"I only saw him years later, when he was worn down by life. Look at him. He's got his whole life in front of him, and I'm not even a glint in his eye." "Ray Kinsella" from Field of Dreams.
In a movie full of famous quotes ("Ray, people will come Ray,") this wasn't one of Kevin Costner's most memorable lines, but it's one that has resonated with me tonight. To put the quote above in its proper context, Kevin Costner plays a character named Ray Kinsella, a man with many regrets in his life, but none bigger than breaking off his relationship with the father that didn't understand him. His father dies before he could make up with him, and from somewhere deep within, Ray hears a voice. This voice convinces him to build a baseball field of all things, then take an Odyssey into the unknown, a path wrought with strain of every kind imaginable until he stands face-to-face with his father-- that is the younger version of his father who, like many other ghosts of baseball past, have found their way onto Ray's baseball field for a second chance.
So as he stands down the basepath staring at his father, overcome with emotion, he has a revelation that his father wasn't always... old.
My own dad told my brother and me, when we were old enough to start thinking seriously about getting into trouble, that whenever we had a stupid thought run through our heads, to think better of it, because whatever trouble we were thinking of getting in, he had already done it. Dad rarely got into specifics, but it was a message that was usually well-received, sometimes shrugged off, and from time-to-time ignored completely.
You see, I only knew Dad from the time he was 25 until his passing this fall at the too-early age of 61. When you figure in eleven years of my growth from infancy, by the time my brain started telling me it was okay to run down to the creek in mid-January and use a shovel to bust the ice to go ice fishing, my dad was 36 years old. That is, old enough to have little desire to repeat youthful indiscretions.
Just like me.
The Dad I knew was Army-hardened. He was faithful, never skipping a day of work. He was tired at the end of the day because he put in his all. But he still had time to play Superman: play catch with us out in the yard, coach our little league team, take us hunting and fishing. When he did any of this though, wisdom flowed from his few words. Everything had a lesson behind it. Everything was spoken from a mentor's point-of-view. Dad wasn't a hell raiser. He drove us around in a station wagon and Old Blue, his 1974 Chevy pickup, and took his time in doing so. He rarely got excited, rarely let his emotions show, never acted immature.
Pretty much just like me.
So when he gave us the vague warnings about his experiences, I, as I assume my brother did as well, let it slip in one ear and out the other. Boldness led to wrecklessness. Knuckleheadedness prevailed, and I turned from a boy to an adolescent who needed to see why the green slime on a lake's spillway is slick. Why you don't point a bb gun at a girl's foot (sorry Kelda.) Why you don't roll a tire down 5th Street hill into traffic. Why you don't egg and shaving cream the back of a church. Why you don't try to catch a Mississippi Kite with a fishing pole.
I had never truly believed that Dad was just like me.
Tonight Providence brought to me one of Dad's childhood friends. In town on a business trip, this gentleman who referred to my Dad as his older brother, had lived next door to Dad growing up. He was able to relay some stories about Dad that I was never to see in the man I looked up to. About him playing Huck Finn with a borrowed rowboat and capsizing on the Arkansas River. About stealing watermelons and blasting fish from the water with M-80s. Fast cars and football. Basically all the things that I would have done (and some of which I did do) when I was a kid, trying to learn the ways of this world.
Though it still hurts, and though I know I will never completely get over the loss, it does help bring a smile to my face to know that Dad was just like me.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Coping
How does a man cope with his father's death?
Just a few weeks ago I was in a hospital room, sitting down in a chair across from my father with my brother at my side. Hunters as we were, we were talking about rifle scopes, retelling stories of great shots that we had told before. That's when the topic turned to snipers. My father, just having had either a stroke or what the doctor diagnosed as merely Bells Palsy, mentioned to me in his slurred voice that if I was interested in learning more about snipers, he had three books on the bottom shelf of his bookshelf in the basement. I was leaving to head back to my family that very afternoon, having been given assurance from the doctor that Dad was well on the way to recovery. I had considered making a stop at the house on the way out of town and picking up one of those books, but haste compelled me to gas up and head home so that I could have time to rest up that evening for another day of school the next morning. Little did I know that my father would be on life support less than forty-eight hours later.
After the funeral, it was time to consider heading back to my life. On the way out of the house, I excused myself and went downstairs. It was Dad's final request of me, and I could not let him down. I chose the first one of the three that I saw, Dear Mom: A Sniper's VietNam by J.T. Ward. I took it home and opened it. It was incredibly hard to get through the first line without crying. It's not that the first line was a heartbreaker, but there was something there which caused me agonizing pain. Perhaps it was my link Dad's experience in boot camp, since I couldn't ask him questions about his time in the Army anymore. Perhaps it was the fact that this was Dad's book and I was reading what he once had in his hands. I have a picture of Dad in my mind, sitting on the couch in his spot night-after-night, reading his books. To that end, he had over 500 books on war on his bookshelf from which to pick, and more boxed up on the floor.
I eventually made it through that first line and only put the book down when sleep or school forced me to. Though I don't know J.T. Ward at all, I could feel myself living this man's military life and his war experiences, and somehow it kept Dad alive for me. I finished it about thirty minutes ago. The only problem was that whenever I had questions, Dad was just a phone call away. So many questions went unanswered.
So now I am left feeling empty inside. When I go back to Mom's house, I will replace Dear Mom with the second book Dad spoke of and see if there is something in it that can keep Dad's memory alive for me. I try to end each blog post with some type of morale, platitude, or upbeat statement, but right now I still have the same hole in my heart that I had a few weeks ago when Dad passed. I'm not sure it will ever be filled. I'm just afraid of what won't happen when I finish all three books.
Just a few weeks ago I was in a hospital room, sitting down in a chair across from my father with my brother at my side. Hunters as we were, we were talking about rifle scopes, retelling stories of great shots that we had told before. That's when the topic turned to snipers. My father, just having had either a stroke or what the doctor diagnosed as merely Bells Palsy, mentioned to me in his slurred voice that if I was interested in learning more about snipers, he had three books on the bottom shelf of his bookshelf in the basement. I was leaving to head back to my family that very afternoon, having been given assurance from the doctor that Dad was well on the way to recovery. I had considered making a stop at the house on the way out of town and picking up one of those books, but haste compelled me to gas up and head home so that I could have time to rest up that evening for another day of school the next morning. Little did I know that my father would be on life support less than forty-eight hours later.
After the funeral, it was time to consider heading back to my life. On the way out of the house, I excused myself and went downstairs. It was Dad's final request of me, and I could not let him down. I chose the first one of the three that I saw, Dear Mom: A Sniper's VietNam by J.T. Ward. I took it home and opened it. It was incredibly hard to get through the first line without crying. It's not that the first line was a heartbreaker, but there was something there which caused me agonizing pain. Perhaps it was my link Dad's experience in boot camp, since I couldn't ask him questions about his time in the Army anymore. Perhaps it was the fact that this was Dad's book and I was reading what he once had in his hands. I have a picture of Dad in my mind, sitting on the couch in his spot night-after-night, reading his books. To that end, he had over 500 books on war on his bookshelf from which to pick, and more boxed up on the floor.
I eventually made it through that first line and only put the book down when sleep or school forced me to. Though I don't know J.T. Ward at all, I could feel myself living this man's military life and his war experiences, and somehow it kept Dad alive for me. I finished it about thirty minutes ago. The only problem was that whenever I had questions, Dad was just a phone call away. So many questions went unanswered.
So now I am left feeling empty inside. When I go back to Mom's house, I will replace Dear Mom with the second book Dad spoke of and see if there is something in it that can keep Dad's memory alive for me. I try to end each blog post with some type of morale, platitude, or upbeat statement, but right now I still have the same hole in my heart that I had a few weeks ago when Dad passed. I'm not sure it will ever be filled. I'm just afraid of what won't happen when I finish all three books.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Dad
Dad was a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a mentor, and a friend.
He was a teacher and not just a jack of all trades, but a “master” of all trades. He was knowledgeable about everything that is practical because he had many people who taught him how to do things early on, and the rest he read about. To that end, he has over 500 books he read just on the topic of war on his bookshelf he built in his shop.
Two of his philosophies that he spoke of quite often was, “Do it right the first time, or don’t do it at all.” And “The process to learning is to watch it, do it, then teach it.” He spent his life teaching his kids how to do things. Towards the end of his life he enjoyed teaching his grandsons how things worked.
Whenever we kids needed help with anything, we would call him up and he would walk us through it. If we still couldn’t figure it out, he would come over on the weekend to help us out. He found his greatest satisfaction in helping out his children. He always had answers because his kids always had questions. Auto mechanics, plumbing, electricity, carpentry, algebra, and how to turn on a fastball. We watched the Super Bowl together every year until just a few years ago, but he was sure to talk with me before the game anyways, give me his insights on who was going to win.
Dad didn’t enjoy art much, but he loved the art of playing the guitar. He never had a single lesson in his life, but taught himself to play by sounding out the melody of a particular song and playing it note-by-note until he could play the whole song. When I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, the first two songs he taught me to play were “Taps” and “Amazing Grace”.
He swore he wasn’t going to coach our little league teams because he didn’t want to be the one to explain to parents why certain kids played more than others, yet when they needed a coach, he couldn’t resist. He was by far the best coach Chris and I ever had, high school and college included.
He was an expert in:
-Football, and especially what the Kansas City Chiefs could do to be a better football team.
-Guns- he knew everything there was to know about every known make of gun and every type of ammunition.
-Warfare
-Politics
-Tying knots
- How to throw any kind of ball
He was a Master Inventor:
They say that “necessity is the mother of invention.” Whenever he faced a problem, he invented a tool to fix the problem. He would just see the solution in his head and go create it. A perfect case in point: in the week leading up to his last dove hunt a few weeks ago, he needed a way to sit down and be comfortable since he couldn’t stand very well anymore. He welded some angle iron together, bolted a piece of plywood to it, then ran a few long bolts through the back end. Everybody looked at it from every angle and couldn’t figure it out until he put it on the ball hitch of his vehicle and sucked the nuts down on the bolts. It worked perfectly and he was able to sit on his “ball hitch seat” and comfortably enjoy his last hunt.
He was by far the most dependable man I have ever known.
-Every town has a Gary Shelton. He was always there for anyone who needed him. He might work a 10 hour day, come home and receive a phone call from someone who needed his help and he would be out the door until after sunset. I honestly don’t know what the town is going to do without him.
-He would drive around on snowy days in “Old Blue” his dependable ’74 Chevy pickup and rescue motorists who had slid off the road.
