Order Up

 Sometimes it just takes a headline. Or a photograph. A few words or a picture can set off an avalanche of thought and emotion. This one was a little click bait that included a snapshot of Ted Bundy with the legend, "What would you choose for your last meal?"

First of all, I have just a couple degrees of separation from Mister Bundy. Long about the time the convicted killer was still busy going to trials and hearings and escaping from jails, my older brother had the distinction of ferrying from one courtroom to the next. As an officer of the law, he once mentioned that he had only twice encountered true evil. One of those encounters was with Ted Bundy. He was not involved in the serving of Bundy's last meal. That distinction came to the staff of the Florida State Prison in Raiford. They brought him a medium-rare steak, eggs over easy, hash browns, toast with butter and jelly, milk, and juice. Not because he chose it, but because that's the meal you get if you decline to state your preference. Then they electrocuted him. 

Which seems like a pretty solid waste of a medium-rare steak, eggs over easy, hash browns, toast with butter and jelly, milk, and juice. Which dovetails nicely with the conceit of swabbing the arm of the convicted with alcohol just before giving them a lethal injection. You wouldn't want them to get an infection, after all. 

I used to have a pretty set notion of what I would ask for my last meal. A double cheeseburger, steak fries, and a Coke. After the age of thirty, it seemed like a pretty tragic life that would end with a final supper straight off the menu from Red Robin. Which makes me wonder what someone cresting the hill toward sixty might request. Because of the nature of death row and its accompanying appeals process, the average wait to be shot, zapped or put to sleep is about sixteen years. This means that a lot of folks who find themselves in this predicament a) have a lot of time to consider their last meal and b) might die of natural causes without ever having a chance to place that order. 

Which makes me want to believe in an afterlife that would provide you with loads of Lobster Thermidor and stacks of Baked Alaska. Because it seems like a pretty nasty trick that you have to be a truly evil person, by my own brother's account, to have the chance to pick that last meal. Maybe in Heaven it's always Taco Tuesday. 

If that's your bag. 

Our Friend Science

 In recent days, the COVID news has not been at all encouraging. Cases here in the United States are setting records, and not in a good way. Becoming the world's leader in anything is always nice for the notoriety, but maybe this isn't the attention we were really after. 

But there is good news: Vaccines! Vaccines "greatly reduce the risk of infection by working with the body’s natural defenses to safely develop immunity to disease." That last bit comes from the Centers for Disease Control, and in the interest of science, I suggest we all read up on this topic in the coming months, because it may be the light at the end of the tunnel. 

But first of all, let's sort out all the negativity and fear surrounding the subject. It makes sense that initially the idea of injecting a virus into someone to keep that someone from getting a virus seems a little hokey. Which may be why there is a sub-species called "anti-vaxxers." Some of these folks argue that getting a shot in the arm is a violation of their human rights. They deny the science behind the medicine as vehemently as those who deny climate change or the continued sphere-like nature of the earth itself. It is a near certainty that this group will rise up over the next year, complaining on social media and anywhere else their keyboards will take them about the oppression they are experiencing at the hands of the healthcare system. The vast majority of these voices will not be muted by protective masks. Someone probably put the idea into these heads that the coronavirus was a hoax, "no worse than the flu." 

I get a flu shot. 

Every year.

I don't tend to get the flu.

I suppose this could be magic, or the fear I am able to instill in the germs floating around there that might infect me. Or it could be that vaccinations work. In the calendar year 2019, there were 1,282 cases of measles in the United States. The ever helpful folks at the CDC remind us, "Measles is more likely to spread and cause outbreaks in U.S. communities where groups of people are unvaccinated." Do you know anybody with polio?

Meanwhile: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have all pledged to make a show of being vaccinated. They are willing to go on television for the world to see that needle plunged into their arm. Which may seem like a risk, on a par with man's attempt to fly. Just don't forget to take your friend science along on the trip. 

Asterisk

 The word came down earlier this week: We would be returning to school the week of January 25th. That was the lightning bolt. What followed after that was a series of rolling thumps of thunder that underscored the challenges ahead. 

For example, the very first bullet point referred to our current purple status, meaning California and its counties is stuck in the most restrictive phase of COVID-19 protocols. Masks everywhere. Overnight curfews. Non-essential work and activities must stop between ten at night until five in the morning. I suppose this is good news for those in the education biz, since most of our business gets done after five and before ten. We could probably squeeze in some of that reading, writing and 'rithmatic before the sun goes down. 

