Back with Poem in Your Pocket Day 2019!

So, those of you who noticed my nasty case of blog neglect and figured that I would forget Poem in Your Pocket Day were sorely mistaken. Yes, I am a self-proclaimed slacker, but I'm still here to ramp up the poetry madness, y'all!

 First, if you are not familiar with Poem in My Pocket Day, here are the rules:

1. Find a copy of your favorite poem...or at least one that you like...or has touched you recently...or whatever. Digital is fine, but it's more human if you print a copy or transcribe it by hand.

2. Carry it around in your pocket (at the ready) all day. You shouldn't have to search for it on your phone every time you pull it out.

3. Share your chosen poem with people throughout the day.

4. Relish the poetry of this world!

Now because I probably won't see all of you today, here is my poem for today. This year I chose to honor the late Mary Oliver, a poet I have read more extensively of late. I planned a longer blog post around this poem, and I may yet do it, but for now, here it is:

“What We Want”

(Taken from https://www.facebook.com/PoetMaryOliver/photos/)

In a poem

people want

something fancy,

but even more

they want something

inexplicable

made plain,

easy to swallow—

not unlike a suddenly

harmonic passage

in an otherwise

difficult and sometimes dissonant

symphony—

even if it is only

for the moment

of hearing it.

Now do me a favor: take time for poetry today and share with me as well. Post your poem in the comments here or via social media somewhere (#pocketpoem), or send me a message if I won't see you face to face. Happy Poem in Your Pocket day!

Another Writing Lesson from the Undead

Teaching at the Young Authors Academy this week provided interesting (a purposefully vague word open to interpretation) experiences. Along with a supervisory role for parts of the camp, I taught two classes: “Building Better Stories” and “Tales and Villains.” Yes, teenagers do sign up to go to summer writing camp, and no, I did not come up with the titles of the classes. Each morning we started in true Writing Project format with a scribble where I was able to begin flexing my writing muscles again. It’s been a refreshing change from writing a dissertation. (Still recovering.) Several authors came to present and talk to the students about writing. We had a great lineup: J. Scott Savage, Chris Crowe, Tess Hilmo, Ann Dee Ellis, and Hannah L. Clark. Matthew Kirby also came for an evening chat with the campers. Each brought their expertise and among other things, validated my own writing practices as well as writing strategies I promote in my regular classroom. 

One of my many takeaways is a revision tool—one that Chris Crowe shared during his presentation about micro-revision, a topic I spend quite a bit of time on with my own students. I had seen most of his presentation before at various workshops, but this one was new.

He had the students first write a word-ku, a deviation of a haiku. It is still a three line poem, but instead of counting syllables, you write five words on the first line, seven on the second, and five on the third. Words instead of syllables. He instructed them about the traditional content of haiku: nature. However, when I wrote my example, I couldn’t shake my previous experience writing haiku with Chris and the rest of my Writing Project fellows, and I composed a word-ku of a decomposing nature: zombies. What else when working with Dr. Crowe?

(taken from https://authorselectric.blogspot.com/2016/03/
the-book-that-wasnt-written-by-zombies.html)

none escape this rotting curse,

this infestation that enslaves my mind when

I write haiku—the undead

The next step, a revision strategy, was to take the word-ku, and without changing the content, turning it into a traditional haiku. Syllables instead of words.

the infestation

enslaves my mind, zombifies

my thoughts, my haiku

By forcing one format into another, you really have to think about what it is you want to say. Rules are there to help. It helped me look to tighten up this scrap of writing as well as a few other pieces I worked on during the week. I could go on about different ways to implement this small exercise, its benefits, the buy-in from the students, but I fear the brain activity might attract the undead hordes roaming the campus. I’ll leave it to you to figure it out how to make word-ku work for you.

Do You Know Who You Look Like?

As I worked in the kitchen, cleaning up after a Christmas dinner at the church last year, I noticed a fourteen-year-old girl whom I did not know staring at me. Weird. Every time I glanced over at her, though, she ducked her head and scurried away. I wrote it off as unimportant, but she began cycling back into the kitchen every four or five minutes with the same routine: stare at me for a moment, run away, repeat. Weirder. I prayed I didn’t have a teenage stalker. That would be creepy on many levels.

Toward the end of the night, and to my relief, my friend John tapped me on the shoulder. Hiding behind him was the serial starer. He proceeded to introduce me to his granddaughter Hallie, and we exchanged brief pleasantries. As I turned back to the mountain of plates and gravy boats, she hissed and pulled on her grandpa's arm like a preschooler.

“You promised you would tell him.”

John exhaled and shook his head. “Hallie wants to me tell you that she thinks you look like someone on a show she’s been watching on Netflix. I have no idea who she’s talking about, though. Never seen it myself.”

“Ah. Bob.” A smirk crept across my face. This wasn’t the first time the comparison had been made since Season 2 of Stranger Things was released.

Hallie jumped out from behind him. “But you do. You do. You look just like him.”

“So I’ve been told,” I said and went back to the dishes. The staring ended. She was merely the latest in a slew of doppelgänger connections between me and Bob.

Earlier that week, my fifth period class debated the similarities between me and Sean Astin when I stepped into the hallway to chat with an administrator for a minute. The next day, they told me that they continued the debate over social media late into the night, debating which of Astin’s characters I most resembled in looks and personality. The top vote getters were Bob Newby (from Stranger Things), Samwise Gamgee (The Lord of the Rings), Marcus Tate (Forever Strong), Dave (Encino Man), Daniel E. “Rudy” Ruettiger (Rudy), and Mikey Walsh (The Goonies). A consensus was never reached.

Since I really don’t fixate on celebrities or much of anything in pop culture, this slipped away from my thoughts until yesterday as I started teaching my part of a seminar for young authors. As I introduced myself, the kids whispered up and down the rows of the auditorium.

During the break, three brave souls, who I assume to have been nominated by their peers, approached me.

“So, uh, have you ever seen Stranger Things?”

