areas that would have monstrous economic impact on this country is not good economics and I will suggest to you is not necessarily good science. Find out what the science truly is before you start putting the American economy in jeopardy."

I'm just saying. Read this man's words. Does it sound like he knows what he is talking about?

Knowing what we know about global warming, does it seem to you like he is sincere about the issue of global climate change? Could he come up with the name of a single scientist who might agree with him about climate change? That was the question asked.

Is he comparing himself to Galileo, as in - I find myself gettin' outvoted for a spell here?

Is he suggesting that the 97-98% of scientists who study the facts about global climate change and who agree on the human impact on climate are wrong? Should we believe Rick Perry's science over theirs?

NOTE TO MR. PERRY:

*The science is settled on this. I'd suggest you read up on it. Find out what the facts are before you start spouting science.

*Good economic policy for our country would include doing something about this impending disaster before it gets worse, not pretending/hoping it doesn't exist.

*You are no Galileo. Not even close. I'd leave that one alone.

Angelo's Story - An Epilogue

2011-09-20T14:51:00.001-07:00

It was one of those sweltering summer days we have been getting used to in South Carolina this year. On the first Friday evening after school started I was tired but energized. Because this is my second year with this class, our first week together this August was just like picking up where we left off. It was more like a family reunion that what one considers a typical beginning of the school year.

So, Friday evening, the humidity was high, the cicadas and katydids were buzzing loudly in the trees. The sky had that hazy, late South Carolina summer look. There were a few high cumulus clouds off in the distance. We really needed the rain but the chances were slim. I was watering the plants behind our house.

I had on my shorts and t-shirt and was swatting the mosquitos and gnats away from my legs and face. I was about two thirds of the way around the garden with the hose when I spotted a smallish eastern box turtle on the ground just on the other side of our fence. She was about as large as a medium sized apple. Her shell had bright yellow markings and when I squatted down to examine her I could see golden brown eyes. Considering how dry and dusty it was, her colors were beautiful, her skin clean and her eyes shining.

I have always loved turtles and this encounter reminded me of my old box turtle friend Angelo. I have written about him before. Angelo was in my classroom for well over twenty years as I taught little ones from preschool to grade four. He was such a regular part of our classroom lives that children came by after many years and inquired about him.

A little over two years ago, after setting up a nice environment in my woods for his summer break, Angelo “escaped” into our woods. But when I thought back on it, he just re-entered the life he was destined for, the life I kept from him when I took him in all those years ago and kept him captive. He didn’t so much escape as he was reborn into the wild.

At the time I posted my first piece on Angelo I received a response from Libby Schleichert, an editor from Ranger Rick Magazine. It made me feel better about him being where he needed to be. It made my decision to release him when we found him again a little easier.

Libby Schleichert said...

June 10, '09

Hi,
Sad as it may be, it sounds as though the story ended the way it was supposed to. As you say, always return wildlife to the wild. And Angelo maybe knew that's where he belonged.

We appreciate your mention of our magazine, as well as your blog and the wonderful unfolding of this story. Because of inspiring teachers like you, doing the toughest job in the world day after day, there are lots of young nature-lovers out there who are looking out for wildlife and growing up caring about what happens to our planet.

What an invaluable lesson you have taught!

With warmest wishes,
Libby Schleichert, Senior Editor
Ranger Rick Magazine
National Wildlife Federation
Reston, Virginia

It had been to years since I had seen Angelo, but I thought of him often whenever I saw wild box turtles. We have a peach tree in our yard and every year turtles come out of the woods to feast on the fermenting, fallen fruit. I have seen many box turtles in the road near our home and every time I stop and carry them over the road to their intended destinations. Each time I pick up a turtle I look into its eyes and wonder about my old friend Angelo. Did he survive? Did his instincts kick in enough to keep him safe from predators? Did he successfully avoid roads? Is he still nearby?

