Retreat!

It has been a while, but it was kind of like I remember dorm life. The past two days were spent in a hotel up in Marin, while my days were filled with meetings and conversations about high-minded ideals and meta-cognitive thinking, the evenings were ours to do with as we pleased. When I say "we," I am referring to the staff of my elementary school. We had an off-site retreat to get us ready for the start of a new school year. Now that I am back home again, I believe that we achieved that goal.
But not without some challenges. As a group, we all do an excellent job, and we have a unique ability to get along both professionally and socially. That second part is what puts some of the adventure in our enterprise. There are plenty of moments when a candid snapshot of our staff unwinding after a hard day's "vertical articulation" might cause a stir. This is especially true when one adds the caption: "Elementary School Teachers." What does one expect from a group of young adults, cloistered away in the hills above Marin in a hotel with a pool and a hot tub. If it sounds a little like the beginning of a TV reality show, you're starting to get the picture.
In the end, however, we are still dedicated educators, and we all showed up the next morning in one piece. Some of us were a little worse for the wear and tear, but I was clever enough to bring my family along and enjoyed the morning's recap of the previous night's amusements. I heard some of it out in the hallway as I drifted off to sleep, safe in the knowledge that my youth was behind me, or in this case, just down the hall.

Farewell To The Pit

In the whirlwind that was my return to my hometown last weekend, there was a moment of ennui. It came when my older brother drove us past our old high school. Thanks to a large bond measure, Boulder High is being modernized. I have worked through a school year or two in which a school has been "modernized" (read: painted), and I know that there are periodically radical changes created in these periods. Other times, the buildings and facilities remain looking very much the same.
It's my guess that once the gym at Boulder High has been modernized, the change will be immediately obvious. For years, the "boys' gym" at my high school was infamous for being one of the most intimidating places to play basketball in Colorado. It didn't hurt that we usually had some pretty rabid fans, but the positioning of those fans proved to be the most important feature. There were only a few feet on the edge of the regulation basketball court before the walls rose straight up. The bleachers were found ten feet up those walls above the floor of the court. There were a few seats squeezed in on one side of the court, across from the team benches, but mostly the crowd hung over the rails and stomped on the benches up above, and as the outcome of the game became more and more inevitable they would chant, "Welcome to the Pit! Welcome to the Pit!" We had perhaps one of the best home-court advantages in the Centennial League. We were perennial contenders in girls' basketball, and we won the boys' state championship when I was a junior. We had a good team, but I think our gym and our fans proved to be every bit as important, especially when the game was close. The thunder raining down from above was enough to cause many an errant pass or missed free throw. We always wished that we could play more of our games on that court, and now, they're through.
I'm sure that the spirit will continue, but I don't imagine that any self-respecting architect of the twenty-first century would recreate the facility as it once was. I suspect that the original plan was modeled more on the Roman Coliseum than the average high school gymnasium. I guess that the new boys' gym will be state-of-the-art, but it won't be a pit.

All You Can Eat

I spent a long weekend with my family back in Colorado this past weekend. I flew out there with my younger brother, and while we were waiting in the airport, I decided to get a little dinner. I bought a sandwich and some cole slaw. I had a big Coke to drink. I kept trying to get my brother to get something to eat, since I knew that our flight offered only a bag of peanuts and some Cheese Nips. He refused to bow to my older brother pressure. He had a Coke and a smile.
"I know I'm going to be eating solid for the next three days," he told me.
He was exactly right. Even though we arrived at my mother's house near midnight, we were still obliged to sample the homemade chocolate chip cookies in the cookie jar. And some of the jelly beans in the bowl on the coffee table. And we noticed the twelve-pack of Coke in the pantry. My little brother was right.
We did spend the weekend drinking and eating. Not just at my mother's house, but at a number of favorite cafes and restaurants around my hometown. On our last night there, we went to the newest location of the Italian restaurant that we had been going to for more than forty years. I had a plate of spaghetti, and was pleased to find out that there were free refills. I was equally pleased to relieve my son of his extra meatball. I ate until I felt just a little uncomfortable.
I have a reputation among my family and friends. They call me "The Thresher." I will continue to eat what's in front of me until it's gone, and then look around the table to see what's left on other people's plates. But this was different.
I was not just eating the food. I was filling up on family and my hometown too. I wanted to be able to carry as much of that weekend home with me as I could. The next morning as I was starting to pack up, it wasn't just my belly, but my heart was full as well. Before we left, my younger brother and I ate almost all the chocolate chip cookies. We left a few for my older brother who couldn't be there. After all, why should we have all the fun?

I Read The News Today Oh Boy

I used to read the entire newspaper when I spent summers at our mountain cabin. It was reading material and therefore it was important to consume every page. I read a lot of stuff that eleven-year-old boys don't regularly peruse. I read Michael Chricton's "Andromeda Strain." I read "The New Yorker" cover to cover. I even read "Ms. Magazine" when my mom was done with it. Then there was the newspaper.
For a time, we received both the Denver Post and the Boulder Daily Camera at our house. That meant that we generally didn't get our news until the following day, since part of my father's duty as the commuting member of our family to bring both papers back up the hill to us at the end of his day. This meant that a lot of my newspaper reading was done at night by the light of kerosene lamps. In the cabin. In the middle of a forest.
That's the part that got me. We were isolated. We didn't even have a phone. That's why the articles I read near the back of the front section were the most troublesome. They were still news, but they were not exactly "hard news." These were the two inch items about UFOs and Bigfoot. They were on the same page as the day's weather. UFOs were out there, just like those intermittent thunderstorms. And Bigfoot? Back in the early seventies, I was sure that my next trip to the outhouse would be my last.
No doubt about it: the newspaper was every bit as terrifying as Michael Chricton's deadly space virus - or Gloria Steinem.

