Neighbors

 It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood

I came home the other day to find a letter in my mailbox. Not from the postman, but folded and placed carefully in with the other notices and bills. It was from the lady across the street. 

A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

The contents of the letter were a reiteration of her complaints about my wife's and my participation in this year's National Night Out. For a more than a decade now, the families on our street have been gathering every first Tuesday in August to meet, greet, and eat. 

It's a neighborly day in this beautywood
A neighborly day for a beauty
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

COVID put a little dent in our routine, but my wife and a few neighbors gathered on opposite corners to share a meal and holler at one another from a safe distance. The next year, we were right back at it. 

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you

The lady across the street has anxiously tried to catch up, to be a part of the team. She has made fliers and taped them up around the street. She has offered up her portable fire pit. She is also one of the stops on our cat's path when he gets out of the house. 

So, let's make the most of this beautiful day
Since we're together, we might as well say
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?

This year, in a rush to get things ready for the big night, I carried some of our deck chairs and our charcoal grill out to the street, and started a fire to be ready when folks started to show up. Little did I know that I was stepping on toes. Apparently the lady across the street felt it was her "job" to provide the grill, as well as to drive her car out to block traffic. We didn't know how great was our offense until my wife received a voice mail indicating that not only were her feelings hurt, but the lady across the street in plain but colorful language let us know that she no longer wanted to be part of this affair that had left her so badly maligned. 

Won't you please, won't you please?
Please, won't you be my neighbor?

At the time, we felt that time might heal those wounds, especially when she refused to accept any or all apologies from my wife. Sorry for the misunderstanding, we really hope that you'll reconsider. Weeks passed, and then I found the letter, addressed to my wife by name and "husband." So the husband walked across the street and knocked on her door. I waited while she fussed with the great many locks on her front door. When she called out, "Who is it?" I answered "Dave." Not "husband."

Neighbors are people who are close to us
And friends are people who are close to our hearts
I like to think of you as my neighbor and my friend

The conversation went about as well as the rest of the interactions surrounding this odd feud. I apologized to her and said that I hoped that she might reconsider, especially since we value her friendship and contributions so very much. She took the time to talk to me, but let me know in no uncertain terms where I could go and she was finished with us. When I got back home, my wife let me know that a few other neighbors had received similar letters of discontent. 

Then I sat down on the bench, put on my sneakers and cardigan and went back to my reality. 

Lifelong

 The first couple of weeks of school I was blasé. I admit it. All that "more than a quarter century on one location" blah blah blah. What's left for me to do?

Then, like a bolt out of the blue: How about learn?

There is a lot of talk in the education business about making our students "lifelong learners," but how could this possibly apply to me? I am a veteran teacher who has, in some cases, been teaching since a few of my colleagues were born. I built the technology infrastructure, helped purchase the software licenses, repaired soccer goals and pencil sharpeners, sat on more committees than I can name, and now you're going to ask me to try something new?

It started last spring, when my principal asked if I wouldn't mind being the "media arts teacher." This was a way to fill a void in our schedule and plan and I was assured that I would not have to leave the comfort zone of my room: The Computer Lab. I would just be teaching kids how to make arts with media. Or something like that. I am in the process of moving piles of previous years' worth of language arts and math lessons around to accommodate this new reality. I can draw. I can draw with a computer. Now if only I can engage kids in this process of creation.

Then there was the addition of a special ed class. A group of students between Kindergarten and second grade who would become my responsibility twice a week for fifty minutes each meeting. I set myself a mild goal of spending the first class getting to know them. Five of them. Maybe I could bring along some colored pencils and some paper and we could draw pictures. We wouldn't have to go to the Computer Lab. We could use the relative safety and comfort of the room they were in so as not to tip their collective apple cart.

I needn't have worried about their collective apple cart. It was my fruit stand that needed adjustment. I was ill-prepared for this experience. I tell people that I have a special place in my heart for teachers of Kindergarten, with the untied shoes and runny noses and nearly constant need for singular attention. I told myself that I would be fine for fifty minutes. 

