Do Overs

When we were kids, one of the best things about the games we played with Mom and Dad was the “Do Over.”  Baseball never had only three strikes.  Your move in checkers wasn’t over when you lifted your hand off the checker.  Realizing you had just played the wrong card meant you could pick it up and try again.  We were learning the rules even as Mom and Dad ignored them for us.  We still lost games and learned to deal with our mistakes and our failures.  The older we became, the more we played by the rules, but it always seemed like games with our parents were more fun and we won more often than they did.  Eventually the “Do Over” became more important in real life than it was in our games.  Still, we could count on Mom and Dad for that second or third (or fourth or fifth) chance.

Some of those Do Overs were pretty expensive: a crushed fender on the car (or a total loss!), a speeding ticket, dropping a class, a changed major (or college), out-of-hand credit card charges, bounced checks….  Late night calls home brought calm and reassurance and the encouragement that the next time—the Do Over—was a sure thing.

It was even easier to change major life decisions with help from Home. Who was there with the best advice when your heart was broken (again)?  Who listened to your plans and tried to help the dreams become realities, and then understood when it seemed the whole castle came crashing down or you decided once more to go in another direction?

When I become a parent and crossed over to the other side of that Do Over equation, I gained not only a much different perspective but a much greater appreciation for what I put my parents through, and how much I owe them!  I can only hope that I have been as much help to my sons as my mom and dad were for me.

One of the things about those Do Overs that I came to fully understand as a parent: home was the one place I could count on for unconditional love…no matter what I did.  Oh, I was often reminded that I was in the wrong or had done something really stupid, but that never meant my parents didn’t love me.  I was always sure of that.

If my sons know anything for sure, I hope it is that—as long as I live—they will always be loved and always have a place to call home.  With Mom and Dad, there is always a Do Over.

Speaking of Do Overs:  Happy New Year!

I Believe in Santa Claus

The great American caricaturist and cartoonist, Thomas Nast, published the first sketch of Santa Claus in Harper’s Weekly, in 1862, during the early, dark days of the Civil War.  Matthew Brady tried to get photographs, but he could never get the old elf to stay still long enough for those early cameras to get a clear image.  Of course, Nast’s most famous image is from his illustration published in 1870 of Clement C. Moore’s 1823 description in “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”

Every Christmastime brings hundreds or thousands of essays (like this one) about dear old Santa.  Is he real?  Do you believe?  Children ask the same question of their friends and parents and grandparents.  The answer usually varies depending on the age of the person asked.

My answer has always been the same: YES!!  Only the rationale have changed as I have grown older.

When I was a kid, it was easy—in my family—to believe in Santa.  My parents were children themselves when my brothers and I were born.  When you’re a nineteen year-old mother of three little boys, or their twenty-three year-old father, just promising to pay the rent or knowing that there will be food on the table next week requires belief in the improbable!  Believing in the magic that is Santa Claus isn’t much of a stretch from there.  Every year we told one another, “I believe!”  The more you say it out loud, and the more people who are willing to say it with you, the easier it is to continue your belief.  [It’s sort of like voting….]

Neither public school nor Sunday School taught the belief out of me.  In fact, it did just the opposite.  I learned about other cultural versions of Santa: the historical Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Pere or Papa Noel, Kris Kringle, Shendang Laoren, Grandfather Frost, Babbo Natale, Black Peter, På Norsk, Sinter Klaas, Jultomten, Kerstman, Joulupukki, Christindl, and others.  The lesson I took from this?  People all over the world believe!

I have most noticed in the last decade or so that despite these world traditions from so many other cultures, the image and details best known around the globe come from Moore’s and Nast’s Santa Claus.  It can be disconcerting.  I wonder how little children in the southern hemisphere, in the equatorial tropics in particular, justify or rationalize Santa in his heavy red suit, boots, and mittens and arriving on a sleigh.  I mean, believing in flying reindeer is one thing, but understanding how an “adult” would dress like an Eskimo when it’s over 100°?  Even a two year-old knows that’s silly.  I guess that’s proof of the influence of the United States in the world.  No matter what else those in other countries might think of us, if Santa is part of our image in the world, it’s not all bad.

Actually, I just answered my own question and explained why I can easily say that I believe in Santa Claus.  Children don’t have to justify or rationalize.  That isn’t believing.  Children believe in magic, especially the magic of Santa—a giving heart.

Any time I feel like the magic is waning, that maybe Santa Claus isn’t real, all I have to do is look into my grandsons’ eyes….  Do you want to enjoy the holiday?  Believe like a little child.

