Lessons Learned

 My mother kept a Tootsie Roll bank in her dresser. She put quarters into it whenever she found a few laying around. This was her stake. On the relatively few occasions that she found herself in Las Vegas, this was the money she used. Exclusively on slot machines. She expected to lose her little nest egg twenty-five cents at a time. 

I understood that every game of "chance" that the kid down the street from me ran would end up in his favor. I learned not to bet on anything ever with my older brother as well. If there was a wager being made with either one of these two, I figured that the best choice was to keep my money in my pocket. 

Even if it was just a quarter. 

Much later in my youth, I was part of a crew that was sent to Las Vegas to install office furniture at Nellis Air Force Base. The fellows I travelled with decided to try and get to Sin City a day early so we could have some time to do the things that one does in Sin City. I wasn't interested in the casinos, given my predilection toward keeping my money in my pocket, but I did stroll down the strip to take in the sights. One of the sights I took in was, at high noon, every single light was on. No need to conserve here. No need for sales tax either. 

It was all paid for. And then some. 

Which is why I am currently kicking myself, metaphorically, for spending thirty dollars on an NFL "Survivor Pool" being run by a friend. I have participated in a number of seasons of Fantasy Football, but never for money. It was always for that odd sense of vicarious community that it invites. All of the vagaries of the current professional football season left me bewildered not only in our friendly no-money league, but abruptly out of thirty dollars when I chose the Green Bay Packers to beat the Atlanta Falcons this week. 

It seemed like a sure thing. 

It wasn't. 

I forgot the lessons I learned all those years ago. Chief among them, never bet on anything that is not in your personal control. Not suiting up for Green Bay myself left me out of control. Which brings me to the other reminder from my mother's Tootsie Roll bank: Don't bet money you don't have. All of those ads that surround any and all sporting events on television inviting you to put up that pittance that you might have left over after buying a tankful of gas on the outcome of a game being played by a bunch of strangers, many of whom are millionaires already, and all of whom are prohibited by their employer from betting on sports. Which is essentially the case for NBA players. And then there's the strange tale of Pete Rose and Major League Baseball. 

I'll bet he never gets into the Hall of Fame. 

Progress

 Here's an interesting thing: My wife and I own a Fiat. It has been a godsend lo these past few months. It is an electric vehicle. It is tiny. We are able to make our way in and around our various destinations in and around our municipality by the grace of our solar panels and the used battery within our Fiat. 

The old joke that I remember from my youth: What does Fiat stand for? "Fix it again, Tony." The happy news here is that after a year and a half the only maintenance we have needed on our little marshmallow of a car was self-imposed. Trying to upgrade the stereo, my son and I both forgot to check to see if the power was securely seated in the back of the unit, causing it to lose connection whenever we drove over a speed bump or other obstacle. Once we fixed that, we were free to scoot on past all those gas stations whose prices have done nothing but climb since the convicted felon decided to start a war to get us all to forget that he was a convicted felon and pen pals with the world's most notorious human trafficker. 

Now comes the fun part: Do you know what you call an official order, a decree, or command made by someone in authority without needing discussion or agreement? No? 

The method that the former game show uses to run our country is by fiat. This term originates from Latin, meaning, "Let if be done." This term found its way into English somewhere around 1630, back when fiats were more a part of everyday governance. 

As for our car, it's origins are an acronym: Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, or in boring old English, Italian Automobile Factory Turin. 

But as it turns out, the Orange Worst's fiats are exactly who spurred us on to buying our own Fiat. Every day that the prince of gasoline zips on past six dollars a gallon, my wife and I were happy to have had the shove, arbitrary or not, to go out and commit to a new lifestyle. We continue to be grateful in the most convoluted way for the madness of the mandarin molester. 

However, I do look forward to a future where we can make choices with a little less fear involved. 

With Great Power...

 "Are you the principal?"

"No," I answer, "I'm just the guy who worked here long enough to get a master key."

I have worked for the same school district at the same school site for my entire career. As I begin to wind things down, it occurs to me that I have scratched and clawed since the late twentieth century to stay exactly where I am. 

"Are you still the computer teacher?"

"Yes, I'm still the computer teacher."

