The Final Frontier

On weekday mornings, there is always a crush of people: standing in line, going about their personal business, making mild chit-chat. And that's just my bathroom. Mom, dad and son all start their day by crowding into what would be politely referred to as "the master bath." Some days we are lucky enough to get the dog as well. As a result, I do what I can to get in first and clear the way for everyone else, but it's not always possible. This is especially true when the heater comes on, since both son and dog enjoy the vertical vent that sits below the sink. This is ideal for warming oneself as one prepares to face a day. It does make for an interesting dance around the sink and bathtub as dad goes through his own morning routine through bleary eyes.
It has become as much a part of our morning ritual as the dueling alarm clocks. Mine goes off at six-thirty to the sounds of album-oriented rock. My son begins to stir just a few minutes later when the slightly younger and louder modern rock pours from his radio. These disparate musics meet somewhere in the middle, or right over the bathroom sink. You can turn left or right to choose the transmission of your choice, or you can simply hop into the shower to get the jump on the rest of the action.
The most curious part of this experience is that we manage to move past and around one another without too many collisions in spite of the fact that we do have another bathroom in the house. It's not a full bath, so baths and showers are still a first-come, first-serve proposition. And since the other bathroom is found at the far end of the house, an arctic region to hear some describe it, it doesn't get as much traffic. It would also preclude all this family togetherness. Now here's the kicker: Once upon a time, a family of seven lived in our house. They did so without the additional bathroom. Mom, dad and five kids: one bathroom. Somehow they all managed to get up and out to face the day in some fashion. How they did this without turning the garden hose on the boys and asking the girls to primp in the curved reflection of the toaster is anybody's guess, but it does take my own consternation down a notch or two.
When I was growing up, like so many other kids, my mother had a decorative plate that hung over our refrigerator that read: "No matter where I serve my guests, they seem to like my kitchen best." I'm still working on the cute rhyme for the decorative plate for our bathroom.

On The Back End

I can hear my father's voice telling me not to put stickers on any painted surfaces. He was talking specifically about bumper stickers landing anywhere but the chrome bumper of our car. That was further limited by the fact that my father's car was "a company car" and we weren't allowed to put anything on that. That meant that any stickers we had to stick had to go on a pretty finite chunk of real estate on my mother's bumper, and she wasn't too thrilled about BudMan or STP as a sponsor of her station wagon. All of those stickers found their way to my bedroom door, much to my parents' chagrin.
I heard my father's admonition as I looked at the back end of my own station wagon. It was sitting in the parking lot of the Mystery Spot, near Santa Cruz. The friendly folks there are happy to give away bumper stickers to their "gravitational anomaly" to continue to spread the word about how physics had gone awry in this corner of the redwood forest. Free sticker? How could I keep myself from slapping that bad boy directly on my bumper? The painted, plastic bumper of our Saturn hatchback? I would like to tell you that there was a lengthy internal struggle, but that was limited to the time it took me to peel the paper backing off and smooth the yellow and black beauty on the lower left quadrant. Suddenly, we became "one of them."
I have seen other cars that seem to be held together by the paper and vinyl strips and adhesive that cover the back end of their motor vehicles. They make for good reading as we travel the highways and byways. It's always nice to see the occasional clever sentiment or Dukakis for President. Then there's the back of our car: "Warning: This Car Transforms Into Robot," and "Parent of a Brett Harte Middle School Honor Roll Student," and the "Mystery Spot." Plus a number of others that escape my memory. Layers have begun to accumulate, and while I am relieved that I haven't had to scrape a "Kerry/Edwards" decal off in a fit of pique, I wonder how much longer we can continue to lacquer the hindquarters of our Wagon Queen Family Truckster. Or perhaps we should blame the Mystery Spot for sending us down this road in the first place. Aside from having gravity that's all askew, it is apparently a vortex for the wisdom of my father.