“Yeah, that was me…Bob,” I replied.

The kid with blue hair exclaimed, “I knew you weren’t dead! I knew it.”

“Not yet,” I said. “Not yet.”

This connection to Bob, or Sean, is not a new phenomenon. It happened with just about every movie or TV show Astin ever released. Growing up, I was frequently asked if I was still digging the pool in my back yard, applying to Notre Dame, or if I knew when the Fratellis were getting out of prison. My wife’s uncle sometimes chants “Rudy! Rudy!” when I walk into a room. It even started with The Goonies, which didn’t make too much sense because Sean is almost six years older than I am. I turned nine in 1985; he was 14 or 15. Despite the obnoxiousness, in most cases, I feel the connections are still pretty funny. I usually reply with a quip about needing to find Mr. Frodo and head into Mordor.

But as this debate has arisen again, I want some feedback. Which Sean Astin character most closely mirrors me? One mentioned above, or a lesser-known entity? Those who know me fairly well might have a different perspective than those who have only seen me. I am curious.

P.S. Don’t worry. You won’t hurt my feelings no matter your answer. Remember, I work in junior high.

P.P.S. It would also be cool for you to share your celebrity doppelgänger.

P.P.P.S. Only one of these pictures belongs to me. The others were found in various places on the Internet.

Excuse Me, Do You Speak Baseball?

No matter the subject, there is always someone who knows more than you. Experts navigate the ins and outs of car engines or quantum physics or water reclamation or Minecraft with ease, while the rest of us struggle to keep up with the conversation. Just ask your seven-year-old about her Shopkins collection and be amazed at how much more than you she knows about this world of miniature painted plastic resin figures with faces. Her knowledge of their names and relationships and the whole Shoppie world leaves you in the dust. Not that you admit it out loud, but you find yourself an outsider. Those possessing such specialized knowledge and shared values or goals pertaining to a particular subject form a specific discourse community.

Discourse communities maintain their identity with an understanding of a particular literacy, a literary cohesiveness unique to that particular group. And although it may seem junior high cliquish, most people belong to multiple communities without much hassle. We are born into many discourse communities, while we acquire other discourse community affiliations when we get that first job as a Wendy’s fry cook, participate in a Boy Scout troop, join the jazz band in junior high, or get dragged to Comic-Con without consent. 

            Regardless of how you gain membership into a discourse community, or how deeply you become entrenched in that culture, the fact remains that upon joining you obtain a new level of literacy, a specialized literacy that outsiders to the community are shut out of until they receive the knowledge necessary to navigate the community, or at least the linguistic side of it. And I have to remind myself frequently that not everyone belongs to the same discourse communities I do. My non-teacher friends don’t really appreciate the jargon I spew during a social media rant about educational policy. Those of a different faith may have a hard time understanding some of my philosophical viewpoints. And sadly, not everyone knows their cuts of meat either.

            It is also important to realize that within any given discourse community, there are levels of understanding and inner circles of acceptance and inclusion—casual observers or participants, if you will, as opposed to hardball fanatics.

            My father-in-law describes his involvement with his colleagues in higher education with a simple academic bifurcation: “There are two types of post-grad professors—those who will do anything in their power to helpyou reach where they are; the others do everything in their power to preventyou from reaching where they are.” This perception illustrates a common, dangerous attitude that some members of specialized discourse communities hold: you are either in the club or out. Unfortunately, no matter how hard we try to avoid them, prejudices regarding whether you are part of the group or not exist regardless of whether we’re talking about academia, anime, or aerospace engineering.

I was personally reminded of the disparity involved with discourse communities when I attended an Orem Owlz baseball game last year. Side note: it happened to be Star Warsnight, a completely separate community. Regardless, that particular night I happened to be wearing one of my favorite T-shirts: a simple black shirt with a math equation on it: 

As I headed back to my seat after pillaging the concession stand—or rather they pillaged my wallet—during a pitching change, one of the ushers stopped me and pointed at my shirt. She said, “The first time I saw that shirt I thought it was just some bad math…maybe that ‘new’ math stuff. Then someone explained it to me, and now it’s one of my favorite shirts. Gonna get me one.” I simply thanked her, told her where she could order one online, and returned to my seat.

Twice more I had to maneuver by her, and each time I overheard her explain her updated baseball literacy to others, beaming with pride. Despite her involvement in the baseball community, she still lacked some fundamental vocabulary skills. I’m glad I helped initiate this rite of passage into a deeper sanctum in the circles of baseball discourse.

Before leaving the ballpark that night I posted about it on social media. As an afterthought I added a snarky hashtag: #itsasmartpersonsgame, flaunting my mastery of the baseball community discourse. The only people who “liked” it already had a passion for the game. 

Driving home I realized my remark might be misconstrued as being elitist, kind of like those uppity professors my father-in-law warned me about, definitely not the signal I wanted to transmit to the world.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t edit my post just then, but when I did find a minute to retract my unintentional snobbery, I found that my cousin Tina had been brave enough to post her baseball ignorance:

            T: Ok. Someone explain it to me! I imagine it’s related to baseball?

Within minutes of her plea, my friend Richard responded with a simple explanation, giving her (and the rest of cyberspace not included in the discourse community) the knowledge to be part of the in-crowd.

R: Each position in baseball is assigned a number. In this case 6 for shortstop, 4 for 2^ndbase, and 3 for 1^stbase. In scorekeeping, 6-4-3 is the most common notation to indicate the batter has grounded into a double play. So 6 to 4 to 3 equals 2 (outs).

            Tina’s replied, voicing the thoughts of all who come to be included in a new discourse.

T: Richard, thank you. That makes perfect sense, and not being a baseball fan, I feel less stupid since that’s some pretty specific notation going on there!!

            Other friends and family then proceeded to admit their own lack of baseball expertise. Richard, only too happy to help, then went on to include a link to a video clip of the 6-4-3 in action, adding to Tina’s newfound discourse knowledge. What a guy!

