More Than an Award

(Makeup for 23 December)

                A few days ago a friend of mine asked me a few questions because she was worried about her teenage son, who can be quite a moron at times, especially for his parents.  She said, “I know he’s a good kid, but sometimes that isn't going to cut it. When will he ‘get it’ that he has to put forth effort if he wants to get anywhere in life?”  I hope I was able to assuage her fears that he will become a listless leech on society.  (He really is a good kid.)

                That conversation reminded me of a certain someone else (betcha can’t guess) who as a teenager didn't like to be nagged by his parents.  But in retrospect, it took that nagging to reach a point where I finally “got it.”

                Living in England, I was fairly active in my Boy Scout troop, but I had lost the drive to move on.  I was a Life Scout, I had 21 merit badges, including all the required ones for Eagle; all I had left to do was my Eagle Scout project, and I would belong to that prestigious group who had attained this high honor.  However, like my one of my friends says, I was overcome by the fumes: car fumes and perfumes.  My interests changed.  I was more into music, my friends (especially the female variety), writing, and video games.  Scouts began to take a back seat.

                And that’s where I was when this story happened: the back seat of my dad’s car.  I believe it was a Thursday afternoon.  We were driving around RAF Mildenhall on a few errands.  I had just retrieved the mail and was immersing myself in my new Baseball Cards magazine when he started in again. “When are you going to start planning a project?”

In my mind, this was about the seventy-second or seventy-third time Dad had asked a similar question within the past week.  I ignored the query, trying to stay calm.

“You know, you’ll have to you’ll need to get permissions and equipment and manpower and….”

I tuned out, staring out the window.

When I came back around to hearing him, we had pulled up to a four-way stop.  He was back to “When are you going to get started?”

And I, in all my teenage self-centered “wisdom,” had had enough.  I opened the door and slammed it.  “Right now.  Pick me up in an hour at the Exchange.”  I stormed across the street without waiting for a reply.

I didn't really know where I was going or what to do, but in that flash of anger I had headed toward the Base Maintenance building.  And as I looked at the directory inside the front doors, I realized that it was up to me.  Everything I wanted to accomplish in life had to be done by me.  I couldn't rely on Dad or Mom or anyone else to make my life for me.

I ducked into a restroom and straightened up my appearance before I asked the receptionist to see the commanding officer.  I sat on a green fake leather couch and listened to the click-clack of typewriters and computers.  The smell of tobacco hung in the air.  Within ten minutes I was ushered into a small, cramped office where a heavy-set man with a military crew cut and black standard issue glasses sat poring over tomes.

He looked up, beyond his spectacles, snubbed out his cigarette, and grumbled, “What can I do for you, son?”

“My name is Joseph Anson, and I’m an Eagle Scout candidate looking for a large service project to benefit the community, sir.”

He smiled, shook my hand, and turned his huge green binder toward me.  “Take your pick, son.”  And that began the conversation that ended the next Friday after (180+) hours of planning, scheduling, coordinating, pestering (on my part), laboring, and sweating.  I don’t remember Dad being around—I think he was on a deployment somewhere. Mom only helped with the shuttling of workers (the friends I had drafted) and supplies.  Everything else was me.  I even went in to Dad’s work while he was away to use the satellite phone to have a teleconference with the Scouting officials stationed in Germany to accelerate the paperwork process.

Sure, it sounds cheesy, but this experience was a figurative smack upside the head, one that no one else’s lecture or prodding or anything could provide.  It was one moment in life where I “got it.”  The future didn't seem too intimidating or scary.  I just needed to take one step at a time.  Most importantly, though, I had to be the one to take the step.  That happened in April or May.  Then we moved in June, so I wasn't awarded the Eagle until October when all the paperwork caught up to us in Illinois.  But it didn't matter anymore.  I had accomplished something worthwhile on my own.

Looking back, the pressures and influences and everything else my parents, relatives, teachers, religious leaders, and other influential adults in my life may have bothered me at the time, but they were a necessary ingredient in my seasoning as a human being who looks to contribute to this world.  I hope I will be the same type of pain in the butt for my own kids.

My First All-Nighter (of Many)

(Makeup for December 22^nd)

            Yes, I enjoyed my free sandwich. I chose the smoked sausage, by the way. And no, I’m not going to apologize for taking some time off from writing on my blog so I could (a) enjoy the holidays, (b) recover from being sick, (c) take some time to actually read something that I wanted to, (d) spend time playing with my wife and kids, or (e) all of the above. My neglect was purposeful. Good, now that that rant is done, I can move on.

