The Bench (Christmas Story 2013)

Behold a small Midwestern town on the way to nowhere.  The name of the town isn’t important.  There’s a set of train tracks on its edge that no railroad uses.  There’s one empty highway which also serves as the Main Street.  If you were to fly over our town in an airplane, you wouldn’t bother to look down.  None of this really matters because this story is not about a town.

            There’s a population of hard-working people in this town who all work together to keep the town going.  Everyone’s occupation serves more as than just the capacity of employment.  For instance, if my refrigerator stops working, the appliance store manager will come directly to house that evening so that my food does not spoil.  This he does, of course, without charge.  That’s just how our town works, each citizen serving each other. 

            Behold a small general store in this small town.  A narrow shop on the main drag, it has old west taste and charm as if it were from the old cow town days.  There’s a timeworn, squeaky wooden floor with an old soda fountain machine behind a bar back by the pharmacy.  There used to be wagon wheels, lassos, and ropes decorating the walls with pictorial representations of cattle drives, but they have been removed in favor of flat screen TVs with videos of good looking men and women showing off the latest fashions.  There’s also a rumor that the soda machine will soon be removed for more floor space.  For the purpose of this story, the store’s history does matter.

I’m seventy-eight years old and I got canned this morning from the only job I’ve ever had.  You see, I never really learned a trade that would make me marketable, or even needed.  My job throughout the years has been menial, but important, and I’ve learned enough over the ages to consider myself wise, despite what happened this morning, but I’ll get to that later.  

As for the aforementioned mercantile, I started working there as a small boy after school for Mr. Harbeson way back in 1945 when I was ten.  My first job was to sweep floors and climb ladders to the top shelf to take down merchandise for the customers.  It was a nice way to make a nickel, and the boss was a wonderful man, full of what you might call The Christmas Spirit.  What I mean is that he paid less attention to his bottom line than he did to the pulse of his customers.  Just like the refrigerator repair man, or the telephone repair man, or the leading local expert on plumbing, Mr. Harbeson felt his job was to lend a helping hand to the communtiy.  When customers couldn’t afford necessities, he let them charge it and pay it off as they could.  In helping keep his books, I knew that some families would never pay him back, and he was okay with that. 

Mr. Harbeson was a mentor to me.  On warm days when the store’s traffic was light, he would call me back to that soda machine and fill two mugs with root beer.  We would then take the mugs out to the front of the store where he had built a park bench with his own two hands.  There we would sit with the sun on our faces and talk about anything of interest, including baseball, and later, girls.

            When I graduated high school, Mr. Harbeson offered me fulltime employment, and seeing as the war was well over and America was booming, it seemed like the smart thing to do.  My duties were much the same until in 1965 when Mr. Harbeson suddenly died and left the store to his son, my younger by ten years. 

I was immediately given the unofficial title of manager which came with it the perks of being the wisest person there, with no more salary benefits.  Since I knew all the ins and outs of the store, I was able to teach Mr. Harbeson’s son how to run the shop, as well as sharing with him his father’s philanthropic wisdom.  It wasn’t easy for him, so young, and having to drop out of college to learn his father’s business, but my help so endeared me to my mentor’s son that I was always consulted in the business affairs of the shop, as well as acting as an uncle to his only kid.  That is up until last year when he too passed away.

This brings me to the shop’s present owner, a boy fresh out of college who insists that I call him Mr. Harbeson even though I’m his elder by some fifty plus years and helped to raise him.  I suppose that didn’t go over very well with an old curmudgeon like me.  You see, when he took over, I ceased to know anything of any importance.  All that the store had stood for has been replaced with fancy new ideas about cataloging and inventory, marketing and promoting, and if you can’t work a computer, you have no knowledge or place in this shop.  This is why he saw to it that I should come in and pick up my final paycheck today, the morning of Christmas Eve.

But sad as this story seems, it isn’t actually about me.  It’s about what I saw outside of the store this morning.