            While this small piece of baseball literacy might not be pertinent to anyone’s salvation, or even semi-important to the general public’s pursuit of trivia, a division still exists between people who know why the infield fly rule is important and those who couldn’t care less about the designated hitter debate. However, the social boundaries that discourse communities create shouldn’t erect fences similar to Boston’s Green Monster. I shouldn’t be a snob about what I know and others don’t. Even if I had a degree in baseball, I shouldn’t wave it in others’ faces.

Yesterday, I wore the double play shirt again, and I observed occasional head bobs, nods, and knowing smiles—all signs of discourse inclusion, of shared knowledge, of understanding. However, more obvious were those people furrowing their brows, awkwardly doing the math, counting in their minds—a few on their fingers. This at bat, though, encouraged me to be more empathetic toward those not included in the discourse communities where I have membership. I even stopped and explained in to one young man and two grandmotherly women on my way back from lunch. Helping outsiders find a way into the ballpark, even if it means sneaking them through the turnstile after the game has already started, brings more joy than an autographed ball. To those rookies, I can be the veteran on the bench, sharing the discourse instead of withholding it.

             

2018's Version of Poem in My Pocket Day

I can't believe I almost forgot Poem in My Pocket Day! I put it on my calendar and in my planning book, but until I looked at the date ten minutes before school started, it slipped my mind. And then, I thought to compose a draft of an email reminder to my faculty early, but I ended up sending it two days early instead of saving it for today. Needless to say--but you notice I'm saying it anyway--this year has been a little crazy.

So, for a recap for those who may not be familiar with Poem in My Pocket Day, here are the rules:

1. Find a copy of your favorite poem...or at least one that you like...or has touched you recently...or whatever. Digital is fine, but it's more human if you print a copy or transcribe it by hand.

2. Carry it around in your pocket (at the ready) all day. You shouldn't have to search for it on your phone every time you pull it out.

3. Share your chosen poem with people throughout the day.

4. Relish the poetry of this world!

(Taken from http://irelandinruins.blogspot.com/2016/08/)

For those whom I won't run into today, here is my poem this year. Recently, I picked up a copy of Seamus Heaney's Selected Poems 1988-2013 and have been marveling at his craft, even when I have to look up older Irish farm words. This one stuck out to me as I was reading during class last week, and I knew it would find its way into my pocket this year.

Field of Vision
Seamus Heaney

I remember this woman who sat for years
In a wheelchair, looking straight ahead
Out the window at sycamore trees unleafing
And leafing at the far end of the lane.

Straight out past the TV in the corner,
The stunted, agitated hawthorn bush,
The same small calves with their backs to wind and rain,
The same acre of ragwort, the same mountain.

She was steadfast as the big window itself.
Her brow was clear as the chrome bits of the chair.
She never lamented once and she never
Carried a spare ounce of emotional weight.

Face to face with her was an education
Of the sort you got across a well-braced gate —

One of those lean, clean, iron, roadside ones
Between two whitewashed pillars, where you could see

Deeper into the country than you expected

And discovered that the field behind the hedge
Grew more distinctly strange as you kept standing
Focused and drawn in by what barred the way.

Do me a favor: take time for poetry today and share with me as well. Post your poem in the comments here or via social media somewhere (#pocketpoem), or send me a message if I won't see you face to face. Happy Poem in My Pocket day!

Death Drives a Lambo

                “C’mon, Dad.” I impatiently tapped my foot. We had been “discussing” my plans for celebrating the coming new year for the past fifteen minutes, and I wasn’t making any headway. Josh and some other friends waited, crammed into the small entryway of the house. I was the last to be picked up that night.

                Dad shook his head, frustrated. “It’s not a good idea.”

                I argued back. “Why not? It’s not like we’re going to drink and drive. We’re not going to do drugs or anything.” I felt low playing a line like that, but I desperately want to go.

                My father sighed deeply. Silence passed.

                After what seemed like eternity, he finally spoke again, and when he did, he looked directly into my eyes. “It’s other people’s choices that worry me. The roads are going to be dangerous tonight.” His voice trailed off but then came back more purposefully. “I’ll let you make your own choice, son. Just know that I’ll be disappointed if you choose to go. I just have a feeling that you shouldn’t.”

                A knot in my stomach started to form but not from any hunger pains. Deep within I knew he was right, but how could I explain that to the posse waiting for me?

                I swallowed down the guilty feelings. “Fine,” I blurted and resolutely, stubbornly, stormed out the door, homies in tow.

                “Be safe.” I heard him call over my shoulder.

                “Whatever,” I thought.

                Sliding into shotgun in Josh’s full-size van, I heard someone from the back whisper, “Dude, his dad’s pissed.”

                I turned around and glared into the dark; the back of the vehicle went silent.

                Josh turned the key, and the engine revved to life. I cranked the music to push the disagreement with my dad out of my head, and we pulled out of the driveway.

                We hit Rally’s for a cheap burger and fries before crossing west over the Mississippi, and soon we were cruising the winding spaghetti-like highways and byways of the greater St. Louis area. On and off freeways, we twisted and weaved our way to a plethora of party stops, only staying long enough at each one to see and be seen. It was, after all, New Year’s Eve, 1993, the last one before I graduated from high school, and I intended to celebrate in style, or at least in quantity.

                My buddies and I, floating natural highs, cranked the speakers beyond their capacity until they cracked and surrendered to our demands. Even when shouting in the close proximity of the van, it was impossible to understand what anyone else said. Greasy wrappers cluttered at our feet, near-empty drinks rattled in the molded vinyl cup holders, the piles growing higher as the night waxed on. We dropped in at various bashes and dances; from churches to community centers to private homes, we came, we partied, and we left in search of more.

