I don't care what other's say, I love your bagel imperfections.
Sometimes in life, circumstances necessitate that you broaden your understanding of right vs. wrong.
Another fruitless visit to the supermarket during a hunger pang, my cart overflowing with calories, I decided against the donuts in favor of a bagel, and was feeling especially proud of myself.
That feeling faded as I neared the checkout aisles and realized only the express lane looked favorable. I quickly added up the items in my cart. At least 20 items. The limit was 12. Oh well, I thought...five items are the same. I'm not really pushing the maximum.
So, we're both sort of in the wrong... Me with exceeding the limit, and your store with its grammar.
It's no different than driving 8 miles over the speed limit on the freeway. Everybody does it. Some people bring their whole weeks worth of groceries through the express lane. I wasn't doing that!
The lady in front was especially proud of her find. One pound packages of ground sirloin beef for $3.99. She had at least 8 packages of the meat. The fear of a gout attack held me back from exiting the line and exploring the butcher department for more good deals.
I laid out my twenty-two items. Sure, I didn't need all five different flavors of Jarritos Soda, but at .69 a bottle on sale, it was almost a crime not to try them. I mean, I'm almost 40, and I've never tried ANY flavor of Jarritos. That's a cultural crime. There is no food product besides maybe the chili relleno and some people's interpretation of guacamole, that Mexico hasn't perfected. Sure, they seem stuck on like twenty different ingredients, but they've made lemonade out of what life gave them.
Well...better than Corona.
I looked at the Hispanic Lime Limón soda, and wondered if it would taste like Sprite, and noticed that a little old man had joined the line behind me.
I loaded the last few items onto the conveyer belt and heard his grumbling. He almost, almost, uttered actual words of discontent. Perhaps he was senile, or had irritable bowel syndrome.
He quickly grabbed the plastic divider bar that keeps our groceries from breeding with each other, and loaded his few items. A handful of beets, a bunch of celery, and a head of cauliflower. I think a genetic cross section of our combined items might have made mine healthier and his a little more edible.
I considered letting him cut in front of me in line. Until I saw his face. Every wrinkle in his chiseled eighty year old face was tightening in disdain for me. He greying eyes passed right through me, as if I was a Korean soldier, and he an M2 flamethrowing GI.
I made this walker with tennis balls you brats hit over my fence when playing wiffle-ball.
Let it go, old man, the Korean War is over...I thought. Now you're going to wait behind me. I hope the checker lady has to do a price check.
He made some more noises that could've been bile boiling in his gut, or some guttural sound that animals emit when you threaten their territory. I wondered if it was his odd mix of vegetables that made him so hostile. What could you possibly make with that concoction of veggies...a broth? A stew? A potion? I wondered if his wife was a witch.
Look, I'm sorry I exceeded the limit by 10 items. I'm sorry that my digestive system still allows me to eat a bagel and a Mexican soda, and you have to eat alienated veggies. NO. No, I'm not sorry. You're just a bitter old man. A man with a radishy personality. Now you know he WE feel when you drive 48 MPH on the freeway old man. Yeah, it works both ways. So stew in your own toxic fumes you judgmental old man. I'm not a bad person.
I said next to nothing to the checkout lady. She didn't acknowledge that I had exceeded the limit. We passed pleasantries, I quickly paid by debit card, and grabbed my weighted down bag. Five glass soda bottles was probably pushing its structural integrity.
"Hello Sandra," cooed the old man in voice like Tony Bennett. I turned to see a complete transformation. The old man had morphed from malignant to genteel.
You get a merit badge for finding a use for radishes.
"Oh, hello Charles, how are you today?" Sandra, the middle-aged checker, whom I had failed to really notice in our interaction, brightened up.
I wanted to stay and eavesdrop on their conversation. Maybe Charles would divulge the purpose behind his odd vegetable choices. Maybe Sandra was an old friend or relative, or maybe Charles was just a regular who had made a connection with a tired employee. I glanced, perhaps a second too long, at the authenticity of their moment. They showed compassion for each other in the realness of their smiles.
Overstaying my welcome, I exited their scene. Maybe I had misread his face, his gestures, his sounds as displeasure. I was, sort of, in the wrong. What if I was the bad guy? No, not bad...just, inhospitable. I was guilty of the same judgement I thought he was giving me.I looked into my sack of ten extra items and nothing looked that good or that real, and realized I wanted a little more of what they had.
Nick Underside had a stinking suspicion that somebody in HR was trying to make an ass of him. HR, or human relations to the layperson, was not aware that a Nick Underside even existed. They had not renewed his contract, and hence, had deleted him from their "certified teacher" database. As a lame duck employee for the fourth time in six years, Nick believed a grand conspiracy against him was being orchestrated by vindictive HR employees, and he wasn't going to take it anymore.
"I'm not going to take this anymore!" Nick shouted when he received the form letter that coincidentally wasn't pink, but literally contained all the misfortune of a pink slip. Nick subconsciously wished the slip was pink. Nick hated pink.
Because Nick could not maintain a job for more than a year, he never received any seniority, and because he had no seniority he was always the first to be cut when the school wanted a new football uniforms or an administrator wanted a new color copier. When this or that school realized they needed an emergency teacher, his name always popped up on the "available teacher" list. Nick skimmed the not pink, pink slip:
Your service at Emerald Streams Elementary School is no longer needed, it said. We thank you for your assistance in making Emerald City School Districts an outstanding public school system, and encourage you to apply to any and all positions that may open up in the future.