Then comes the ugly reality of managing a herd of children whose attention spans vary greatly, from none to laser focus. Recently it was New York City's Mayor Bill DeBlasio who suggested that bringing in the youngest students would be the easiest to wrangle, since "they follow directions." Now I wonder just who, among our five to eleven year olds, will adhere to social distancing. These kids haven't seen each other except on a screen for nine months. No tag. No hugs. No high fives. Keep your masks over your nose and mouth except when you are at the water fountain. Wait. Check that. Skip the water fountain. And definitely don't share anything at lunch. Ever. 

But we all knew this was coming. And somewhere along this great long line, someone had to pull a date out of the air and make it a target. A target for parents, teachers, staff, and students to throw things at. In an excited and not altogether negative way. The teachers at our site are all anxious to return to our classrooms and greeting kids at the door with the prospect of moving them from wherever they are to where they ought to be by the end of the year. 

Does everyone involved understand that this is a best-case-scenario built in the worst-case-time? Many. Maybe most. The challenge awaits with those who live on either end of the return to school spectrum. There will be parents who resist sending their children back to our grand experiment. There will be teachers who will refuse to work unless they can be assured that everything is safe. There will be parents dropping their kids off at our front door on January 25th regardless what the actual circumstances are and how this scheme plays out. And we will have to continue doing the job as best as we can: teacher, principal, custodian, admin assistant, playground supervisor, parent, student, superintendent. And if we seem like we're making it up as we go along, it's because we are. 

Every day is a new day. 

Empty

 That sharp pain I keep feeling in the middle of my back? That's America shoving me forward into the abyss. "C'mon!" America insists, "Time to get things back to normal!" 

At which point, I dig in my heels. There is nothing normal about an American dying ever one hundred seven seconds. Couple this with the fact that an American tests positive every 1.2 seconds, and you've got abby something. Abby Normal. A global pandemic that is not "just going away" as promised by a former president is responsible. And what is our response?

Play football.

Last weekend, my alma mater hosted the team from San Diego State. They Buffaloes played the Aztecs. Not because this was the game that would decide anyone's conference standing, or because tens of thousand ticket holders would be disappointed if the game was cancelled. The game was played because San Diego State lurched into the open spot in the schedule left vacant by the University of Southern California, who because of its high number of COVID-19 infections did not have enough scholarship athletes to field a team. So the Aztecs flew to Boulder with three day's notice and battled the scholarship athletes from the University of Colorado. 

The Buffaloes won. If it matters.

And somewhere in the middle of this shove toward normalcy, I sat on the couch wishing that I could hold still for it. We could all use a distraction from the rush of air that is the joy being sucked out of our lives at an alarming rate. But every wide shot of the stadium, with all those empty seats, brought me back to the reality of those numbers. The excitement of a touchdown pass or a goal line stand was diminished by the specter of all those fifty thousand empty seats. There have been plenty of "down years" where the football program at CU has not been able to pack them in. Sometimes the Rocky Mountain winter was to blame. Other times it was just bad coaching and play that kept people away. 

That wasn't it. There's a disease out there that is making it unsafe for anyone to come near. The following day, just up the road in Denver, an even more depressing spectacle awaited. The National Football League decided to go ahead with the scheduled tilt between the Broncos and the New Orleans Saints in spite of the fact that the home team had not a single prepared quarterback available due to coronavirus restrictions. So they promoted a practice squad wide receiver to lead the team to an ignominious defeat that saw young Kendall Hinton, who will forever be a trivia answer to the question, "What emergency quarterback threw twice as many interceptions as completions for the Denver Broncos?" To be fair, he only threw two interceptions. But that was enough. In front of seventy-six thousand empty seats. 

So here's what I have to say about that shove toward "normal." 

Back off. 

What's The Opposite Of Coup?

 Among the tribes of the plains, counting coup was the way war was measured. Not body count. In those days, acts of bravery were the way Native American warriors brought prestige and honor to their efforts. The most honored action was touching the enemy with your hand or coup stick and escaping unharmed. Counting coup could also involve stealing an enemy's weapons or horses tied up to his lodge in camp. Risk of injury or death was required to count coup. Escaping unharmed while counting coup was considered a higher honor than being wounded in the attempt. Risking death and injury was the point. Leaving your enemy dead was not.

Not really a surprise that this form of warfare has lost favor in the nuclear age. A culture that would invent neutron bombs, the ones that kill people but leave buildings standing seems to have little use for coup. Turning back the clock on the weapons clock, one might guess that castles and catapults and the science of the siege probably had a lot to do with the way things turned out in Europe. "Death from above" is almost certainly a concept pioneered before the advent of airplanes. 