-He never missed his kids’ games. Whether it was football, baseball, wrestling, volleyball, or softball, he would always be there and be proud of his kids’ efforts.
-He never missed work. He never took sick days. When he took his two weeks of vacation in the summer, it was to go to the Cline’s farms to help out with harvest.
-He never missed birthdays or anniversaries and though he wasn’t the best shopper, he always seemed to put so much thought into his gifts that oftentimes the receiver would cry.
Dad had many hobbies.
-Flying remote-controlled airplanes- loved WWII war birds, especially corsairs.
-Flying- he used to take his family up in the air every Sunday afternoon for a “Sunday Fly” which was also good for scouting deer.
-reloading rifle cartridges
-teaching his kids to enjoy the great outdoors
-deer hunting. Archery in his younger years and rifles in his later years.
-dove hunting. Taught Chris and me a lesson we will never forget on Chris’ first dove hunt when, with one shot, he sawed a small tree in half to introduce the concept that “guns are not toys.”
-pheasant hunting with his brothers, boys, and friends. Opening Saturday of pheasant season was a holiday to dad and something we looked forward to every year.
- On snowy days, he would tie a rope to his hitch and a saucer to the other end of the rope and pull his kids down snowy back roads.
Dad had a love for the outdoors.
-It was like a little slice of heaven going fishing for bass out at Tammen’s Ponds in the last 15 years of his life. He got the biggest kick out of the little touches God would show him in nature. For example, a few weeks ago he threw a lure in the water and a large grey heron must have thought it was a frog and went after it. Dad reeled it in as fast as he could and the large bird barely pulled up before flying right into him.
-He found God in the view of a sunrise from a deer stand. When he was in the process of hearing and acting upon God’s call in his life, he explained that nature was his church and that he could experience God’s grandeur through something as simple as the leaves rattling in the trees, frost on the grass, or a graceful deer walking down a path. Those were the times he felt closest to God.
Dad was compassionate.
He was the ultimate conservationist. Even as a hunter, he couldn’t stand to see nature take its natural course and sometimes felt the need to intervene.
-In the early nineties as he was driving through the country while working, he noticed a baby fawn in the ditch. His mother had been run over by a car. He couldn’t fathom the idea of the fawn dying from starvation or at the hands of coyotes so he rescued it, and brought it home to teach his kids a lesson in compassion. The Great Bend Zoo took in the deer, and rebuked him, telling him to let nature take its course next time. He listened by next rescuing a kitten from the coyotes and just making it his pet. Maddie “The Wildcat” still lives in his house.
Dad was nostalgic.
He loved reminiscing about his younger years.
-football games he played in high school.
-growing up on Lena and Clarence’s farm and learning life lessons from them
-past deer hunts
-catching catfish on the Arkansas River
-having one of his brothers bury him in a hole while he used a garden hose to breathe.
- Whenever we got into a car, he would relive his passions for being out of doors. For example, when we would go to Great Bend or Hutchinson to go shopping on a Saturday, Dad would drive us down the county roads so that we could enjoy taking in the nature he so loved, not driving by it as fast as we could go on a highway just to get to our destination. To dad, the journey was always more important.
Dad was tough.
He never complained about pain, and he was never without it. The only things he ever complained about were food and the government.
God had a plan for His salvation.
Dad is a poster child for the beauty of how God works in mysterious ways. I believe Dad always felt a strange tugging on his life, but being tough, he seldom gave his thoughts on faith. Mom spoke with him and Lori would try to get him to open up about it, but it was always tough for him. One day in the fall of ’07, Chris and I were home playing catch with the football in the yard and somehow God had placed Dad on both of our hearts. We sat down and decided we needed to gather our courage and talk with him about the need for baptism for the forgiveness of his sins. We had an open and honest discussion and the message was fairly-well received. Between all our efforts, a seed was planted.
That next summer he had a back surgery that went awry. Half paralyzed and in a weakened state, he woke in the middle of the night in his hospital room and saw his late-grandma Lena Unruh and his late-mother-in-law Frances Gasser sitting on the side of his bed. They told him that he would be alright. Sobbing, he woke his wife Mary who was sleeping in a cot next to him and told her he had a need to be baptized. This is a great example of God’s perfect will.
God had a great plan for Dad’s life. As tough as it is to let him go, I am assured by my faith that he is in heaven this very minute and all his pain is gone. He is with Lena, and Grandma Gasser and everyone else who loved him and left this world before him, including Jesus. I thank God for allowing our lives to intersect and I look forward to seeing him again some day.
He was a teacher and not just a jack of all trades, but a “master” of all trades. He was knowledgeable about everything that is practical because he had many people who taught him how to do things early on, and the rest he read about. To that end, he has over 500 books he read just on the topic of war on his bookshelf he built in his shop.
Two of his philosophies that he spoke of quite often was, “Do it right the first time, or don’t do it at all.” And “The process to learning is to watch it, do it, then teach it.” He spent his life teaching his kids how to do things. Towards the end of his life he enjoyed teaching his grandsons how things worked.
Whenever we kids needed help with anything, we would call him up and he would walk us through it. If we still couldn’t figure it out, he would come over on the weekend to help us out. He found his greatest satisfaction in helping out his children. He always had answers because his kids always had questions. Auto mechanics, plumbing, electricity, carpentry, algebra, and how to turn on a fastball. We watched the Super Bowl together every year until just a few years ago, but he was sure to talk with me before the game anyways, give me his insights on who was going to win.
Dad didn’t enjoy art much, but he loved the art of playing the guitar. He never had a single lesson in his life, but taught himself to play by sounding out the melody of a particular song and playing it note-by-note until he could play the whole song. When I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, the first two songs he taught me to play were “Taps” and “Amazing Grace”.
He swore he wasn’t going to coach our little league teams because he didn’t want to be the one to explain to parents why certain kids played more than others, yet when they needed a coach, he couldn’t resist. He was by far the best coach Chris and I ever had, high school and college included.
He was an expert in:
-Football, and especially what the Kansas City Chiefs could do to be a better football team.
-Guns- he knew everything there was to know about every known make of gun and every type of ammunition.
-Warfare
-Politics
-Tying knots
- How to throw any kind of ball
He was a Master Inventor:
They say that “necessity is the mother of invention.” Whenever he faced a problem, he invented a tool to fix the problem. He would just see the solution in his head and go create it. A perfect case in point: in the week leading up to his last dove hunt a few weeks ago, he needed a way to sit down and be comfortable since he couldn’t stand very well anymore. He welded some angle iron together, bolted a piece of plywood to it, then ran a few long bolts through the back end. Everybody looked at it from every angle and couldn’t figure it out until he put it on the ball hitch of his vehicle and sucked the nuts down on the bolts. It worked perfectly and he was able to sit on his “ball hitch seat” and comfortably enjoy his last hunt.
He was by far the most dependable man I have ever known.
-Every town has a Gary Shelton. He was always there for anyone who needed him. He might work a 10 hour day, come home and receive a phone call from someone who needed his help and he would be out the door until after sunset. I honestly don’t know what the town is going to do without him.
-He would drive around on snowy days in “Old Blue” his dependable ’74 Chevy pickup and rescue motorists who had slid off the road.
-He never missed his kids’ games. Whether it was football, baseball, wrestling, volleyball, or softball, he would always be there and be proud of his kids’ efforts.
-He never missed work. He never took sick days. When he took his two weeks of vacation in the summer, it was to go to the Cline’s farms to help out with harvest.
-He never missed birthdays or anniversaries and though he wasn’t the best shopper, he always seemed to put so much thought into his gifts that oftentimes the receiver would cry.
Dad had many hobbies.
-Flying remote-controlled airplanes- loved WWII war birds, especially corsairs.
-Flying- he used to take his family up in the air every Sunday afternoon for a “Sunday Fly” which was also good for scouting deer.
-reloading rifle cartridges
-teaching his kids to enjoy the great outdoors
-deer hunting. Archery in his younger years and rifles in his later years.
-dove hunting. Taught Chris and me a lesson we will never forget on Chris’ first dove hunt when, with one shot, he sawed a small tree in half to introduce the concept that “guns are not toys.”
-pheasant hunting with his brothers, boys, and friends. Opening Saturday of pheasant season was a holiday to dad and something we looked forward to every year.
- On snowy days, he would tie a rope to his hitch and a saucer to the other end of the rope and pull his kids down snowy back roads.
Dad had a love for the outdoors.
-It was like a little slice of heaven going fishing for bass out at Tammen’s Ponds in the last 15 years of his life. He got the biggest kick out of the little touches God would show him in nature. For example, a few weeks ago he threw a lure in the water and a large grey heron must have thought it was a frog and went after it. Dad reeled it in as fast as he could and the large bird barely pulled up before flying right into him.
-He found God in the view of a sunrise from a deer stand. When he was in the process of hearing and acting upon God’s call in his life, he explained that nature was his church and that he could experience God’s grandeur through something as simple as the leaves rattling in the trees, frost on the grass, or a graceful deer walking down a path. Those were the times he felt closest to God.
Dad was compassionate.
He was the ultimate conservationist. Even as a hunter, he couldn’t stand to see nature take its natural course and sometimes felt the need to intervene.
-In the early nineties as he was driving through the country while working, he noticed a baby fawn in the ditch. His mother had been run over by a car. He couldn’t fathom the idea of the fawn dying from starvation or at the hands of coyotes so he rescued it, and brought it home to teach his kids a lesson in compassion. The Great Bend Zoo took in the deer, and rebuked him, telling him to let nature take its course next time. He listened by next rescuing a kitten from the coyotes and just making it his pet. Maddie “The Wildcat” still lives in his house.
Dad was nostalgic.
He loved reminiscing about his younger years.
-football games he played in high school.
-growing up on Lena and Clarence’s farm and learning life lessons from them
-past deer hunts
-catching catfish on the Arkansas River
-having one of his brothers bury him in a hole while he used a garden hose to breathe.
- Whenever we got into a car, he would relive his passions for being out of doors. For example, when we would go to Great Bend or Hutchinson to go shopping on a Saturday, Dad would drive us down the county roads so that we could enjoy taking in the nature he so loved, not driving by it as fast as we could go on a highway just to get to our destination. To dad, the journey was always more important.
Dad was tough.
He never complained about pain, and he was never without it. The only things he ever complained about were food and the government.
God had a plan for His salvation.