Following the words that he had nearly memorized from the last three times, were the auto-signatures of four important bureaucratic administrators from the school district. The auto-signatures signified how insignificant Nick was; their time was too important to waste on actual employees. Coincidentally two of the signatures were from Human Relations who hated dealing with humans.
Human Relations at Emerald City School district was a bit of a misnomer. After being hired, the department spent a total of four minutes talking about procedures and policies and then pushed the new employees into a room to be trained by computers. If there was ever a problem with a paycheck or ID badge, the department attempted to deal with the situation with a form-letter via email with a specific hyperlink pasted within. When the employee pursues the assistance of a human, she is met with a curt reply stating to file the complaint with "Insta-Aid", an online help documentation system. HR, in fact, dealt with humans less than any other department at Emerald City Schools. Mostly they played an intricate game of paper pushing. This game involved not reading the important personal information of certain employees about upcoming leaves or absences, and handing it to a different part of the department so that they would not read the information, and this would go on until the employee requesting leave would be denied, as the proper people never actually viewed the proper documentation by the allotted deadline.
Nick picked up his cell phone. (He dreaded using the district telephone. There were no documented cases of district phones being screened, but he couldn't shake the feeling that every time he used it, data was being sent to the information hub in HR, potentially building a portfolio of all the "unnecessary" calls he had committed throughout his short tenure at Emerald. In fact, Nick had never abused his calling privilege as he hated the phone with an undying passion, but the thought that anything could be misconstrued by the HR department he already mistrusted, kept him wary). He did not want to call from his district telephone. Perhaps his number had already been screened. Nick suspected that the HR department worked hand in hand with the NSA.
"Hello, Human Relations."
"Hi, I'd like to speak to the director of Human Relations, Nancy Bennioff."
"And who may I ask is calling?"
"My name is Nick Underside, I'm an employee at Emerald Streams Elementary School."
"Just a second...uh...sir...Could you give us your teacher ID #? We have no record of a Nick Underside being employed at that school...are you sure?"
"66627"
"Uhh...did you say 666...
"Yes...I know the connotation..."
"Uh...nothing is popping up? Are you sure?"
"What do you mean, am I sure? Am I sure I'm Nick Underside, or sure that I work at Emerald Streams Elementary school?"
"Sir, I'm sure you know who you are, I'm saying at that school, we have no employee listed under 66627. I'm sorry, but I can only answer questions from employees with valid ID numbers?"
"Are you serious? Have you ever related to a human before? Of course I am who I say I am, and I work where I say I work."
"Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree." "What is the purpose behind this call, if I may ask?"
"I want to know why my contract wasn't renewed?"
"If your contract wasn't renewed that would explain why we have no record of your employment. You are not an employee."
"I still have a month left on my existing contract! I still have students in my room! You guys are still paying my paycheck for another month! This is nonsense, may I speak to the director or not?"
"Sir, being on payroll and being an active employee are two entirely separate things. I'm sorry to inform you that the director of HR only has time to speak to current employees."
"That's what I'm trying to say...I am a current employee!"
"Semantics, sir. You are not."
"Well who can I talk to as a former employee?"
"I believe you can talk to the labor board, sir."
"Do you have their number?"
"I've never had to contact the labor board, sir. I am a current employee."
"GAAAAWWWWDDDD!" Nick frantically hit the END CALL button on his touch screen. He missed the dramatics of slamming a phone down and hearing the ringtone echo throughout the room, even though he'd only seen this on television.
At the HR office, the receptionist said, "Wow, he hung up on me. How anti-social of him! No wonder we terminated his contract."
-------------------------------------
Nick stared up at his water stained acoustical ceiling tiles and scraped his hands down his face like a plow, hoping to dig out all the stress and frustration and anger and hurt and pain and pride and fear and self loathing. It was not successful.
His email was still open and a new message was at the top. It was from one of his more annoying students.
It read: "Mr. Underside. I'm sorry you got fired again. It's not fair. Your a good teacher. No a great teacher. Your the only teacher that ever related to what I was going thru. I just thought you should know. Thank you, Billy Anderson."
Nick smiled at the irony of the grammatically sad letter sent with true sincerity.
"Thanks Billy." He said aloud to nobody.
Humans. Dealing with humans is a messy business. Nick fantasized about getting a job that didn't have to deal with people. He wondered if there were any openings in HR.
I'm not entirely sure why I don't go to church as often as I used to...or want to.
And I don't want to be one of those Americans who only goes on major holidays, like today: Easter.
But a church slacker is what I have been this year. Today I was back, and it was good. Like it almost always is. I wish I could capture in words how faith and spirituality are essential to my own well-being.
And I wish I could capture in words how important Easter is to those of faith. I can't...but this guy Dr. S. M. Lockridge did. So that's the extent of today's blog (after almost two weeks absent...I'll explain later).
My yoke is easy and my burden is light...might be the greatest words ever written.
If you clicked this link in a reactionary manner because of the title of the article, congratulations; you've just been baited and switched (kinda).
You see, I was driving home from work yesterday and flipping through the six bland radio stations we have here in Eugene, OR. and settled on the "adult contemporary" station. They were playing a song that 18-year-old me would've called, "gay," and yet here I was, now, twice the age, and singing harmony to Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeren's duet called, "Everything Has Changed."
The song is so sweet.
SWEET? What the heck happened to me! I PLAY ELECTRIC GUITAR! I OWN TOOL CDS! This song is so sappy and melancholic and wussy...how...how can I like this sound?