                Midnight came and went, I recall, and we were hunting for more food before we moved on to the next stop on our list. We were driving west on Highway 40, I believe, away from downtown, and I’d guess we were cruising around 70 or 75 miles per hour—fast for that area, but not fast enough to be pulled over. When out of nowhere, we heard a raucous clamor over the thumping bass of Cypress Hill. I was sitting in the passenger seat. A little perplexed, I silenced the pounding tunes. The noise grew louder—the thrum of an engine. I looked out my window scarcely in time to see a yellow Lamborghini streak by, almost clipping the front bumper of the van. Neon purple emanated from underneath, underlining the blur. With an apparent kick of nitrous oxide, the car hit another gear and rocketed away from us, a fluorescent streak darting through traffic, disappearing into the darkness, like the Millennium Falcon making the jump to light speed.

                “Did you see that?” came a reverent whisper from the back. See it? We felt it as it whipped through the river or cars and trucks. The van now slowed involuntarily. I glanced up and down the freeway; we weren’t the only vehicles pausing to soak in the dangerous beauty of that car.

                “Dude!” Josh exclaimed. “He must have been going at least ninety!”

                “That guy’s gonna kill somebody,” I muttered under my breath. My stomach tightened. “Could’ve been us.”

http://gtaforums.com/topic/618309-vehicle-screenshots-custom-rides-garages/page-502

                Nanoseconds passed before the entire van buzzed with excitement about the Lambo. Tales of exotic sports cars we had seen or sat in or even driven filled the space—typical testosterone-fueled boasting. Even though the run-in with yellow Lamborghini only lasted a couple seconds, THAT was pretty cool.

                Soon we pulled off into some suburb to refuel both our van and our bellies; the entourage needed more sustenance to keep going. The goal to literally party until the break of dawn needed some assistance: caffeine and fast food.

                It wasn’t long after we had returned from our pit stop to the freeway that the world, or at least the traffic, slowed to a crawl, almost like a slow-motion scene out of a bad action movie.  A collective groan from the seven of us rose above the bass groove. Bumper to bumper the cars inched forward, stuck like concert-goers going through a turnstile, bunching, maneuvering to get ahead but going nowhere. Josh pounded the steering wheel in frustration. Horns blared around us, dissonant and piercing; they cut through the slow jams fuzzing through the cracked speakers, putting a damper on the night’s revelries. I lowered the window to catch a better sense of what was happening up ahead. A wicked sharp wind caught my breath and carried it away in the night, leaving my throat frozen. Lights flashed—red, blue, and the amber of emergency vehicles.

                “Wreck ahead,” I announced and silenced the music again. Impatience stirred.

                Incident management trucks, police cars, and fire engines blocked most of the view. Forty-five minutes and half a mile later, we reached the bottleneck. A lone officer directed the clogged artery of traffic. Emergency personnel moved back and forth. Glass littered the freeway. Some of it, we noticed, was tinged red. Several inspector-looking people flashed cameras. On the shoulder sat three or four cars, twisted and bent, forming a heap of metal usually only seen in a junkyard. As we soberly rolled by, we noticed along the cement barrier was a streak of yellow paint about the length of a school bus. And then we saw it. A heap of metal and glass and purple neon sitting by itself: the Lambo…or at least what was left of it. The only recognizable semblance that this mound had once been a car was a solitary yellow door, sticking straight into the air, a monument to this symbol of extravagance that not even an hour earlier had whipped past us without a care. The twisted scrap pile looked like the Terminator and Wolverine got into a wrestling match inside the Lamborghini and decided to rip it open like a giant aluminum soda can and spill its guts onto the pavement. Spots on the concrete were dark and wet.

                We watched in a horrified silence as an EMT slammed the back doors of an ambulance, pounded twice, and walked away. The ambulance drove off: lights on but no siren. I noticed that it fell in line with two others, who also flashed lights but no sound—a signal that there was no rush to get where they were headed. A nagging thought filled my conscience. A couple of inches, and that could have been us. Dad had been right—someone else’s choices ruined more than the night.

                All of us sat stupefied by what we had just seen. Josh kept driving west. The only conversation the rest of that night was when I suggested we turn around and go home. Josh only nodded. I think some of the others fell asleep.

                A contemplative mood fell over the van as we returned to the Illinois side of the river. Scenes flashed before me as the streetlights drifted past, shedding their own blurred orange-white light on the night’s events. All I could do was shake my head and try and shake the image from my mind.

                When we pulled up to my house, I noticed that Dad’s car was gone—already off to work, so my admission and apology would have to wait. “Dad, you were right,” I said remorsefully to myself as I stumbled through the front door. It could have been me. The slick red spots twisted into the silver and yellow could have been me. I might have wiped out my future without even having one. Splat. Over. Not my choices.

This is the last of the four personal narratives I wrote with my students this year. Somehow it got shuffled under a pile and forgotten until a few days ago. Some of this piece has been fictionalized for the sake of continuity and artistic license...and the fact that I don't exactly remember who was with me on this adventure. I can say that even though at times I was a butt-headed teenager and didn't listen to my dad all the time, I can say that now he is one of my best friends, and I always seek out his counsel. I'm not sure who coined the adage, and I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but I agree that the older I get, the smarter my dad gets.

A Little Rambling and a Little Waiting

This post is mostly for me to reflect upon what I have written recently.

So what have I written over the past month? Obviously nothing on my blog. That's pretty noticeable, but I have been busy. Mostly, I've been writing letters of application, philosophy statements, and scholarly writing samples. Well, I've been tweaking them. For those who don't know, I am looking to break into the ranks of academia on a full-time scale. It's somewhat similar to what I did five years ago when I was asked to apply for a university position and did better than I thought I would not having the PhD yet. However, as of this moment in time, since last March when I began this crazy go-round, I have applied to sixteen different positions across the country, received three online interviews, four rejection emails, one rejection letter, and a whole lot of nothing from everywhere else. Makes a guy wonder what's wrong. Now, I know there are many factors involved, so this isn't a pity party, and to be fair, it hasn't been very long since I've applied to some of them, but in the words of one of my favorite Spanish sword-fighters, "I hate waiting."

This past August, though, I was hired locally as an adjunct professor to teach Intro to Writing, a required freshman level class, two evenings each week. It's been fun, but it has taken up a lot of my time. I've written a few sample papers for that, but nothing of any consequence.