           A few days ago, I stayed up late reading—1 a.m. or so. I’ve done it a few times on this break, and it reminded me of the first time I stayed up all night to finish a book.

As far back as I can remember, as a kid, I had always been allowed to stay up and read for half an hour after bedtime, as long as I stayed in my bed. It wasn’t too long before I started to push those limits. Every once in a while, when we lived in Arkansas, after Mom had turned out the lights, I would quietly sneak into the family room where she and Dad would be watching M.A.S.H., and I would quietly listen or bring another book to read (in the light). Even back then, when I was five, I knew the cues for an episode to be wrapping up, so I would make it back to my room without anyone the wiser. Yes, this is a confession.

My strategies changed after we moved to Las Vegas. You see, there was no way to sneak to where the TV was without being seen or heard (stupid doorway beads). And so I took to reading by flashlight. When that was discovered and confiscated, I would simply block the crack at the bottom of the doorway with a blanket and turn the light back on so I could plow through another chapter of Swiss Family Robinson or the Hollywood movie monster books I would check out from the school library. There was a reason why I was the runner up for the base library reading challenge that summer.

             However, it wasn’t until sixth grade, living in Japan, where I truly became so wrapped up in a book at night that I had literally could not sleep, could not put it down until I had finished it: The High King by Lloyd Alexander, a book I still hold in reverence today.

You see, my reading (and social studies) teacher at Yokota East Elementary School had my reading group reading nothing but award winners; if it didn’t have a Newbery or Caldecott sticker on the cover, it didn’t count for class. (See my post about this hard reading lesson if you want more details.) On that account, Mom had recently picked up a handful of sticker-bearing titles at the book fair, and I hadn’t had the chance to read all of them yet, as I was more into my sports trivia and other nonfiction at the time.

Then one night I was looking for something new, and I had my whole half hour ahead of me. Of course I didn’t want to go to sleep, so I perused the backs of the new paperbacks stacked on top of my desk. Thinking back, this pile also included Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary, From the Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes, and a few other wonderful works I eventually came to enjoy. But on this particular night, I selected the book with the dude holding a sword on it. Who doesn’t love fighting monsters? And so around 8:15 pm I began.

I don’t remember which of my various parent-avoiding lights-out strategies I employed that night, but I remember stretching out on my Major League Baseball bedspread and shivering at the thought of the Huntsmen of Annuvin and the unkillable Cauldron-born chasing someone—chasing me—as I raced with Taran, Prince Gwydion, Eilonwy, and their companions across the land to find some way to defeat Arawn, Death Lord. I had not read the first four books in the series, and I was only vaguely familiar with the characters as Disney had portrayed them in that horrible animated version of The Black Cauldron. All I knew was that I was trapped in this book and couldn’t escape until the last page had been read.

I got the extra blanket from under my bed. Brown and fraying, it served as my hiding place from the Huntsmen and Cauldron-born—in my imagination, some of the scariest dudes in all of literary bad guy-dom.

I think it was around four in the morning when I finally closed the book, sighed in relief because I was satisfied with how most of the novel ended (I’m not revealing any spoilers), but also because I could now climb off my bed and relieve my bladder of the pee I had been holding in because I didn’t want to miss any action. It wasn’t until my dad tried waking me up the next morning for school that I realized that I had literally stayed up (almost) all night to start and finish a book.

Since then I have done it many times, both for books that were well worth it, and for those that disappointed me enough to throw them across the room and crack their bindings. What a geek!

And as I type this last bit to my post, I look over and see a stack of books I got for Christmas added to the pile I brought home to read from my classroom, and I debate. Which one should I stay up for now? Hmmm….

Many of you might conclude that I should have learned my lesson. I guarantee that I have: every once in a while reading is worth sacrificing sleep (and consciousness the next day). Read on! If you haven’t read The High King or any of the Chronicles of Prydain, repent. Stop what you are doing immediately and go find it. If you can’t dig up a copy of The Book of Three (the first in the series), let me know and I can hook you up. It’s one of my all-time favorite fantasy series. 