I don't know what happened to me. Maybe it's because there's nothing more empowering than singing out loud with my two little daughters in the car. Maybe If I had boys we could still appreciate a drum solo by Neil Peart (Rush), or a guitar solo by Steve Vai. I guess I never truly rocked out as an adolescent in the 1990s. I never liked Pantera or Megadeth (but I do still like Metallica). Maybe I was never hardcore ROCK, yet I never imagined a day when POP RADIO would be the most appealing choice on my morning commute.
Let me tell you a few things the teenage version of myself would've said about Pop Radio if I had had a better vocabulary: It's manufactured corn syrup phoniness. It's 200 studio magicians and label executives pushing knobs and pulling dials to make ditzy attractive women sound sultry and soulful. It's canned deception used to manipulate our materialistic and base needs. It's the McDonald's of musical nutrition. Pop music is sinful deceit. It is the antithesis of masculinity.
I also went to a redneck high school where the idea of being "gay," was one of the few unforgivable sins. We proved our manhood via any number of manly things: how low our car engines roared, how hard we threw a dodgeball at each other, how much we could bench-press, how crappy we could make the outcast kid feel (whether strange, different, ugly, poor, weak, gay, etc.)
And I don't care anymore. I'm not that person anymore. I don't care how wussy or un-masculine or "gay" something is anymore. I like what I like, and it has nothing to do with any unwritten Man Code. And I'm trying to not care what anyone else is into anymore, either. Why are men so prone to label and categorize others? What good has all this social grooming done for the American man?
"...And stay down until I've molded you into an angry version of myself!"
Why have I let someone else define what I AM? Is it possible to know what conference all 120 NCAA BCS colleges play in--and write poetry? Is it possible to like blowing up/burning/destroying junk with weapons of mass destruction--and listen to P!nk sing "Just Give Me A Reason"? Can I be a man who stands up for gender equality and sits down on the toilet to go pee?
I'm 34, and maybe I shouldn't use the word "gay" anymore. As teachers we tell students to use "another" word. But it isn't helping. Kids still use the word (along with hundreds of other offensive words). Words (and especially hurtful words) aren't going away anytime soon. Actions used to speak louder than words, but now words speak louder than actions. Say or tweet something "offensive" and you are no longer likable or employable (regardless of your actual work). Someone could take this blog the wrong way, and get me in trouble as well...
Which is why I should probably be more specific: To all the people out there who fit into the classification of "gay," I'm sorry. I'm sorry this word has been used by callow men who feel the need to bully other men into acting more machismo. I'm sorry that being too artistic, or sensitive, or rhythmic, or musical, or intellectual, or inquisitive, or stylish, or kitschy, or outside-the-box, or feminine, or athletic (for women), or uncoordinated (for men), or flamboyant, or the hundreds of other "non-masculine" traits have become synonymous with "gay." Because it's a disservice to men of all kinds: gay and straight.
I also apologize to the homosexual boy who came out my senior year of high school and nobody knew how to handle it, so we mocked/ignored/scoffed at you. I'm sorry we weren't mature or manly or self-assured enough to be around you (even though many of us were friends with you before you "came out."). I'm sorry that I, like millions of men before me, are products of stupid bullying and conditioning that teaches us that manliness is brutishness and violence (and not acceptance and loving).
Because I don't buy it anymore. I can watch SportCenter four times in a day and watch (and sing) Frozen musical songs with my family; I can sharpen my samurai sword and hone my knowledge of the Psalms; I can dream about being on (and driving the cars) on Top Gear and attempt to learn/play sheet music version of J.S Bach: Air. I will like and accept myself (and others) as I am--not the way the "masculine" men dictate it should be.
I'm sorry I don't fit your box of masculinity. As Jack Palance used to say in those cheesy commercials, "I don't need some fancy cologne to tell me I'm a man...because confidence is very SEXY, don't you think?" I'm finally confident in the myriad of past-times and talents and abilities God gave me. If you think because some of them are a little more "effeminate" than others, and that makes me gay; well, I feel sorry for you. It must be incredibly uncomfortable living inside such a narrow box of masculinity... because not all who come out end up being gay (happier, maybe, though).
"Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it." -Dumbledore (movie only).
My Patronus would be a Skunk.
While it's unclear whether J.K. Rowling wrote this line or if it was added by one of the many writers/producers in pre-production, it clearly symbolizes how she wanted her books/movies received. Words have power. Even in her world where dragons, trolls, magic wands, and ghosts flitter through the rooms, at the essence of what the series is about is human relationships.
Unlike Harry, I am blessed with a fantastic family that never locked me under the stairs. We are a family full of talented, loud, opinionated, funny, fun-loving, individuals that would drop everything to be there for each other. Yet, even with this unconditional love and guaranteed approval, we all still act like Dementors at times, casting Crucio curses at each other for no reason other than having a bad day.
It's not just us, it's an American thing. Think of the words we say about our President, our government, our Governor, our city council, our sports teams (when they are losing), our bosses, our friends (when they aren't in the room), our spouses...even our kids. We are a nation full of loose-lipped blasphemers that rarely find the time (or need) to apologize.
Even Potter struggled with this:
Harry: "Been having a nice little chat with her {Lavender} about whether or not I'm a lying, attention-seeking prat, have you?"
Hermione: "No, I told her to keep her {Lavender} big fat mouth
shut about you, actually. And it would be quite nice if you stopped
jumping down Ron and my throats, Harry, because if you haven't noticed,
we're on your side."
So this year, after Foot-in-Mouth disease had infected many members of the family, and threatened to dismantle the Christmas season, we decided to combat the malady with a new holiday tradition: Ending the year with a session of positive words aimed at every member of the family--Affirmation Day.