I've started tightening up my to-write lists as well. My list of narratives that need to be told is getting longer, although the production rate has slowed.

My plans to write a teacher education book are starting to poke through the soil as well. Maybe within a few months blossoms will form--or at least some greenery. I also need to go back and break down and put back together some professional articles from my dissertation. I know I need to do it, but other parts of me just want to seal that monster in the dungeon and throw away the key--the only access being a trap door that hapless scholars might succumb to. Who knows?

I did find another draft of a narrative I started a few months ago that might make an appearance soon. I guess we'll (you and I) will have to wait and see.

Small Comforts

                For many high school students, receiving a yearbook at the end of the year is worth enduring forty plus weeks of instruction and misery. At Lakenheath High School in England, where I attended as a freshman and sophomore, we received our annuals near the end of March instead of the last week of the school year. Instead of two days, we had two months to fill them with memories and messages, phone numbers and false promises.

                After the initial thrill of signing books died down, very few students carried them to school any more. Upon hitting this lull, I decided that I wanted to see how many of my teachers’ John Hancocks I could collect in addition to those of my friends’. There was one, though, that I wanted above the others: my English teacher Mr. Albert. I respected him, even admired him, so I wanted to see what nuggets of wisdom he might leave.

                However, there was one problem: Mr. Albert was not known for signing yearbooks. In fact, in most cases, if he deemed you worthy of his time, he simply wrote his name on a random page, as if he were simply filling out a hall pass.

                Mr. Albert was an older man with slicked back whitish-gray hair and severe, dark-rimmed glasses which bugged out his dark eyes to an almost insect-esque degree. In his prime he must have been quite tall and athletic. Now, his shoulders stooped a little, but that was about all that made him old. He attacked literature with a gusto rarely seen. His classroom at the end of the hall, directly above the main office at Lakenheath High lulled you into a home-like security. He packed the desks in tightly, but the ambiance of the rest of the room suggested more of a homey atmosphere: a throw rug under his desk at the front of the room, an old wooden rocker in the corner with a crocheted throw draped over its back. Framed portraits and works of art carefully line the walls, along with a few larger tapestries depicting ancient literary scenes from Greek and Shakespearean tragedies. The aroma of yellow-paged books clung permanently to the four walls—a comfortable mustiness that endured the custodian’s best efforts with air fresheners. The high windows across the back of the room let in enough natural light to make most days cheerful without the glowing phosphorescence overhead. It was probably my favorite room in the school.

                One day after school I stopped by his classroom and asked him for his autograph. Without skipping a beat, he put down the essay he had just finished grading, took the book from my hand, and flourished his pen. From the sound of it, he scrawled more than just his name across the page. The fact that he composed a whole line in the back of my book intrigued me, and I couldn’t wait to read his pearls of wisdom.

                When he was finished signing, he handed it back to me and immediately grabbed the next essay in the stack in front of him and resumed marking. I figured it would be impolite to read what he had just written in front of him, so I stowed the book in my backpack, thanked him, and went on my way to see if I could find my friends who had abandoned me. When I reached my locker, I whipped the yearbook back out and found where Mr. A left his message: “Make sure you buy a house with a fireplace.”

                I was baffled. What the heck was that supposed to mean?

                Knowing he was keen on symbolism, I shuffled through the files in my brain and all the pieces of English and American lit we had discussed and analyzed. Monkey’s paw? Check. Raven? Check. Pig’s head? Check. Red Death? Check. Fireplace? Nothing. No check. I couldn’t figure it out. And it bothered me. There was always a hidden meaning, right?

                Maybe. This mystery drove me crazy for several days. None of them had a clue either. But why I was so obsessed with finding out what he meant? Wasn’t he just a crazy old man? Why did I value his opinion so much? After several days obsessing, I realized that over the past year, whether he knew it or not, I found a mentor in Mr. Albert, someone who would help shape who I eventually became. And I didn’t want to let him down.

                To be honest, I thought he was pretty pompous at the beginning of the year, looking down his buggy bifocals at us. Then I learned how bifocals worked. He called me out in front of the class one day for not preparing for my oral reading presentation—an excerpt from a Dave Barry book I grabbed from the library that morning. I thought I could wing it, but he instantly branded me a charlatan because I mispronounced the word senility (seh-nih-lə-tē). He told me he knew I could do better. I grumbled, but I knew he was right.

                Another time I wrote a poem about a girlfriend dying. It was complete garbage, but the girls in the class who sat around me (Joanna, Becky, Jen, and a few others) were so touched, they thought it was real. I made myself cry to add to the charade, asking for a hall pass to go wash my face. Mr. Albert let me go, but I think he knew I was full of crap; I think he let me leave class because the girls wouldn’t leave me and my “grieving” alone and caused a disturbance.

                Despite all these seemingly negative interactions, he also helped me to understand poetry. We explicated some poem about a dog, and for the first time, I realized that I actually really liked poetry, and so I began to write. He encouraged my writing. Some of the poetry was worthless, but I also produced pieces like “Subway” under his tutelage, which was later published in a British student literary magazine. He showed me that I had a talent when I wrote a campy slasher story called “Bob of the Backwoods” for a Halloween assignment. He always pushed me harder than I thought possible. He very bluntly told me what made the story engaging while simultaneously showing me where it was crap.

                I remember him calling me on the carpet again when I attempted to write an opinionated analysis about a point I personally did not believe regarding the nature of man when we read Lord of the Flies. He simply said, “Your heart’s not in this and neither is your head. Try again.” I don’t remember what grade I got, but I think it was a C-, definitely subpar for me. He allowed me to rewrite it, though. He showed me how revision made me a better writer and thinker.

                I don’t remember a lot of our class discussions, but I know that I came to class engaged every day. Whether reading Julius Caesar or “The Necklace,” I felt my brain constantly filling, sometimes past the saturation point. He fueled my desire to learn and to always look for more. That is why his cryptic yearbook message perplexed me. I knew there was something I was overlooking, so I finally got up the guts to ask him.