Thanks Giving

Thanks.

What a small, inconsequential word.

“Thanks for…

…holding the door for me.”

…passing the butter.”

…the ride to school.”

…your help raking the leaves.”

…doing the dishes and taking out the trash.”

How about “Thanks for…

…creating the flu vaccine that will save my life.”

…putting out the fire that engulfed my home.”

…stopping the thief who stole from me.”

…fighting the enemies that are attacking our country.”

Thanks.

What a small, inconsequential word.  Not at all important.  Right.  Tell that to my mother.

No.  Please.  Tell my mother.  She’s the seventy-five years young lady at the nursing home.  The stroke victim who hasn’t been able to speak for the last seven years, or hold her great-grandsons or go to her youngest grandson’s wedding, or tell me that I have to say “Thank you” when someone does something for me, no matter how small and inconsequential.

Or tell my father who has sat by her side daily just to keep her company and bother the nurses and harass the doctors so that Mom has received special attention because he’s such a nuisance.  Why does he refuse to leave her side unless my brothers and I all but load him in the car and force him to go to dinner with us?  I think it’s his way of telling Mom “Thanks” for sixty years of marriage.  For thousands of the best meals.  For clean homes.  For three successful sons, three wonderful daughters-in-law, four terrific grandkids, two healthy great-grandsons.  For being the love of his life.

They’ve had quite a life.  We all have in the last 50-60 years.  Fortunately, we’ve lived here, in this country and in the Midwest where we take care of one another.  We work hard, sometimes at awful jobs (sometimes two or three at the same time), so we can one day do better or give our kids a better chance.  And we’ve helped others, too, because you never know when you lend a hand to others that they will one day be helping you up.

Yes.  I say thanks every chance I get.

I give thanks.  It’s a small gift, but not in the least inconsequential.

I hope you take the time, too.  And thanks for reading this.

To Each His Own

Many years ago, on a very cold November evening, I happened on a scene similar to the one described here.  That experience was the eventual inspiration for the following narrative essay that I have used as an example of both narrative and descriptive writing in my writing class.

“To Each His Own”

After the supper hour on a late December evening, the small Iowa town was winter dark. Leafless trees reached to one another for warmth and companionship across a silent street on the edge of town. At the end of the lonely avenue, a single streetlight struggled against the darkness.  No moon silvered the snow-laden clouds.  Flickering shadows cast by a front-room television were ghost dancers on the dirty snow in front of the single house in the middle of the last, long block.

I was out for a walk, believe it or not.  I suppose I was young enough then to ignore the cold.  For another fifty yards or so I would have the taunting north wind at my back, but soon I would have to turn around and force my way home against its frigid hammering.  The wind shouted at me, deriding me for my foolishness, cutting through the seams of my heavy coat, snatching at my wool cap, pushing me, taunting me, daring me to turn and face it.  It wasn’t the wind that was making me shiver, though.  A desolate, despondent loneliness assaulted me there and chilled more deeply than the icy wind.

I had driven this street before, but it wasn’t a neighborhood that invited site seeing.  I felt a stranger there.  Despite the temperature and the wind and the occasional needle sting of driven snow or dust, I found my steps slowing as I carefully took in the details of the small, one-story house that was the last evidence of the community.  Just beyond the streetlight’s dim glow, barbed-wire fences and corn stubble also marked the city limits.

Since there wasn’t a garage, there was no need for a driveway, but a rusted-out Duster sat forlornly near one corner of the house.  Without wheels and nothing else to support its sad weight, the hubs were buried in the old snow.  The car seemed to be sinking into the earth.  In contrast, a companion pickup truck faced the street nearby.  A heavyduty electrical cord ran from under the front door of the house to the grille of the truck, a life-sustaining umbilical in the cold.  Nearly new, the monstrous F150 must have been recently washed despite the weather.  Not a speck of dirt marred its glossy black finish.  Although I couldn’t see into the cab—the headlights were almost to my shoulder height, the body elevated on oversized tires and lifts—I assumed it would be spotless and state-of-the-art.  The gun rack in the rear window was empty but ready.

The house itself must have remained upright through stubbornness alone. It seemed to lean into the wind in old defiance.  Tarpaper shingles clung desperately to the roof.  If the clapboard sides had ever known paint, it was a vague memory.  One ill-fitting door was centered in the porchless front.  I did not need to move any closer than the curb to see inside.  A window, curtained by streaks of dirt, showed all of the single room.  Only the television provided illumination, but the huge screen seemed to fill an entire wall.  Next to it, like the trophy case of a perennial champion, proudly stood a gun cabinet even larger than the television, its prizes gleaming: an assortment of shotguns and rifles, scoped and strapped and, no doubt, lethally effective in the skilled hands of their proud owner.