Dad is a poster child for the beauty of how God works in mysterious ways. I believe Dad always felt a strange tugging on his life, but being tough, he seldom gave his thoughts on faith. Mom spoke with him and Lori would try to get him to open up about it, but it was always tough for him. One day in the fall of ’07, Chris and I were home playing catch with the football in the yard and somehow God had placed Dad on both of our hearts. We sat down and decided we needed to gather our courage and talk with him about the need for baptism for the forgiveness of his sins. We had an open and honest discussion and the message was fairly-well received. Between all our efforts, a seed was planted.
That next summer he had a back surgery that went awry. Half paralyzed and in a weakened state, he woke in the middle of the night in his hospital room and saw his late-grandma Lena Unruh and his late-mother-in-law Frances Gasser sitting on the side of his bed. They told him that he would be alright. Sobbing, he woke his wife Mary who was sleeping in a cot next to him and told her he had a need to be baptized. This is a great example of God’s perfect will.
God had a great plan for Dad’s life. As tough as it is to let him go, I am assured by my faith that he is in heaven this very minute and all his pain is gone. He is with Lena, and Grandma Gasser and everyone else who loved him and left this world before him, including Jesus. I thank God for allowing our lives to intersect and I look forward to seeing him again some day.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Remembering 9/11
I've tried five times to find the right words to start this blog, and nothing seems good enough to fit the situation so I went to my lesson plan book, to the entry from September 12th, 2001 to look for inspiration. I have no idea what I taught that day, partly because I was in a fog, but mostly because I only had seven little words written in the block for that day:
"The day prayer came back to school."
Mr. Jerry Winkle, the principal at Ponca City High School at the time, came over the intercom and forgot all about political correctness. He forgot all about political lines in the sand. Our nation had been bored for way too long and in that boredom decided to overthink everything, including in what ways we can ban God. Seeing as our nation needed God at that, our weakest moment, Mr. Winkle got on the intercom and prayed for peace and understanding.
And we wept.
A few days later, President George W. Bush stood on top of the rubble that was a great building and promised America that we would seek justice for those who perished in the worst terrorist attack on American soil ever. "The people who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us soon!" His approval rating that day was 94%. Firefighters and police officers were heroes, not taken for granted or sneered at. America was united.
And we wept.
It's so hard to believe that it's been 10 years since that tragic day that has shaped part of who I am today. Nearly 1/3 of my life has been affected by that horrible day when America lost its innocence. Sadly my students have never truly known an America at peace, and I weep for their loss of innocence as well.
I have many lasting memories from Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, but the one that sticks out in my mind is where I was at 9:15 CST. One of my students had come back from the library 45 minutes late and when I questioned him, he said he was busy "in the library watching the plane hit the building." I had in my mind that if indeed he was telling the truth, a single-engined Cesna was sticking out of some building somewhere, but then the bell rang and I walked out into the hallway.
It was like being part of a zombie movie. All the students had the "deer-in-the-headlights" look. Nobody talked, and the sound of a high-school hallway without noise except for the shuffling of feet on a worn-down carpet is an eerie one. Two cheerleaders came up the stairway from the right, both crying and holding each other. I was totally bewieldered. The bell rang then the strangest thing happened.
One girl came skipping down the hallway like a child in a field of daisies, singing, "It's the end of the world as we know it!" I'm quite certain the look on my face was one of incredulity.
My second period students helped me fill in the gaps, and my mind turned to the unsuccessful attack on the WTC in '93. I then knew that I was living in the midst of history. The lesson plan for that day was scrapped and my classes walked to the auditorium where a projector was set up with a live feed of the smoldering Lower Manhattan. It was then that I lost my innocence.
The details of the rest of my day aren't as important. I, like every other American family, sat on the couch, glued to the TV, trying to make any sense out of what was going on.
In one day our world had changed. In one day we went from seeing the violence of war on television bouncing off a satellite from across an ocean to seeing it in our own backyard. Ten years removed from that fateful day, I pray that our world is safer. I pray that good will win out over evil And I pray that we can look back to the lessons of that day, come together as a country, and for at least one day, not concentrate on what separates Americans, but on one word that unites us. That word I leave up to you.
"The day prayer came back to school."
Mr. Jerry Winkle, the principal at Ponca City High School at the time, came over the intercom and forgot all about political correctness. He forgot all about political lines in the sand. Our nation had been bored for way too long and in that boredom decided to overthink everything, including in what ways we can ban God. Seeing as our nation needed God at that, our weakest moment, Mr. Winkle got on the intercom and prayed for peace and understanding.
And we wept.
A few days later, President George W. Bush stood on top of the rubble that was a great building and promised America that we would seek justice for those who perished in the worst terrorist attack on American soil ever. "The people who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us soon!" His approval rating that day was 94%. Firefighters and police officers were heroes, not taken for granted or sneered at. America was united.
And we wept.
It's so hard to believe that it's been 10 years since that tragic day that has shaped part of who I am today. Nearly 1/3 of my life has been affected by that horrible day when America lost its innocence. Sadly my students have never truly known an America at peace, and I weep for their loss of innocence as well.
I have many lasting memories from Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, but the one that sticks out in my mind is where I was at 9:15 CST. One of my students had come back from the library 45 minutes late and when I questioned him, he said he was busy "in the library watching the plane hit the building." I had in my mind that if indeed he was telling the truth, a single-engined Cesna was sticking out of some building somewhere, but then the bell rang and I walked out into the hallway.
It was like being part of a zombie movie. All the students had the "deer-in-the-headlights" look. Nobody talked, and the sound of a high-school hallway without noise except for the shuffling of feet on a worn-down carpet is an eerie one. Two cheerleaders came up the stairway from the right, both crying and holding each other. I was totally bewieldered. The bell rang then the strangest thing happened.
One girl came skipping down the hallway like a child in a field of daisies, singing, "It's the end of the world as we know it!" I'm quite certain the look on my face was one of incredulity.
My second period students helped me fill in the gaps, and my mind turned to the unsuccessful attack on the WTC in '93. I then knew that I was living in the midst of history. The lesson plan for that day was scrapped and my classes walked to the auditorium where a projector was set up with a live feed of the smoldering Lower Manhattan. It was then that I lost my innocence.
The details of the rest of my day aren't as important. I, like every other American family, sat on the couch, glued to the TV, trying to make any sense out of what was going on.
In one day our world had changed. In one day we went from seeing the violence of war on television bouncing off a satellite from across an ocean to seeing it in our own backyard. Ten years removed from that fateful day, I pray that our world is safer. I pray that good will win out over evil And I pray that we can look back to the lessons of that day, come together as a country, and for at least one day, not concentrate on what separates Americans, but on one word that unites us. That word I leave up to you.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Best Tom Hanks Movies of All Time
When all is said and done, Tom Hanks may go down as the best actor of our generation. Unlike other actors who are typecasted, Tom is a chameleon. He's been a cast away on an island, a conflicted Army captain in occupied France, and... Forrest Gump, whatever he is. Just think what would have happened to Timmothy Robbins' career if Hanks had taken Andy Dufrense in The Shawshenk Redemtion?
The intent of this blog is to identify the five best Tom Hanks movies in order, but focusing on his particular characterization. For example, The Da Vinci Code was a pretty good movie, but won't make this list because Hanks couldn't make Robert Langdon an exceptional, interesting character. That movie's focus was on the action and adventure set forth by the clues Langdon uncovers, but in no way is Langdon a memorable character, with the possible exception of having unfortunate hair. But who am to critique that?
Anyways, the order is from the best to the fifth best. As always feel free to differ.
1. Forrest Gump (1994)- Could there be a more interesting character? A small boy from Alabama, Forrest defines destiny. He's a boy who overcomes his disability and the torturous hometown bullies. Because he is bullied, he is a teenager who shows off his speed at the right time in front of the right coach. Because of this coach he becomes an All American football player and graduates college. Because he graduates college he is handed a pamplet on being all he can be. Because of that Army recruiter, he ends up saving half of his platoon in Viet Nam and getting "shot in the buttocks." Because of that wound he learns to play ping pong. Because of ping pong he becomes the best in the world. Because he is the best in the world he ends up with a big endorsement check and can buy a shrimp boat. Because he buys a shrimp boat, he becomes a "gazillionaire." Because he becomes a gazillionaire, he gets bored and decided to run across America about five times, just for fun. And let's not forget about Jenny. Sure, I left out a lot and trivialized everything in the movie, but the movie Forrest Gump is an epic and the movie's namesake is by far the most interesting character in modern cinema. Hanks is brilliant in this role.
2. Cast Away (2000)- This is one of those movies that people either love or hate. Despite Helen Hunt's minimal role in the movie, I love it. A Fed Ex Systems Engineer whose life is run by the seconds on a clock, Chuck Noland finds himself shipwrecked on a small island in the South Pacific Ocean where time stands still. I love the irony. Chuck has to adapt to survival mode, learning lessons along the way (usually the hard way) until he is able to set sail back to civilization. The human side of Hanks really comes out in this movie as the audience shares every painful moment. The fact that he lost something like forty pounds for the "four years later" part of the movie is a testiment to how seriously we should take him as an actor. I have two enduring questions: first, what was in that darned package with the wings on it, and second, which road does he take in the end? I have to believe in my heart of hearts that he follows the hot cowchick back to her house. That's how I would write that ending.
3. Saving Private Ryan (1998)- Unbelievable that I could rate this as low as number three. Capt. John H. Miller has a job to find a private who has lost his brothers in action in war-torn France so he can send the kid home to his parents. To do so is almost an impossible mission. He has to show the professionalism of an officer around his enlisted men who don't believe in the mission and on many occasions want to defect. He has a mysterious past that he offers up only in the most dire of circumstances when nothing else will keep his men happy. He has to be moral, ethical, and professional around his men, and chooses to cry only when his men aren't looking because he can't show weakness around them. They depend on him too much. Then there's the nervous twitch. When all is said and done, Saving Private Ryan might be the best war movie of all time, and while Hanks' performance of the hero Capt. Miller is marvelous, it only makes number three on this list.
4. A League of Their Own (1992)- Not just a chick flick. Ex-ballplayer Jimmy Dougan is given a last chance when the owner he played for offers him the managerial position of the Rockford Peaches of the newly formed All American Girls Fastpitch Baseball League. A classic case of a man with all the talent in the world who didn't appreciate it and has become a mysogynistic lush with bad knees. Who better to coach girls? Hanks plays Jimmy Dougan brilliantly, comically. His maturation from the coach who shows up drunk to the games and sleeps on the bench to one who sees the value in these "ballplayers" is exciting to watch and makes him one of the more memorable protagonists. Plus, without this movie we would have never been given the line, "There's no crying in baseball!"