Knowing is Half the Battle

The pressure is on. Not only am I the first guest blogger on this blog, I am also several days late on delivering my promised tale.  So here goes.  My brother, Kevin, is two years younger than I am.  When we were little, we lived for afternoon cartoons.  If we wanted to watch TV after school, we got one shot.  We did not have Nickelodeon, or Cartoon Network, or Netflix or even a VCR (we did have electricity, barely).  On one of the handful of stations we did receive, there were a few precious hours after school dedicated to cartoons.  For some reason I remember it being channel 20, but that detail is a bit hazy.  At this time in our young lives (I could not have been any older than 3^rd grade, which would have put Kevin in first) one of our favorite shows was G.I. Joe.  As much as I liked it, Kevin liked it more.  He was an avid collector of action figures and anything else he could get his hands on.  I think he is still a little upset at Mom for giving his collection away to a younger cousin.  He had some definite collector’s items.  But I digress.  Part of what we loved about watching G.I. Joe was the TV personality that would introduce each episode, Machine Gun Joe.  Avid watchers, which included us, could enter their name into a drawing.  At the end of the day’s adventure, Machine Gun Joe would select a lucky winner.  He would then call them on the phone, on live TV, and ask who the hero of the day was.  If you knew, you won a gazillion dollars worth of G.I. Joe treasures.  I honestly don’t remember what the grand prize was exactly, but it was really cool.  It kept us watching religiously so that we would always know the hero of the day’s episode so we would be ready when the telephone rang.

As fate would have it, one December afternoon, I decided that decorating the kitchen windows with Christmas decals was a much better idea than watching G.I. Joe.  I was sitting on the kitchen table which was pressed up against the wall under the window.  A little girl my mom babysat was helping me decorate, when the phone rang.  I answered and a voice said, “This is Machine Gun Joe from channel 20.  Can I speak to Amy Walker?”  What?  My mind could not even process what was happening.  Before I knew it he had asked who the hero of the day was, I had told him I did not know, and the conversation was over.  Only after I hung up the phone was I aware of the screams echoing up the stairwell, “It’s Duke!  It’s Duke!”  Duh?  How dumb could I be?!  It’s always Duke.  I could have at least guessed.  Kinda like you always go for answer “C” on the multiple choice tests when you have no clue what the answer is.  When in doubt, choose Duke. Truly, I bet I could count on one hand the number of episodes we watched where the hero was someone else.  I don’t even remember anyone else’s name, besides Scarlet and Destro.  Like they were ever gonna save the day.  Scarlet was the only girl and Destro was the bad guy.

Poor, Kevin.  By the time he realized what was happening, meaning the fact that I wasn’t going to come up with the right answer, it was too late.  Had he started for the stairs when they first called my name, we might have won.  I wish there had been a camera to record his heroic scramble up the stairs trying to save his sister from utter humiliation.  No doubt he was also banking on a hefty share of the winnings.  But he could not save me.  At the school the next day everyone wanted to know why I had not been watching, why I had not at least guessed, why I had not come up with the answer that everyone in the world knew, “DUKE!  THE HERO OF THE DAY IS ALWAYS DUKE!”  (Maybe this is why I have an aversion to a certain ACC team.  Hmmm…)

A few days later, a large manila envelope arrived addressed to me.  Inside was a letter from Machine Gun Joe and two action figures.  Some obscure guy and Destro.  I gave one to Kevin.  It was the least I could do for failing him.  So in the end we each gained something.  He got a new action figure for his collection and I learned a new vocabulary word:  consolation, as in consolation prize, as in here is something to try to help you forget that you are a big loser.  Obviously, I am completely over the humiliation.

Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!

            Yesterday I “liked” a Facebook page for Poor Boys BBQ & Dawgs, a most excellent joint here in Payson.  Unfortunately, it’s going out of business next week.  I almost cried when I found out.  To be honest, I haven’t eaten there as much as I should have.  However, over this past week, we feasted on their pulled pork and beef brisket as a Young Men’s group on Wednesday.  Then yesterday, as I was getting ready to come home from school (for Christmas Break!), Amy suggested that we order Poor Boys and take it to my parents for dinner.  I did not object.  I just got stuffed again.  (Burp.)

            Now, getting back on track, because I “liked” the FB page on Free Food Friday, I won a free sandwich next week.  I almost cried again.  Not really, but I drooled a little.

            And that caused me, along with a little prodding from my lovely wife, who is grading beside me right now, to think about other things I have won.  And really, it hasn’t been much.  I don’t win raffles, drawings, or really anything—that is, unless there is a prize for everyone playing.

            So here is the list I came up with:

-       - -Last year I won a FB contest from BYU TV: two basketball tickets, a signed team ball, and a tour of the BYU TV studios.