Being affirmed, means strongly and publicly declaring one's support for, or defense of another's validity or existence. What greater gift can one give during the holiday break than to be 100% loved and validated by your closest kin, with only words meant in praise of your existence.
Some wrote a word or two, others a paragraph. I'm keeping mine.
I'm not saying it was easy. We all had to write a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph of all the positive attributes of EVERY member of the family. We even did this for Eleanor (or Ellie as we call her), our 6 month old niece, who clearly will have no concept of the affirmation we just bestowed upon her. But it can, perhaps, be absorbed into her psyche. You don't have to be a believer in a Higher Power, like we are, or a Wiccan to understand that light or darkness can be imparted into other's lives by our choice. And we choose, as a family, to speak Life into each other.
So we bogged down, and spent a few hours writing and then sharing our words, sentences, and observations of others. Sometimes it was funny, as when my niece and nephew both choose "weird" and "crazy" to define me. I own those words. I am those words. I love that they chose those words to define me. Other times it was so emotionally overwhelming that it was hard to read out the words. Sometimes I heard words to describe my sisters or brothers-in-law that I wished I would've used myself; but by the end, after all 13 people had received their "anonymous" gifts of praise, nobody could possibly feel bad about themselves for at least a week.
My favorite line before and after the session, was when my 9-year-old niece said, "It's embarrassing, and hard to have people say nice things about you" (before we did the assignment), and afterwards saying, "It wasn't as hard as I thought, it actually felt quite nice to get compliments."
I don't know if it's sadder that we've conditioned ourselves to not receive compliments, or that we are so reluctant to give them out.
This world barely recognizes the light you bring to the world, and more often than not, tries to snuff it out. But this little Lumos light of ours? We're going to let it shine by praising those around me. We all could use a little Patronus on our side.
So this holiday and next, I encourage you to start your own Affirmation Day tradition. It might be awkward, and it might be difficult to think of nice things to say, but who else is going to do it?
What a better way to end the year, after all the drama, pain, frustration, and misplaced words, than to open a new chapter with the words that need to be shared? It's nice to know that somebody is on your side.
When you are comfortable with your family, it opens up opportunities for mockery. Like the flying LB bro-in-law.
Say what you will, but this is all the evidence I need of God.
My little daughter, Lily, had her heart broken this Friday. No, not by a boy; she's eight. She still thinks boys are disgusting (an observation I dutifully reinforce). Sadly, her best friend, also named Lily, moved three hours away. I didn't go to the going away party (my wife is much better at those type gatherings) so I didn't do much of the 'on the battlefield' grief consoling; but when my Lily got home, she was such a blubbering mess that she crawled into my arms and wept uncontrollably for what seemed like eternity.
Tonya Harding never transitioned
out of 7th grade.
As a human being, my instincts were to comfort her and tell her it will be all better. People have this thing about being uncomfortable around crying and wanting to make it stop. I couldn't handle teaching 7th graders because they were always crying. Crying when somebody called them fat, crying when their pencil wasn't sharp enough, crying when "today's date" was wrong on the top of my whiteboard. 7th graders grip on reality is pretty sad, and many of the "criers" of my past 7th grade class are now the outcast and "at-risk" kids in my 10th grade classes (yes, I do teach many of the same kids 3 years later). Why has being emotional become synonymous with craziness?
I wanted my daughter to stop crying. But crying---grief---is normal. Grief is good. I'm okay happy my daughter cares for someone so much that it breaks her heart when they've gone away. I'm glad she loves so deeply that feelings are sometimes uncontrollable. Some day, when the situation is bigger or smaller, she will have experience with which to gauge her emotions. As parents we are always teaching our children what the appropriate reaction to disappointment and/or victory is. Sometimes my daughter can be overly dramatic, but this was not a performance, this was genuine heartache. I'm raising an empathetic human being. And the empathetic human being is an endangered species.
And that's just after reading the
back cover!
I've experienced a Nicholas Sparks novel of heartache and disappointment in my thirty-four years. I've always tried to make myself a well-rounded person, and I've mostly succeeded only in the physical aspect of that goal; but whatever character strengths I have, it's because life was never cherry-coated for me. I switched schools five times and moved homes even more. I've loved and lost all over the West Coast, and all before the interconnectivity of social media. Most of those friends are just distant memories.
There were tears shed on a few occasions. My parents have repeated how guilty they feel about all the moves, but they are guilty of nothing. They did what was best for the family. And you know what, I became resilient. I made friends faster. I got funnier. My discernment for jerks, trouble-makers, and drama-queens, got better. I learned to stop being a cry-baby, and learned to use emotions when appropriate. I learned who I was apart from the crowd.
I hate enlightened dogs. They're just
dyslexic animals with a God complex.
Knowing yourself is such an important part of the journey. I fear for those who refused to cry growing up. I mourn for those that weren't allowed to cry. I fear for those so protected from heartache/pain that they have no criterion on which to judge emotions. I'm scared for those who only know victory and trophies, and never felt the pain of defeat. Many are so ill-prepared for their first breakup, that it becomes a very public (sometimes via social media) breakdown.
I'm afraid because we keep trying to do all this bullsh!t to make the world happy-go-lucky. We keep trying to PC our language so that nobody is ever offended. We tell every person that they are special so much that nobody seems that special anymore. We've made bullying the most offensive word in the educational system, and yet it seems that kids, if anything, are more mean spirited than ever before. We tell kids to keep their hands to themselves, and "no hitting--ever," and yet this generation is in LOVE with physical violence. We've built a holographic world that isn't based on the harsh realities of pain, disillusionment, and loss, and they've seen right through it.