5. Big (1988)- One of Hanks' earlier roles, he plays Josh Baskin, a boy who makes a wish on a carnival machine and wakes up the next morning a fully-grown man. Baskin has to face the corporate world with the brain of a twelve year-old, and eventually sees that adulthood sucks, despite the paychecks. From his innocence in bringing home his hot co-worker and then taking the top bunk so she can have the bottom one, to playing in his office with his bet friend at work, to the ever famous floor piano at FAO Schwarz, Hanks does what every male adult craves to do: act like a boy again. Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to the pool to do a cannon ball off the diving board.
Honorable Mention (in order of year it came out)
The Money Pit (1986)
-Walter Fielding, Jr.
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
-Sam Baldwin
Apollo 13 (1995)
-Jim Lovell
The Green Mile (1999)
-Chuck Noland
Road to Perdition (2002)
-Michael Sullivan
The intent of this blog is to identify the five best Tom Hanks movies in order, but focusing on his particular characterization. For example, The Da Vinci Code was a pretty good movie, but won't make this list because Hanks couldn't make Robert Langdon an exceptional, interesting character. That movie's focus was on the action and adventure set forth by the clues Langdon uncovers, but in no way is Langdon a memorable character, with the possible exception of having unfortunate hair. But who am to critique that?
Anyways, the order is from the best to the fifth best. As always feel free to differ.
1. Forrest Gump (1994)- Could there be a more interesting character? A small boy from Alabama, Forrest defines destiny. He's a boy who overcomes his disability and the torturous hometown bullies. Because he is bullied, he is a teenager who shows off his speed at the right time in front of the right coach. Because of this coach he becomes an All American football player and graduates college. Because he graduates college he is handed a pamplet on being all he can be. Because of that Army recruiter, he ends up saving half of his platoon in Viet Nam and getting "shot in the buttocks." Because of that wound he learns to play ping pong. Because of ping pong he becomes the best in the world. Because he is the best in the world he ends up with a big endorsement check and can buy a shrimp boat. Because he buys a shrimp boat, he becomes a "gazillionaire." Because he becomes a gazillionaire, he gets bored and decided to run across America about five times, just for fun. And let's not forget about Jenny. Sure, I left out a lot and trivialized everything in the movie, but the movie Forrest Gump is an epic and the movie's namesake is by far the most interesting character in modern cinema. Hanks is brilliant in this role.
2. Cast Away (2000)- This is one of those movies that people either love or hate. Despite Helen Hunt's minimal role in the movie, I love it. A Fed Ex Systems Engineer whose life is run by the seconds on a clock, Chuck Noland finds himself shipwrecked on a small island in the South Pacific Ocean where time stands still. I love the irony. Chuck has to adapt to survival mode, learning lessons along the way (usually the hard way) until he is able to set sail back to civilization. The human side of Hanks really comes out in this movie as the audience shares every painful moment. The fact that he lost something like forty pounds for the "four years later" part of the movie is a testiment to how seriously we should take him as an actor. I have two enduring questions: first, what was in that darned package with the wings on it, and second, which road does he take in the end? I have to believe in my heart of hearts that he follows the hot cowchick back to her house. That's how I would write that ending.
3. Saving Private Ryan (1998)- Unbelievable that I could rate this as low as number three. Capt. John H. Miller has a job to find a private who has lost his brothers in action in war-torn France so he can send the kid home to his parents. To do so is almost an impossible mission. He has to show the professionalism of an officer around his enlisted men who don't believe in the mission and on many occasions want to defect. He has a mysterious past that he offers up only in the most dire of circumstances when nothing else will keep his men happy. He has to be moral, ethical, and professional around his men, and chooses to cry only when his men aren't looking because he can't show weakness around them. They depend on him too much. Then there's the nervous twitch. When all is said and done, Saving Private Ryan might be the best war movie of all time, and while Hanks' performance of the hero Capt. Miller is marvelous, it only makes number three on this list.
4. A League of Their Own (1992)- Not just a chick flick. Ex-ballplayer Jimmy Dougan is given a last chance when the owner he played for offers him the managerial position of the Rockford Peaches of the newly formed All American Girls Fastpitch Baseball League. A classic case of a man with all the talent in the world who didn't appreciate it and has become a mysogynistic lush with bad knees. Who better to coach girls? Hanks plays Jimmy Dougan brilliantly, comically. His maturation from the coach who shows up drunk to the games and sleeps on the bench to one who sees the value in these "ballplayers" is exciting to watch and makes him one of the more memorable protagonists. Plus, without this movie we would have never been given the line, "There's no crying in baseball!"
5. Big (1988)- One of Hanks' earlier roles, he plays Josh Baskin, a boy who makes a wish on a carnival machine and wakes up the next morning a fully-grown man. Baskin has to face the corporate world with the brain of a twelve year-old, and eventually sees that adulthood sucks, despite the paychecks. From his innocence in bringing home his hot co-worker and then taking the top bunk so she can have the bottom one, to playing in his office with his bet friend at work, to the ever famous floor piano at FAO Schwarz, Hanks does what every male adult craves to do: act like a boy again. Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to the pool to do a cannon ball off the diving board.
Honorable Mention (in order of year it came out)
The Money Pit (1986)
-Walter Fielding, Jr.
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
-Sam Baldwin
Apollo 13 (1995)
-Jim Lovell
The Green Mile (1999)
-Chuck Noland
Road to Perdition (2002)
-Michael Sullivan
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Best Prison Movies of All Time
I was in the driveway this morning washing my wife's car when I was reminded of a particular scene from Cool Hand Luke. Those who have seen the movie know the scene I am talking about. Anyway, when I went in to eat lunch, I turned the channel, and what movie should be on? That's right, Cool Hand Luke. Particularly what scene was it on? You guessed it, the car wash scene. If that wasn't a sign to blog, I don't know what is?
So the topic for this blog is a top 5 list of the best prison movies. I kept the list to (mostly) recent movies and all whose plots take place in domestic prisons, not POW stuff. Therefore you won't see Victory or The Great Escape, though those are both great movies. It's no surprise that Cool Hand Luke made the list. Enjoy, and feel free to comment.
1. The Shawshank Redemption- The only movie that bested the book that preceded it. No disrespect to Steven King for he wrote the novella first, but the additions made to that first person narrative put this great story at the top of the list. And it is the story that makes it. Innocent man framed for the murder of his wife and her lover spends nineteen years in prison, yet has a secret life that nobody knows about, leading him "through 500 yards of s***-smelling foulness that I can't even imagine," to the other side where he is not only redemed, but takes down the real crooks, the warden and his hench man. As always, Morgan Freeman is brilliant, taking a seat only to Timothy Robbins who was actually the second choice to play Andy Dufresne (they wanted Tom Hanks- as great as Tom Hanks is, can you imagine him playing Andy as well as Robbins? I can't.) "Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies." Steven King is all about poetic justice, and from that standpoint, this movie is...perfect.
2. Cool Hand Luke- Wow, how I wanted to put this movie at #1 on my list, but the Shawshank's story is better. Any movie starring Paul Newman deserves respect, and other than Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, this may be Newman's best role. A man who won't lay down, won't be tamed. To borrow a title from Maya Angelou, "I know why the caged bird sings." Between the ditch full of dirt and Luke's 50 eggs, this movie is classic. It is full of famous quotes. "Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand." "Anything so innocent and built like that just gotta be named Lucille." Guns and Roses even used the following quote in one of their songs: "What we got here is failure to communicate." Maybe that's what knocked this movie down into the #2 spot.
3. Escape from Alcatraz- Notice how all these great movies have one thing in common? A great actor in the lead role. Clint Eastwood. That should be enough, but I will say a bit more. It wasn't his best role or performance, but the fact that this is based on a true story makes it interesting. The scene where the warden sees the chrysanthemum on the adjacent island and crushes it in his hands with that scowl of defeat, it's a beautiful thing. "Some men are destined to never leave Alcatraz...alive." Ha, yeah right!
4. The Green Mile- Another of Steven King's works. The story of John Coffey whose initials JC and his sacrificial death incidentally mimic that of Jesus Christ. I'm not one for sci-fi stuff, but the scene where John Coffey takes the cancer from the warden's wife and gives it to the little weasel prison guard who in turn shoots Wild Bill and ends up in the mental institution to which he was about to be transferred... what a web of poetic justice...and strange besides. When King was writing the book, he actually didn't know if Coffey would be executed in the end or escape. I wish he had chosen escape, but we all knew that Coffey had to die.
5. Ernest Goes to Jail- Just joking. It feels wrong to put another movie on this list with the four heavyweights from above, but if I had to, I would choose The Rock. Though Nicholas Cage really, excessively overacts in this film, it does have Sean Connery and Ed Harris and a few good lines. "I'd take pleasure in guttin' you, boy!" "Hey honey, do you want to know who shot JFK?"
So the topic for this blog is a top 5 list of the best prison movies. I kept the list to (mostly) recent movies and all whose plots take place in domestic prisons, not POW stuff. Therefore you won't see Victory or The Great Escape, though those are both great movies. It's no surprise that Cool Hand Luke made the list. Enjoy, and feel free to comment.
1. The Shawshank Redemption- The only movie that bested the book that preceded it. No disrespect to Steven King for he wrote the novella first, but the additions made to that first person narrative put this great story at the top of the list. And it is the story that makes it. Innocent man framed for the murder of his wife and her lover spends nineteen years in prison, yet has a secret life that nobody knows about, leading him "through 500 yards of s***-smelling foulness that I can't even imagine," to the other side where he is not only redemed, but takes down the real crooks, the warden and his hench man. As always, Morgan Freeman is brilliant, taking a seat only to Timothy Robbins who was actually the second choice to play Andy Dufresne (they wanted Tom Hanks- as great as Tom Hanks is, can you imagine him playing Andy as well as Robbins? I can't.) "Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies." Steven King is all about poetic justice, and from that standpoint, this movie is...perfect.
2. Cool Hand Luke- Wow, how I wanted to put this movie at #1 on my list, but the Shawshank's story is better. Any movie starring Paul Newman deserves respect, and other than Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, this may be Newman's best role. A man who won't lay down, won't be tamed. To borrow a title from Maya Angelou, "I know why the caged bird sings." Between the ditch full of dirt and Luke's 50 eggs, this movie is classic. It is full of famous quotes. "Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand." "Anything so innocent and built like that just gotta be named Lucille." Guns and Roses even used the following quote in one of their songs: "What we got here is failure to communicate." Maybe that's what knocked this movie down into the #2 spot.