Late December in the Midwest brings with it harsh north winds and snow that comes in from the side.  The temperature hovers around the freezing mark in the afternoon and plummets well below at night.  This morning was not any different.  The unforgiving snow pelted my old face.  Though I had my overcoat, I was frozen to the bone.  I also admit that I was in a sour mood, knowing that a lifetime of dedication would be settled in a matter of minutes, ingloriously.

Forcing one foot in front of the other, I trudged through the snowdrifts on the unshoveled sidewalk.  Before I got to the front door, I saw something.  On Mr. Harbeson’s handmade bench at the door sat a young mother, clad in thin wraps, her baby tightly wrapped up and huddled next to her mother’s breast.  In a small town where everybody knew everyone, my old eyes did not recognize her. 

As I approached, forgetting my own troubles, she looked up pleadingly at me, snowflakes burning her eyes.  They burned my eyes as well.  Embarrassed, self-consumed, and slightly ashamed, I turned my gaze from her shivering figure and entered the store to face the music, wondering why she wasn’t indoors.

Though I had walked through that door a million times in my lifetime, everything seemed different.  The lighting, the tone, the mood, even the floor which was freshly waxed.  In fact, that bench outside that Mr. Harbeson and I sat on to talk about life, and which the mother was now sitting on in the blinding snow was the only thing that seemed original.

I walked through the store, back to the office to pick up my paycheck, the third owner sitting at his big, fancy oak desk and donning a suit and tie, his shiny, black wingtips poking out from under the massive pile of wood.  He was consumed with one of two laptops on his desk and didn’t even acknowledge my presence.  Apparently sensing my presence, he reached into the left-hand desk drawer and pulled out an envelope with my name on it.  Never taking his eyes off his computer, he held up the envelope for me to take.  When I did, he said, “Nice knowing you, old timer.”

Old age can bring with it an acidic tongue, especially when dealing with arrogant youth.  Though I had spent the evening before memorizing a monologue that would put him in his place, I held my tongue.  I just couldn’t get the image out of my head of a young woman with her baby, stuck in the blowing snow.  It was a thought that I had to do something about.

Before I left the store for the last time, I stopped at the glass door and peered out at the bleak scene, half-wondering if the woman and her baby were still there.  Sure enough, there she sat on that same bench, an inch of snow collecting on her shivering form. 

As my heart broke, I was interrupted at that very moment by a large family who had just checked out.  In a town where everybody knew everyone, this family was the poorest.  Every time the church had taken up an offering for the poor, this family of seven kids were always the ones on the other end of the collection.  It was a family of share crop farmers that Mr. Harbeson, my second boss, had helped out many times.  His father, my original boss, had helped out their parents.  I also knew that the new owner had called their debt a few months ago, asking me to deliver the news, and they were forced to come up with the money within thirty days.  Miraculously they had.

As they filed past me, I saw that each child held a sack of groceries in his or her hand.  The mother held a box of diapers.  Having worked there forever, it was more than I had ever seen them buy. 

The door opened and a rush of cold air punched me in the face until the door closed.  The young mother rose from her seat on the bench, snow cascading off her frail form.  What conversation took place between her and the family I can only guess at.  I suppose that doesn’t matter, because the family presented the groceries to the young woman and they ushered her away from the storefront. 

I stepped out into the cold air and watched them trudge through the snow towards the family’s house a few blocks away.

And here I have lamely related to you a moment in time that no one will remember as important, a moment that occurs in any given town on any given day, Christmas Eve or not.  Whether charity is given or purse strings are closed, it exists.  It always will.  So as I stood in the cold with my severance check in my clutch, I sat down on that old trusty bench.  I thought about the wisdom Mr. Harbeson had shared with me.  The charity he had given had been passed forward by the most unlikely of people, and from my vantage point with my old eyes, I was able to behold his spirit once more.  After that, the snow didn’t sting so much.