This one gets lobbed at me by former students, some of whom are returning as parents of new students. Somewhere in there I managed a four year stretch of teaching my own fourth grade class, but mostly I have been ensconced in that corner right next to the south stairwell, next to the library. 

Waiting for my big break.

Over the course of a couple years it felt like I might want to take my act on the road. I could teach math in middle school. At least there they might get more of my "jokes." I studied for months to take my single subject exam, but eventually my confidence wore down because, as it turns out, my expertise in mathematics stops somewhere just shy of the requirements for middle school. 

It was, as I suggested once to my son who was in the fourth grade at the time, "Better get your help now. After this year it's all on you."

Nevertheless, there are those days when our principal is away from campus and circumstances lead the folks in the office to call for the one person who carries some mild authority, or at least a master key. 

That would be me. 

I am not the principal, nor do I play one on TV. Somehow I have managed over the course of three decades to evade anything that would have pushed me into an actual administrative role. I know where everything should be, and I can open just about any door in the place. Sometimes I will take on the complaints of an angry parent, when I happen to know that my principal is busy elsewhere taking on the complaints of another angry parent. Or maybe they want to talk to an "old-timer," since I can remember how things used to be.

Not very different, as it turns out. 

Reading Is Fundamental

 For thirty years I have fought the good fight: teaching kids how to read. 

Like so much of my career as a teacher, my experience skewed greatly from that of my days as a student. I was a very nervous kid. I worried that I might not be able to achieve, and I pushed myself to get the grades I hoped for: I wanted to succeed academically. 

When I look out on the sea of young faces for whom I stand as an authority, it has so much to do with getting kids to buy in on this whole "learning thing." This does not mean that I don't see those children with open eyes and ears, waiting to be led to the kingdom of literacy, but I can see all around those kids the ones whose interest lies anywhere but the classroom. 

Each year we begin with students, many of whom are multiple years behind their grade level in reading, and get behind to push. A lot of intervention and practice and more opportunities to read and understand what they are reading takes most of them on a lengthy ride up the hill to where they ought to be. 

At or near. 

Then comes the summer slide. 

We take our young charges where we find them, mostly, back at the bottom of that hill. 

I understand that growing up as I did in a highly literate home, going to school in a suburban school where economics were not a factor in determining the outcomes of standardized tests. The night before I took those tests, I worried and stressed about how I might show up. I had been told that this was an important thing I was being asked to do, and that it would be the basis for my permanent record. 

You remember your permanent record, don't you?

No?

Well, as it turns out, the notion of a folder that would follow you from cradle to grave is a bit of a fabrication. But it definitely worked on me, back in the day. 

That little secret seems not to carry the weight it once did for children, at least the ones I teach. They have intuitively judged the whole thing as a bit of smoke and mirrors, with the expectation that the real onus falling squarely on the grown-ups in this equation. Teachers, administrators, entire school boards, superintendents are the ones who seem to truly have the most to lose. 

I have been fortunate enough to hang around long enough to watch the potential outcomes of kids not learning to read. The kids keep coming back to school. Sometimes the grown-ups in charge don't. 

It's not getting easier. 

Post Toasties

 Maybe it's time to scrape a little of the veneer off the illusion that the convicted felon who seems to run the Second Trumpreich via social media. 

Who writes this stuff? "All of the SLEAZEBAGS, like Third Rate 'Reporter,' Kaitlan Collins, of Fake News CNN, a truly unhappy person, said they weren't going to be covering me. Then why were they ranting and raving like Lunatics, in the Press Area, at the United Nations?" 

A cursory look at the Orange Worst's "Truth" account suggests that the use of unnecessary capitals and epithets such as "sleazebag" smells an awful lot like the venom spewed for the past four years on that platform and featured in many and sundry occasions in person. The logic used to demean Ms. Collins and her fellow reporters is similar to the stretches made by the adjudicated rapist, since it was he who banned CNN, MSNOW and Politico from the White House in the first place. That reporter and her cohort were at the United Nations hoping to report on the latest issuance from Our Dear Leader. 

The ranting and raving was all on the part of the guy clutching the podium. 