The Departed

We lost a trusted family friend last week. After years of faithful service, it was time to pull the plug and move on. Too much sentiment in these cases always leads to more regrets and a wavering resolve when it comes time to do the right thing. I got tired of having to run around with a towel, cleaning up all those little wet messes. We could have spent a lot of money and time trying to get a few more quality weeks together, but what's the point, really? Sometimes it's best just to close the book on one and pick up another: younger, faster, stronger. I will miss our old washing machine.
I can't get too sentimental about an appliance, even a major one, since I am notoriously hard on tools. It set me to thinking about the life span of the machinery in our home. The guy who came out to look at our old washer gave us a tip or two about how we might be able to get a few more spins out of the old girl before we sent her to the retirement community, but the bottom line was that we had reached the end of the line with this one: planned obsolescence. I thought about the computers we have moved into and out of over the past eighteen years. I thought about the dishwasher that used to roll around our first apartment that eventually got replaced by a larger "family model" once we started to sterilize baby bottles and pacifiers. And then there was the washing machine that was here when we moved into this house.
Originally, it lived at the back of the house, and when it hit the spin cycle it was like the Orange Blossom Special was roaring by outside our window. One of our earliest household projects was to pour a concrete slab in our basement where the thundering beast would be out of our immediate earshot. It served us dutifully through all the diapers and blankets and baby clothes, asking only the occasional sock or two in payment, until one day it just stopped. It filled with water and soap and then just gave up.
That was nine years ago. We went out and found ourselves a deal on an Energy Star front-loading Kenmore that was every bit as dependable as its predecessor, doing all the things we asked of it and more. Then, last week when I went downstairs to check on it, there was a puddle forming at the back, where I noticed that rust had begun to form. How long had this been going on? Had I become so insensitive to the needs of my appliances that I had cavalierly ignored its cries for help? My wife called the repair man, but it was too late.
Now there is a stranger in our basement. One that I have to read up on to be able to use correctly. It has more buttons and lights than the other two had combined. It is a new technology, and as Arthur C. Clarke would remind me, it is magic. I don't doubt that one day it will be welcomed into the family like a trusted friend, but for now I am still coping with the loss of one now departed.

Tired, Tired, Tired

Perhaps, while I still have it, I should start wielding some of the tremendous power I apparently exude upon this planet. As a member of a teacher's union, I have been getting away with murder and other heinous crimes for decades now, and all I have to show for it is ten hour days and a list of things to do that keeps me coming back for more. That and an unquenchable thirst to underperform while sending all my union dues away to a vault somewhere to help the next liberal candidate look the other way while I conduct my nefarious business.
Okay. Maybe I got a little carried away there, but it is my reaction to the teacher bashing that is currently all the rage in our media. I am by no means an apologist for public education or teacher's unions. I can smell the stink from where I'm sitting. By contrast, I can also see the beauty and wonder of the kids who show up at our school on the first day without letters or numbers and go home with their heads full of a whole new world. Public education is just that: it is for the public. We tend to reflect the community in which we work. When we have motivated students and families coming in the door, our job is much easier. When we don't, we don't have the option of turning them away, or offering them a spot in next year's lottery.
We work with what we are given, and though much has been made about the increase in per-student spending over the past few years, no one would suggest that education is our nation's top priority. Not with a straight face, anyway. The crisis that film makers and talk show hosts are finding their way to currently has existed for decades. That's why we had movies like "Blackboard Jungle" and "Dangerous Minds." There's just got to be a way to get through to these kids. For a couple hours at least. Then we slide back into our preoccupation with the effects of a world that has lost its center. If our children really are the hope, why don't we see any change? Are there terrible teachers and principals going to work this morning? You bet there are. Just like there are terrible real estate agents and baristas. And talk show hosts. And politicians. "Throw the bums out!" is the message that currently gets all the sound bites, and association with any of those bums even by profession is enough to start ugly generalizations. That's why teachers formed unions way back when. Like any bureaucracy, things have certainly swelled beyond their original intent, not unlike the job that teachers have been asked to do. Is a house cleaning necessary? Sure, but don't blow up the house, and don't wait for Superman to come and clean it.