The youth have rebelled against our pacified, vitamin-filled, helmet-wearing, peace-loving illusionary world. And empathy? Feeling and understanding the pain of someone other than yourself? That seems like the least important skill in the modern American world of individual testing and talent based acumen. But you know what? A friend or family member that will listen and cry with you after a terrible ordeal? That's a beautiful trait to have. It may not lead to ivy league schools or fortune 500 jobs, but it will lead to something much more important: Real human interconnectivity.
My little girl has a heart. She has beautiful compassion for the hurting, and I couldn't be more proud. This nation could learn a lot from "the mouths of babes." (7th graders aren't considered babes anymore, are they?)
Matthew 5:1-12
The Message (MSG) You’re Blessed (the Beatitudes)
5 1-2 When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:
3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and his rule. 4 “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you. 5 “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought. 6 “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat. 7 “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for. 8 “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world. 9 “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family. 10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom. 11-12 “Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.
A great video on the difference between empathy and sympathy
It seems like everybody has an anecdotal Christmas miracle story. My own is the year my brother and I were driving back to Eugene from Salem after celebrating Christmas Eve with my grandparents. It was on that boring hourlong stretch of I-5 that my brother's 1991 Mazda 626 decided it no longer needed a transmission. Long story short; we ended up hitchhiking home with 15 wrapped presents after we waited multiple hours in the bitter cold with a sign that read: "Car broke down, will pay $20 for a ride to Eugene, Merry Christmas."
We finally arrived home in the wee hours of Christmas thanks to a nice family in a GMC Yukon Denali. It was our own little "Christmas Miracle." Thank God for cell phones now (how did all of history survive without 'em)?
Here's a list of six non-sappy pre-cell phone miracles that happened around the Christmas season that are slowly being forgotten:
6. Jack Johnson defeats Tommy Burns on Boxing Day (Dec. 26th), for the 1908 Heavyweight title. The real miracle here is that Johnson, a black man who was only allowed to fight in colored leagues, was actually given the opportunity to box Burns (who obviously was white). Of course, it had to happen outside of America (in Sydney, Australia), and the television cameras were forced to shut off by the police right as Johnson knocked Burns down with the definitive blow in the 14th round (so as not to upset the sensitive white audiences). Still, the Heavyweight Title of the World was as big in 1908 as the World Series was in 1947 when Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier, or Olympic Track in 1936 when Jessie Owens shoved racial superiority back in Hitler's face. Johnson lived the celebrity life for that era, but it also came at a very bigoted price: He was imprisoned for a year in 1913 for marrying a white woman. Today we all know Jackie Robinson, but Jack Johnson actually broke the professional sports color barrier 40 years earlier.
The narrator calls Johnson "the scourge of the heavyweight" and after the eleventh
round says, "there's a general feeling of compassion for the impossible task that Burns has
undertaken (even though Burns was the current champion)." Worth watching from 9:30 onward.
While much of the film has been lost to age, the shootout scene at 10:38 and the subsequent fire
(notice the hand dyed red film) and the suicide pact scene at 12:15 are all worth noting. The Kelly story is quite
fascinating, and can be seen in the 2003 movie Ned Kelly, starring Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom.
Even in the 1940s CEOs were so important that they had a paid staff
of "sit-position" carriers.
4. While it may not constitute a miracle, in 1944, in the height of WWII, Franklin Roosevelt seized control of one of the largest retailers of the time, Montgomery Ward, for being obstinate. In an act that would enrage libertarians today, FDR had the National Guard of Illinois forcibly remove Sewell Avery (chairman of Wards) from his office, and take over the factories in Chicago, until the Montgomery Ward Company would agree to three different collective bargaining agreements with employees made law by the National War Labor Board (which ironically also stymied the rights of workers to strike). Mr. Sewell, a staunch capitalist, refused to comply with any government regulations, even during those desperate war years, and threatened to cut production of all goods, including war productions if any "New Dealer" meddled with his business. Also ironic, is that Mr. Sewell (once reinstated) directed Wards in a very conservative approach in the post-war years, and his refusal to match Sears' generous benefits to employees and failure to spend any money for expansion, lead to Sears' doubling of its pre-war market and leaving Wards as a distant competitor (and forcing Sewell to resign in 1954).
Historically, this image is more important than the painting: Washington
Throws an Ice Chunk at Benedict Arnold.
3. I hesitate to call an act of war a miracle, but considering the magnitude of General George Washington's victory in Trenton, NJ. on Christmas night of 1776, and how close to capitulation the Continental Army was, it was and is an American miracle. Starved, nearly frozen, tired, and defeated from three consecutive months of lost battles; Washington's forces were in no shape to fight that Christmas Night. But knowing he would lose 2/3 of his army (as their conscriptions expired) in the new year, Washington took the words just penned by Thomas Paine, and coached his troops like it was halftime of the biggest game of their lives: "These are the times that try men's souls...Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph!"
So they boarded ships, crossed the mostly frozen Delaware River, marched nine miles to Trenton and surprised the Hessian soldiers (German mercenaries hired by the British) stationed there, who were not battle ready because they thought Washington's forces were in no shape for an offensive battle and because it was the morning after Christmas (some historians think the Hessians were hung-over from rampant Christmas celebrations). Not only did Washington's army win, they captured almost 900 Hessians, killed/mortally injured another 100, and only lost two men from their own army. It greatly inspired the colonies, and enlistment soared afterward. It solidified Washington as a General, and partially inspired the French to join us in our little squabble.
2. The word miracle usually implies that a divine force, a god, or God, is so imparted that He/She must intervene. I don't think God cares about sports, as they are trivial games with very little implication to real life. However, sometimes there is a victory by a team of such great proportion to the odds, that a divinity must have interfered.