-       - -A few years ago I won a pair of shoes in a drawing at school.

-       - -Several years ago, I was caller number ten on the radio: CD

-       -- As a freshman at Ricks I was a call-in winner to a radio station: CD & BBQ wings

That’s all I can really remember.  It’s not too much, and that’s okay.  It was still something.

            Amy has a better story about contests, so I’ll let her guest blog either later today or tomorrow.

            For now, I'll just dream of which sauce to put on my sandwich.

A Cold, Cruel Winter Night of Yesteryear (Well…2009, At Least)

I realize I have related part of this before, but here is the rest of the story.

            Four years ago I had gone out to do some Christmas shopping.  I was quite proud of myself for not having to ask for any help with Amy’s gifts: I chose what to get, where to get them, and even thought of a way she wouldn’t notice in our checking account when and where the money had been spent.  I also picked up a few items for the kids as well.  In fact, I braved a mall (blech!) the during the Christmas rush.  I believe it was even a Friday night when I went straight from school to stare down cranky old ladies and hold my breath as I weaved through department stores—perfume death traps are quite abundant during the holidays.

            I was on my way home, trying to be careful due to the icy roads.  The traffic made it slow going, or at least I thought it was the traffic. That is, until I noticed that as I traveled south the roads became clearer, but my ’96 Hyundai Accent, Buddy, wouldn’t go any faster.  I lost acceleration going up the on-ramp.  And suddenly I couldn’t do more than 40 mph on a clear freeway.  Cars, trucks, and the occasional motorcycle began passing me like Buddy had stuck his tongue to the flagpole and couldn’t move on.  I didn’t want to break down on the freeway, so I got off on the Benjamin exit to take the back farm roads into Payson.

            Halfway between the exit and home, Buddy crawled to a halt, exhausted, and like a lame horse, refused to get up and go.  Fortunately for him, I didn’t have my shotgun, or that would have been the end right there between the snowy fields.  Luckily, I was able to start him using an old trick I learned from nursing Fredrick, my old ’82 Buick Skyhawk.  (That’s a story for another time, though).

            Buddy and I crept home plodding along at less than 10 mph, finally to arrive in the driveway.  The next day, I rolled him back down into the road for the tow truck to haul him away to the garage.  Sadly, I sold him to the mechanic for $200.  It almost felt like 30 pieces of silver.

            Some people mourn the loss of a dog or some other pet.  Buddy was better than any golden lab or pocket Chihuahua.  Christened atop a mountainside with a bottle of IBC root beer, he became a sturdy companion, a trusted friend.  Even after I purchased Artoo, my newer Hyundai Elantra, I walked around in a stupor because my Buddy was gone.

            Although I saw him around two or three times after the mechanic salvaged him (and gave him to his little sister), it was never the same.  Sniff.

            I’m reposting the eulogy I wrote for my beloved car: 

Bad Boy Blue a.k.a. Buddy (Feb 1998-Dec 2009)

Across the country once and back,
Three sets of tires, three windshields cracked, 
Carting scouts and fording rivers,
Enduring smells that give most shivers—
Only once a dropped transmission,
Faded paint, a faulty light, a visor missin’
Spills and splats and marshmallow stuff,
I’m sorry, Buddy, you were treated so rough(ly)
And even though your defroster never worked,
You eventually always got me from and to work,
To class, to meetings, to meet my wife (rrrr)
Buddy, you’ve been a major part of life
These past twelve years, and so, adieu,
Farewell, my friend, my Bad Boy Blue.

The Epitome of Humility

            I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but I figure that I’m a pretty intelligent guy, especially when it comes to words.  Honestly, with my wife and I as English teachers, not too many people like to play board games that involve words with us.  Pity.  (Not-so-subtle hint: It’s been so long since we’ve really played that we’re a bit rusty.)

            My favorite book as a two-year-old was a picture dictionary (that I still have).  It’s falling apart, but it was loved to death.  I read voraciously as a child and I do now.  There was a little anomaly called junior high, where my reading habits slowed, but only in public.  My vocabulary can switch from academic to hick to junior high to jock to computer geek and back again with ease.

            But all this does not mean that I am perfect.  I am human and do make language mistakes, as this anecdote will testify.

            AP English. Senior year at Mascoutah Community High School.  Mr. Manwaring had been out for radiation treatments.  Ms. Stereotyped Spinster Librarian Lady was the long-term sub.  She hated me because I despised Emily Dickinson and ridiculed the characters of Ethan Frome. Oh, wait. That’s a different story.  I digress.