On this recent August evening, when I stooped down and reached through the fence to observe the new little visitor I thought about Angelo again. I wondered if I would ever set see him. After two years I thought our paths would never cross again. When I raised the little turtle to eye level, she hissed and closed up tight in her shell, the lower part of her shell, the plastron, raised in the front effectively sealing her soft body parts off to the world. She was safe and snug and tight in her nearly indestructible shell. I could see why these creatures live to be so old in the wild.

As I was setting her down to resume my watering, I saw movement at the bottom of our hill. There was a crinkling of leaves and twigs just at the edge of the forest. It was only a few feet away from where Angelo was set free about 29 months earlier. A large eastern box turtle, easily three times the size of the little one I had just set down, was trundling along the edge of the clearing on the hill.

I jumped over the fence, never taking my eyes off the turtle. Walking down the hill I thought I recognized my old reptile friend, but surely if he had stayed so close I would have seen him much earlier than this. From a distance it sure looked like Angelo. It was about the same size, maybe a little bigger, and had the same slightly flattened shell as the turtle I knew so well. As I bent down to pick up the turtle I expected it to hiss and close up as tightly as the other one I had just set down.

“How you doing, big fella?” I brought him up to eye level to see if it was a male or female. This one had the bright red eyes of a male and by its size it was quite old. Its plastron was slightly concave on the bottom, confirming that it was an old male. “It couldn’t be…” I murmured. His markings were similar to my old friend Angelo, but where Angelo was faded yellow, this guy had bright orange marks. “Unbelievable,” I said as I checked him out. It was Angelo. Bigger to be sure, but clean and bright, active and stronger than ever. As I held him up, he extended his four legs really far, his head and neck completely outstretched.

I never imagined that I would see this turtle again, my classroom companion for over twenty years who I had such misgivings about releasing. I had often wondered if he had survived, if he had become acclimated to wild living, to getting his own food, to defending himself from natural perils by closing up in his tight rigid shell. But here he was, in my hands, staring into my eyes, just like he did in the old days. His claws were long and sharp, his shell clean and bright. His leathery skin was supple looking and his bright red eyes were clearer than I remember them.

Of course I had to bring him back to school. But this time it was for a very different reason. No longer would he be a roommate. This time he would only stay for a few days. This time he was there to educate and for my students to reconnect. Then he would go back into the wild – where I knew he needed to be, where he truly belonged.

At school he stayed in the same 30 gallon aquarium he stayed in for the last 15 years prior to his release. He trundled into his old water bowl (the bottom cut off of a 5 gallon bucket). He burrowed into the leaves and buried himself in the dirt. He ate night crawlers and bananas and delighted my class. For five days he was the guest of honor in our “live tank”. We took his picture, gazed into his leathery face and felt his sharp claws.We studied his shell and examined the scales on his strong legs. Mostly he stayed partially hidden among the dirt and leaves – just like he would if he was in the forest.

When Friday rolled around, it was time for him to his real home in the woods. After school, I got him out of the bucket I used to carry him. Heidi was with me as I walked him down into the woods. She was chatting about school and her work. But honestly, I can’t remember a thing she said. I had the familiar sad feeling that I would never see this beautiful creature again. I have no illusions that Angelo was sad or having any kind of human thoughts. I doubt that he recognized me or felt somehow at home in his large tank with its multi-spectrum light and plants and water supply. I am not anthropomorphizing here. He couldn’t have cared less. If he had desires at all, I’m sure it was to get back into nature. So I took a cheesy picture of the two of us and headed down the hill to where I released him a couple years earlier. I sat him down in the same clay wash as before.

He didn’t look back. Instead of heading straight into a pile of leaves as he had earlier, he walked on top of them. It’s been dry and the only leaves on the ground are from last fall. He walked straight away from me and into the forest. I watched him for as long as I could see him in the dying evening light. Eventually he blended into the color of the dried fallen leaves and all I could make out was a rustling about a hundred feet away. I know I must have been a little lost in thought as Heidi and I took our evening walk that night.