Youngsters: This is called a magazine. Sometimes the
cover folded out to display a big topic. Inside were many
stories and more pictures with associated words by people
called journalists.
In 1982, college basketball was filled with the stars that would later dominate the NBA. The Virginia Cavaliers had Ralph Sampson, the most highly decorated college basketball player of all time, and future #1 draft pick of the Houston Rockets. In 1981 they had advanced to the Final Four. And by the time they showed up in Hawaii to play Chaminade, an NAIA team from Honolulu with less than 900 enrolled in the entire school, UVA was 8-0, ranked #1, with two early wins over teams that later advanced to the Final Four of 1982: Georgetown (with Patrick Ewing) and the Houston Cougars (with the Phi-Slama-Jamma duo of Clyde Drexler and Akeem Olajuwon).
The turnout for the game was so big (because of Sampson's fame) that Chaminade had to rent out a high school basketball court to seat the 3500 attendees. The Chaminade coach hoped his team would stay within 20 as a moral victory, considering they had already lost that year to powerhouse Wayland Baptist University. But by halftime they were tied 43-43. The rest is basketball lore. The North Carolina Tar Heels eventually won the NCAA tournament that year with Michael Jordan and James Worthy, but 1982 was the year that 10 kids from a nobody school out in Hawaii knocked off the #1 ranked team in the nation and proved that there are no guaranteed wins. Sometimes the little guy does come out on top.
Look how young Tom Brokaw is!
1. In the long history of pointless wars, none pails in stupidity and uselessness as the Great War, or World War I. After five months of intensified and deadly fighting in 1914, which saw the horror of the machine gun, the accuracy of bombardment, the use of planes as spies, the inconceivable use of poison gases, and the necessity of tunnels, trenches and barbed wire; instead of the traditional methods of calvary, cannons, and brave bayonet charges...any idea of past pretenses was widely desired by both the Germans and Allied forces.
So as Christmas neared, even as the bodies, carnage, and muddy filth that narrowly separated the forces in No-Man's-Land grew, the soldiers on both sides began displaying signs of Holiday Cheer. The Germans put up a large tree decorated with candles and trinkets above their trench in Ypres, Belgium on Christmas Eve. The Scottish forces began playing carols on bagpipes, and the English wrote signs in German saying, "Merry Christmas." Eventually a few Germans ventured across enemy lines unarmed bearing gifts such as Schnapps liquor. Somehow, without the use of text messaging, twitter, or mass media, the news spread along the hundreds of miles of front, and many battlefields instantly transformed to soccer fields and fraternity squares between waring sides. Bodies were buried with funeral rights, pictures of loved ones were shown, cigarettes exchanged, songs sung, and promises of peace or future cease-fires were made.
Sadly, when generals and commanders of all sides heard of this fraternization, whole armies were transferred, sent into suicide missions, or court-marshalled for treason: Still, the miracle of Christmas day, 1914, proves that no matter how inhumane the task the ruling class asks, even the basest human being can show humanity. (Not coincidentally, Adolf Hitler, an Austrian trench soldier at the time was adamantly against this show of brotherly love).
From the fantastic war film Joyeux Noel
Miracles can be divinely imparted or deliberately crafted by humans like this; but either way, let us never forget the blessings we have during this Christmas season.
There ought to be a time of year where we say "sorry," to all the people we've offended over the previous 365 days. We could call it Losiento Day, or Mae Culpa Week, or Reconciliation Eve, or for the really bad: Reparation/Restitution Day (The Germans probably wouldn't participate in this holiday).
Maybe you don't need this holiday. Maybe you apologize immediately or maybe you are flawless and never need to apologize...it must be nice being you.
Me, on the other hand? I have to devote a whole blog to it. So, to all the groups, and people, and inanimate objects I've offended this year, here's the moment you've been waiting for.
* To the Paul Walker fan club: I'm sorry. I didn't want to call his accidental death a tragedy (since that word should be reserved for horrors like Sandy Hook or the Typhoon Haiyan), but I should've stopped short of calling his acting "less
than average." Apparently he could act, I just didn't notice it. He was a good man outside of his films (and for that I had no business making any value judgement on his life). I'm sorry.
* To the people with newborns. I said I love your babies but I don't want your babies. I like holding them for eight minutes, but then I want to give them back. Some of you interpreted this as a sign that I don't like babies. I'm not Cruella de Vil, I'm just done with the baby phase of my life, thank you very much. To the mommies, and the one dad, I'm sorry.
* To all my teacher friends who love the Common Core, grading for success, and overhauling education for the sake of saying we "are doing something." I'm not sorry.
* To all the spammer blog commenters for whom I must continually delete your asinine illegible ramblings. I'm sorry I said you were from India. Apparently you come from all corners of the world in which two months of English language classes is the maximum needed to obtain "mastery" of our complex language. Sorry India.
* Cosplay, larpers, furry enactors, etc. I took a subject I had no real understanding of, and stereotyped you all as nerds. I'm sorry. Nerds. (I'm sorry for calling you nerds). (In the sake of full nerd disclosure, I do collect (and label) Star Wars Lego minifigs).
* For admitting I once shot a cat with my BB gun (with one pump, which is the equivalent of bonking a kid on the head with the cardboard cylinder inside a paper towel roll). Yet where is the outrage for the "Humane" society which rounds up these ferrel cats and euthanizes them? For misdemeanor animal abuse, I'm sorry.