                “What did you mean? I asked before class the next day.

                Mr. Albert looked up from his desk, his bright black eyes magnified by his glasses. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure to what you are referring.” He never ended his sentences with prepositions, even when he talked.

                I pulled my yearbook from my backpack, flipped to the page where he had scrawled in his long, fluid cursive earlier in the week, and I handed it to him.

                He hummed. Nodded his head in affirmation. “That’s some good advice, young man."

                “But what does it mean?” I implored, expecting a life-altering, earth-shattering insight into life.

(Taken from https://static.tumblr.com/279a8fb8356faab0227654021d93cb11/lftnwhz/tUin9103m/)

                “Simply that,” he said. “There’s nothing like a good fireplace and enjoying the smaller comforts of life.”

                “Okay, uh, thanks,” I said, taking my seat, still a little unsure why he would pen that into my yearbook. And I stayed in the dark about the meaning until much, much later in life.

                I corresponded with him fairly frequently, starting with a letter of recommendation for my Eagle Scout award. We wrote letters while I was at Ricks College, where I learned of his failing health. I even got a couple of cards from him when I was proselytizing in Spain for two years.

                One winter night, eight or nine years after receiving Mr. Albert’s words of wisdom, my wife and I unburied our high school yearbooks from one of the many cardboard boxes crammed into in our basement apartment. We had only been married a few months, and somehow stories of high school came up, and we decided that pictures were needed to go with people and events. As we flipped through the pages from LHS 1991-92, Mr. Albert’s message written in blue pen came back to me. I looked around at the crowded living space, felt the hot air blow out of the heating duct. I didn’t have a fireplace, but I began to understand the meaning of small comforts. Sometimes there doesn’t need to be any more meaning.

Math--Episode II: The Not-So-Harmless Prank

There are a few details about my 7^th grade math teacher Ms. Palenik that will never disappear, no matter how hard I try to eradicate them. She was short and rather nondescript other than the fact that her skin was elephant wrinkly, and her thin gray hair always flopped into her eyes, so she continually flipped her head in an effort to see. She knew her math, but I often wondered if she hated children.

Above all, one trait and one incident have been seared into my memory: Ms. Palenik was a coffee consumer; she always had several Styrofoam cups on her desk scattered like chess pieces in a half-finished game, standing over the crooked board of grade sheets and assignments. A few were empty and knocked over, but many remained partially full and cold, effigies to her caffeine addiction. She often had a half-full ceramic mug or two as well. I believe she guzzled more brownish-black wake-up serum than the rest of the faculty combined. Possibly because of her dependence on the stuff, her voice cracked and croaked whenever she ran dry.

                Because my last name begins with A, I was seated in the front of the room, and from there I could smell her coffee breath quite distinctly when she talked to the class and wrote on the board. She rarely cleaned the chalkboards in the front of the room, so a perpetual dust cloud hovered around me. I coughed quite frequently. When she would write on the board each day, she would wear a foam mitten thing—kind of like a bath sponge—that she would use as an eraser. Only it didn’t work very well; it just smeared things with built up chalk dust. Even worse, she would often stick the chalky mitten in the waistband at the back of her pants, which were mostly polyester track suits or something equally as hideous that should have been left in the ‘70s. She and her yellowing teeth would often get in our faces—much too closely—if we had a question. I never asked many for that reason alone.

https://www.commercialrealestate.com.au/news/is-the-hot-desk-in-the-office-leaving-us-cold/

                I was the new kid, but before I proceed, let me back up a little to provide some context: Smack in the middle of my seventh grade year, Dad was transferred from Yokota AFB in Japan to RAF Mildenhall, England. My new school was quite a bit different from the 7-12 Yokota High School I had attended in the Pacific. Lakenheath American Middle School was located on a smaller base (RAF Feltwell) forty-five minutes from our house in the village of Little Downham. The school campus was housed in several older buildings constructed in the ‘40s and ‘50s to house allied forces during and after World War II. The classrooms, former offices and barracks, were constructed of brick and cinder block with dark hardwood floors, smoothed over time. Original pipework still jutted from the walls and ceilings here and there, and the heating units on the walls continually hissed and groaned like creatures trapped in time, just waiting to be freed.

                I don’t remember which kids comprised my math class that half year I was with them. Patrick started school the same day I did, so I know he was there. And I think Tim, Carrie, and Lori were there, too, but I don’t really remember. One boy that I knew was there for sure was Chris Gallaway, and I think I remember him mostly because of this episode (and the fact that on a field trip later that year he pestered a llama at the zoo so intensely, it spit all over him, chunks in the face and all, but that’s another story). I remember he was often defiant and getting into trouble. He blatantly fought against Ms. Palenik in just about everything. However, at the time of this incident, it had been a while since he had been sent to see the vice principal.

Now it wasn’t a common practice for Ms. Palenik to send someone to the office to get her more coffee, but I do remember that one cold morning Chris volunteered to traverse the blacktop to the office building which contained the teachers’ lounge and Ms. Palenik’s beloved life blood. While he was gone, Ms. Palenik commented to the rest of the class about how wonderfully he had been behaving as of late. She may have even forgiven him for mooing at her; I don’t know. I remember that he came back all smiles, but the teacher was not in the room; she had just stepped out. He set the mug on her desk and started whispering to some of the girls on the other side of the room.

My first inclination as to what was happening was when Lori, smacking her gum like a cow or camel or some other cud-chewer, asked in a very disgusted, very non-quiet whisper, “Chris, did you really spit in her coffee?”

                “What?” someone asked, and pretty soon the whole class was abuzz.

                Chris stood up, a rather proud look on his face. “Yep. Hawked a big ol’ goober into, too. I even stirred it around with one of those stick things. Couldn’t even tell when I was done.” He laughed.

                A hush fell over the room, and soon our math teacher strode back into the room. She seemed surprised that we were all working diligently and complimented us accordingly, something that normally didn’t happen first thing in the morning.