It’s funny how knowing an animal for as long as I knew that one changed how I look at all animals. Now I never pass a turtle in the road without stopping and helping it to the other side safely. Now when I see a turtle in the road that has been hit by a car I feel sad. Now when kids bring turtles into class I always appreciate them and we stop everything and look at them so we can learn – so everyone can appreciate their wonder and beauty. But then I always tell them to please let the creature go right where they found it. And they get it.

I even look at my forest a little differently. When I walk out there I feel as though I am being watched. That old turtle and this old teacher will run into each other again one day perhaps. And we’ll share some space in a classroom. And he’ll trundle around for a few days eating our bait store worms and eating our canned corn in a brightly lit aquarium.

But he’ll always go back to the wild.

Always.

Angelo's Story

2011-09-15T18:44:00.000-07:00

Here is part 2 of a story I wrote a couple years ago. To read part one click here. An epilogue will be forthcoming.

Angelo's Story - Afterward

I feel compelled to finish up the little story of my old turtle friend, Angelo the eastern box turtle. After his "escape" or rather his justified wandering off into the wild where he rightly belongs, I wondered if I would ever see him again. If you read that post, then you know I had very mixed feelings about him leaving my teaching/learning world. I didn't know if he would survive for very long. After all, he had been practically hand fed Reptomin (the equivilent of Purina Turtle Chow), worms from the bait store, apple cores leftover from my students' lunches and canned corn for all of his 27 years. I wondered if he would be able to forage successfully. He never had to provide for himself before. Would he know the difference between a poisonous mushroom and one that would be good for him?

I had not seen him go completely inside of his shell for about ten years. Around 1998, when one of my students was taking him outside for some sunshine at recess, she dropped him. It was only from about two feet and it was into the sandy soil that surrounded our portable classroom but he clunked heavily to the ground and when I picked him up he was closed as tight as the box for which he was named. You couldn't even see his eyes. He stayed that way too. About five minutes later he emerged slowly into the sunshine and began to trundle around the playground as if nothing had happened.

So I wondered after his departure the other day if Angelo could still close up tightly into his shell if he needed to. And he would definitely need to. We have lots of box turtles around our house. Every year a couple of them come out of the woods to eat the fallen peaches from a tree in our side yard. At least one of them comes back year after year. I know this because when I go out to visit them and pick them up I recognize the chew marks on the back of one's shell. The teeth marks are rounded now and completely healed up. But some animal, a fox or a raccoon or even a large neighborhood dog (namely Buckley the old English Sheep dog that terrorizes the UPS delivery guy) had found that turtle and gnawed on it trying to get to the prize inside.

That turtle (a beautiful old female with golden brown eyes) hid successfully in its armor until the predator gave up and left it alone. Would Angelo be able to close up the same way to save his own skin? It had been so long since he had closed up that I didn't know if he was even physically able to shut himself up completely. Maybe the muscles it took to pull himself tightly closed had atrophied during his long years in my classroom; his long years in captivity.

So the morning I knew he was gone, I wondered. Whenever I picked him up he usually stuck his long neck out really far, his front and back legs looking as though he were swimming in mid air. When I picked him up he did the opposite of what a wild turtle does. When he was loose in the wild woods would he be able to protect himself in that passive but extremely effective way that box turtles have by literally shutting out the world, just hunkering down and waiting out the danger?

I didn't know if I would ever lay eyes on him again. My son Devin and I looked around for him very carefully the morning he left. Believe me, if Devin couldn't spot him, he was not there. I was resigned to never seeing Angelo again, but I felt pretty good in the knowledge that even short-lived freedom would be worth the time he spent with me in my classroom teaching kids.

I even received a response from an editor of Ranger Rick magazine reaffirming the simple fact that wild animals belong in the wild. Wouldn't you know that Devin did see Angelo within a couple of days. He and Heidi yelled excitedly for me to come outside and make the positive ID. It was Angelo alright. His shell was clean and the bright yellow markings contrasted sharply with his dark brown shell. It was definitely Angelo. No mistaking it. He looked great. A rain shower and a couple days in the woods had restored him.

