Demon Goats...Yes, You Heard Me Correctly...Demon Goats

This post is an amalgamation of a couple different prompts. It started last December regarding a prompt focused around traditions. It then evolved over time, finishing today after I read Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen's The Dark. The prompt asked students to reflect on some fear they may or may not have overcome. Most chose to also write about the dark, or heights, spiders, roller coasters, clowns, or other common fears. Mine...well...mine is different.

We have a tradition in our family to visit a pumpkin patch every year before Halloween.  We go with the same friends and have the same great time.  This year, when we thought about changing venues, all the kids protested—a few to the point of tears.

So we kept our plans and herded a total of ten children to Vineyard, UT, where Pumpkin Land resides.  We started with the traditional corn maze, or rather corn trail, where the older boys, of course, left everyone in the dust, determined that they knew best.  (It was actually the girls who found the way this year.)  Then we proceeded to the farm animal enclosures.  Chickens, ducks, rabbits, turkeys, and sheep grazed on leftover harvest veggies as dozens of kids (not all ours) poked and yelled among the pens and play equipment.

And then a memory I hadn't thought of in years hit me square in the face; and despite my accumulated years of adult experience, I jumped like a little kid, and almost bolted.  There, with its stupid ugly shaggy head caught between iron bars was a large billy goat.  He bleated and pulled and butted and caused enough racket that I thought he was going to tear down the fence and start after me.  Irrationally, I scooped up Sam and led him away as quickly as I could.

As we left and headed toward the bounce houses (much safer and less nasty—even with dozens of soggy-socked three-to-eleven-year-olds), I realized that Zac was still standing by the other goat pen, feeding them.  The farmer had come, unstuck the stubborn billy and brought a ginormous bag of popcorn to feed the smaller, tamer goats, letting some of the children help.  And because I’m honestly not scared of goats, I felt really stupid for my unexplainable behavior.

Well, maybe a quick back story is warranted since there is an explanation that might clear my silliness.  When I was quite a bit younger (perhaps kindergarten or first grade), my mom signed me and my brothers up for one of those book clubs where every month we would get four books in the mail.  Very cool—especially for a geek like me who loved to read.  However, amidst all the great and not-so-great children’s literature that I was exposed to, there remains one book that as I look back in retrospect, was the origin of all my fears.

I believe it was called The Little Goat by Judy Dunn.  (I have since found a picture of the cover.)  Harmless enough, it was about a little girl who helped raise a runty kid until it was big enough to take care of itself (if I remember correctly).  However, there were a couple of pictures of the other goats on the farm that just gave me the willies: first, a shaggy brown goat sticking its head out of a barn; and second, a black and brown goat that looked like an ultra-hairy Donald Sutherland with bugging eyes and a crazy, wild look as in his role as Sgt. Oddball in Kelly’s Heroes—craaaazzy man.  In his words, it put off lots of negative waves, baby, as it stared off the page into my soul.  That demon goat scared the crap out of me.

When we lived in Arkansas, there was an old working mill that we would go to every so often.  And I believe we had pictures there once, so I actually thought it was Olin Mills—you know: the portrait studio.  And it could have been for all I knew back then.  I remember a path along the stream with wooden planks and handrails like something Huck, Tom, and Joe might have lashed together: so rickety you felt safer not holding onto them.  And there was a covered bridge with rails where we would drop sticks into the lazily creeping stream.  Bracken and other mosses covered just about everything with a perpetual green.  Even the water had a greenish tint to it.

I believe I was in second or third grade when I had a nightmare of being stuck on a dilapidated wooden bridge, the very one from the mill.  One end collapsed; the other dropped off into the greenish swirling pond, trapping me in semi-darkness.   I raced over to one side, but waiting for me was one of the demon goats from the book only about the size of a tree.  Panicked, I rushed to the opposite side.  The other goat waited, smiling.  Their necks started stretching until they looked like giant deformed llamas.  Their goofy, lopsided heads began swaying back and forth, serpentining like cartoon cobras moving in for the kill.  I couldn’t escape and I woke up screaming and tangled in my covers.  Looking over the railing of my top bunk, The Little Goat lay open to the page with the demon goats.  It was several months before I could even look at the book again.  The pictures haunted me for years.  And although I am not afraid of goats in real life, every so often when I think about that dream, I involuntarily shudder.