                My mind was not on math any more. And I, having no real knowledge of coffee, wondered if the big greenie swimming in the coffee would be obvious. Whether or not she could tell the snot glob was in there, it didn’t matter. I knew—we all knew—that what Chris had done was wrong. He had definitely crossed a line. I felt like I should say something, but I was scared to do it. I was the new kid. I was not a tattle-tale. I wanted friends. I wanted to belong.

                The class held its collective breath as she maneuvered over to her desk, thanking Chris again for fetching her drink. She drank deeply—she never sipped—chugged, then suddenly croaked.

                “Ack!” She threw her mug directly into the garbage, where it shattered, bringing us out of our daze. She glared at us, and shaking a finger, threatened that if we even moved a muscle before she got back, we would regret it.

                We sat a moment in a stunned silence. 

                “Dude. She must have swallowed it.” Someone on the other side of the room voiced the exact thoughts running through my mind.

                “Chris, what have you done?” someone else shrieked. The implications started settling into our seventh grade minds. Previously he had been known as a joker, and his open abhorrence for math, our math teacher, and school in general had just manifested itself at a new level. I’m not sure whether to describe it as a new high or low; I guess it depends on how you want to look at it. Our silence at his disgusting prank had dragged the rest of us into his ongoing warfare against Ms. Palenik.

                Not long after her abrupt departure, Mr. Allan, the vice principal rushed into the classroom, his cheeks still red from hurrying across the quad from the main office. For a moment he glared at us from under his bushy eyebrows and shock of windblown, curly, brown hair. His striped ‘70s tie hung askew, poking out from his normally crisply pressed yellow dress shirt and brown sports coat with stylish patches on the elbows. He tucked the tie into his now-buttoned jacket and cleared his throat. Again, a guilty silence fell over the room. Hands went to hips. “I am very disappointed in you…all,” he began, but before he could say more, Ms. Palenik returned, accompanied by Mrs. Heard, the principal. Her large, imposing frame filled the door; her presence filled our souls with dread. The only time she ever left her office was for assemblies or serious trouble. We knew there was a dead man sitting among us.

                Our math teacher didn’t say anything, but her body shook. Tear trails streaked her blotchy, red face. She simply pointed a finger at Chris, who stood immediately, owning his transgression. Leaving his books, he marched over to the adults in the doorway, and the three of them disappeared. I don’t think he even got to request a last meal.

                We didn’t see Chris again for a week. Maybe two.

                Ms. Palenik returned after a day. And even though Chris wasn’t there for a while, she came back with a vengeance. If anyone even breathed wrong, the whole class felt her wrath in the amount of homework problems. She dealt worksheets like a card shark in Vegas, and no one beat the house. I remained buried in redundant math exercises because of someone else’s choices.

                I suppose I could have made a different choice myself, one that may or may not have prevented the class’s plight. But at that point in my life I was not strong enough. Looking back, I wonder if anyone else’s consciences spoke to them, or if anything would have changed if someone had spoken up about the foreign object in Ms. Palenik’s coffee, but I’m not sure. Perhaps our silent cruelty was bred out of a longing to belong, a fear of standing up and standing out. Junior high can be harsh.

Finding Balance

In my last post, I discussed the four personal narratives I was writing--one with each of my freshman classes studying the genre. We have finally arrived at the point where I can share what I have written with them in classes. These are second drafts after undergoing a public peer revision. They are still not perfect, but they are good enough for this rough blog. So..stay tuned for four personal narratives (one of which is included in my series of math adventures--more of those still to come). I won't release them all at once...just when I remember to do it. The first one is entitled "Finding Balance."

                The lunch smell of PB and J still hung in the air with a hint of that corn-chippiness that perpetually lingers around sixth graders. There were twenty-eight desks crammed into that classroom at Yokota East Elementary, and I sat in the back right corner next to the second story windows that looked over the courtyard. It was the perfect place for me to observe the rest of the class: I could watch every student covertly. It provided great entertainment when I finished my work early. Most of my classmates diligently poured over their life science textbooks. Lionel, of course, pretended to read while he actually stared ga-ga-eyed at Jennifer Gruenart and her silky brown hair tossed perfectly over her right shoulder. Chris Hiatt tried to learn through osmosis—a concept Mr. Anderson taught us earlier in the year—sleeping conspicuously, the open book his pillow. Marcie surreptitiously dug in her nose when she thought no one was looking, but I saw everything. Mr. Anderson, a semblance of an aging, bearded Dom DeLuise, perched at the teacher desk by the door, grading assignments or something, not really paying attention to us. The end of the school day approached, and our sagging bodies showed it.

                Science was the penultimate period of the day; only my favorite, reading, was left. Most of my classmates, however, loved science more than reading and were completely engrossed in their assignment. And although at the time, I didn’t really understand how someone could hate reading, I saw why they loved science. Mr. Anderson was an engaging teacher. He was big, loud, and most of all funny…at least to a room full of twelve-year-olds.

                “Dee leaves fall off dee trees in dee-cee-duous forests” was one of our favorite lines. In later years, kids would randomly repeat this scientific line. I taught it to my own children when they started studying plants in elementary school; my ninth grade son remembered it on his classification project for his biology class this past fall.

But whether Mr. Anderson was trying a Jamaican accent when teaching us biomes, or screaming in a pseudo-Michael Jackson falsetto “Annie, are you okay?” when demonstrating what to do with the CPR dummy, or calling us grasshoppers in a horrible wannabe Oriental voice as he expounded some Mr. Miyagi philosophies about an element of nature, or just joking in his normal rollicking voice, he was fascinating to listen to. However, there was one conversation I had with him that I would love to forget, but I will never be able to.

                “Young Master Anson, would you come back and see me for a second?” Mr. Anderson spoke loudly, without looking up. The students were used to his booming interruptions, though, and settled back to their work without skipping a beat.

                I stood slowly and made my way to the teacher desk.