3. Escape from Alcatraz- Notice how all these great movies have one thing in common? A great actor in the lead role. Clint Eastwood. That should be enough, but I will say a bit more. It wasn't his best role or performance, but the fact that this is based on a true story makes it interesting. The scene where the warden sees the chrysanthemum on the adjacent island and crushes it in his hands with that scowl of defeat, it's a beautiful thing. "Some men are destined to never leave Alcatraz...alive." Ha, yeah right!
4. The Green Mile- Another of Steven King's works. The story of John Coffey whose initials JC and his sacrificial death incidentally mimic that of Jesus Christ. I'm not one for sci-fi stuff, but the scene where John Coffey takes the cancer from the warden's wife and gives it to the little weasel prison guard who in turn shoots Wild Bill and ends up in the mental institution to which he was about to be transferred... what a web of poetic justice...and strange besides. When King was writing the book, he actually didn't know if Coffey would be executed in the end or escape. I wish he had chosen escape, but we all knew that Coffey had to die.
5. Ernest Goes to Jail- Just joking. It feels wrong to put another movie on this list with the four heavyweights from above, but if I had to, I would choose The Rock. Though Nicholas Cage really, excessively overacts in this film, it does have Sean Connery and Ed Harris and a few good lines. "I'd take pleasure in guttin' you, boy!" "Hey honey, do you want to know who shot JFK?"
Monday, June 6, 2011
Joplin
By mid-morning I figured out the source of the overwhelmingly foul stench: dead birds.
This was trip number two into the "war zone" and I would like to say that I had been desensitized to what I was witnessing, but that just isn't true. Everywhere I looked, I saw either total devastation or craziness. Earlier when we topped a hill on the way to 26th street, the vehicle full of church members became dead silent. About two miles into the total devastation, one of the members of our crew finally said, "I knew it was going to be bad, but there is no way I could have prepared myself for this. That pretty much summed up what we were all thinking.
Saturday, nineteen of us from the churches of Christ in Ponca City took a caravan to Joplin, MO to help out in any way we could. We worked through the church of Christ on 26th and Connecticut which is just 100 yards from the area of total devastation that is about a mile wide and six miles long. Since the church building sustained some roof damage, they converted it into a disaster relief area. Ed Hoggett, an elder there, and Richard Chambers, the preacher are heading up one of many relief efforst in the city that sees slow progress. One family at a time. I took our crew to the eastern side of the affected area and spent all day cleaning up just one yard. I made plenty of observations though.
There were plenty of crazy situations. One house (I use the word "house", but it was nothing more than a pile of rubble) had nothing standing but the shower. On the shower head hung a shower caddy with shampoo and conditioner still in place.
At one house we worked at, we found a mason jar full of hot cocoa, marshmallows and such with Christmas ribbon still attached to the lid. It was perfectly intact in some rubble that was once a shed and now resembled a pile of match sticks. We were told that the jar came from the kitchen.
Across the street was the remains of a house. Roof was gone. All walls were gone except for the coat closet, which just happened to be where the family hid for cover.
Just to contrast that, the house we were working at across the street from the coat closet had only lost their roof. Fifty yards away was a house that was beautiful: nicely manicured lawn, flower beds, no problems whatsoever. Then next to it, total destruction again. I don't know if that is amazing or lucky. Or both.
The craziest one of all was a softball. We found a softball in the backyard that was impaled by a piece of wood an inch wide and three inches long. Imagine the force necessary to impale a piece of wood into a softball!
It's easy to see God at work in Joplin right now. There are thousands upon thousands of volunteers in town every day helping in any way they can. We were to see a couple dozen Salvation Army volunteers walking our neighborhood passing out water. One man from Lancaster Pennsylvania who owned a flooring business had loaded his van down with cases of water and was passing them out to anybody who was thirsty. We met a group of college students in the Campus Crusade for Christ from Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas who were staying in Branson. They drove in to help and happened upon us. We put them to work. We had heard of some looting going on, but I really think that such horrible people were few and far between.
One thing I noticed was that the tree trunks that were still standing all seemed to have Spanish moss all over them. Upon closer inspection it was shredded insulation clinging to whatever was left standing, including all structures. The comedian Ron White once quipped about tornadoes, "It's not that the wind blows, it's what it blows!" I came away convinced that I would never survive the debris in the air.
I am also convinced that a tornado is nothing more than a very big coffee grinder. It takes anything and grinds it up. I spent two hours raking ground up shingles, ground up trees, ground up construction materials, and ground up "things" I couldn't identify in the front yard. It was while raking that I noticed the aforementioned stench. I thought that maybe the owners had dogs, but then I started raking up birds, parts of birds, squirrels, you name it. My biggest fear was that I would lift up a knocked down privacy fence and find a human body. Thankfully God spared me that horror.
Words just can't describe what the beautiful town of Joplin has become, but my words can describe what needs to be done. Joplin is going to need volunteers helping for a long time. We're not talking weeks, but months and years just to clean up the debris, much less start the rebuilding process.
My wife is fond of saying, "If you get to feeling sorry for yourself, go help somebody." Amazingly I didn't see Joplinites feeling sorry for themselves, but picking themselves up, dusting themselves off, and helping each other. If you are wanting to volunteer your time or money, get in contact with me on facebook, or comment on this post and I will point you in the right direction. We need to show the world that we aren't a selfish people but are in this thing together.
This was trip number two into the "war zone" and I would like to say that I had been desensitized to what I was witnessing, but that just isn't true. Everywhere I looked, I saw either total devastation or craziness. Earlier when we topped a hill on the way to 26th street, the vehicle full of church members became dead silent. About two miles into the total devastation, one of the members of our crew finally said, "I knew it was going to be bad, but there is no way I could have prepared myself for this. That pretty much summed up what we were all thinking.
Saturday, nineteen of us from the churches of Christ in Ponca City took a caravan to Joplin, MO to help out in any way we could. We worked through the church of Christ on 26th and Connecticut which is just 100 yards from the area of total devastation that is about a mile wide and six miles long. Since the church building sustained some roof damage, they converted it into a disaster relief area. Ed Hoggett, an elder there, and Richard Chambers, the preacher are heading up one of many relief efforst in the city that sees slow progress. One family at a time. I took our crew to the eastern side of the affected area and spent all day cleaning up just one yard. I made plenty of observations though.
There were plenty of crazy situations. One house (I use the word "house", but it was nothing more than a pile of rubble) had nothing standing but the shower. On the shower head hung a shower caddy with shampoo and conditioner still in place.
At one house we worked at, we found a mason jar full of hot cocoa, marshmallows and such with Christmas ribbon still attached to the lid. It was perfectly intact in some rubble that was once a shed and now resembled a pile of match sticks. We were told that the jar came from the kitchen.
Across the street was the remains of a house. Roof was gone. All walls were gone except for the coat closet, which just happened to be where the family hid for cover.
Just to contrast that, the house we were working at across the street from the coat closet had only lost their roof. Fifty yards away was a house that was beautiful: nicely manicured lawn, flower beds, no problems whatsoever. Then next to it, total destruction again. I don't know if that is amazing or lucky. Or both.
The craziest one of all was a softball. We found a softball in the backyard that was impaled by a piece of wood an inch wide and three inches long. Imagine the force necessary to impale a piece of wood into a softball!
It's easy to see God at work in Joplin right now. There are thousands upon thousands of volunteers in town every day helping in any way they can. We were to see a couple dozen Salvation Army volunteers walking our neighborhood passing out water. One man from Lancaster Pennsylvania who owned a flooring business had loaded his van down with cases of water and was passing them out to anybody who was thirsty. We met a group of college students in the Campus Crusade for Christ from Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas who were staying in Branson. They drove in to help and happened upon us. We put them to work. We had heard of some looting going on, but I really think that such horrible people were few and far between.
One thing I noticed was that the tree trunks that were still standing all seemed to have Spanish moss all over them. Upon closer inspection it was shredded insulation clinging to whatever was left standing, including all structures. The comedian Ron White once quipped about tornadoes, "It's not that the wind blows, it's what it blows!" I came away convinced that I would never survive the debris in the air.
I am also convinced that a tornado is nothing more than a very big coffee grinder. It takes anything and grinds it up. I spent two hours raking ground up shingles, ground up trees, ground up construction materials, and ground up "things" I couldn't identify in the front yard. It was while raking that I noticed the aforementioned stench. I thought that maybe the owners had dogs, but then I started raking up birds, parts of birds, squirrels, you name it. My biggest fear was that I would lift up a knocked down privacy fence and find a human body. Thankfully God spared me that horror.
Words just can't describe what the beautiful town of Joplin has become, but my words can describe what needs to be done. Joplin is going to need volunteers helping for a long time. We're not talking weeks, but months and years just to clean up the debris, much less start the rebuilding process.
My wife is fond of saying, "If you get to feeling sorry for yourself, go help somebody." Amazingly I didn't see Joplinites feeling sorry for themselves, but picking themselves up, dusting themselves off, and helping each other. If you are wanting to volunteer your time or money, get in contact with me on facebook, or comment on this post and I will point you in the right direction. We need to show the world that we aren't a selfish people but are in this thing together.
Monday, March 21, 2011
March Sadness
Every year after the first weekend of the NCAA tournament I write up a second-chance bracket of the Sweet 16 teams and create a competition amongst my friends. I do this because inevitably every year my original 64 (65, 68) team bracket is busted after the first two rounds. Case in point, this year my first bracket on ESPN.com is currently ranked in the 15th percentile! Egads! It doesn't matter that I was depending on that $10,000 grand prize. Instead, my wife is presently in the 99th percentile! At one point she had picked 19 of the first 20 games right!
Just how did she get there? For example, she chose to pick St. John's opponent because St. John's sounded like wart removal medicine. Why did she pick West Virginia in the first round? Because the state of West Virginia looks like a frog jumping into water!
Now don't get the wrong idea. She knows a lot more about college basketball than she lets on. ESPN is on nearly every moment the television is on, so if she is in the room, she's absorbing information. She reads the newspaper. She has conversations with me about basketball that result in me talking about 90% of the time (hence she's listening, taking notes.) She's a sponge.
That she is doing so well doesn't surprise me at all. That I am biting the big one is quite frankly... sad.
So every year I fill out at least five brackets. Here's my strategy (at the end I will be asking for yours!)
Bracket #1
This is my bracket that never does well because it is my original, first-instinct, emotional picks. At this point I have looked over the tournament field maybe once, twice at most and I pick the teams I think should win each match up based on criteria I have collected over the year, like watching St. John's take out the entire Big East during a January stretch. Yeah, that one worked out really well. I don't do much research when it comes to match ups. As I said before, this bracket is currently ranked in the 15th percentile.