This is the cover of the book. Not scary.   I can't find a picture of the demons, but
they're in there! I went to my parents' house to find the book, but it has disappeared.
I wonder if I might have destroyed it several years ago.  It wouldn't put it past me.

I've had several experiences with goats since that moment that have caused me slight discomfort. One was a goat eating my friend’s worksheet out of his hand on a field trip to a zoo during 6th grade. My mom, who was chaperoning the trip, had to vouch for him because the teacher didn't believe that the goat ate his homework. Another instance happened across the Atlantic in Spain. I was walking down a dirt trail along a steep hillside with a companion, only to realize that we were in the direct path of a flock of several hundred goats. With no way to go around, we had to freeze as the animals poured around us, some of them nipping at our belts and fingers and packs as they ebbed and flowed down the path, a fuzzy brown and white stream replete with sprouting horns and full udders dragging on the ground—the lone shepherd laughing at us all the way. But nothing compares to the trauma inflicted by The Little Goat and his pals. 

Stupid bleaters!

Me, Plagiarize?

What's this? Posting two days in a row?  That's unheard of.  Well, almost.  I'm sure if you go back far enough, you'll find posts on consecutive days.  That doesn't count Decembers when I make it a point to post (almost) every day.

Today, after reading Sandra Cisneros's "Eleven" to each of my classes, I composed this rough memory of a time where I was wrongly accused.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to unearth the ending from the recesses of my mind.  Oh, well.  I guess as I get closer to being "old," I'll have to live with some of that.

Long ago in a galaxy not so far away, but far enough to be called foreign, I was in 5^th grade.  And I believe that it was around this time that I discovered, or maybe rather rediscovered that I was a good writer.  Or at least I could become a good writer.  This was the unique year that I was placed in a double classroom: one large, open room with two teachers who taught two separate classes at the same time—Mrs. Knopp and Mrs. Curry.

It was the language arts/spelling/social studies/reading teacher Mrs. Curry who acquainted me with the word “embellishment” and told me not to do it when writing factual paragraphs.  But that’s a different story.

On this particular occasion, we were placed in groups to do research and present on an aspect of life during the Civil War.  My little group of four was assigned to cover life on a Southern plantation.  I don’t remember two nondescript members of the group that met at my house to construct and paint a model of a plantation, but Paul Gonzales was in my group—one of two pariahs in the class of around fifty students.  The untouchable proved his “worth” that day as he spilled paint, flattened log cabins, and made our plantation look like it was recovering from a class three hurricane.  And to top it all, he wiped the paintbrushes (not quite dry or clean) on Mom’s good towels.  She erupted—after everyone had gone, of course, so in turn I was fuming at Paul in my passive-aggressive sort of way.

When it came time to present, I took over and spoke right over top of him.  There was no way I was going to let his geeky awkwardness stand in the way of a good grade.  Our presentation turned out pretty darn well, or at least I thought so.  That is, until Mrs. Curry pulled me aside and told me she was lowering my grade because I wasn’t a team player.  I stood there at her desk with my mouth hanging wide as an empty bear cave.  My jaw almost hit the floor like a Saturday morning cartoon.  I received a C- while the rest of my group got B’s.

There was, she said, one way I could make up my grade.  I needed to do an additional report about the Civil War.  She handed me a list of topics that hadn’t been used from presentations.  I don’t remember the entire list because I chose the first item: Confederate money.

I race to the library after school on my bike.  I pored over encyclopedias and raided the 970s at the back of the nonfiction section.  I read and I read for hours.  My grade’s salvation depended on it.  After I had squeezed every last ounce of information about Confederate money I could out it the available resources (which honestly weren’t many), I slaved over the typewriter as best as I could.   Without ever having taken a typing class, I felt like a chick pecking the dirt, slowly, unsurely, not really knowing what I was doing, only to mess up dozens of times to start over.

Mom made a late-night run to the store to buy a posterboard.  I stayed up well past my bedtime drawing currency examples; my allowance not ample enough to make photocopies then.  When it was finally put together, I collapsed—assured that I had done excellent work.  Tomorrow would redeem my standing with my teacher.

