The Wait

I was that kid who stood for hours on line waiting to buy my ticket in the summer of 1977 to see "Star Wars." I kept going back, as the film played through into the fall, until the snow began to fly. I waited in an even longer line when the Empire struck back. This time I went down to Denver with my family to see the sequel on the biggest screen in the Mountain Time Zone. By the time the Jedi returned, there were multiple theaters showing the third film, making the wait less than half an hour. At this point, I was well into my college years, and finding time to stand around seemed unnecessary unless I had a beer in my hand.
Sixteen years passed. I was cajoled back into my youth by a friend who had a similar fixation on George Lucas' saga. We sat in front of a multiplex on the cool concrete, having forgotten the lessons of the past, without the aid of any sort of cushion or comfort. We waited again for the story to begin again: The Phantom Menace. I will tell you that I watched closely, once we were admitted into the theater and the story began to unspool, but I never fully understood what was so phantom about that particular menace. It made me tired, staring at all the digital effects layered upon digital acting. At this point, I had this thought: I can't wait for this to be over.
There were two more films released in the prequel sequels. I did not line up for them. My son got out of school early on the day the Sith got their revenge. It was a very satisfying time for that eight-year-old. I caught it later, but not so much later that there could have been any surprises leaked. But there were no surprises. Having spent all those years in the late seventies and early eighties consumed in my fandom, reading all associated reports and additional fiction, there wasn't much left of the story of whence the Skywalker clan began. I felt that George Lucas had waited too long.
Now, Star Wars is part of the landscape of pop culture. It's another Disney E-coupon attraction, and all attempts are being made to generate the kind of excitement that existed back in 1977. I can remember the physical pain I felt when the credits began to roll on "The Empire Strikes Back." The idea that I would have to wait three years to find out if Darth Vader really was Luke's father seemed like a torture that no man or Wookie should have to endure. Now, planned release dates hang out there for years, waiting for tentpole blockbusters to land on them. The next reboot of the franchise that just finished making its kerjillionth dollar is already in pre-production. What was once special is now commonplace. Spectacular 3D Imax Surround Dolby THX commonplace.
All of this to say that Dark Horse Comics is releasing a limited series comic based on George Lucas' original screenplay for "Star Wars." I would line up for it, but I can probably get it online cheaper.

Taking The Heat

I used to walk to school in the wind, rain and snow. Uphill. Sometimes the drifts would pile up so high that kids who started out the door of their homes in November weren't found until the next spring. It was horrible. Or at least hyperbole. I do find myself, at times, waxing nostalgic for those days when the weather was so fierce that the superintendent of Boulder County Schools would call a "snow day," and all us kids would sit, huddled about the radio, for the warmth as well as the announcement. Upon hearing that conditions outside were such that the man in charge of our county's education deemed them unfit for man nor beast, we raced about the house, pulling on scarves and mittens, hats and boots to prepare ourselves for a day spent frolicking in the snow. We weren't men nor beasts. We were kids, after all.
I find this same spirit in the mildest form here in California, where we periodically have to have recess indoors because of rain. There are a certain number of kids, no matter how torrential the downpour, who stare up into the sky and insist that there is no problem with the weather. They want to be in it. Not really a surprise there.Grownups tell you to be inside, therefore there must be something about being outside that is fun or forbidden. That distinction is generally lost on children. And adults.
Now imagine this: A school district that calls off school because it's too hot. Blame global warming or the budget crisis in education, but kids in the Midwest are getting "heat days." Schools in Fargo, North Dakota and Minneapolis have been shut down, while others have been sent home early. Schools are starting their year in August, before Labor Day. They want to get the jump on all those new standards and expectations for their students. But they don't want to pay for air conditioning. "I was up on the third floor and it was 93.8 degrees in the classroom and the kids hadn't been there in hours," said Matt Patton, superintendent of a one-school district in Baxter, Iowa. "You put twenty bodies in there and it will go up to at least 95 and you can imagine all the sweat on the desks and textbooks."
I think that will be enough imagination for now. Unless you would like to imagine taking a Slip 'n' Slide to your fourth period class.