It's a Wonderful Life, What Happens after the Credits Roll

The angel Clarence helps George Bailey see the error of his thoughts and George decides his life is worth living.   He runs home to a wife and family who all hug him while the town collectively gives him the $8,000 deficit and more.  Everyone sings Auld Lang Syne and the credits roll. This is the classical Hollywood ending, but have you ever wondered what happened right afterwards?

GEORGE: "Uh, so that's a lot of cash," (then aside to his wife,) "So, we have a packed house, huh?"

MARY: (aside to George) "Yeah, I tried to get the money from them at their houses, but they insisted on coming over here. Just keep smiling."

GEORGE: "Uh, so it's been a long day.  (stammers) I'm kind of tired.  Thanks for coming over everybody."

CROWD: (silenced unbelief)

MARY: (aside to George) "Well, that was blunt."

GEORGE: (aside to Mary) "If we were cordial, they would just stick around all night.  Look at Martini.  He's bringing out the wine."

MARY: (aside to George) "Because I told him to."  (then to the stunned crowd) "Well, Merry Christmas."

MA BAILEY's MAID: "Give me my money back!"

UNCLE BILLY: (with bottle of wine in hand) "C'mon everybody.  Let's all go spit in Potter's eye."

George Bailey's Breakdown: an Empathizer's Perspective

Every year at Christmas I watch It's a Wonderful Life.  When I get to the part where George has his meltdown in front of his family after his uncle loses $8,000, I feel for the poor sap from the perspective of someone who also feels way too much pressure from too many places far too often.  George has a world of pressure on his shoulders, and the breakdown was long overdue.  Let's look at it more closely.

First, George wanted to see the world.  Night after night he would end up at the public library, reading about all the cool places he could visit, but God would have other plans for him to stick around Bedford Falls, the reasons to be illuminated in the next paragraph.

Second, George wanted his profession to be extraordinary.  His father Peter Baily was a saint for helping the town's citizens realize their dreams to become home owners instead of paying rent to Mr. Potter, the richest citizen in town and a man who has no soul.  When Peter dies, George's dreams of seeing the world and going to college go with it.  He does have the choice to leave, but if he did, the board of directors would close down the Bailey Building and Loan.  George has to save the day at the expense of his dreams.

Third, he made very little money.  On top of this, he is pressured to take a job for more money with Potter, in exchange for bulldozing the Building and Loan.  So in essence, he has to choose between his personal wealth and the health of the community, remembering his father's goals.  Potter may be referred to as the most important man in town because he is the richest, but I contend that since the whole town relies on George Bailey, this title should be conferred to him.  It begs the question: could I choose between the health of my family and the health of a town?  Nice parallel to the decision God had to make with Jesus by the way.

Fourth, he hates his house.  The night of his wedding day, after he gave out all his money to keep the town's citizens afloat until the bank reopens, he is called by his wife to come home.  He soon finds that she has selected the Old Granville House, the very house he says earlier on in that a ghost wouldn't want to live.  He will spend his time and money fixing up the "old drafty house." 

Fifth, his friends are all "successful."  Sam Wainright makes a fortune in plastics and his wife wears furs and they have a nice car, take vacations to exotic places, etc...essentially the life George could have had.  Sam even kids George about missing his opportunity.  That has to burn.

Finally, when Uncle Billy loses the $8,000 dollars on Christmas Eve, George finally implodes.  He goes home to his drafty, old house to a litter of kids, one of whom is sick.  Considering all my prior points, it's no surprise he bawls out his daughter's teacher, yells at his other kids, kicks stuff, gets rejected by Potter for a loan, is told the police are going to arrest him, ends up at the bar drunk, gets punched in the face by his daughter's teacher's husband, drives his car into a tree, grabs his life insurance policy, and heads for a bridge to jump. 

What does surprises me is that nobody saw it coming.

World Series Blunder

I waited for nearly twelve hours, a good night's sleep, before I weighed in on the debacle that was last night's World Series Game 3.  I still use such strong words because I feel the same way this morning as I did last night.  It's not emotion that's getting the best of me.  No, I pride myself on keeping a cool head most of the time.  Admittedly, I was incised.  Still am.  When the play occurred though, I was was shocked and said very little, and my patient wife might have confused my reaction with some sort of levelheadedness.