* To all the people who love the hipster-chic Whitaker Area in Eugene. I visited your street fair au naturale and hated it, and then ripped you all apart. I should stick to my normal routine of going to Costco on Saturday and getting cut off in the parking lot by upper-middle class yuppies. I'm sorry hipster kids.
* To the Millennial generation: I'm been down (and harsh) on you because I educated many of you when you were young and impressionable. My hope is someday you will put your phones/video games away, and familiarize yourself with empathetic human interaction again. Many of you are incredibly neat people who are bitter with the economy and world outlook once you entered the real world. Yes, it sucks. But at least you weren't drafted into the Vietnam War. Just saying. Sorry for unfairly criticizing you.
* To the church and organized religion. As a person whose faith is essential to who I am, I'm sorry I expect so much from the institutions and people who represent my God. I'm sorry that the media, social media, and world powers seem stacked against you (organized religion), and in your defensive manor, you lash out in self-righteous anger. I'm sorry that God said in John 15: 18"If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 19"If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. My advice to the church and Christian leaders? GET OUT OF POLITICS. Their is no political party that fully encapsulates Jesus' ideals. Get back to doing the Lord's work, and let Caesar have what is Caesar's. So I'm sorry you won't get what you want on this earth, but that was never promised.
* To the slow accelerating drivers of gas guzzlers and gas misers: I'm sorry I linked you to a political party, and I'm sorry I insulted your vehicle's integrity.
Remember I've written well over 100,000 mostly stupid words in the last year. It's hard to please everybody. I hope you realize that at the end of the day, none of these issues matter very much to me (I'm mostly just being facetious). I'm trying to create dialogue. The more we talk about issues, the more we are able to empathize with people we deemed "wrong," in the first place, and see them in the light, or right. Plus, we need to learn how to laugh at our opinions. They don't define us like our character does. And when we do "wrong" somebody, learn how to say "I'm sorry," and mean it...which is something I'm still trying to learn how to do.
Bill Nye isn't funny, however his show was just
awkward enough to make me think he was.
Today a student asked, "How come when the Titanic hit the iceberg, why didn't the ship just push the iceberg away?" I fought off the impish temptation to say, "IDK, Tony, do I look like Bill Nye? Go ask your flippin' physics teacher." Instead (because I love off-topic questions), I said something about the mass of the iceberg probably being substantially larger than that of the ship...He still didn't understand. I realized, hey, I'm an English teacher, I'll use a metaphor to explain it. "Next time you are in the local pool and some 600 pound obese guy is floating in the middle, dive headfirst into the water and crash into him {Tony is about 120 lbs. soaking wet}. Mass is still proportional in water, even if everything is physically lighter in weight." **This is just a smaller scale, not a metaphor, I know.
Tony's face slowly turned from befuddled to whimsical. I knew he "got it," yet I knew some facetious follow up comment was coming.
"Have you ever seen a 600 lb. guy at a public pool?"
No, that's not me. I have better form on my dives.
Another kid, Freddie, barely cognizant of the whole conversation said, "I saw Mr. Plumb at Willamalane {the local pool} once."
Unaware of the connotation he made, I merely said, "Yeah, Tony. If you and I are ever at Willamalane on the same day and you come crashing into me while I'm swimming laps, I'll know you're testing our 600 lb. hypothesis."
The class heartily laughed, (although a bit uncomfortably). I heard a somewhat vacuous girl in the back of the room question a friend, "He's not 600 lbs. is he?"
No. Not even close to half. But I am bigger. And I like laughing.
Something tells me I'm lucky I don't have boys.
So when a joke presents itself, especially at my expense, I willingly accept that moment. Butchering my pride is the price I'm willing to pay for comedy. I'm also willing to sacrifice eight minutes of my valuable class time to hear the class laughing. Many of these kids look miserable, and a laugh, a snicker, a guffaw, or if the gods are willing, a milk shot out of the nose? All equate a priceless educational experience.
Humor hasn't made me an effective teacher, but it has made me a relevant teacher. Kids attend my classes, and they attend because there's a chance something fun might happen. They might leave with a smile (and some unwanted knowledge) on any given day.
Sometimes I lose sight of how important smiling and laughter are. My own girls are terrible comedians. They tell the most illogical and awkward knock-knock jokes, all the while unable to keep a straight face (and then belly laughing through the whole terrible punch line). The whole presentation is what's humorous. "Isn't that funny, daddy?" Lily will giggle after her newest non-joke. "No, but you sure are," I'll reply. I could spend a whole day laughing with my daughters if I wanted. But it can't be all fun and games, though, right?
Of course not. But that infectious laughter that children have? How could it hurt? Humor and prayer/worship are the only methods by which I've ever fought off my brief moments of depression or feeling sorry for myself. I didn't use to get low that often, but I've found as the older I get, the less I laugh, the less genuinely happy I feel.
Lately, I've been a real curmudgeon. It's been a very challenging year for me personally in my profession. Daily I feel like I'm in some horrible Faust story, in which I have to sell another part of my soul to keep my job. An especially astute and empathetic co-worker recognized my non-Chris-like behavior and innocently said, "Have you seen the new special by Mike Birbiglia called, My Girlfriend's Boyfriend? I think you'd really like it."
I went home and Netflixed the Bribiglia special (I think it's important to say, I saw Mike perform years ago on Comedy Central, and wasn't much impressed). M.G.B. wasn't the most hilarious special I've ever seen, but it does somehow wrap everything he talked about for over an hour into a perfect conclusion. It wasn't just a comedy special, but an epically funny thesis statement filled with anecdotal evidence. It is a masterpiece of comedy. I'm not saying it's funnier than my old Bill Cosby records, or Eddie Murphy in his prime, or Jim Gaffigan's Mr. Universe, or as edgy as Louis CK, George Carlin, or Chris Rock in 1999. It's not comedy genius, but it is ---delivering a message--genius. It was exactly what I needed.