I wasn't. I was out of my depth from nearly the first few minutes. Happily, their teacher stuck long enough to get me started, letting me know that the colored pencils wouldn't probably be necessary. Sitting down on the rug together was probably a non-starter as well. Keeping track of the five kids in the room, including their shoes and socks, was a big enough test to start. 

One of the boys came to me with an earnest look, took my hand, and led me to the door. He didn't say anything. None of them spoke. But his message was clear: "You don't belong here." But I hung with it, thanks to the support of the paraeducator who was there to help me give the feel of moderate success. Together, we all went outside for a while and played in our new preschool yard. Then we went back inside where the group's insistence was to return to their iPads. 

Then we were done. Or at least I was. I thanked the para and the teacher for their help, and I walked back to my room, wondering how I was going to learn how to teach a Special Ed class before Friday. 

Still so much to learn. 

Movin' In

 Not long ago, just a week or so, our house was all aflutter because my wife's niece was heading out to the east coast to college. The opposite side of the world. Or the continent anyway. Much fuss was made about getting all those things that were important and necessary to life on the right side of the country packed up and stuffed into suitcases and cardboard boxes for the purposes of survival in an inhospitable land. A land without hair care products. A land without microwaves. A land without a Target within a quarter mile. 

It's an exercise in which I have participated a few times. Both as a mover and a movee. The significance of this ritual dawned upon me at the celebration of my graduation from high school. A family friend gave me luggage to mark the occasion. The message was pretty clear: You will be leaving. You may not be coming back. 

At least until Thanksgiving. 

Which was, for me at the time, untenable. I was not prepared to make the jump to hyperspace. As a result, all those boxes of my stuff that were so carefully packed and brought to the college that accepted me were loaded back into the family station wagon along with the brand new luggage that was never fully unpacked. 

Which is why I am certain that my parents probably had a running bet about the following year when I unplugged my stereo and put all those same objects back into the car for the trip to the college that accepted me for my second attempt at moving away. This one stuck, at least from the standpoint of my sticking around campus for five days at a time. I spent most every weekend back home with the mild excuse of coming back for laundry. And a visit to the girlfriend. And as a consequence I missed out on a chunk of what it might truly mean to be a freshman in college. 

When my son was ready to make his statement move to higher education, there was a part of me that wondered if he would break the surly bonds that had held him so tightly to his home. The place his mother and I made for him. We put his things in boxes. He stuffed some clothes in the bag we loaned him. Perhaps it was an act of mild doubt that did not provide him with actual luggage on my part, but once he was gone, he was gone. We made several trips to Target and nearby stores to fill out the dorm room he would be sharing with his friend from high school. When all was said and done, my wife and I returned to the Empty Nest of song and story. 

Over the past couple weeks, families across the country, nay the world, have been preparing for this syndrome. Buying towels. Opening and closing boxes. Beginning the journeys that will take that next generation to new places, meeting new faces and fitting their stuff in different spaces. My suggestion: Don't panic. It all works out. Eventually. 

Going Pro

 "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Those were the words of the late great Doctor Hunter S. Thompson. They can be found between the covers of his 1971 classic, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. The subtitle of this gonzo feast calls it "A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream." The past few months seem to have stirred up the spirit of Doctor Thompson, and last week's events most certainly did not put him to rest. 

Robert Kennedy Jr. dropped his own campaign for the White House, just a few days after everyone stopped making jokes about his own stirring account of toting a bear cub's carcass into Manhattan after a day of falconry. Then he was late for dinner, and had to catch a plane, so he left it in Central Park in such a way as to make it look like it had been hit by errant bicyclists. With a head full of ether and various other dangerous chemicals, this is not something Hunter Thompson concocted. This came from the mind of a recovering heroin addict who talks openly about the parasitic worm living inside his head. Bad craziness, indeed. Which may explain why he quit the presidential race, but it doesn't really make a lot of sense that he was welcomed with open arms into the campaign of (checks notes) the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who struggles mightily with his own grip on reality on a daily basis.