To make any sense of this for anyone who didn't watch/hasn't seen the replay/hasn't been on Twitter/has been in a cave the last twenty-four hours, here's what happened.  Tied at four apiece in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Cardinals have runners at second and third base with one out.  With the Boston infield drawn in, the batter, John Jay, grounds to second baseman Dustin Pedroia.  Pedroia fields the grounder and throws a laser home to catcher Jarrod Saltalamachia who easily tags out the base runner Yadier Molina.  The play worked to perfection for the Red Sox.  That is until the sports universe stepped onto its third rail.

Saltalamachia sees a play at third and unwisely wings what looks like a tailing two-seam fastball towards third baseman Will Middlebrooks.  Even if the throw had been on target, it would have been late.  The throw wasn't on target.  Middlebrooks dives for the ball towards the second base side of the bag and misses completely.  The ball hits the Cardinal baserunner, Allen Craig, in the arm and trickles into the outfield.  The baserunner then tries to get up out of his slide and run home, but Middlebrooks was laying in his path, having just dove for the ball.  The baserunner then trips over Middlebrooks, stumbles, then staggers home.  In that time, the left fielder grabs the ball, throws home to Saltalamachia, who tags out the baserunner easily.


The only problem is that the home umpire called him safe.  Or rather, he deferred the call to the third base umpire.

When the baserunner tripped on Middlebrooks, the third base umpire called an obstruction, which automatically awards the baserunner a free base.  Problem was that the St. Louis crowd was so loud at that very moment that nobody heard the call.

Crazy?  Absolutely.  Fair?  Hardly.

Yes, by the letter of the law, this was obstruction.  The third base umpire was more than justified to call this an obstruction.  The problem exists in the wording of the rule.  The wording suggests that as soon as the fielder no longer is part of the play, he must be out of the way.

First, there was absolutely no way Middlebrooks could have gotten out of the way.  More to the point, Middlebrooks wasn't even in the baseline!  Since he had dove towards second base to try to catch Saltalamachia's errant throw, the closest part of his body to the baseline was his shoes, and they were a good foot inside the baseline.

His shoes weren't what the baserunner tripped on.  Allen Craig tried to leap over Middlebrook's...middle.  A good three feet inside the baseline.  He simply couldn't get his foot over Middlebrook's butt.  Why was the baserunner trying to run so far inside the baseline?  If the baserunner runs to the pitcher's mound and crashes into the pitcher, would this be called an obstruction?  Obviously not.  Then the umpire would call him out for being out of the baseline.  So then where does the baseline end and the rest of the field begin?
There seems to be a lot of room given to the average baserunner when he rounds third and goes home.  His natural momentum causes him to round the base well outside the baseline.  There is no clear line here, and the baserunner was flirting with that line.  Now I don't for a second believe that Craig tried to go out of his way to trip on Middlebrooks.  I'm simply saying that Middlebrooks wasn't on the white line that is the baseline.  He was well inside the baseline.  That just happens to also be where Craig was at that very moment.

To make my second point, I must talk about balls and strikes.   All night long we saw an inconsistent strike zone.  A pitch at the beginning of the at bat would be called a strike, then with a 1-2 count, the same pitch, crossing the batter in the exact same spot as the first one would be called a ball.  FOX kept  putting up their computerized strike zone for the millions to see, and there was no doubt.  There was no difference in the two pitches, yet the home umpire would call it a ball.
Based on the CIRCUMSTANCE, he would make a JUDGEMENT CALL.  A JUDGEMENT CALL!  The letter of the law that everybody is using to defend the decision of the third base umpire concerning the obstruction law is now somehow up for interpretation with the home plate umpire when it comes to the strike zone?  One pitch is a strike once, and a ball in a different circumstance?  Why the latitude here but not the latitude at first base?
Or the better question is why not give that third base umpire the same opportunity concerning a specific situation like what transpired last night to sense the circumstance and make a judgement call?
The Boston Red Sox are going to come to the ball park tonight and play as if nothing happened last night, because that's what good teams do.  Maybe the play and the resulting loss will come back to haunt them.  Maybe they will reel off three straight victories.  Either way, Major League Baseball needs to look at this specific rule and allow for discretion when there is nothing a fielder can do to get out of the way.  To bring common sense back to the game.  MLB cannot allow for such judgmental hyprocracy.
If you're still not convinced, just imagine if this had been Game 7!