And it inspired me, because I too try to weave humor through my lesson plans, and when done right it is a thing of beauty. Humor can be relevant, effective, and it's good for the soul.
And with how much of my soul I've sold this year, it's good to reclaim some of who I am. (At 600 lbs. there's a lot left to retrieve).
**I apologize for this not being funnier. It's surprisingly hard to be funny while talking about being funny.
"For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,
He writes - not that you won or lost - but how you played the Game."
I wrote the majority of a blog post last night and, when I woke up this morning to finish editing it, I discovered Blogger didn't save my draft. That hasn't happened to me in a long time. The "my computer ate my file," problem, that was so prevalent in the late 90s but which is almost obsolete now...(except, apparently to my current students).
It's all for the better. The blog wasn't that good. It was some long, sad, diatribe about the my Oregon Ducks losing a big game. Big deal. Nobody cares about sports blogging, and besides, I wrote the exact article last year when it happened to the same Stanford Cardinals (hardly anyone read it then).
It's funny what winning or losing will do to somebody.
Lately I've been playing a lot of Candy Crush (I know, how generic and 2012 of me)...but I guess I like challenges. So when I beat the game on the iPad (it only had 400 levels at that point), I was somewhat disgruntled to learn that the Facebook version had an addition 100 levels. Really? As if the first 400 weren't hard enough? Oh well, I like challenges. So I logged onto my wife's Facebook account and annoyed her friends with my progression and requests and finally conquered the stupid game.
500 levels of mastery. I pwned that game. (The Royal Interwebs Geek Gaming Etymology Decreers {RIGGED}: "uh, technically, your usage of pwned, or ownage, of a simple strategy game like Candy Crush, does not fit the specified parameters of the word's designed usage. Thank you for playing, but do not pass GO, do not collect $200"). Regardless of what relevant gamers think, beating the game is an accomplishment.
Funny how I don't feel like a winner. If anything, I feel more like a loser for spending so much time trying to master a game nobody cares about anymore.
It's ironic how the idea of winning a trophy, getting first place, always seemed like it would be some life-validating achievement, and yet it feels so empty. I played on so many losing teams in my youth that being on top of the world, like Leo DiCaprio, even for a few moments before crashing and sinking to the bottom of the sea, seemed like a worthy trade off.
I mean, Leo did make it with Kate Winslet just hours before he froze to death in the frigid sea. Realistically Kate won, because Leo played chivalrous and allowed her to float on top of the plank. The things guys will do for love (or nookie). I wonder what goes through a male preying mantis' head before his mate devours him?
What if winning is actually losing. Definitely Charlie Sheen's idea of winning isn't plausible. Sure, some people out there think that doing blow and getting it on with random girls who had no daddy love seems life-affirming, but most of us call it sad. Sheen isn't winning, he's losing to addiction.
If this is winning, I'm fine with being a loser.
Or maybe I'm superimposing my idea of success on Mr. Sheen. Maybe I find his lifestyle of deplorable debaucherous acts to be unfitting for a father of five children. I mean, Mr. Sheen is dating a porn star, and he just became a grandpa! (Maybe this is a dream to some Gen Xers and Boomers...maybe he is winning).
This whole article was predicated on the idea of my Ducks losing a big game. Ten years ago, this wouldn't mean much. We Duck fans were happy with a 9-3 season. A bowl game after Christmas was a big deal. We Eugenites were proud to be ranked in the top 25 at the end of the year as there are 120 different division 1 schools (that's top twenty percentile!). We are a metropolitan area of about 200,000 people. We don't deserve to be relevant on the national stage.
But fast forward ten years of unbelievable success (even without a title), and suddenly losing ONE game feels like being the biggest loser. Not going to the National Championship game is failure. Bandwagon fans are selling their flashy Duck gear on eBay. The Ducks have become an internet sports troll's favorite punching bag.
You can't win for losing. You can't win when your losing. Success breeds expectations. And success is fleeting. So why are we so in love with winning? Why do we create unrealistic expectations and devote aspects of our identity in teams and players that we have no connection to?
Because we want to be winners. We want the euphoria of knowing that we are elite (even if we are only spectators to that greatness). Those of us who aren't bandwagon fans (and true Oregon fans know our historic ineptitude) know how hard it is to achieve greatness or the almost inconceivable: perfection. And we know how close we were once again.
But maybe perfection and winning isn't the goal. Maybe some of us, like Charlie Sheen, have lost sight of what winning actually is? Maybe Grantland Rice had a better idea in the stanza before the oft quoted one:
"You'll find the road is long and rough, with soft spots far apart,
Where only those can make the grade who have the Uphill Heart.
And when they stop you with a thud or halt you with a crack,
Let Courage call the signals as you keep on coming back."
How we played the game in the midst of turmoil and defeat defines who we are. In the movie Ender's Game, after being used and exploited to win a simulated war, Ender, in the midst of celebration, sees through the motives and perception of the people, and during the celebration breaks down emotionally. ColonelGraff claims that winning is “all that matters.” No, Ender retorts, it’s not: “The way we win matters.”
I'm not talking about sports, I never was. I always wanted a trophy, yet when I finally got one, I realized it is just cheap plastic. What I really wanted, what I really needed was affirmation of the One Great Scorer saying: "I don't care about the achievements, accolades, or trophies...but I do approve of the way you played the game."