This comes at a time when the felonious game show host's VP pick has only recently cleared the couch molesting scandal that plagued him for weeks, only to give us all yet another heaping helping of weird as he appeared in a Georgia donut shop. Julius Domingus Vance looked for all the world like an alien who had been dropped into Holt's Sweet Shop with only the vaguest of notions as to what "act normal" might mean. "The zoo is in town," he told the frightened help behind the counter. "I'll have some of those glazed, and and that stapler, and your severed hand..." Just another day in the completely not weird world of the Republican ticket. 

Over the weekend there was some speculation that the twice-impeached "very stable genius" might cut Julius Domingus loose in favor of his new pal RFK Jr. Then along comes the story of how "the bear guy" once chopped the head off a dead whale, strapped it to the roof of his car, and drove five hours back home with it. And his then six year old daughter, who is now sharing accounts of life with dad in hopes of deflecting some of the attention she may or may not be getting because she may or may not be palling around with Ben Affleck. 

So not weird. Right? But the genius of this maneuver may lie in the way that soon the felon who buried his ex-wife on his own golf course may be able to stand on a stage next to these clowns and appear "normal." 

Sure. 

Ms. Harris And The Coach

 "The time has come," Ms. Harris said, "to talk of other things:

Of electric boats and shark attacks

and whether cabbages should be king.

And why the sea is boiling hot,

Because climate change is a real thing.

"But  wait a bit," the voters cried,

Before we cast our vote;

For some of us lost our ininds,

      

Listening to him gloat!'

"No hurry!" said the Coach.

      

In a pleasant Midwestern note.

"The right to choose," Ms. Harris said,

      

"Is what we chiefly need.

Keep your hands off our bodies,

      

It's not your business, no indeed. 

Now if you're ready, Voters dear,

      

It's time that we were freed.'

"But not for us!: the MAGATs cried,

      

Turning a little red.

"For we spent all this money putting red caps

On our pointy heads!"

"Now is the time,' Ms. Harris said.

     

"You all know it's true.

I know that it's tough,

      

And you're not very bright."

The Coach said nothing but

      

he twisted the wire tight

And made the headlights work 

      

So we could all see at night.

"It seems a shame," Ms. Harris said,

      

To speak so slow

Explaining all those things

 

That everyone ought to know."

The Coach said nothing but

This brisket's cut too thick."

"I weep for you," Ms. Harris said:

I deeply sympathize.

With your inability to sort out

The truth from all those lies.

Holding her pocket-handkerchief

      

Before her streaming eyes.

"O voters," said the Coach

"Please join us on the bus

We've got Democracy to save

For you and every one of us."

 And this was scarcely odd, because

     

We've grown tired of all the fuss.

Olden Days

 I have written here in the past of the wistful, slightly disappointed look on my mother's face when all three of her sons came trooping back through the front door after being sent down to the meadow with a set of YarDarts. For those of you uninitiated, these were foot long plastic projectiles with a steel tip, purportedly to be played "like horseshoes." The closest to the center ring wins. But as we know from our prior reading, horseshoes are like hand grenades, and it was only a very short amount of time before three boys changed the rules to a sport best retitled "Death From Above."

Parenting was different back then. They were less fans of Progressive Parenting and more aligned with the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Helicopter parenting in those days meant that you were just as likely to be found driving around a station wagon fully loaded with children not properly strapped down as you might be flying a helicopter fully loaded with children hanging from the landing struts. 

It was, as they say, a different time. 

Which brings me to another dance with potential death and disfigurement: Mattel's ThingMaker. In what might be considered a marketing masterstroke, the folks who made Barbies figured it would be neat if kids could make their own plastic toys. To do this, they packaged a bunch of die-cast metal molds along with a cleverly named liquid called "Plastigoop." How did the goop turn into "plastic?" Heat. So you plugged in your open-face hot plate, placed your goop-filled mold on the plate and a few minutes later, you were rewarded with vulcanized rubber playthings that were often tasty treats for dogs. And children. But no matter, since Plastigoop was labeled as being "non-toxic." In an era before potential poisons from plastic and lead were widely understood. What we knew probably wouldn't kill us. For a while, anyway. 