Writing and Inspiration

I am not a big fan of promotion.  I was told that long ago, back when Hemmingway was hanging out in Key West, or at least sometime along those lines, it was the writer's job to write.  Live life, find inspiration, write. 

It's not so easy with me.  So much of my energies are spent promoting my novel The Mentor.  ryanmshelton.com 

(see what I did there?)

But in all honesty, since I fancy myself as a father and husband first, then a writer somewhere down the line, I usually get to writing around, say, 10:00 P.M.  For example, it's 10:57 right now.  Let me be frank.  I am far too tired to write meaningful prose after a long day of daily duties (from the Department of Redundancy Department.)  And this is summer vacation for me.  During the schoolyear?  Forget about it!

There are moments during the day though when I feel the inspiration.  I imagine it must have been what famous artists like Monet or Picasso or Escher must have felt: see something beautiful, drop everything, grab the fan brush, and paint. 

Well, I was in Mardel's Book Store this afternoon and I picked up a copy of Fireproof. 

Now this movie is one of my favorites, and I hadn't realized it had been novelized (by Eric Wilson from Alex and Stephen Kendrick's film.)  I looked over at my wife who was sorting through a mountain of stationery on the next aisle over, so I picked up the book and flipped to the middle.

I landed on the scene where the protagonist, Caleb, is rescuing a girl from a burning house.  One page in, reading the description of the house burning all around them, the splintered wood jabbing into his side, and then the disjointed dialogue ensuing after he gets the little girl out of the house (Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage style) and I immediately wanted to drop everything and write.

Of course that didn't happen.  For starters I didn't have a computer with me.  But it was more than that.  My daughter, who was buckled into the car seat, situated on top of the shopping cart, woke up.  She stretched, looked up at me with those big blue eyes, and smiled.  And my heart melted.

At that point, I started looking for a fan brush.

Being a Teacher

A friend once told me out of the blue that he would have made a good teacher.  I was a couple years into the profession at the time, and inquisitive enough to ask him what led him to that conclusion.  After all he was fairly successful at his particular business, and I couldn't help but wonder why he would consider such philanthropy.

"Because I am smart," he replied.

I didn't argue that point.  He was indeed smart, even brilliant in my scope of vision.  I immediately found myself comparing his brain to mine.  Really there was no comparison.  His capacity for book learning far excelled mine, yet I knew his reasoning was faulty because he had no idea of what teaching is.  I imagine his idea of teaching was like that of the popular movie The Matrix where people are essentially turned into computers, and certain intelligence programs are simply downloaded into their brains.  Or maybe Field of Dreams, "If you teach it, they will learn."  If only it were that easy.

What he didn't know was that "teaching" meant doing more with less.  Every year.  With less money, fewer teachers, and more students in each classroom, the teacher still has to make the student increase his or her knowledge so much so that the government legislates that every student must make a certain score on a particular test, or the teacher is a failure.  The teacher has to find a way to make that happen or be ridiculed to scorn from the opinionated and tax-paying community.

It doesn't matter if the student makes a habit of staying up all night long on school nights playing video games.

It doesn't matter if the student is the de facto parent because the parents are absentee, hanging out at the casino as the student cooks for his younger siblings, bathes them, then puts them to bed.

It doesn't matter if the student works after school until late to help support the family, then has no time or energy for homework.

It doesn't matter if the student is dealing with tragedy. 

It doesn't matter if the student comes to school drunk or baked.

It doesn't matter if the student is sent to school by his parents to deal drugs.