                I wondered to myself if I were in trouble. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I uttered under my breath, mostly to reassure myself.

                When I reached the desk, his meaty hands gestured for me to sit. I slumped onto the yellowing plastic chair, nervous for what was to come.

                “Hey,” he started, in a buddy-buddy sort of tone. “You know you have some of the highest test scores in the class…in the school, right?”

                I gulped, not sure where this was going. He interpreted my non-answer as a sign to keep talking.

                “Well, you do. Eetsa gooda stuffa, “ he fake-Italian burst before returning to a semi-serious tone. “I just wanted to find out why you didn’t do any extra credit this term.”

                “Uh...,” I began.

                “You did it last quarter,” he continued, “and I wanted to make sure that you remembered that you can’t get an A in this class unless you do the extra credit.” The rule in Mr. Anderson’s science class was simply this: Unless you did an extra credit project each term, you could not get an A in the class. No exceptions. He sat back, folding his arms over his ample stomach.

(borrowed from https://www.parentmap.com/)

Now, I cared about my grades. Back in Arkansas and Las Vegas, I could take my report card to the video arcade and cash in grades for tokens, and I hadn’t looked back since. The problem was I disliked science. Well, at least the way it was taught in school. Ever since the debacle of the science fair volcano Doug Walters and I constructed in fifth grade, I approached projects with trepidation. Maybe it was the fact that I thought some of the steps of the scientific method were a little redundant, or that I hated working on labs with others who consistently let me down, or the endless researching and reading of throat-cracking dry tomes of bad technical writing crammed with too much technical jargon. Maybe it was the pressure to get an A. I’m not sure. But I hated it. 

Whatever it was, my abhorrence for extra science homework included much dragging of feet and slogging through late nights, me perpetually postponing the extra fluffy junk that had nothing to do with my interests.

                Although I know better now, at that point in my life, I would have preferred reading the dumb chapter, answering the pointless questions at the end, and going about my business none the smarter in science. I could answer questions from a textbook easily despite the monotony of the process; I simply did not care enough to want to know more than I needed.

                Perhaps because I tried to block it out of my mind, I don’t remember what I actually produced to get the extra credit that first term. What I do remember, though, was the turmoil it caused. One late night after doing a crappy rush job on some science-related assignment or another, my mom, knowing my avoidance habits, put her arm around my shoulder, and simply asked, “Is it worth it?”

                Through tears, I explained to her that the only way to get an A in science was to do extra.  Lately the extra had started to take its toll. From the look in her eyes, I knew she didn’t agree with that grading policy, but she simply asked me again, “Is it worth it?” And then she went to bed, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Was an A in science worth all the problems it caused me at home? Did I really want it badly enough. I didn’t sleep much that night.

                Standing in front of Mr. Anderson that day, I began to sweat. I looked around for an out. Lionel still ogled, and Marcie still excavated for green gold. No one paid attention to the conference happening at the back of the room.

                “I’m not going to do any extra credit,” I managed to mumble.

                “Sorry. What was that?” he bellowed. Disturbed by his raucous nature, people started to look over. “I couldn’t hear what you said.”

                My hands started shaking in front of this behemoth of a man towering over me even sitting down; he was at least four times my eleven-year-old size. My inherent timidity kicked in, but somehow my inner soul found the strength to stand its ground. “I am not going to do any more extra credit,” I repeated. “It’s not worth it to me.”

                I thought his eyes were going to goggle out of his head momentarily, but he quickly regained his composure. “Pity,” he said. “You could have done great things.” And that was all. His lack of further response dismissed me. I slithered back to my seat.

                Maybe it was just in my mind, but over the rest of the year, I think he started being a little tougher on me. He challenged me more openly in front of the class—I always had to answer the toughest questions—but I continued to hold my ground. I finished the year with all A’s with the exception of the 95% B plusses in science. Despite being one of the smartest kids in the class, one of seven in the talented and gifted program, I wasn’t voted onto the trivia bowl team as my class’s representative because of my B’s (and the fact that the most popular meathead in the school was in my class). Not doing extra credit did have its consequences, but they didn’t come at the cost of my personal sanity. I began to achieve balance.

                Now, I don’t want to make Mr. Anderson out to be the antagonist of this story, for he truly did teach me….and most of it involved science. But standing up for myself in the back of that classroom was definitely a turning point in my academic and social development.

                It wasn’t immediate, of course. In tenth grade biology, I swung it to the other extreme, failing third term because I didn’t think my own leaf project was worthwhile. It’s a good thing that credit was awarded on the semester system at that school. (I pulled it up to a B by the end.) I found an inner peace with what mattered and what didn’t. I worked hard (mostly), but I didn’t overexert myself, especially in areas I knew weren’t going to be valuable to my future—a lesson I try to ingrain in my students, principally those of the honors variety. Yes, I know times have changed, but you can still get scholarships with A’s and B’s. Contentment doesn’t equal 4.0. I had a colleague who frequently told his pupils that the world is run by B students. And I think I agree. Grades don’t mean everything, but they do mean some things.

                The last final exam I took for my bachelor’s degree involved a grammar test, which was supposed to take three hours to complete. Before the test, I totaled up the points I had earned over the course of the semester and compared them against the syllabus grade scale. In the end, I didn’t do more than was necessary. While the rest of my classmates toiled over the entire test, I answered the fourteen or fifteen questions to earn the points I needed to get the grade I wanted then took my wife to lunch, leaving the rest of the assessment blank.

                Some things aren’t worth the trouble, especially if they extinguish the desire to learn and enjoy life. I’ve had students go down in flames physically and emotionally when they couldn’t live up to expectations—both parental and self-inflicted. I know people who pushed themselves to breaking points in high school to snatch up scholarships (sometimes to the detriment of others) only to crack their freshmen year in college and overdose trying to escape expectations. I know students and teachers who work themselves sick before Thanksgiving.

                Balance for me came from an imbalance in my life, and I can only thank Mr. Anderson for forcing me to make that discovery.