When Devin handed him over to me, Angelo was almost completely closed up in his shell. His legs were safely tucked inside and I could only see a hint of those sparkling ruby red eyes. When I held him closely and spoke his "name" instead of hanging out loosely and pushing his head forward as I figured he would, he hissed (the only sound box turtles ever make) and closed up his shell completely. I could see nothing of his leathery scaled skin. I was holding Angelo, but I was holding a wild turtle, one who was fearful of this large potential predator.

I carried him down to the center of our property where there is a wash when it rains heavy. I set him down on the clay, he was still completely closed up, maybe loosened up a bit. I walked back several steps and squatted down to watch. With mosquitos buzzing around me I watched my old friend slowly open up his shell, poke his head out and gaze cautiously around. Sensing no danger, he pushed out his front and back legs and walked confidently forward into the leaves until I could no longer see him.

In a very important way this beautiful eastern box turtle was no longer Angelo at all. Maybe he never was. He was just a big beautiful healthy box turtle, back to where he naturally belongs. Back to where he always belonged.

9/11/2011

2011-09-11T03:46:00.000-07:00

I am not one to repost a lot of other people's stuff. Part of the reason I blog is to make myself write. Everyone wants to be known in some way. Blogging is part of that I suppose. I don't pretend to be a great writer or to even have thoughts deeper than anyone else. I just like to write. But last Friday, on my way to work, I heard this Story Corps piece on NPR. It always comes on during my drive time. Every Friday at 6:25. No matter what else I am listening to, a book on CD, other music - I always try to get to NPR at that time. Sometimes the stories make you laugh out loud. Other times they are just soft and contemplative. Still others make you cry. At least they do to me.

Every adult knows where they were during the 9/11/01 attacks. I was on the playground with my 2nd graders when our principal came out to break the news to me. At first one of the Twin Towers was hit by an airplane. A Freak accident? Then the other tower was hit. A terrorist attack.

I am reposting the piece I heard from NPR last Friday morning. If you get the chance to listen to the actual broadcast, do yourself a favor. Click here to listen. It will take you to the NPR page. Then click on the speaker icon. It will be seven-minutes-and-twenty-two-seconds well spent.

Father Mychal Judge was a Franciscan friar and a chaplain to the New York City Fire Department. He was also a true New York character. Born in Brooklyn, Mychal Judge seemed to know everyone in the city, from the homeless to the mayor.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Father Mychal arrived at the World Trade Center shortly after the first plane hit. And as firefighters and other rescue personnel ran into the North Tower, he went with them.

Bill Cosgrove, a police lieutenant, was also there. When the South Tower collapsed, it sent debris flying into the neighboring building. When the dust cleared, Mychal Judge was dead. Soon after, Cosgrove found him. Then, Cosgrove and a group of firefighters emerged from the rubble, carrying Father Mychal's body.

Here's how Cosgrove, who's now retired, recalls that day:

I went a couple of steps, and I hit something. And I told the fire chief that somebody was on the floor. And he put the light on him — and I remember him saying, 'Oh my god, it's Father Mike.'
He checked his vital signs, and he said, 'He's dead.' So, we all picked him up. We went up the steps. And I remember looking up, because one of the firemen was yelling at a photographer. He was telling him, in no uncertain terms, 'Get out of the way.'
I didn't even think about that picture being taken. I was just doing my job. It's just... so many other heroic acts were being done all around me. It's just that no one took a picture of it.
The next day, when I came back into the precinct, somebody showed me the picture. And I got a lot of calls from people that knew Mychal Judge — firemen. They assumed I knew him, you know, but I didn't, until that day.
He's always been on my mind ever since then, because it's my firm belief that the only reason I'm here today is because of him. I know that sounds weird, but everybody you see in that picture was saved. And I'm sure had he not been there, I would have been trying to look for other people. And when that North Tower fell, I would have been right in the middle of it, just like the rest of the firemen were, and some of my cops. But nothing was going to happen that day. At least, not to me.