Native American warriors were not involved in the assassination of Iran's top nuclear scientist last week. Security officials in Iran reported that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun mounted atop a truck. This is the sort of thing that one might expect from Walther White, but not the Lakota. After the hit on Fakhrizadeh was complete, the Nissan truck exploded. The entire attack lasted three minutes. Interestingly,  another account of the killing circulating in Iranian media is that Fakhrizadeh was killed by a team of twelve assassins who were part of a sixty-two person hit squad. I assume this somehow pumps up the honor quotient, compared to the robot machine gun story. 

Which is what we are left with in a world that conducts its war via remote control. Try and imagine an Israeli commando rushing out of a crowd, touching Fakhrizadeh on the shoulder, then rushing back to his comrades to recount the glory. 

For that matter, try to imagine the battles with those tribes of the plains had they taken place under their terms. Imagine that a war could be won based on honor and courage. 

Not by remote control. 

Who's Your Daddy?

 It is entirely forgivable if you answered the question, "Who played Darth Vader?" by replying, "James Earl Jones." Well, feel good about yourself. You didn't say "Hayden Christensen." Really. Or "Jake Lloyd." Come on. 

Oh. Sorry. You weren't expecting Nerd Central? Okay. Consider this your warning. Because today we come together to celebrate the life and work of David Prowse, the man who played Darth Vader. Well, as you can kind of piece together from that initial flurry, he had some help. And the record will show that Mister Prowse only appeared as the Sith Lord in the original trilogy. The movies that most of us will refer to as "the first three." This was before George Lucas got it into his head to tell us "the whole story" of young Anakin Skywalker, the poor little kid (bad actor) who grew into a troubled teen (bad actor) and became Darth Vader embodied by a man who we never saw and never heard. Considering how lame the initial portrayals of the baddest man in the galaxy, this was a savvy move on the creative team at Star Wars Inc. Extremely savvy when you consider this choice was actually made before messrs Lloyd and Christensen got their crack at it. 

Essentially, David Prowse was smart enough to keep him mouth shut and let Academy Award Nominated actor and national voice treasure James Earl Jones do the talking. Luke's father was an amalgam. But if somebody asked you, say at the beginning of this blog, to name the actor who played Luke's Skywalker's father, you would get solid props from the geek contingent by picking the guy whose name appears prominently on the movie's poster. You'd have to discern from Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker, who also appeared without actually appearing as themselves. 

And if this was all David Prowse ever did in his screen career, that would be significant. He also showed up as Frankenstein's monster a couple times as well as an appearance as Frank Alexander's bodyguard in A Clockwork Orange. He got the part because his bodybuilding background allowed him to carry Mister Alexander around the set. A big guy. So when it came time to cast the biggest bad guy in the galaxy, George Lucas picked David Prowse. 

The rest, as they say, is history. The history of a galaxy far, far away. And it should be noted that right about this same time, back here on earth, David Prowse became known as the Green Cross Code Man, champion of pedestrian road safety in his native Britain. He was awarded the honor of Member of the Order of the British Empire for teaching kids how to use the crosswalks. 

Aloha, David Prowse. You stomped on the crosswalks, Death Stars and the Terra. You will be missed. 

Ask That Ye Shall Receive

 I remember reading an article a year ago about a girl who wrote a letter to Steph Curry asking why she couldn't find any of his signature basketball shoes in women's sizes. That letter put Under Armour, the makers of Curry's kicks into a frenzy of activity, at the Golden State Warriors star's urging. A few short months later, there was a new version of the Curry Six, released just in time for International Women's Day. This news landed on me in two different places. First, there was the "of course they did, who wouldn't want a chance to market their sneakers to more than half the planet's population." The second reaction was a calmer, gentler appreciation for the response to an under-served group being recognized for their power not just as consumers but as athletes and fellow human beings. Steph said at the time, "She was focused on the opportunity for all girls, not just herself. She is inspiring, and wise beyond her years."

So there's a feel god story whose memory was sparked in me when I read about for 7-year-old Vivian Lord of Little Rock, Arkansas. Vivian wanted to know why there weren't any Army Women. Not in the actual Army, but the little green plastic toys that have been a staple of toy chests in America since the 1930's. So iconic are they playthings that they have been ensconced in the National Toy Hall Of Fame, as well as being featured performers in Pixar's Toy Story films. This is 2020, after all. Where are the Army Women? Vivian wrote a letter, not unlike that asking for equal representation on the basketball floor, asking for equal representation on the battlefield. The toy version, anyway. 

Not surprisingly, BMC Toys in Scranton, Pennsylvania answered the call and promised young Vivian that she would soon be able to send molded female figures into combat. So now, ninety years after the first batch rolled off the line, Vivian and children across this great land of ours can simulate death and dying for their country with co-educational battalions. 

And I'm not exactly sure if that's a win.