Before the first bell rang the next morning, a red poster with a typed report and illustrations lay across Mrs. Curry’s desk.  By the end of the day, I had learned a new word: plagiarism.  However, I must say that as a champion for the squelching of plagiarists, I did not cheat.  And although I have often been tempted to do so, I have always cited my sources.  Mrs. Curry just didn’t believe that a fifth grader could write so well, nor did she check my bibliography.  She confronted me while the class was browsing in the library.  I stood, monster movie books in hand, crying, begging, trying to convince her that I hadn’t cheated.  I went back to the classroom early.  Alone.

The dénouementic details of this tale are fuzzy.  I don’t think Mom got involved, but if I look at my report card from way back then, I ended up with the grade I wanted.  Plus, I don’t remember ever writing another report for Mrs. Curry again.

Some might think this would cause me to go softly on plagiarists.  False.  Today, I swat plagiarists like flies on a molasses-coated tabletop.  In elementary school, students should be taught what plagiarism is and held to high standards.  By the time a student reaches middle school, he should know that plagiarism ranks right under murder and is punishable by flogging in some countries.  Writing is a difficult process; imitating style can be beneficial for aspiring writers.  Wholesale copying, though, should not be tolerated.  I learned early to cite my sources.  Like my friend Andria says, “Words are free.  Copying phrases and sentences is plagiarism.”

With the advent of cut-and-paste features, it is too easy to cheat.  However, it is also easy to be caught.  Do I catch every cheater?  Unfortunately, no.  However, when I do, I make sure that the writing doesn’t match anything else she has written for me in the past.  I make sure that I ask for references (and check them if I suspect).   I don’t rush to judgment like Mrs. Curry.  If there is proof, the plagiarist gets squished—“just like grape,” as Mr. Miyagi relates to Daniel in The Karate Kid.  

Joe's Ribs

I've been hanging onto these photos for a little while, so I suppose it's time to share.  I was looking for something to grill, and I was getting tired of burgers, brats, dogs, and chicken.  And so I had Amy pick up some country style pork ribs.  Stop drooling on your screen; that's gross.

Those who know me, already realize that I don't like using exact measurements.  That said, here is a list of ingredients for the rub I invented.  And to be honest, I did look at several rub recipes before I settled on this.  Feel free to steal this, alter it, ignore it--whatever.  I will say though, that I also made these for my wife's family while we were on vacation, and they ate 'em up (literally and figuratively).

- chili powder

- garlic powder

- salt

- black pepper

- cumin

- smoked paprika

- oregano (not much)

- brown sugar

- although I did't do it this time, I wanna try adding red pepper flakes

Refrigerate for a while before throwing them on the grill.  Allow the flavor to seep into the meat.

Trust me; it's better that way.

WARNING: Don't make too many, because you will end up eating them all!
The second time I made the rub, I spread it over five pounds of pork ribs.
Leftovers were amazing, especially with a side of Southern slaw.

Okay.  I admit that I slathered them with BBQ sauce toward the end of the grill session.
I left one without sauce, though.  It didn't need it.

Served with a side of grilled potatoes and onions.  Add watermelon.

I said to stop drooling!

Rattlesnake Falls

This episode comes by way of teaching my students to use tangible details to establish setting.  They also wanted to know if I had ever had an encounter with a dangerous animal.  And here you have both:

My legs needed some space; sixteen-year-olds do not belong with two brothers in the back seat of a minivan.  Even after I would push one of them under the seat so I could spread out a smidgen, the overflow of luggage that spilled from the back invaded my space.

The constant droning of the siblings didn't make the journey any easier.  The family had been on the road for a few days, driving from Illinois down to Arkansas and back up through Missouri.  We had already traveled five or six hours that day, heading for Lake of the Ozarks to relax and get away and enjoy the outdoors.  However, getting away from the sweaty, stickiness hanging in the air seemed impossible.  I was bored and sweaty.  My Discman batteries had died.  Reading was not an option.  Midwestern stuffiness killed the air conditioner’s attempt to circulate.  The aftertaste of Funyuns kicking around created a new-found carsick tendency deep inside my abdomen.  The corn chipness that was David’s feet only made it worse.  The overripe wad of watermelon Bubbalicious that Nicole smacked didn't help either; she reminded me of the countless farms of cud-chewers we had passed along the way.