The assembled press was waiting for their opportunity to give the former game show host and his handlers an opportunity to explain their cockeyed vision of the world. And maybe to sort out his pondering, "Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we will make a deal right after the election, because it doesn't make sense for them not to."

Making sense.

That would be nice. But since this is an eighty year old man who has a documented difficulty staying awake during public events such as the 9/11 Memorial Event at the Pentagon, it does raise the question about those late night bursts of barely coherent text messages and images that pour out of his account in strange waves. 

One answer would be that this is the way he chooses to use what little energy he seems to have for things other than golf and the destruction of our nation's capital. Like the triumphant arch he plans to erect that has become a strategic necessity because it will “house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”

Now wouldn't you feel just a little safer thinking that some poor underpaid staffer is toiling away on those social media posts while the "very stable genius" sleeps? 

No?

Me either. 

Through The Haze

 It's a little tough reckoning on things that are fifty years old. 

I know them. 

And what's more, I remember them. 

The pop culture in which I cut my trivia teeth was pervasive. Movies were not released in waves. New music appeared in the record store with regularity but not without warning. I will say this: It was easier to be the Beatles back then. They were the face of rock music, and therefore popular music lined up to mirror their presence. Television had a number of channels that might best be described as limited. The firehose we now experience as "streaming" did not exist. Summer reruns meant that you could comfortably go outside and do things other than stare at your cathode ray tube for a few months while networks crafted their New Fall Lineups. 

Cable TV and home video were initially repositories for "adult entertainment." My older brother and I shared a habit for reading the new issue of TV Guide from cover to cover in hopes of memorizing the schedule, anticipating those opportunities to stay up late to see that Universal horror movie that we had missed the last time it made the rotation on our local station. 

Back to the top forty. There was one. Just one. Fifty years ago was fertile ground for the beast known as The One Hit Wonder. If you were going to put out an album, chances were that you might be asked to put more than one song on it. This meant that the one song that was totally worth our attention would get played on the radio while the rest of that slab of vinyl would go unscratched. The world wide capacity to spread media these days allows even the trifles to have a longer lifespan than "Afternoon Delight." 

Though I should point out that it was during those dark times some fifty years ago that allowed the Starland Vocal Band not only to have a number one hit, but opened the door for the members of that group to host their own summer replacement variety show. 

It was a simpler time. 

I didn't say it was a better time. 

At Least

 Wilber Rafael Garcés Perez. 

That's the name of the twenty-eight year old man shot by ICE morons this past Sunday in Austin, Texas. 

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Wilber had entered the United States illegally and was stable and was in federal custody pending removal from the U.S. Mister Garcés Perez was working for Door Dash at the time of the shooting. There was no response to the question as to whether the goons' bodycams were operating at the time of the shooting, nor was there any immediate information available as to the status of the order that was being delivered. 

So here's my question, aside from what was in the order that the goons felt the need to interrupt: Why use deadly force? If the underlying mission of these "peace officers" is public safety, why are they involved in vehicular pursuits that involve ramming other cars and shooting through windows and doors? It is an established fact that ICE is working on a quota system, with a target of three thousand arrests a day. In August, DHS reported more than fifty thousand arrests had been made. A record!

And the number of deportations held steady at approximately twelve hundred. This disparity is best understood when you take into account that record number of arrests included a vast majority of individuals with not criminal record. 

Yes. Apparently the mission of getting rid of "the worst of the worst" has switched to something more along the lines of getting rid of people with Latino surnames. Mister Garcés Perez is therefore guilty as charged. Which explains why he was shot? Well, no. According to the goons, Wilber fled. 

Let's see: Unmarked vehicle appears, masked gunmen pile out and start shouting. Maybe most folks named Michael Smith will immediately comply with the goons' orders. Or if your name happened to be something painfully Anglo like Renee Good or Alex Pretti. 

Nothing to fear.

Except the potential exile to a foreign destination without contact with your family. Or detention for months inside a chain-link cage. Or becoming another of a growing list of individuals shot and killed by the goons. Wilber is one of the "lucky ones" to appear on a list that the public sees. The reported numbers of eleven deaths and forty-two shootings by ICE goons comes with the qualifier of "at least."

At least. 

That seems to be what our expectations are for the masked idiots.