It doesn't matter that the student is scared in the toilet stall because of bullies.

It doesn't matter that any particular student might just decide he or she doesn't want to learn, no matter what the teacher says.

This list could go on and on, but the point remains that teaching isn't about how smart the teacher is.  Sure, the teacher has to be knowledgeable about his or her subject matter and the pedagogy must be sound.  That's a given (or should be,) but a teacher has to be so much more.

A teacher must be a counselor, a cheerleader, a motivational speaker, a leader, a learner, a translator, a chairman, a petitioner, an advocate, a comic, a...human, doused in humility and sprinkled with kindness, overwhelmed with burden and ever hopeful for the future.

A teacher must care about his or her students passing, not because of threats of being fired because of scores on standardized tests, but because a teacher truly cares about each student, not the student ID number.

This wreck of words comes on the heels of my thirteenth year of teaching.  With mere days left and only final exams for which to prep my students, I find myself slightly philosophical about the matter.  I look across the room at all my students, working diligently, and I think about all the progress they have made throughout the school year, and I think about what their futures hold, and I am overrun by hope and joy, though not necessarily in that order. 

I've thought a lot about that conversation with my friends over the past decade.  I've smiled at victories and pondered defeats and constantly been introspective.  Each student is different and takes a different approach.  It made me wonder if there was one unifying answer to all questions about teaching.

In the end, all I really know for sure is that to be a teacher means to love.

Happy Quotes

Happy Gilmore is one of the best comedies of all time, ranking up there with Dumb and Dumber in the "So Dumb You Can't Help But Laugh if You're a Guy and There Are Not Any Women in the Room" category.  Classic college flick! What makes a comedy so good are the quotes, so here are Happy Gilmore's 10 best.  Enjoy!

1. "Volkswagon!" 

The line isn't so funny, but it's the circumstances that make it funny.  Gilmore, a tough hockey player playing golf, is walking down the fairway when a Volkswagon Beetle runs him over.  He's too tough to say something conventional, like "ouch."

2. "Friends listen to 'Endless Love' in the dark."

Happy is on a "friend date" with the hot PR lady, Virginia, and he takes her to a skating rink.  The lights turn off and the music cues up in the middle of the song.  My buddy from college, Ryan Hardaway, was hilarious in the fact that we would be sitting around, doing homework or something else totally boring, and out of nowhere he would blurt out, "Friends listen to 'Endless Love' in the dark."  Always good for a laugh.

3. "You eat pieces of poop for breakfast?"

Happy's nemesis, Shooter McGavin, has just outbid Happy for his grandmother's house and challenges Happy to a winner take all at the tour championship.  Trying to intimidate Happy, McGavin says, "I eat pieces of crap like you for breakfast," to which Happy replies, "You eat pieces of poop for breakfast?"  Flushed, McGavin stammers before saying, "...uh, NO!"

4. "During high school, I played junior hockey and still hold two league records: most time spent in a penalty box, and I was the only guy to ever take off his skate and try to stab somebody."

To which Virginia replies, "You had me at hello."

5. "What? I didn't *break* it, I was just testing its durability, and then I *placed* it in the woods because it's made of wood and I just thought he should be with his family."

It is as good an explanation as any.


6. "Why you don't you just go HOME? That's your HOME! Are you too good for your HOME? ANSWER ME!"
It's been repeated on putting greens across America ever since!  

7. "You're gonna die, clown!"
    
It's been repeated on mini-golf courses across America ever since!

8. "Erm... I was just looking for the other half of this bottle. Oh. There's some... and some more."

Nice catch after an almost bar fight.

9. "The Price is Wrong, Bob!" 

How many of his contestants have wanted to punch Bob Barker over the years after hearing, "That was not nice and easy."

10. "Darnit! Is that goal regulation size or what? Sheesh!"

Happy swears after missing an easy slap shot.  This could be adapted to about any situation: The basketball court, the football field ("Are those goal posts regulation size or what?" or the tennis court ("Is that net regulation size or what?")