Where Were You?

For a class activity she is conducting, my colleague Jaimie asked each faculty member to share a few memories of our own experiences of 9/11. Here were my recollections:

                Most mornings I listen to sports talk radio or a book on CD on my way to work, but on the morning of September 11, 2001, for some reason, just before 7:00 MST, I decided to switch to the news. I heard the report that an airplane had struck the north tower of the World Trade Center. I figured it was a catastrophic accident—some poor amateur pilot or something.

                To my astonishment, I was listening live via KSL when another plane smashed into the south tower. I was idling at a stop light when I caught the reporter’s off-guard reaction. My own, a lowly mutter: “Oh, crap.” Both towers started coming down before I pulled into the school parking lot.

                In my classroom I turned on the television and absorbed report after report as they rolled in with a play-by-play of the collapse of the towers, the bravery of the first responders, the climbing death toll. Shortly, it was the story of the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 crashing into a nondescript Pennsylvania field.

                We stood on a turning point in American history.

                The previous day, my 9^th graders read a short story—“American History”by Judith Ortiz Cofer: Elena, a young Puerto Rican girl, remembers the day President Kennedy was shot. She was in the ninth grade, and she hated school. The only bright spot was her crush on a boy named Eugene. On the day of the assassination, she had made plans to study with him. It would have been her first visit to his house. School was dismissed early, and she wandered home, thinking of Eugene. When Elena appeared at Eugene’s door, however, his mother turned her away. She did not want her son making friends with a Puerto Rican girl. Returning home, Elena found her building silent and everyone in mourning. Absorbed in her own tragedy, Elena couldn’t share in the public sorrow (summary courtesy of McDougall Littell’s The Language of Literature 9).

                That morning, in the midst of public tragedy, I witnessed several parallel stories woven into the lives around me. Like Elena from the story, several complained about trivial concerns such as how embarrassing it was that someone else was wearing the same shirt. Why a certain girl hadn’t responded to a note. Why a young football player was going to quit because he didn’t get any minutes until the fourth quarter of a blowout. How the copy machine was still broken. I even overheard a few students unsympathetically shrug off the morning’s attacks with an indifferent “So what? Who cares?”

(taken from http://www.albany.edu/news/16124.php)

                In class we drew the parallels between the story from the day before and the current event still happening in our country. The conversations of my classroom that day dealt with putting life into perspective. Both teenagers and adults uncovered truths of human existence and relevance—discoveries similar those of Robert Fulghum’s 1959 experience with Sigmund Wollman (Seattle Times, August 29, 1991) or Henry Smith in Gary D. Schmidt’s Trouble. Despite the apathetic few, national pride inflated. Compassion grew. Where the stereotypical teenage blinders once held fast; eyes of empathy and worlds self-discovery opened. With the world on a perpetually pessimistic fast-forward, sometimes, unfortunately, tragedy is compels us to stop and scrutinize our personal perspective. Once back in check, we realize what really matter and we uncover our best selves. Only from the ashes can a new phoenix rise.

To read the rest of the stories faculty members at Spanish Fork Jr., High contributed to Jaimie's activity, check the school's website. 

Who's Your Daddy?

(Me with Dad, June 1977)

                My dad served for over twenty years in the US Air Force. Throughout his career, he was assigned temporary duties that took him away for several days sometimes for weeks or even months at a time. As young boys, we would often accompany Mom when she went to pick him up after he returned from one of these TDY assignments. These trips to get Dad at times occurred at odd hours. I remember being four or five years old lying in the back of the station wagon with my brother Marc watching the streetlamps zip by backwards as we stared out the window up at the sky. We would pretend they were Imperial starships we were trying to evade. When Dad returned from Operation Desert Storm, we actually got to skip school to greet him on the runway as he and the rest of the 5th MAPS disembarked.

                Dad likes to tell the story that when I was really little—barely talking, Mom and I (and probably Marc) would sit in the car outside the squadron building, waiting for him to come out. And apparently, anyone who came out of the building dressed in a flight suit would be greeted by a little boy yelling out the station wagon window. “Daddy! Daddy!” Much to the mortification of my mother, my exuberance for seeing Dad caused more than a few chuckles because to me, I guess, anyone who wore the uniform could have been my daddy. I can only wonder what some passersby might have thought. Thankfully for Mom it wasn’t long before I could tell my dad apart from the other airmen.

What's My Name?

School has started again, so I get to write some more! At least I'll be able to write with my students. I said that once I finished the dissertation I'd have more time to write what I want. That is yet to be determined. My cousin Michelle challenged me to join the Throwing Up Words blog's challenge to write for an hour each day for one month starting on August 15. Sorry. I couldn't do that. Not yet. Still, I'm writing.

Every few years I have my students write about their names--an exploratory exercise where they have to involve their parents of another relative. This year, I personally needed a new angle:

And so it began. Last week while teaching my first group of university students the question came up: “So…what do we call you?”

                “Just don’t call me late for dinner,” I retorted.

                The young Padawan was not to be deterred. “No, I mean, like Mister or Professor or what?” She apparently didn’t get the Dad joke I laid down, but I knew exactly what she meant.  A few knowing chuckles from around the room let me know that others did, too.

                I replied that I didn’t really care. Doctor, Professor, Mister, or even my previous title Master, as many of my junior high students liked to use, were fine with me. I’d answer to just about anything, but again, I reiterated, don’t call me late for dinner.

                Although I had a quick answer, it caused me to ponder. What should I have people call me? Beginning last year or so, I had colleagues ask me if when I earned the Ph.D. I would make people, specifically my students, call me Doctor. Then the stories about stuffy, snobby professors would start, and I would leave the conversation.

                I thought about my own professors. As students, most of us in the classes, called them Professor or Doctor out of respect, even when the instructor hadn’t quite cemented that final diploma. As a doctoral student, many of the professors allowed us to call them by their first names, but I think that is different.

                So…how do I sign my emails? Do I call myself Doctor Anson? Sound snobby and include Ph.D. on every closing tag line? What do I write at the top of my papers now that I have achieved this status? Do I still go by Joe as my colleagues know me, or do I go back to the more professional-sounding Joseph? Do I start using the middle initial, too? That might turn some heads. Man, I haven’t had this type of identity crisis since I was in junior high.

                I’m curious. We can open this up for public debate (if anyone really cares). What do you think? Should I go with one way or the other? Or is it just a contextual thing?