Once In A Lifetime

I keep wondering what will happen to the old shell of a building that used to house our neighborhood Blockbuster video store. It once stood as a proud beacon of newly revived commerce. Now it sits empty, behind a chain link fence, periodically the target of misplaced youthful angst. Or maybe not that misplaced.I continue to blame Blockbuster for bringing an end to my career as a video store manager. This is somewhat sad and ironic, since the the last days of that chapter of my life were spent in the service of a franchise outfit. I worked at National Video after our pleasant little local store was bought out by a guy who was intent on leaving the legal profession and supporting his family by owning and operating a string of video rental stores along Colorado's Front Range. We were selected to be the second jewel in his video crown. Even though we had done business in the same location for several years before he opened his first little store gave us, as a staff, quite a bit of leverage. If a group of twenty-somethings working to make rent and get a little extra beer money can have "leverage."It helped that we were movie snobs. We knew what we were talking about, and in the days when you needed a membership to rent videotapes, that was good enough for all of us to keep our jobs. It was even good enough to get our new owner to finance the production of three commercials for our newly launched enterprise to be shown on the local cable system. I took the job very seriously, and carefully scripted and storyboarded all three, with a special eye to my magnum opus that was set to the tune of the Talking Heads' song "Once In A Lifetime." I remember staying up late to catch a showing of my commercial on some channel at the top of the dial. And I remember seeing the beginning of the end.We all assumed that this guy knew what he was doing. Wouldn't earning a law degree afford one a certain amount of business sense? That was our assumption. It turned out to be false. He had no idea what he was doing. He was a big guy, and he often took it upon himself to order us all food when he came down to visit the store. When he discovered that we had worked, over the years, a deal with the pizza place up the sidewalk from us in exchange for slices, he wasn't upset. He wondered what they would have to get for a whole pie.The little store closed first, and we tried to keep it lively and fresh. We still gave sound advice on film and ate very well. Our fearless leader let his franchise lapse, and we experienced our third name change in as many years, only this time there was no commercial shoot. We started to sell off our inventory to tape traders. Our pride and joy, our extensive library, began to shrink right along with our profits. The number of tapes on the shelves continued to shrink until one day we locked the doors and sold off our inventory to some clown who wanted to open up his own video store. In another place. At another time.

Show Business

"Once again ladies and gentlemen, this is an exhibition, not a competition - please no wagering." - David Letterman
I know a guy who is actively trying to help put "Dark Knight" over the top. He continues to go out and see the Batman movie again and again with the expressed purpose of piling on to its already impressive box office take. He has seen it in big theaters and small, on IMAX and tiny multiplex screens. Within the first month of its release, he had seen "Dark Knight" six times. To be fair, he went out at the beginning of the summer and saw "Iron Man" two times in as many weeks. But the Batman thing is different.
Like so many of us out there, we now see that "The Titanic" is, if you'll pardon the pun, within striking distance. That untouchable six hundred million dollar gross now seems like a possibility for this superhero film. And why not? Records were made to be broken, right?
There was a time when I felt smug about the fact that I spent the summer of 1977 helping to rewrite box office history by using the local theater showing "Star Wars" as my logical alternative to "I dunno, what do you wanna do?" When in doubt, we went to see "Star Wars." I spent a good deal of my lawn-mowing money making George Lucas the wattle-necked-control-freak-kerjillionaire that he is today.
And for twenty years, that was the top of the pile. I was fine with that. Then along comes James Cameron and his epic about a boat. Now this great soggy mess of of a romantic tragedy is the "Number One Movie Of All Time." That is, if you count ticket sales. If you're counting darkly amusing ways to make a pencil disappear, then Batman now rules that roost.

It Wasn't The Planes That Got Him

I have often said that when I die, I don't want a lot of mystery surrounding my passing. I expect that it won't take Quincy to discover what took me down. As a matter of fact, if it would facilitate things, I am willing to carry the address of the nearest In 'n' Out burger franchise in my wallet for that moment when I cease to be. Again, I don't think a call to any of the various CSI branches will be necessary. Death by cheeseburger: animal style.
Of course, this flies directly in the face of my other deep-seated obsession. Why would I keep lacing up my shoes to go out running if I am really that intent on committing hami-kiri? It's a very deep-seated denial, I suppose. There's a whole lot of bargaining going on in my head on any given day. "If I put bacon on that, I'll just have to make sure and get that extra mile in tomorrow," and so on. The whole idea is never to become so incapacitated by food that by the next morning I am unable to get out on the streets again.
A study published on Monday shows middle-aged members of a runner's club were half as likely to die over a twenty-year period as people who did not run. Running reduced the risk not only of heart disease, but of cancer and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's, researchers found. For the purposes of my longevity, I would put my name on the "runners" list, but for the sake of my taste buds, I fall squarely on the Super Size column. I know that the older I get, the harder it becomes to rationalize all of these little quirks. I understand that eventually something has to give. So there are more salads in my future, I suppose so that I will continue to have one.