He was seated close by, feet raised high in his La-Z-Boy, a magazine—Field and Stream or American Hunter most likely—open across his wide middle.  Head back, eyes closed, mouth open in a contented snore, he was unaware of my impolite observations until I coughed.

He couldn’t have heard me over the noise of the television and the wind whistling through the doorframe and around the window, but the dogs did.  I moved on as their clamor rose against the gale and discovered their kennel on the other side of the house.  Almost as large as the master’s home, the doghouse was a spotless palace with walls so thick they must have been insulated, a well-maintained roof—unlike the house nearby—carefully drained away from several runs and doors that provided at least half a dozen hounds access to their warm beds or their exercise yard.  They bayed me on my way.  As I walked into the shadows a few yards away, I heard them quickly silenced with precise commands shouted from the door.

I turned to face the remaining distance home.  At my own fireside would be my loving family and pampered pet, probably oblivious to the wind and cold.  I wondered, as I battled on, at the priorities I would have if circumstances forced me to choose between necessity and appearance and what impressions I would give to the world peeking in my windows.

01/18/04

Simplify

In Walden, Thoreau admonishes us to “Simplify.”  He explains that our lives are “frittered away by details.”  For someone who built himself a cabin in the woods in an age without electricity, simplifying meant not owning a horse and refusing to pay his poll tax. It’s still an interesting concept.

When I was younger, I used to pride myself on my independence.  I learned to cook (I had terrific grandmothers and my mother learned from some of the best), and then taught myself to prepare most of those recipes over an open fire.  Talk about simplification.  Even Henry had a stove.  He did cut his own wood.  He wasn’t living in a tent, either, but then, I was only roughing it on the weekends.  Still, “back in the good old days” meant someone had to raise or stalk the meat, do the butchering and curing, cut the wood, build the fire, then cook the vittles.  Some even had to make their own utensils, including the plates.  Pioneer women had it so easy….

These days, my simplifying usually means finding a tool that makes the job easier.  It is a bit of a conundrum that the simpler the device, the larger and more complicated the instruction manual!  Some of the newest don’t even have a manual—they rely on the entire Internet!  Just think about trying to print an instruction manual for your iPhone or other SmartPhone.

Yesterday I needed to get the leaves off the backyard.  When that colorful carpet gets to be too thick, it starts smothering the grass. Also, today my lawn service came to apply fall fertilizer and it needed to penetrate that layer of deciduous droppings.  Luckily, the weather cooperated and it didn’t rain.  There was even some sunshine.  On top of that, I had a three-day weekend.

Hauled out the Black and Decker blower/vacuum and went to work.  Plugged that thing in and spent a good hour creating a wonderful pile of brightly colored leaves.  Hello, Linus.  My son brought the grandsons over later in the afternoon.  That’s why I left the pile.  I planned to mulch the leaves with the vacuum and spread them around the shrubs that line two sides of the fence.

The boys had a great time jumping in the leaves and burying themselves.  They chased Dad around the yard, played some catch with the football, and threw a Frisbee.  When they were worn out and having a snack, I went back to clean up.  I couldn’t get the power cord out of the blower/vac.  I pulled and pulled.  Finally, it came out, along with one of the blades, which was still stuck in the plug.  I went after the rake and basket.

Next thing I knew I was going after more rakes and baskets.  Everyone pitched in.  Even the youngest picked up a leaf or two and put it in the pile.  We laughed at one another, reminisced about past episodes in the yard, and wondered what the little boys would remember of days like this one.  In short order, the pile was gone and spread around the shrubs along the fence.

I can’t remember the last time I didn’t do all of that work by myself with my simple machines.  I don’t think I’ll forget doing it the hard way yesterday; all that talking and laughing and loving every minute of it.  Simple.  (Where’s the Ibuprophen?)

Recent Graduates 101

How will you know if the objectives have been reached and the students have learned?

This is one of the questions I’ll be asked this week as part of my professional evaluation for continuing employment.  Think about this.  How do you measure success in your profession?

Did the corn you planted come up and the market allow you to make some money on the harvest?

Was your customer able to drive away in the car you repaired?

Did your patient recover?  Your client receive a fair judgment?  The diners enjoy a good meal?