            Rewind (not delete) back to the setting: same year and place.  This story occurred around Halloween.  We had immersed ourselves in the occult-ness that is Edgar Allan Poe.  Having read many of his works before, I was a mini-expert among my peers for this unit.  I touched up my short story that I had written the year before, “The Ultimate Sin,” as part of a creative assignment where we were supposed to imitate Poe’s macabre style.  I received high praise from Mr. M: he came in one day, excited, and turned off the lights, and read it aloud by flashlight.  Definitely cool.  I became a writing celebrity (as far as that goes in high school).  And I’ll admit that it’s not the best story in the world, but I thought I was all that and two bags of chips and a Coke.

            And then one day, feeling high and mighty, and wanting to flaunt my literary wisdom and ostentatious vocabulary, I committed a gaffe that would take me down a couple of notches.

            Still discussing Poe, hubris in full effect, I volunteered my opinion that dismally tragic Edgar was the epitome of a writer who went crazy, threw what remained of his life away, indulged in substances, died, and became famous.  I did so and felt pretty smug.

            Later that period, I was reading from another text, and I came across the word epitome again.  However, up to that point in my life, I had never encountered the word in writing.  I knew what it meant in conversation.  Heck, I had just used the word myself.  As I read, I figured out what it meant by the context.  But when it came time to say it, I stumbled, and using my superior decoding unfamiliar word skills, I pronounced it ep-ih-toam—three syllables, first one stressed, last one with a long o.

            “What did you just say?” Mr. M. chuckled.

            The whole class, who hadn’t been paying close attention because they were reading ahead, like the good, little book nerds we were, stopped and looked up.

            Mr. M. started shaking his head and full-on belly laughed.  I was ridiculed for the rest of the semester.  My vanity damaged, I didn’t speak in class for many weeks.

            Bringing this tale full circle, let me rephrase my earlier analogy about dropping a few notches: after mispronouncing epitome, my lofty, prideful branches were hewn down and cast into the fire.  As my students today would say, I got burnt. Roasted.

            I now use this example of my linguistic faux pas with my students as an attempt to get my students to care about their overall vocabulary skills and how they present themselves when they speak.  Some of them are too proud to care about how moronic they sound, though, and refuse to abandon their purposeful mispronunciations and ignorance.

Sledding Dirty

            On Little Rock AFB we lived at the bottom of a steep hill—a hill down which I learned to ride a bike, a hill that provided a buffer from the annoying kid who messed with Benji—took his food and taunted him and ended up with a chewed up face.  But there’s one memory about that hill that stick out right now.

            Christmas Day 1983, or maybe 1984, was one to remember.  My brothers and I raked in a boatload of Star Wars and He-Man action figures.  Well, to us it seemed like a lot.  It probably wasn’t, but who cares?  It’s the memories that count, right?  I think it was that Christmas that we received Castle Greyskull and the Ewok village play sets.  We were in heaven, but that was nothing compared to the fact that it had snowed!

            This was the first Christmas I remember being white.  There may have been others, but this one I actually remember being excited for the slow-falling fat crystals.  I remember trying to teach tiny David to catch them on his tongue, but he didn’t like the cold and wet on his little face.  In reality, the snow wasn’t that deep or impressive (looking at the pictures now)—kind of crusty, with chunks of ice strewn throughout—but to us it was a small bit of paradise.

            Marc got the crazy idea to go sledding.  None of us kids had ever been (that I could recall), and it became an instant obsession.  There was one problem: no sleds.  But for my dad, our personal MacGyver, it was no problem.  He simply cut up the waxed cardboard boxes our toys came packaged in, and Shazzam! Instant sleds.

            After what seemed like hours, Mom finally called us (three boys and Dad) in for dinner.  We had worn the snow through to the grass, but we begged for one last run down the hill on our makeshift sleds.

As we trudged up the hill for one more run, Dad watched us struggle up the hill.  “Is that how you boys have been getting up the hill?” he asked.

            “Uh huh.” Marc nodded.

            We would clamber up a slick smaller part of the hill with our cardboard sleds in tow, grab a frozen rock, and haul ourselves up to the next part of the hill, where we could get a foothold before pushing on to the summit.

            “Every time?”

            “Yep.”

            “You know what you’ve been holding onto, don’t you?”  Dad’s smile grew.

            “Uh….”

            “That’s Benji’s frozen dog poop!”

            And that was the end of that game.