In the priesthood, Judge had been a mentor to another priest, Father Michael Duffy. The two served at the same parish in New Jersey during the 1970s. And at Judge's funeral service on Sept. 15, 2001, Duffy delivered the homily.

"We Franciscans are a little odd, and one of our oddities is, there's a form we fill out — it's called 'On My Death.' It says where you want your funeral mass to be, who you want to do the homily, and et cetera, like that," Duffy says.

EnlargeStoryCorps

Father Michael Duffy (left) and Bill Cosgrove spoke about their memories of Father Mychal Judge.

Memories Of Sept. 11's First Casualty Burn Bright

Ten years after the terrorist attacks, Father Mychal Judge is as vivid in death as he was in life.

Saving Stories Of Loved Ones Lost On Sept. 11

The StoryCorps oral history project is collecting stories about each person who died on that day.

As he recalls, Duffy didn't expect to be asked to speak about his late friend, especially on the occasion of a national tragedy.

But the day after the attacks, his provincial minister called him.

"And he said, 'Mychal wanted you to do the homily,'" Duffy says. "And I said, 'Well yes, but this is different. It should be someone with a little more import. So, I think you should do it.' And there was a long pause. And he said, 'But Mychal wanted you.'

"So I mean, what are you going to say to that? I said to myself, 'When I see Mychal, I'm going to kill him,'" Duffy says with a laugh.

In his speech, Duffy made a joking comparison between Father Mychal and Sister Theresa. After all, the popular priest had touched many lives.

"Everyone thought Mychal Judge was their best friend," Duffy says. "He'd remember significant things in their life, and he would write a little note — just one or two lines. Of course, they'd write him back. So, he had a big black satchel, filled with letters to answer."

And many of those people came to pay their respects to Judge — far too many to fit in Manhattan's St. Francis of Assisi Church.

"There were 3,000 people at his funeral," Duffy says. "The church wasn't big enough to hold them. They were outside; Bill Clinton was there; Hillary Clinton; all New York."

The proceedings were also televised. And finally, it was Duffy's turn to speak.

"I stood up, and I reached in to get my glasses — and I couldn't get to the pocket, because my vestment was covering them. Thank goodness I'd practiced it, because I couldn't read it."

The full text of Duffy's homily is posted online. Following are excerpts of what Duffy told Judge's friends and family that day:

He loved to bless people — and I mean physically — even if they didn't ask. A little old lady would come up to him, and he would put his big thick Irish hands and press the head 'til I think the poor woman would be crushed.
He would say to me once and a while, 'Michael Duffy' — he always called me by my full name — 'Michael Duffy, you know what I need?'
And I would get excited, because it was hard to buy him a present or anything. I said, 'No, what?'
'You know what I really need?'
'No. What, Mike?'
'Absolutely nothing. I don't need a thing in the world. I am the happiest man on the face of the earth. Why am I so blessed? I don't deserve it.'
Mychal Judge's body was the first one released from Ground Zero. His death certificate has the number '1' on the top. Of the thousands of people who perished in that terrible holocaust, why was Mychal Judge number one? And I think I know the reason. Mychal's goal and purpose in life was to bring the firemen to the point of death so they would be ready to meet their maker. Mychal Judge could not have ministered to them all. It was physically impossible — in this life.
In the next few weeks, we're going to have name after name of people who are being brought out of that rubble. And Mychal Judge is going to be on the other side of death — to greet them, instead of send them there.
And so, this morning we come to bury Myke Judge's body, but not his spirit. We come to bury his voice, but not his message. We come to bury his hands, but not his good works. We come to bury his heart, but not his love. Never his love.

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Michael Garofalo with Eve Claxton.