Coming Soonish

I knew that I had grown too old for the whole sci-fi geek trip when I spent three hours sitting on the sidewalk outside my local superfaplex to see the midnight premiere showing of "The Phantom Menace." Once inside and seated in the relative comfort of the climate-controlled theatre, I waited along with my nerdy brethren to watch the beginning of the trilogy unfold. The anticipation was palpable. We had all waited sixteen years to find out what had gotten young Darth Vader's knickers in such a twist. As it turns out, it was The Evil Trade Federation that was to blame. Or something like that. It was numbing. Jar Jar Binks almost had me wishing for the return of the Ewoks. I was ready to swear off a galaxy far, far away for good.
Then my son came along. Suddenly he had a say in the pop culture that became part of our family. Episodes I, II and III became "his" Star Wars. I rolled my eyes and held my tongue as much as I could as I watched the legacy that I had come of age with get swept aside by a flashy, digitized vision that was hollow on the inside. I had the same challenge when eighty-six year old Harrison Ford decided to get back into the archaeology game. This wasn't your dad's Indiana Jones. Instead of Jar Jar Binks, this one had prairie dogs.
Now, George Lucas is revving up his money-making machine, not unlike Sylvester McMonkey McBean, to get all of us bored Sneetches to plunk down our hard earned cash to see his twin trilogies again. This time it will be in three dimensions. This should expand the dimensions for the first three by two, and should end up making another kerjillion dollars for Mister Lucas. James Cameron only waited a few months before unleashing his "new vision" of "Avatar" on the unsuspecting public, so this shouldn't be anything but a love fest. That one was already in 3D, but it borrowed a script from "Ferngully."
And so I wait for the news to trickle down to my son. He uses Al Gore's Internet. He reads "Entertainment Weekly." It's only a matter of time before the Wookie gets out of the bag. And then I'll have to start preparing my excuses. Or finding a nice soft cushion to sit on that sidewalk.

Less Than Zero

One in seven Americans are now living in poverty. That's what the census tells us. That means people are living on eleven thousand dollars a year for an individual under sixty-five or twenty-two thousand for a family of four. The good news, if there is any, is that experts had expected that number to be even higher. Experts who make more than twenty-two thousand dollars a year.
It set off the alarm that sometimes rings in my head when I'm riding my bike through the streets of the city. The one that gets me to scan the neighborhood for apartments for rent. The one that makes me consider my lifestyle. How close am I to dropping my family below the line? There are plenty of clever, qualified folks out there staving off the inevitable while they look for their next meaningful employment. The idea that one in seven people in our country is happily waiting around for their welfare check or looking for some angle to make their lifestyle work.
On the flip-side, I continue to imagine how I can move a few dollars here and there so that I can go out and buy the newest version of Guitar Hero. Embarrassing priorities. Choices I can make when I'm not that seventh person. Instead, I could be moving that shopping cart down the street in the early morning hours, looking for that bin full of last night's party: glass and aluminum that I can load up and haul to the recycling center. I remember watching a husband and wife team work both sides of a street. She would run ahead, scouting for the mother lode, while he crushed and stacked in their borrowed Safeway cart. It made me wonder if we got my son up early enough to get into the act if my wife and I could put food on the table before the sun went down. The statistics only say that one in seven live below that poverty line. That means there is still plenty of room before zero, and none of it is comfortable.

Tony The Tiger

"Yondah lies the castle of my faddah, da king." I can't say for sure if Tony Curtis every uttered these words. That line may be of the same stripe as "Play it again, Sam," from Bogart or "Judy! Judy! Judy!" from Cary Grant. No matter. It's what people hear in their minds when they think of Tony Curtis. At least that's where they start.
Then they think about the rest of his career. I think about "The Vikings." As historical epics go, it's no "Spartacus," but then again, I didn't get to spend three days in my high school English class watching "Spartacus." Tony and Kirk Douglas play half-brothers named Eric and Einar. Their father is Ragnar, played by the Ernest Borgnine at his most Borgniniest. And, spoiler alert, Tony gets the girl in the end. It probably helps that he was married to her at the time, but we wouldn't expect anything less. It also features one of the most insidious earworm of a musical theme. Just a few seconds of it drifting from the TV as I flip by on cable is enough to keep it in my head for weeks.
Speaking of being in my head, for years before I ever saw a photograph of the real Harry Houdini, I could only imagine that he was the spitting image of Mister Curtis. Janet Leigh was in this one too, as his lovely assistant and wife Bess. This was the film that gave me a thorough grounding in both magic and skepticism. It helped me look for the strings connected to the floating ghosts, but gave me hope to imagine that if anyone could escape death's icy grip, it would be the Great Houdini.
Alas, Tony couldn't do the same. He went away and won't be coming back, but we can all keep him alive in our favorite moments: seducing Marilyn Monroe in "Some Like It Hot," or going toe to toe with Burt Lancaster. This was a movie star. Aloha, Tony.