The four Mountain Dew refills from lunch at Taco Bell (Toxic Hell) started to take their toll.  I wasn't sure how much more I could take.  My innards bounced up and down wooded hills, around hidden curves; the drive continued.  On and on.  And on.  And on.  My bladder and my stomach both called dibs on blowing first.

And then Dad stopped unexpectedly, pulling onto a little gravel shoulder overlooking a narrow, green valley in the middle of a somewhat rocky deciduous forest.  Without hesitating, I ripped off my seat belt and yanked open the side door, leaving vacation exploded in my wake.  I could breathe again.  Sure, I was drinking the humidity in gulps, and I was perspiring like a fat man in a sauna, but at least it was clean air.

I decided to give myself some space—and privacy—so I hobbled through the woods to the edge of an outcropping.  A shallow gorge lay in front of me.  Without the urgency and pressure I felt and more time to explore, I would have jumped the six or seven feet to the bottom, but as it was, nature was calling, and refused to leave a message.

The relief was instantaneous.  Taking my time, taking a leak, I took in the surroundings that I hadn't noticed before: insects hummed, birds sang, a large afternoon thunderhead rolled in.  As I finished up my business, zipped, and turned to leave, I thought I heard something coming from the gully.  A scratching sound like twigs dragged through leaves.

Standing from where I had just whizzed, I glanced down and saw my puddle.  Then I froze.  Three thick feet of the back end of a timber rattlesnake slowly slithered away from the wetness and under the jagged rocks I happened to be standing on.  My eyes followed the body, abundant as a Hickory Farms summer sausage, its dark gray and black and brown diamonds tapering down its tail as it disappeared from sight.  Not quite six feet directly below me.

The shiver did not come from the oncoming storm winds, nor did it arise from the raindrops that stared to fall.  The heebie jeebies full-on raced up my right leg, spasmed me silly, and sped down the left.  My body streaked to the van, more than content to be confined in its restrictive space.  I still shudder whenever I think of how close that reptile slithered without me knowing it.

However, it wasn't until I read an early draft of this to a seventh grade class, that what I had inadvertently done hit me: “Mr. Anson, you really peed on a rattlesnake?”

Apparently I had.

From the Mouths of Poets

The first time I remember seeing a poet read her work I was an undergrad student at BYU.  My wife and I went with our professor Sirpa Grierson and another student (I don’t remember her name) up to Copper Hills High School to hear Jorie Graham read and present to the high school students.

We got a little lost on the way up; arriving late, we had to find a seat in the back of the school’s library, which was fairly large for a high school, if I remember, and it was packed.  A group of students were selected to read their works.  We came in during this time.  Most of the poems were full of imageless angst, awkward swearing, and pretend pent-up anger. It was like I was back in the Lancer Lot writing group back at Belleville East; too many kids trying to have horrible lives to write about, when most of them were pampered snobs—“phonies,” as Holden Caulfield identifies them.  Few were genuine.  And the same was happening in the semi-open mic session at CHHS.

Lunch was a zoo, and it took a while to reconvene for the keynote.  When Jorie got up she dropped the F-bomb on everyone.  One.  Single.  Word.  There was an audible gasp; most of the crowd swallowed themselves.  It was silent full a full five alligators, and then the room began to buzz.  Loudly.  Jorie stepped back from the microphone then patiently stood and watched.  After a moment she cleared her throat and taught a powerful lesson.  She said that if you were offended hearing the words, then you shouldn't use them in your poetry.  Don’t use words that are not your own.  The most important thing to be in poetry is real.  You can’t pretend to be something you are not.

Back in 10th grade I wrote a poem for Mr. Albert’s Honors English class about the death of a girlfriend.  It was rushed—written on the bus on the way to school after someone asked if I had written anything.  During first period I shared it with a few girls to see if it made any sense.  After class they returned my folded sheet of loose leaf covered in blue ink with tears in their eyes.  They repeatedly asked if I was okay…if I was over it…if I wanted to talk about it.  Huh?