Between The Lines

As a participant, I am certain that I spent more time playing and practicing on a football field as a member of a marching band than I did as a member of a football team. I can't say that this is because I didn't care for the sport. Quite the contrary. When I was in fourth grade, playing on the Young America Football League Patriots, I envisioned a long career of gridiron glory. Though not particularly quick or agile, I was able to remember the intricacies of some of our trick plays: The Dipsy-Doodle, for example, had us line up to one side of the center, overloading the line of scrimmage and giving the opposing coaches fits. Or at least that's the way it would have been if we had ever used it in a game. Instead, I kept my blocking assignments in mind as I went through the game, gnawing ever more fiercely on my mouth-guard, waiting for Todd or Ronnie to come gliding through the gaping hole I had created in the opposition's defense. And I watched them run. Past me to glory.
They ran right on into junior high, where they quickly found themselves a spot on the team, while my speed and agility continued to develop. I didn't play in seventh or eighth grade because I lived in a world in which I was too heavy for the lightweight division and too light for the heavyweights. In ninth grade, a third team opened up, perhaps with me in mind: the middleweight division. The playbook in junior high was not nearly as madcap or zany as the one I had memorized in fourth grade. There were many more specific assignments, and our coach was a stickler for such things. I remember the time I forgot my responsibility on punt coverage, and ran squarely down the middle of the field, looking for someone to tackle. Unfortunately, that person just happened to be running up the sideline, where I was supposed to be. It was one of a series of moments when I got to be up close and personal with my coach. He grabbed me by the face-mask and asked me if I knew what my responsibility was on punt coverage. When I say that he asked, I mean that he bellered. He wasn't looking for an answer. It was a rhetorical question, of sorts, more akin to a penalty if he had been on the opposing team. It was, in his wild eyes, a teaching moment.
So maybe it was no surprise that I didn't sign up for that abuse again in high school. My speed and agility were coming along just fine for a civilian's used, but by this point the Ronnies and Todds had evolved into much more streamlined beings, and the beasts who were in charge of making their paths clear were slabs of meat that carried algebra books. I hadn't considered that I was following a family line, wherein my older brother had taken all the grief he could by the time he was in ninth grade, choosing to focus on marching band instead. This was the same path my father took, years earlier, even though he would tell us of his glorious and heroic deeds on the field, specifically the time he got himself a deviated septum by using his face to block an extra point against Casey Junior High. By the time he showed up at Boulder High, all that glory was behind him. He picked up a sousaphone and never looked back.
When I watch football now, it's with an eye toward position and responsibility. I've seen plenty of games won and lost must because one guy was in the wrong place. I feel for that guy, and the sputtering rage he will no doubt receive when he gets to the sideline. It's enough to make a guy consider joining the band.

Old School

I'm not sure that I would have answered the door if it hadn't been the first week of school. It was after four o'clock and the office was closed, but since we had been fielding questions from parents for the past several days about dates and times and forms and classes, I figured I should check and see what the mildly persistent rapping at the door was all about. I opened the door with my best customer service, "How can I help you this afternoon?"
"Hey man, I used to go here a long time ago, and I was wondering - are you the principal?"
Somewhat abruptly I made the choice to try and slow this particular interaction down. This gentleman had kind of a wild look in his eyes, and if we hadn't all had a tough week already, this might make it just a little bit longer. "No, I'm not. The principal's already gone for the day. Is there something I can help you with?" At this I stepped into the hallway, letting the door close and lock behind me. Now it was just the two of us.
"Yeah, so I was wondering if you could find my graduation pictures. My sixth grade graduation pictures. I used to go here. A long time ago."
I was guessing it had been twenty some years. "I'm pretty sure we don't have any of those around anymore. I've been here for seventeen years and I pretty much know where things are. I've been in every room in the building at some point, and I've never seen any graduation pictures. Not from sixth grade. We've been a K through five school for as long as I've been here."
This former student wiped the sweat from his brow and closed his eyes. "I used to go here a long time ago," he repeated, "I was just hoping to get that picture back. I live just around the corner. I went to this school, man."
He never got angry, which was a relief, but his agitation went on unabated.
"So, you're saying you don't know where these pictures are kept? I was wearing black pants and I had a gold earring back then. You're not the principal? Maybe you could give me your number and I could call you tomorrow and you could tell me where to look for those pictures."
I explained again that I hadn't seen anything like what he was describing, and since the building had been modernized nine years ago the place had been pretty well cleaned out.
He went on to describe the neighborhood as it had once been, back when he had gone to this very school. "I tried to graduate from junior high, but I couldn't do it. I graduated from here."
It was Friday afternoon after a long, hot opening week of school. I desperately wanted to go home myself. This nervous, twitchy, sweaty sixth-grade-graduate seemed desperate to connect with his last great success. I wished that I could somehow materialize that portrait, the one that would send him on his way. I told him that I wished I could help him. I didn't tell him that I guessed that he would probably feel better once he got some rest and the chemicals that were making it so hard for him to stand still had dissipated. Finally, I had run out of things to tell him.
"Yeah, well maybe I'll come back tomorrow and see if you found those pictures," he seemed just a notch calmer on his way out.
I stood and watched him make his way down the front steps. I wondered if I might see him after the long weekend. This was his old school, after all.