Bracket #2
This is nearly identical to my first bracket, but I go out on a limb by picking some first round upsets that I didn't think of the first time. I do a little more research here, and end up convincing myself that I know something that nobody else does. Apparently I knew a little bit here because this bracket is currently in the 37th percentile. Still pathetic.
Bracket #3
This is my wacky bracket. In my first two brackets I have chosen my final four very carefully and not deviated one little bit. This bracket is different. I may keep one, possibly two of my final four picks, but I like to go on a limb and choose a few dark horses to make the final four. I'm not talking George Mason in '05-like dark horses, but maybe a four or a five seed. Think Arizona in 1997 (a four seed that took out maybe the best Kansas squad ever assembled and went on to win the whole thing. Darn that Mike Bibby!) Currently this one is my best bracket, ranked in the 88th percentile, but I moronically chose Purdue to beat Kansas, so it will be dropping sharply!
Bracket #4
This bracket is my "I'm so tired of spending time doing brackets, so I am just going to click randomly and see how it comes out" bracket. I do make sure I put the for-sure wins in there, but the rest is just a crap shoot. This year it came up snake eyes. That's right; I'm in the 11th percentile.
Bracket #5
Bracket #5 is different from the first four brackets. The first four I take care of in one exhaustive day. This one I wait a few days to fill out. I listen to all the experts give their commentary, I study match ups, trying to see the whole thing through new eyes, like re-reading a book that you put on a book shelf ten years ago when you only have a vague memory of what it is about. Other than my first bracket, this is the one I have the most faith in. I don't know why. My percentile isn't even worth mentioning.
I have heard of other methods. For example, one of my sister's brackets is a mascot competition! For example, The Penn State Nitney Lions had no problem with the Temple Owls. How cool is that? Kentucky Wildcats v. Princeton Tigers would be a push. The funny thing is that she says that it works better than legitimate picks. By the way what the heck is a Tar Heel?
So, since I am so inept at my picks, what is your sure-fire method? Feel free to share!
Just how did she get there? For example, she chose to pick St. John's opponent because St. John's sounded like wart removal medicine. Why did she pick West Virginia in the first round? Because the state of West Virginia looks like a frog jumping into water!
Now don't get the wrong idea. She knows a lot more about college basketball than she lets on. ESPN is on nearly every moment the television is on, so if she is in the room, she's absorbing information. She reads the newspaper. She has conversations with me about basketball that result in me talking about 90% of the time (hence she's listening, taking notes.) She's a sponge.
That she is doing so well doesn't surprise me at all. That I am biting the big one is quite frankly... sad.
So every year I fill out at least five brackets. Here's my strategy (at the end I will be asking for yours!)
Bracket #1
This is my bracket that never does well because it is my original, first-instinct, emotional picks. At this point I have looked over the tournament field maybe once, twice at most and I pick the teams I think should win each match up based on criteria I have collected over the year, like watching St. John's take out the entire Big East during a January stretch. Yeah, that one worked out really well. I don't do much research when it comes to match ups. As I said before, this bracket is currently ranked in the 15th percentile.
Bracket #2
This is nearly identical to my first bracket, but I go out on a limb by picking some first round upsets that I didn't think of the first time. I do a little more research here, and end up convincing myself that I know something that nobody else does. Apparently I knew a little bit here because this bracket is currently in the 37th percentile. Still pathetic.
Bracket #3
This is my wacky bracket. In my first two brackets I have chosen my final four very carefully and not deviated one little bit. This bracket is different. I may keep one, possibly two of my final four picks, but I like to go on a limb and choose a few dark horses to make the final four. I'm not talking George Mason in '05-like dark horses, but maybe a four or a five seed. Think Arizona in 1997 (a four seed that took out maybe the best Kansas squad ever assembled and went on to win the whole thing. Darn that Mike Bibby!) Currently this one is my best bracket, ranked in the 88th percentile, but I moronically chose Purdue to beat Kansas, so it will be dropping sharply!
Bracket #4
This bracket is my "I'm so tired of spending time doing brackets, so I am just going to click randomly and see how it comes out" bracket. I do make sure I put the for-sure wins in there, but the rest is just a crap shoot. This year it came up snake eyes. That's right; I'm in the 11th percentile.
Bracket #5
Bracket #5 is different from the first four brackets. The first four I take care of in one exhaustive day. This one I wait a few days to fill out. I listen to all the experts give their commentary, I study match ups, trying to see the whole thing through new eyes, like re-reading a book that you put on a book shelf ten years ago when you only have a vague memory of what it is about. Other than my first bracket, this is the one I have the most faith in. I don't know why. My percentile isn't even worth mentioning.
I have heard of other methods. For example, one of my sister's brackets is a mascot competition! For example, The Penn State Nitney Lions had no problem with the Temple Owls. How cool is that? Kentucky Wildcats v. Princeton Tigers would be a push. The funny thing is that she says that it works better than legitimate picks. By the way what the heck is a Tar Heel?
So, since I am so inept at my picks, what is your sure-fire method? Feel free to share!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Rocky
A little over a year ago, the sixth Rocky movie, titled Rocky Balboa, came to the big screen, supposedly the one that closes out the series. It got me to wondering which Rocky movie was the best? Which was the worst? Which one could we live without? Which one was just plain horrible? Amongst sports movies, Rocky is a lovable character not just because of his seemingly unflawed, modest outlook on life, but we always root for the underdog. It got me to thinking, how great is the sport of boxing? You can be an absolute nobody from nowhere (Buster Douglas) and win the greatest title of the world with one punch.
In honor of AMC's tribute to the Rocky movies this week, and with apologies to Clint Eastwood and the whole Spaghetti Western genre, I have compiled a list in descending order. Enjoy, and as always, feel free to debate.
6. Rocky V
The Good: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Depressing scenerio, depressing plot. This was supposed to be the conclusion to the Rocky series. Instead it left a bad taste in the fans' mouths and prompted the writers to think, "Dang, now we have to come up with another one!"
The Bad: Street fighting? Really? Rocky is a man of the streets, but this seeming conclusion was far beneath his dignity. It was just an old guy beating up a young punk.
The Ugly: Tommy Gunn, or whatever the young punk's name was (I've only seen this once, and I refuse to see it again, kind of like Napoleon Dynamite,) was about the weakest villan ever, but not as ugly as the Johnny Cochran/Don King wannabe promoter. That was just sad.
5. Rocky III
The Good: Rocky deals with the loss of his long time trainer/manager. The tears falls, Rocky fights his inner turmoil, and comes out on top.
The Bad: Rocky’s rematch with Clubber Lang lasts only three weak rounds of punch-drunk ecstasy. It was as if the writers got to a certain point and said, “Man, this is lasting too long. Let’s just have him knock Clubber out now.”
The Ugly: Mr. T. Has any other actor ever been this type casted? He wasn’t playing Clubber Lang. He was playing himself. This said, I am a fan of Mr. T. Close 2nd place: Rocky and Apollo's awkward man hugs (before there were rules to how men hug) as they bounce in the surf after Rocky beat Apollo in a sprint down the beach, signifying thus that Rocky now had all the skills he needed to take out Mr. T...er Clubber Lang.
4. Rocky Balboa (Rocky VI)
The Good: This movie meant that Rocky V wasn’t the end of the series. Other than that, the way Rocky exits the ring before the decision is given (in favor of his opponent,) shows in a slightly poetic way that it’s not the end result that matters, but how he fought the match. He shows heart, something the champ could never have. After all these movies, he’s still the underdog, he's still his own person, and that’s a beautiful thing.
The Bad: His wife is dead and his son is a mess.
The Ugly: Rocky is waiting tables for a living? He should have owned the meat packing business from Rocky I so he could tenderize a few more sides of beef. That would have been nostalgic. I could never grow bored of watching a man punch meat.
3. Rocky II
The Good: Seems to be the logical way for the series to end; Apollo Creed’s pride is too damaged after their first fight that he has to give Rocky another challenge. Rocky accepts despite the fact that his heart is in the right place (with his wife in the hospital.) Pride goeth before the fall.
The Bad: The rematch. It goes in the same fashion as the first fight, but they both fall to the canvas. He who gets up first is the winner. I see their attempt at drama, but it just doesn’t work for me. Rocky II very easily could have fallen to #5, but it’s only slightly more original than III and VI so it gets the nod.
The Ugly: The first 1/3 of the movie. Rocky’s romance with Adrian is awkward. His jacket with the tiger on the back is worse than ugly. It’s fugly. Besides this, his endorsement scenes are beneath human dignity.
2. Rocky IV
The Good: The steroid-filled, iron-plated Soviet beast, Ivan Drago. East verses West. Precipice of the Cold War. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Who will shoot the nukes first, us or the Russians? What does it matter because as we learned from another great eighties movie, War Games, we would all end up dead. Rocky takes this knowledge and changes the world for the better. “If I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!”
The Bad: The steroid-filled, iron-plated Soviet beast, Ivan Drago. Talk about a great villan!!! This “the bad” is great for the movie, unlike the previous four movies. After Drago kills Apollo Creed in an exhibition match, everyone in the movie theatre is ready to gang jump him!
The Ugly: The steroid-filled, iron-plated Soviet beast, Ivan Drago’s wife. Yikes! Is it me, or was she the lead singer for the Eurythmics?
1. Rocky I
The Good: The original. The Oscar winner. Absolute nobody from nowhere takes the World Champion to the brink of defeat. Mixed in with this is a beautiful love story of two kids in poverty-stricken Philly. American Realism at its best.
The Bad: Apollo Creed’s intentions. Even when he is giving this "nobody" his chance of a lifetime, it’s only purpose is to feed Apollo’s huge ego. Great example of pride at its worst.
The Ugly: Rocky drinks the six raw eggs just before he starts training, without so much as grimacing! Honestly, was there no such thing as salmonella back then?
In honor of AMC's tribute to the Rocky movies this week, and with apologies to Clint Eastwood and the whole Spaghetti Western genre, I have compiled a list in descending order. Enjoy, and as always, feel free to debate.
6. Rocky V
The Good: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Depressing scenerio, depressing plot. This was supposed to be the conclusion to the Rocky series. Instead it left a bad taste in the fans' mouths and prompted the writers to think, "Dang, now we have to come up with another one!"
The Bad: Street fighting? Really? Rocky is a man of the streets, but this seeming conclusion was far beneath his dignity. It was just an old guy beating up a young punk.
The Ugly: Tommy Gunn, or whatever the young punk's name was (I've only seen this once, and I refuse to see it again, kind of like Napoleon Dynamite,) was about the weakest villan ever, but not as ugly as the Johnny Cochran/Don King wannabe promoter. That was just sad.