Confused, I wasn't sure what they were talking about.  Oh, yeah.  My poem.  It wasn't real, but I wasn't going to them that…yet.  I believe I was in a Poe phase—having read and studied “Annabel Lee” recently.  I had been imitating style and content.  Needless to say, I had drawn instant sympathy…instant status…every sophomore’s dream, right?  That is until Mr. Albert saw through the phoniness as they were read in aloud in class.  He saw in an instant that I had no idea what I was talking about and had me confess in front of the class.  Crash and burn.  Status revoked.  I didn't try it again.  (Side note: Don’t ask.  I don’t have a copy of it.  And I don’t really remember it either.) 

I don’t remember any of the poetry Ms. Graham read and performed that day, or much else of what was said in that library—just a little explication of W.C.W’s red wheelbarrow poem—something to do with the American Revolution or whatnot.  Actually, I have only read one or two of her poems since that experience—simply out of neglect not spite or self-righteousness.  The experience (until today) had been buried under layers of other poets and preachers and presenters.  This is how I remember the occasion.  My wife Amy, Dr. Grierson, or any others who attended that session might remember it differently.  And I may or may not have presented things as black-and-white accurately as they happened.  But in my head this is truth.  It happened.  I was there.  I learned from it.

So I guess this is a little plug for the adage to write what you know (even if what you know is created in your imagination, as I've heard some sci-fi/fantasy authors say).  Sometimes my version of reality is a little skewed, but then again, so is everyone else’s.

And as I rehearsed to my 9th graders this morning, keep working at what you know.  I do it all the time. Each memory I excavate and develop becomes another narrative that I have learned from or someone else can learn from—lessons about writing, about girls, about when not to fart, and other important facets of life.  I challenge you to do the same.

Guilt That Never Disappears Completely (or Drawing Mustaches)

Again, this comes from deep-brain salvaging--memories unearthed after following a prompt.  It’s not perfect, but here’s what happened this time.  Written after reading Jack Gantos’s “The Follower” to a group of 7^th graders:

With the exception of the interactions among my brothers, I believe that for most of my childhood I was a follower.  I sneaked out of my house…only when I was a friend's house.  I vandalized tents and sidewalks and other types of property, but only when someone else was the ringleader.  One particularly weak me-as-follower incident came when I was eleven years old.  In church, some of the leaders decided they wanted to spotlight a different child each week.  A poster was placed in a prominent part of the hallway with a large photograph and some frivolous facts about the child:  a favorite color, favorite food, favorite scripture story, and two or three other trivial tidbits.  Each poster would remain hanging for a month and rotated out as additional children were “spotlighted.”

For some time, several of my male peers had been drawing mustaches on everything—cartoons, handouts, whatever.  When I expressed to them that I thought the idea of the spotlight was ridiculous, they dared me to draw a mustache on one.  When the first picture up happened to be G_____, a girl I sort of had a crush on, they razzed me even more—poking, prodding, daring me to draw facial hair on this dimpled, dirty-blonde who set my stomach silly.  I volunteered to deface one of the others, but for the guys, in order for me to accomplish the task, the mustache had to be hers.

A couple weeks passed.  I couldn’t do it.  I knew it was wrong—wrong to betray my twitterpated feelings for her; it would be defacing property…in the church, even!  What made it worse was that my mom was one of the women in charge of this hair-brained public display thingy, and there was no way I wanted to disappoint her.  For days my shoulder angel and shoulder devil had a full-on sumo match without a decisive winner.  However, in the end I wanted to win the approval of my peers, and right before the church building was locked up for the week, with a black licorice-scented marker, I drew a bushy, curly mustache nigh unto Rollie Fingers.  A little crooked, since I was trying to covertly complete the operation, it sat unnoticed for a week.

When we came back the following Sunday, the photo had been removed.  My buddies never saw the picture, but they assumed I had fulfilled my fraternal obligation when we all got chewed out by our leaders that afternoon—something about respecting property.  Afterward, without adult supervision, I hardly noticed the high fives and slaps on the back.  I simply swallowed guiltballs the size of grapefruits each time I looked over at the blank spot on the wall.  From then on I couldn’t even look G_____ in the eyes to muster the gumption to talk to her.  Oh, well, right?  To this day, I still don’t know if anyone found out exactly who did it, but when I think on it, I can feel the burning in my stomach that no amount of Rolaids or Tums could help.  Lesson learned.