My answer to that question about my success as a teacher has always been a delayed reaction.  Sure, my students can pass quizzes and tests, write well-constructed essays, intelligently analyze a piece of literature.  Now.  When they’re in my class.  They meet the objectives for our curriculum.  But does that really prove they’ve learned what I’m hoping to teach them?

Not really.  For me, those are indicators that these kids are paying attention, reading the material, experimenting with the techniques I’m teaching them, testing their intellects against one another and me.  I hope I’m teaching them a bit more than that, however.

My objectives include helping my students understand that they are learners, that they have the tools necessary to succeed in whatever they try, or at least to learn from the challenges they accept whether or not they are successful.  I hope they learn to manage their time since most of them are busy in so many extra-curricular activities, both for school and in their community.  I’m forever amazed by the extent of their involvement.

Teachers have always prized any communications from students who have graduated.  When I started teaching almost forty years ago, that meant now and then running into a former student at a school event or just around town.  Once in a while someone would come back to school just to say hello.  My, how things have changed.

I’ve been receiving occasional emails from students for a few years.   That’s been nice.  Some have sent me papers to review for them during their first comp classes.  Some have just written to say they’ve been studying something we went over, so they felt very prepared.

The last five months or so have been unique.  I have been accepting some Facebook “friend” requests from graduates.  Because of this, I’ve been keeping up with their activities and they have stayed in touch with me.  I’ve still read a few papers, but I’ve also been asked for advice about their classes, their frustrations, some choices they’ve made…and offered encouragement when being a freshman and away from home has been almost too much to handle.

So how do I measure my success?  I pass my “test” when I receive messages from kids in college who are receiving accolades from their teachers for the excellence of their writing; and the email about how they’re seeking and accepting roles as campus leaders; or the visits at school from those who graduated two or three years ago but make a point of stopping in to tell me about their plans for the future.

No, they don’t “ace” every test or always make the best decisions.  I’ve never met anyone who has.  But they learn from their mistakes.  I’m proud of all of them.

Current technology is making it easier for me to “test” myself.  I’m getting more immediate feedback.  I almost feel as if I have another class—Recent Graduates 101.  It’s one of the most fun, and it meets 24/7/365.  And I don’t mind at all.

Excuse me, my phone is ringing.

Let me get that.  I have an email from one of my sons.  My nephew just sent a text message asking for directions to my younger son’s next performance—I’ll send him a map…from my phone.  My wife wants to know what kind of bird is perched on the deck.  I’ll check the North American bird guide.  On my phone.  What was the score of last night’s Broncos game?  Let me open my ESPN application.  I need to know the yardage to the bunker from here and then to the green.  It’s available on the gps along with all the other courses I play.  What does that word mean and how is it pronounced?  Let me check the dictionary.  On my phone.  I don’t know.  Is it supposed to snow in Silverthorne this weekend?  I’ll search the weather forecast.  Where did Longfellow teach before Harvard?  I’ll Google that and let you know.  I’ll look it up on my phone.  I have a quiz over his life and poetry.  It’s a Word document on my desktop computer at home.  Let me get it.  On my phone.  This conversation is taking a little longer than I’d thought.  Excuse me, my phone is ringing.  I’d better answer.  It’s my wife.

I’m glad it’s not 8:00 AM yet.  When school starts, I have to shut off my phone just like the students do.  It’s against the rules for me to use it during the day.  Don’t tell anyone, but during my planning period and lunch (which I eat in my classroom) I check email, call my doctors’ offices and the pharmacy, sometimes check in with my wife….

I had my juniors write a persuasive essay recently.  They were to present arguments on a thesis concerning cell phone use in school.  Not surprisingly, my Honors students almost unanimously expressed well-developed rationale in favor of cell phone (especially “smart phone”) use during school hours, but recognized the need to restrict use primarily to lunch, passing periods, or down-time during class when the teacher would permit it.  They also described educational uses similar to those I have facetiously presented here.

The reality of cell phone use—again, smart phones in particular—make them today’s handheld computer, PDA, and telephone all in one handy device.  I’ve already violated school rules on several instances by using my phone enabling students to get to their email (not allowed on the school’s computer system) in order to establish accounts on the class blog; looking up information from district-blocked web sites; and finding documents I needed that were on my desktop computer at home.

I’ve been complaining about the obsolescence of available technology in schools since the personal computer was invented in the 1980s.  We’re still a decade or two behind philosophically even if we’re not that far behind with hardware.  It’s difficult to explain to students that we’re preparing them for their futures when we can’t even get them up to speed with our past.  I think they’re laughing at us.