5. Rocky III
The Good: Rocky deals with the loss of his long time trainer/manager. The tears falls, Rocky fights his inner turmoil, and comes out on top.
The Bad: Rocky’s rematch with Clubber Lang lasts only three weak rounds of punch-drunk ecstasy. It was as if the writers got to a certain point and said, “Man, this is lasting too long. Let’s just have him knock Clubber out now.”
The Ugly: Mr. T. Has any other actor ever been this type casted? He wasn’t playing Clubber Lang. He was playing himself. This said, I am a fan of Mr. T. Close 2nd place: Rocky and Apollo's awkward man hugs (before there were rules to how men hug) as they bounce in the surf after Rocky beat Apollo in a sprint down the beach, signifying thus that Rocky now had all the skills he needed to take out Mr. T...er Clubber Lang.
4. Rocky Balboa (Rocky VI)
The Good: This movie meant that Rocky V wasn’t the end of the series. Other than that, the way Rocky exits the ring before the decision is given (in favor of his opponent,) shows in a slightly poetic way that it’s not the end result that matters, but how he fought the match. He shows heart, something the champ could never have. After all these movies, he’s still the underdog, he's still his own person, and that’s a beautiful thing.
The Bad: His wife is dead and his son is a mess.
The Ugly: Rocky is waiting tables for a living? He should have owned the meat packing business from Rocky I so he could tenderize a few more sides of beef. That would have been nostalgic. I could never grow bored of watching a man punch meat.
3. Rocky II
The Good: Seems to be the logical way for the series to end; Apollo Creed’s pride is too damaged after their first fight that he has to give Rocky another challenge. Rocky accepts despite the fact that his heart is in the right place (with his wife in the hospital.) Pride goeth before the fall.
The Bad: The rematch. It goes in the same fashion as the first fight, but they both fall to the canvas. He who gets up first is the winner. I see their attempt at drama, but it just doesn’t work for me. Rocky II very easily could have fallen to #5, but it’s only slightly more original than III and VI so it gets the nod.
The Ugly: The first 1/3 of the movie. Rocky’s romance with Adrian is awkward. His jacket with the tiger on the back is worse than ugly. It’s fugly. Besides this, his endorsement scenes are beneath human dignity.
2. Rocky IV
The Good: The steroid-filled, iron-plated Soviet beast, Ivan Drago. East verses West. Precipice of the Cold War. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Who will shoot the nukes first, us or the Russians? What does it matter because as we learned from another great eighties movie, War Games, we would all end up dead. Rocky takes this knowledge and changes the world for the better. “If I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!”
The Bad: The steroid-filled, iron-plated Soviet beast, Ivan Drago. Talk about a great villan!!! This “the bad” is great for the movie, unlike the previous four movies. After Drago kills Apollo Creed in an exhibition match, everyone in the movie theatre is ready to gang jump him!
The Ugly: The steroid-filled, iron-plated Soviet beast, Ivan Drago’s wife. Yikes! Is it me, or was she the lead singer for the Eurythmics?
1. Rocky I
The Good: The original. The Oscar winner. Absolute nobody from nowhere takes the World Champion to the brink of defeat. Mixed in with this is a beautiful love story of two kids in poverty-stricken Philly. American Realism at its best.
The Bad: Apollo Creed’s intentions. Even when he is giving this "nobody" his chance of a lifetime, it’s only purpose is to feed Apollo’s huge ego. Great example of pride at its worst.
The Ugly: Rocky drinks the six raw eggs just before he starts training, without so much as grimacing! Honestly, was there no such thing as salmonella back then?
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Snow Day
Here's the scenerio: a blizzard has blown through the area leaving schools and businesses shut down. Temperatures are in the single digits with wind chills well into the negatives. A family is stuck inside, sick of watching tv, sick of surfing facebook, very bored.
What is your favorite snow day activity?
What is your favorite snow day activity?
Friday, January 28, 2011
The Beatles
"My theory is that when it comes to important subjects, there are only two ways a person can answer. Which way they chose, tells you who that person is. For instance, there are only two kinds of people in the world, Beatles people and Elvis people. Now Beatles people can like Elvis and Elvis people can like the Beatles, but nobody likes them both equally. Somewhere you have to make a choice. And that choice, tells you who you are." Mia Wallace, from Pulp Fiction
I was raised as neither a Beatles person nor an Elvis person, but I came to know Elvis first in college. From his Rockabilly start in Tennessee all the way to his best song, "Suspicious Minds" the famous quote about Elvis Presley sums it up well. "Before anyone did anything, Elvis did everything." In late 2000 I took a trip to Memphis and, of course, visited Graceland. If I didn't love his music before that trip, I instantly came to my senses. That is why it was so hard for me to come around to the Beatles.
The truth is, I have long held a grudge against the Beatles. Their popularity in the States was undeniable, and I suppose I blamed them for being British, but when I learned that one of them quipped that they were more popular than Jesus Christ, I was instantly turned off. That, and I couldn't stand their hair at any point in their American maturation. Beatles songs aired on the radio and recognizing them, I would switch the station. Somehow though I came to recognize that their music held something that I believe hasn't been duplicated since. Whereas Elvis had his "sound" the Beatles seemed to be dynamic, creative, dare I say, influential. For these reasons I hated them all the more.
Then last year in a cruel trick of fate, my planning period was changed from sixth period (last period of the day) to second period. Teach one class, chill for an hour, then teach four more classes. It was a horrible schedule, but it did produce one interesting side note. When nine o'clock rolled around and my students exited the classroom, I would turn my radio on to the local oldies station in the hopes that they would play some Elvis, Purkle Harem, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, or something else worthy of my time. But every morning they played what they called a "Beatles Break," two Beatles songs back to back. Too busy grading essays to get up and change the station, I would let the Beatles play on and saw that their musical creativity was in fact brilliant. Elvis might have had a hand in inventing Rock and Roll, but the Beatles took it to the extreme.
The haunting guitar riff in "Something" made me drift off into a daydream. The violins in "Eleanor Rigby" stirred my imagination. "Hey Jude" had me singing along. "Naaaaaa, naaa, naaa, na, na, na, naaaaaa. Na, na, na, naaaaa. Hey Jude!"
So in a moment of weakness last month when I should have been looking for a new Christmas CD, I grabbed a Beatles best of CD. It's been hard to take it out of the CD player since.
So am I a Beatles person or an Elvis person? I like them both now.
After much hard thought, I have decided I am... a Johnny Cash person.
As always, feel free to weigh in.
I was raised as neither a Beatles person nor an Elvis person, but I came to know Elvis first in college. From his Rockabilly start in Tennessee all the way to his best song, "Suspicious Minds" the famous quote about Elvis Presley sums it up well. "Before anyone did anything, Elvis did everything." In late 2000 I took a trip to Memphis and, of course, visited Graceland. If I didn't love his music before that trip, I instantly came to my senses. That is why it was so hard for me to come around to the Beatles.
The truth is, I have long held a grudge against the Beatles. Their popularity in the States was undeniable, and I suppose I blamed them for being British, but when I learned that one of them quipped that they were more popular than Jesus Christ, I was instantly turned off. That, and I couldn't stand their hair at any point in their American maturation. Beatles songs aired on the radio and recognizing them, I would switch the station. Somehow though I came to recognize that their music held something that I believe hasn't been duplicated since. Whereas Elvis had his "sound" the Beatles seemed to be dynamic, creative, dare I say, influential. For these reasons I hated them all the more.
Then last year in a cruel trick of fate, my planning period was changed from sixth period (last period of the day) to second period. Teach one class, chill for an hour, then teach four more classes. It was a horrible schedule, but it did produce one interesting side note. When nine o'clock rolled around and my students exited the classroom, I would turn my radio on to the local oldies station in the hopes that they would play some Elvis, Purkle Harem, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, or something else worthy of my time. But every morning they played what they called a "Beatles Break," two Beatles songs back to back. Too busy grading essays to get up and change the station, I would let the Beatles play on and saw that their musical creativity was in fact brilliant. Elvis might have had a hand in inventing Rock and Roll, but the Beatles took it to the extreme.
The haunting guitar riff in "Something" made me drift off into a daydream. The violins in "Eleanor Rigby" stirred my imagination. "Hey Jude" had me singing along. "Naaaaaa, naaa, naaa, na, na, na, naaaaaa. Na, na, na, naaaaa. Hey Jude!"
So in a moment of weakness last month when I should have been looking for a new Christmas CD, I grabbed a Beatles best of CD. It's been hard to take it out of the CD player since.
So am I a Beatles person or an Elvis person? I like them both now.
After much hard thought, I have decided I am... a Johnny Cash person.
As always, feel free to weigh in.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Moral Education
I have been fuming all weekend long about the shootings of the eighteen innocent civilians by a young, deranged gunman. Investigators have been turning this kid's life upside down to determine whether he acted alone, what his reasons for this outburst were, whether there's some conspiracy. The reason I am fuming is because all of this could be prevented with a little common sense.
It's all summed up in one word: education. Education has been receiving a radical make over for quite some time now. Some of it is good, a lot of it is not. For example, for the last two years I have had to listen to a certain pedagogical "expert" during mandated seminars. His contention is that 1. homework should be abolished, 2. daily work should count for no percentage of a student's grade, and 3. the only thing that matters is how well a student does on a test. There are a few issues I need to take with this. Please be patient and I will get to the point I made in the first paragraph.
1. Homework- he claimed that homework was basically a waste of a student's time. I don't feel that way. Though I have largely eliminated homework, I still assign some because students need extra practice to master a concept. Fifty-five minute periods don't allow for as much learning time as is needed. Also, when a student is assigned homework, he must make a decision: learn the content or X Box. Too often X Box wins out, which is a problem unto its own. Students need to learn the value of hard work.
2. Formative v. Summative Assessments- I agree that the purpose of homework and other daily assignments are to "form" the student's mind, and tests, or summative assignments, grade what a student knows. The problem is that students will get away with anything they can. If there is no grade attached, they feel less value attached to the assignment and are more apt to hit the X Box. There's an obvious problem in this from a "teach them how to act in the real world" scenerio.
Then there's the idea that students should be allowed to retest as many times as they want until they "get it right." Essentially, that it doesn't matter if they master the information in September or May, but that they master the information before the end of the year so that they can promote to the next grade. If this is the case, then the final exam should be the only test that matters, right? I want to give students ample chances to learn the work, but this policy has created laziness. I have students ask me, "Can I retake this test?" before they even take it the first time! My dad always told me to do something right the first time. Many times a student wants to see the test and then try to remember where the answers went on the second try. What is this teaching them? How many bosses want a worker who doesn't want to do things right the first time? Education is a break from the real world, a chance to make mistakes and learn from mistakes, but at what point does education draw the line and say, "Enough is enough. Young man, it's time for you to mature?"