Sometime around 1973 the newly minted Consumer Product Safety Commission decided to pull the plug on the ThingMaker, insisting that the temperatures used to heat those die-cast molds were not safe for children to handle. Three hundred ninety degrees. Well heck, that's why they supplied young toymakers with those metal tongs to pry their new bugs or army men or colorful flowers from the "warmer."  Later versions of the original set added a plastic cover to those tongs for "safety." 

There were a lot of kids in my neighborhood who had ThingMakers. None of them ever burned down their house or anyone else's. Again, perhaps to the profound disappointment of their parents who had recently purchased additional homeowner's insurance along with the ThingMaker for their little darlings. 

Those were the days. 

Lesson Learned

 "Never underestimate a public school teacher." 

That's what he said. "He" meaning Tim Walz. As he accepted the nomination of his party for Vice President of the United States. 

This hit home for me, not simply because I too am a public school teacher, but because I can still recall almost every single one of my public school teacher's names. Ms. Lutz. Ms. Minger. Ms. Hoff. Ms. Pyle. Ms. Stuart. Mr. Conklin. Ms. Leonard. Then it becomes a little more complicated with the jump to junior high school, what with all the changing of classes and homerooms and so forth. Frau Sargent. Frau Limbacher. They taught me German. Pete Clements taught me Geography and Government. The lineup for Science included Messrs. Crowley, Miller, and Hillstien.  And I could go on and on, but I suppose the easiest way to reflect on these folks is that I am now one of them. A purveyor of knowledge and a pourer of knowledge into not quite empty vessels. 

And I do it all on a teacher's salary. 

Of course, I don't have a state championship football team to stand behind me, nor was I the faculty advisor to the Gay-Straight Student Alliance, but I have picked up tables after Back to School Night. And I have sat with children whose parents "forgot" to pick them up on time. Sometimes for hours. When they show up, I reinforce the very real fact that their parents are busy people and they love their kids but their lives are so busy that sometimes even though they are trying as hard as they can, they forget. 

Sometimes I hear from kids that I teach that "it's not fair." And I go back to a phrase I saw on the board of a fifth grade colleague of mine some years back. Fifth graders are notorious for pointing out what they believe is not "fair." So he gave them this definition: Fair is when everyone gets what they need. This takes some time to learn, but happily I have plenty of time to share with kids and even some adults who might need a refresher. 

This is what I believe Tim Walz and is running mate Kamala Harris are bringing back to us all. Bullies, by their nature, are not fair. Far too many Americans are not getting what they need. It is time to bring back fairness, and these are the folks who can do it. It's a big job, but I have learned never to underestimate a public school teacher. 

Talking To

 I have been without a mother and a father now for a couple years, and one of the things that I confess that I miss is getting a good old parental talking to. I have spent my life quietly replaying those words of mild correction, encouragement, and reminder over in my head to keep my feet on a path that would lead me on the straight and narrow. 

Obviously, sometimes I strayed. Which is exactly when those words came most handy. I could have turned to other sources, but those personally delivered hand-selected phrases made the most impact. Now they appear in monologues I share with my son, and with the students I teach. 

I was jogged into the memory of those speeches as I watched the Obamas take the stage at the Democratic Convention on Tuesday night. It made me remember a time when Hope and Change were not just words on a poster. They were tangible things. They were there for the taking, but they did not come simply for the asking. They required effort. "We" was the pronoun, and for a relatively short time, we had both. 

Then came the inevitable swing back. When my mother was alive, she was always good for a reality check. When Trump was installed in the White House, she reminded me that things could still get worse. 

And they did. 

It was that same sort of world-weariness that Michelle and Barack brought to Chicago on Tuesday night that reminded all who listened that the youthful idealism of "when they go low, we go high" may not be enough in the current environment. The assumption made way back then was that "they" had another gear besides "low." Nearly a decade later, we have seen how good MAGA can be at the limbo. The former first lady reminded us of the words Kamala Harris' mother heard from her mother: “Don’t sit around and complain about things — do something!” In much the same fashion, when her husband mentioned the red-capped opposition, the crowd jeered in response. "Don't Boo," he reminded us, "Vote."