Super Power Suit

O-Zone: Honey?
Congress: What?
O-Zone: Where's my super suit?
Congress: What?
O-Zone: Where - is - my - super - suit?
Congress: I, uh, put it away.
[Syria explodes outside]
O-Zone: *Where*?
Congress: *Why* do you *need* to know?
Congress: I need it!
[O-Zone rummages through another room in The West Wing]
Congress: Uh-uh! Don't you think about running off doing no daring-do. We've been planning this dinner for two months!
O-Zone: The world is in danger!
Congress: My evening's in danger!
O-Zone: You tell me where my suit is, woman! We are talking about the greater good!
Congress: 'Greater good?' I am your legislative body! I'm the greatest *good* you are ever gonna get!

Do I want my president to have to resort to military action in the Middle East just because the last few guys who had the job did? Not really. But I'm also not sure that I want to sit by idly, as a super power and watch some crazy guy use chemical weapons on his own people. Civilians. Children. Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to be the world's police, and our attention could be focused on our own children?
It would be great, but it's not the world in which we currently live. While our president continues to ask Congress for help in resolving the horrible mess that exists in Syria, I continue to imagine a solution that would make everything alright. Like a time machine. Or a super suit.

A Fine Whine

I know how to turn a one syllable word into a monotonous drone better than a lot of people I know. It is a skill that I honed during my years as a child. The word "mom," though it has just three letters, can be stretched out by simply adding modulation to that middle vowel: "mooooooooooooooooom." It is important to note that this will not create one long vowel, but a sing-songy fluctuation of that single short vowel. If you've got good lungs, it could go on for a minute or two. Did I mention that I played tuba when I was young?
The reason to develop that particular skill was to get my mother's attention. As a middle brother, it was my way of showing up on my mother's sonar. Or at least that was my intent. Now that I am an elementary school teacher, I understand that I was in no way unique. This particular way of communicating with adults may have been pioneered by me, but future generations seem to have taken those simple parameters and made them their own.
Future generations? That would bring us to my son, right? Well, it would be ridiculous to suggest that none of those noises have ever come from my son, but they are generally made in jest or as some sort of satire on the usual commerce in our house. I say this because I found myself fully tensed for the siren's wail when my son asked his mother if she would take him to the DMV to take his learner's permit test. There was a hesitation, and then the bad news came: "I don't think we can do it until next week."
I was sure that there would be some sort of squeak or wail, but I had forgotten who my son is. All those years of my own whining and living in the midst of kindergarten through fifth graders who expect that moaning will get them what they want set me up for that expectation.
"That's okay," said my son. "It's not like it's hurting me."
Really? I thought that all such slights would immediately bring on some sort of apoplexy, especially in the case of a teenager and his driver's permit.
"I don't have a permit right now, and I'm doing okay. I can wait a week," continued the zen master.
You learn a lot from your kids, if you pay attention.

Bridge Of Sighs

My first memory of the Bay Bridge was the claustrophobic feeling I got when coming in from the San Francisco airport on the lower deck. It was in that moment that I began to comprehend just how different life might be in another place. Four lanes of traffic, all surging eastward, with the wishes that nothing bad would happen ahead of them. Or above. Just a few feet over our heads was an equally busy four lanes of traffic heading in the opposite direction. I had seen the pictures, of course. The ones from the 1989 earthquake when a huge chunk of the upper deck collapsed down on top of the lower. Because of the rare lack of cars on the bridge brought on by the Bay Bridge Series, only one person lost their life in that location. A month later, the major thoroughfare from East Bay to West was repaired and back in order. It was that image that stayed in my mind until we were clear of the bridge and back to the relative safety of Oakland.
Then there was the moment when I realized that, after decades of watching the film over and over, "The Graduate" had a major flaw: Benjamin Braddock is driving up from southern California to chase after the elusive Elaine Robinson in Berkeley. It makes sense that a guy who owns an Alfa Romeo Spider convertible would probably prefer to drive up the coast with the top down, but if was in such a hurry, why didn't he drive up Interstate 5? Even so, if he found himself on the Bay Bridge, and he wanted to go to Berkeley, he wouldn't be on the top deck where the helicopter could see him. It never spoiled the movie for me, but I did get a sense of smug superiority as I watched that scene after I moved to the Bay Area.
Now we're getting a new one. Well, part of a new one. The east span of the Bay Bridge is being replaced. After years of questioning why I had to pay toll to get into San Francisco, I can now feel that I have invested in a shiny new icon for postcards to come.  There will still be an opportunity for that claustrophobic feeling as we make our way from Treasure Island into "The City," but an era will come to an end this weekend when that relic from the thirties closes and a whole new age begins. When I start paying toll to pay for yet another bridge.