All We Are Saying...

 My wife was relating a story to me about her past: She remembers sitting in her elementary school cafeteria with her classmates when suddenly one of them stood up and announced that it was his birthday. "And I can't imagine a better present: the war is over."

The conflict he was addressing was the Vietnam War. 

This anecdote came to me on the heels of my wife asking me if "things" were affecting the kids at my school. The school where I teach. The "things" were the stateside reaction to a war that is taking place half a world away. 

It happened that she was asking on the morning after a particularly trying day in which several of our young charges had missed the mark of expected behaviors in and around school. What we were expecting was scholarly behavior. Safe, Champion, Helpful, Original, Loving, Awesome, Respectful. The near-fight on the basketball court came to mind. The stomping and cursing from the fourth grade class whose field trip had been rescheduled at the last minute. The third graders who took their chance to go on a field trip and embarrassed their class and teacher with behavior best described as "off the hook." 

Would any or all of that taken place on any given day at our educational oasis in East Oakland? Possibly. But tracking the range and severity of episodes, it occurred to me that I am teaching a generation that has never lived on a peaceful planet. The looming specter of terrorism is one that I am certain that the kids I teach do not consider for a heartbeat. The World Trade Center came down a quarter of a century ago. These kids have never been to the airport without going through a metal detector. They have been on a heightened state of alert since before they were born. 

And now the guy who has made war on his own country is taking his show on the road. This didn't stop the deportations and the protests. It just gave us all something to fear while we should be busy being afraid of fear itself. 

I remember hearing those patriotic tales of my mother's youth, during the Second World War. Scrap drives and sending care packages to soldiers fighting across the sea. This is the same woman who told her oldest son that she would ride with him on his motorcycle to Canada if the draft came looking for him. 

Happily, the kid in the cafeteria where my wife sat more than fifty years ago got what he wanted for his birthday.