The Obamas talked about mourning the passing of an era they helped ring in. Then they reminded us all that it is our responsibility to bring it back. The time has come to get back to work. 

It's time, as a mother once said, to do something. 

Sing

 I understand that many of you might be getting tired of my soapbox pitches that suggest that a convicted felon is not our best choice for dogcatcher, let alone President of the United States. I understand the concept of "singing to the choir," and "bringing coals to Newcastle." These are metaphors that suggest that what I am doing here is superfluous. Incidentally, I have my older brother to thank for my use of the word "superfluous." He shared that with me when he learned it in junior high. I was in elementary school. It has taken me this long to fully consider just how superfluous telling you all that a twice-impeached morally and financially bankrupt adjudicated rapist has no place anywhere near the White House really is.

And yet, I persist.

Because we, as a nation, cannot talk about this enough. The bar has been driven so very low that this orange clown is able to maintain any sort of relevance in the governance of our country. Not as dog catcher. Not as "special advisor." Not as the host of his own game show. 

We need to continue to talk out loud about how the fear and hate that drives his awful machine has no place in America's future. Much in the same way that man cannot live on bread alone, especially if that man happens happens to be on a Keto diet, this dark stream of panic that pervades the desperation needs to be silenced. 

America is for Americans. Land of the Free. Home of the Brave. Men like George Washington, who understood that in spite of his overwhelming popularity, he turned down his third term as President. He stepped aside so that our little experiment in democracy could get its full test. Paving the way for men like Thomas Jefferson. Abraham Lincoln. Franklin Roosevelt. Richard Nixon. And yes, Donald Trump. Which is why it is so significant that Joe Biden chose to step aside and endorse Vice President to succeed him. Is it possible that Joe could have gone ahead and won the election? That's a reality best explored on The History Channel ten years from now. 

Now it is time to breathe in the fresh air of Hope, Change, and Moving Forward. It is time to feel something besides dread when we talk politics. Possibility is once again on the table. The Inevitable isn't anymore. 

Go out there and let everyone you know that Newcastle has plenty of coal, so much so that we are more than happy to share with those who have none. Sing loud to those who have their hands over their ears. Its time they heard our song. 

Get Your Phil

 God rest Phil Donahue. Phil passed away this week at the age of eighty-eight. The first thing that occurred to me was that he was ageless, he of the preternaturally silver helmet of hair, and the glasses that always looked as if they were in need of a finger's shove up the bridge of his nose. 

Phil paved the way for Oprah. And Morton Downey Junior. And Geraldo. And all those afternoon chatfests that began to populate the afternoon airwaves in the eighties. He was the guy roaming around the studio audience, ready with the mic to take their questions for the guests. The guests were not generally what would be considered talk show guests. If you had a movie to plug or a book to sell, you might find a spot on Phil's stage, but more often than not his shows were based on topics like child abuse in the Catholic Church, feminism and race relations. He brought issues to the table, and he wasn't going to let Hollywood dictate his broadcast. 

Based initially in Dayton, Ohio, Phil moved to Chicago in 1974. That's when his show became just Donahue, and everyone seemed to notice. In 1977, in an exception to that no Hollywood rule, Phil had a guest on who he found interesting enough to have back. Marlo Thomas. They liked each other well enough to get married in 1980 and stayed together until his death. 

Donahue was the precursor to so many of those talk-TV shows I mentioned before, but he tended not to go for sensationalism. Instead, he preferred to discuss topics in a more civilized fashion, leaving the studio brawls for Geraldo Rivera. Phil was interested in getting to the heart of the matter. He recognized that his audiences, largely female, were interested in more than "mascara and recipes," according to Oprah Winfrey who credited Donahue with making room for something more. In Mach of 1990, Phil Donahue scored the first American television interview with newly freed Nelson Mandela. Not the kind of show you might expect to see on any of his competitor's stage. 

His legacy was big enough to earn him The Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to him by Joe Biden in May of this year. Eventually his contributions to broadcasting will be fully appreciated as the powers that be start to recognize the way Phil Donahue stomped on the Talk Show Terra. He will be missed. 

Aloha, Phil.