3. Teaching to the test- these four words were as bad as four-letter cuss words when I first entered the teaching profession over ten years ago. The idea is that some company makes a standardized test, the state adopts the test as the scale by which we mark achievement, then the students have to do well on it. The problem is that it all revolvs around money. Districts are told that "no child may be left behind" and hence all students have to score proficient or money will be taken away, and teachers and administrators will be fired. Those in charge of the districts then put the pressure on the teachers to make sure the students have all the information they need to do well on the test.
This puts teachers in a peculiar situation. Do they teach only the information that they know will be on the test, even if other skills should also be taught, or do they teach these other skills also and hope for the best? More and more everything else gets thrown out the window, and this includes moral education. Some refer to it as character education, and there's a difference.
I can already hear some parents saying, "How dare you choose to place your own morals on my child! What gives you the right?" I understand this sentiment. I would not want another teacher pushing his set of values on my children. But there's a problem in this. Many of my students in the last dozen years have a home life in which their parents, say, are at the casino all night and sleep in all day. The most important duty a parent has is to his or her children- bringing them up to know right from wrong. When this strong parental figure is missing in a student's life, traditionally the church has picked up the slack. If all else failed, teachers took over.
Unfortunately those who believe that the Constitution of the United States is a living document have argued that the separation of church and state means keeping Christianity out of the classroom when our founding fathers didn't imply this at all. Character education trys to instill the concepts of love and peace in our students but fail miserably because love and peace are the cornerstones of Christ's ministry. Essentially you can't give someone something that you don't have. Education can't teach love if it doesn't know what love is. God is love.
Forsaking the church's role in education has led to a break down of the last line of moral defense. When we as educators look only to teach quadratic equations and pronouns, the students only receive these concepts, and not a primer in living life the right way.
What morals did the shooter possess? Who taught him right from wrong? Now I don't pretend to know the shooter's background, but I think I can safely assume that he is a product of our current system.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Why reinvent the wheel?
God help us.
It's all summed up in one word: education. Education has been receiving a radical make over for quite some time now. Some of it is good, a lot of it is not. For example, for the last two years I have had to listen to a certain pedagogical "expert" during mandated seminars. His contention is that 1. homework should be abolished, 2. daily work should count for no percentage of a student's grade, and 3. the only thing that matters is how well a student does on a test. There are a few issues I need to take with this. Please be patient and I will get to the point I made in the first paragraph.
1. Homework- he claimed that homework was basically a waste of a student's time. I don't feel that way. Though I have largely eliminated homework, I still assign some because students need extra practice to master a concept. Fifty-five minute periods don't allow for as much learning time as is needed. Also, when a student is assigned homework, he must make a decision: learn the content or X Box. Too often X Box wins out, which is a problem unto its own. Students need to learn the value of hard work.
2. Formative v. Summative Assessments- I agree that the purpose of homework and other daily assignments are to "form" the student's mind, and tests, or summative assignments, grade what a student knows. The problem is that students will get away with anything they can. If there is no grade attached, they feel less value attached to the assignment and are more apt to hit the X Box. There's an obvious problem in this from a "teach them how to act in the real world" scenerio.
Then there's the idea that students should be allowed to retest as many times as they want until they "get it right." Essentially, that it doesn't matter if they master the information in September or May, but that they master the information before the end of the year so that they can promote to the next grade. If this is the case, then the final exam should be the only test that matters, right? I want to give students ample chances to learn the work, but this policy has created laziness. I have students ask me, "Can I retake this test?" before they even take it the first time! My dad always told me to do something right the first time. Many times a student wants to see the test and then try to remember where the answers went on the second try. What is this teaching them? How many bosses want a worker who doesn't want to do things right the first time? Education is a break from the real world, a chance to make mistakes and learn from mistakes, but at what point does education draw the line and say, "Enough is enough. Young man, it's time for you to mature?"
3. Teaching to the test- these four words were as bad as four-letter cuss words when I first entered the teaching profession over ten years ago. The idea is that some company makes a standardized test, the state adopts the test as the scale by which we mark achievement, then the students have to do well on it. The problem is that it all revolvs around money. Districts are told that "no child may be left behind" and hence all students have to score proficient or money will be taken away, and teachers and administrators will be fired. Those in charge of the districts then put the pressure on the teachers to make sure the students have all the information they need to do well on the test.
This puts teachers in a peculiar situation. Do they teach only the information that they know will be on the test, even if other skills should also be taught, or do they teach these other skills also and hope for the best? More and more everything else gets thrown out the window, and this includes moral education. Some refer to it as character education, and there's a difference.
I can already hear some parents saying, "How dare you choose to place your own morals on my child! What gives you the right?" I understand this sentiment. I would not want another teacher pushing his set of values on my children. But there's a problem in this. Many of my students in the last dozen years have a home life in which their parents, say, are at the casino all night and sleep in all day. The most important duty a parent has is to his or her children- bringing them up to know right from wrong. When this strong parental figure is missing in a student's life, traditionally the church has picked up the slack. If all else failed, teachers took over.
Unfortunately those who believe that the Constitution of the United States is a living document have argued that the separation of church and state means keeping Christianity out of the classroom when our founding fathers didn't imply this at all. Character education trys to instill the concepts of love and peace in our students but fail miserably because love and peace are the cornerstones of Christ's ministry. Essentially you can't give someone something that you don't have. Education can't teach love if it doesn't know what love is. God is love.
Forsaking the church's role in education has led to a break down of the last line of moral defense. When we as educators look only to teach quadratic equations and pronouns, the students only receive these concepts, and not a primer in living life the right way.
What morals did the shooter possess? Who taught him right from wrong? Now I don't pretend to know the shooter's background, but I think I can safely assume that he is a product of our current system.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Why reinvent the wheel?
God help us.
Monday, January 3, 2011
The Saddest Day of the Year
It's sadly ironic that the "Most Wonderfull Time of the Year" is directly followed by the saddest time of the year. Families reuniting, mountains of presents, and bountiful feasts are replaced with goodbyes, stacks of new underwear, and new year's resolutions, like...the dreaded diet. The good news is that I've already lost seven pounds in three days. The bad news is that I could stand to lose much, much more. Still, this isn't why yesterday was the saddest day of the year. Yesterday we took down the Christmas decorations.
Yesterday afternoon, decorations that took a month to put up were neatly stacked in the attic in the space of two hours. Christmas CDs were put back on the shelf for another eleven long months. Some I didn't even get around to listening to, like Pavaratti and Harry Connick, Jr. Some I wore out like Trans Siberian Orchestra, Elvis, Sinatra, and of course the Charlie Brown Christmas CD. The same applied to DVDs. I watched It's a Wonderful Life three times, Miracle on 34th Street four times, and The Polar Express at least ten. All that has been put back in the cabinet.
It's always such a saddening time right after Christmas because there's such a great build up to the big day and of course the night before. It seems like in the month prior to Christmas, my family had one Christmas activity per night, and to see it all come down like an axe to a redwood is more sobering than I care to think about.
There was the mistletoe above the office door under which I planned to ambush my wife, but never had the guts. The stockings hung limply on the wall. The Christmas calendar on the wall was devoid of candy in all of the days' pouches. The Christmas village sat peacefully on top of the entertainment center, the one-horse sleigh plodding through the snow by the two Victorian hotels on its way to the skating pond and the backwoods cabin whose light had burned out. Even the Christmas tree was depressing. We had dubbed it "The Leaning Tree of Ponca" because it just wouldn't stand up straight anymore. We had already bought a new and bigger one at Wal Mart when they went on sale for 75% off, so this was the last year we were to use our family's first Christmas tree.
So down it all came. We took time to meticulously box up all the Hallmark ornaments and carefully wrap the rest in toilet paper. We played the "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" ornament one last time. I carefully wrapped my Grandpa Jule's fly-fishing fly pendant, one of only two items I have by which to remember him. The star fit awkwardly in its old packaging. The salt dough ornaments which will probably crumble over the summer. The string of popcorn and cranberries to the trash. Memories of Midnight Mass becoming just that: distant memories. Oh the sadness.
So today our living room looks bare, empty. I recall last May when school was letting out that I would rather it be the Christmas season than summer break, and I think the opinion is still valid. Now school is about to open its doors for the spring semester, and the next thing to look forward to is...Valentines Day?
Yesterday afternoon, decorations that took a month to put up were neatly stacked in the attic in the space of two hours. Christmas CDs were put back on the shelf for another eleven long months. Some I didn't even get around to listening to, like Pavaratti and Harry Connick, Jr. Some I wore out like Trans Siberian Orchestra, Elvis, Sinatra, and of course the Charlie Brown Christmas CD. The same applied to DVDs. I watched It's a Wonderful Life three times, Miracle on 34th Street four times, and The Polar Express at least ten. All that has been put back in the cabinet.
It's always such a saddening time right after Christmas because there's such a great build up to the big day and of course the night before. It seems like in the month prior to Christmas, my family had one Christmas activity per night, and to see it all come down like an axe to a redwood is more sobering than I care to think about.
There was the mistletoe above the office door under which I planned to ambush my wife, but never had the guts. The stockings hung limply on the wall. The Christmas calendar on the wall was devoid of candy in all of the days' pouches. The Christmas village sat peacefully on top of the entertainment center, the one-horse sleigh plodding through the snow by the two Victorian hotels on its way to the skating pond and the backwoods cabin whose light had burned out. Even the Christmas tree was depressing. We had dubbed it "The Leaning Tree of Ponca" because it just wouldn't stand up straight anymore. We had already bought a new and bigger one at Wal Mart when they went on sale for 75% off, so this was the last year we were to use our family's first Christmas tree.
So down it all came. We took time to meticulously box up all the Hallmark ornaments and carefully wrap the rest in toilet paper. We played the "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" ornament one last time. I carefully wrapped my Grandpa Jule's fly-fishing fly pendant, one of only two items I have by which to remember him. The star fit awkwardly in its old packaging. The salt dough ornaments which will probably crumble over the summer. The string of popcorn and cranberries to the trash. Memories of Midnight Mass becoming just that: distant memories. Oh the sadness.
So today our living room looks bare, empty. I recall last May when school was letting out that I would rather it be the Christmas season than summer break, and I think the opinion is still valid. Now school is about to open its doors for the spring semester, and the next thing to look forward to is...Valentines Day?
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