Whistling in the Dark

They're on the move again. Rescue crews from the Bay Area are heading out to do whatever they can in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Presently the expectations are thirty days to get the water out of the city of New Orleans, then countless weeks, months, even years to rebuild. At last check, there were still people stuck in their attics, waiting for the waters to recede.
Way back in 1906, when San Francisco was all but destroyed by an earthquake and subsequent fires, by Imperial decree on the 30th Day of the Third Moon from Empress Dowager of China to send 100,000 tales as a personal contribution to the relief of the San Francisco sufferers. President Theodore Roosevelt declined the offer, as well as donations from other foreign governments. Governor Pardee told a newspaper reporter, “The work of rebuilding San Francisco has commenced, and I expect to see the great metropolis replaced on a much grander scale than ever before.”
Then there was that little shift of the plates in 1989 - I was watching the World Series, and made the off-hand comment to no one in particular (from the safety of seismically retro-fitted Colorado) "The only way the Giants are going to win this one is if the earth opens up and swallows the A's." I should probably be more careful about what I wish for. The fires only burned for hours, not for days, and fewer people lost their lives as a result of the Loma Prieta earthquake.
In the meantime, there have been fires, floods, landslides and incidental seismic events, but nothing on the scale of the seasonal pounding that has taken place on the southeast corner of the United States. We keep tossing the dice, and coming up sevens out here in earthquake country. For now, our hearts and thoughts are with the folks stuck up there in their attics, looking forward to a time when they can think about lending a helping hand to those poounfortunateses out in California.

OJT (On The Job Training)

When you first start working in a fast-food restaurant, they always tell you the same thing about when you get held up: go ahead and hand over the cash. It's the same drill at just about any retail establishment. Don't be a hero, just give them the money and a collector's set of Holly Days Glasses if they ask for them. Ask if they want any help getting their bag to their car. Most of all, don't do anything that could be construed as even mildly assertive. Money can be replaced, human lives are (for the most part) irreplaceable.
That being said, I will now relate the apocryphal tale of Jo Ellen, manager of Arby's extraordinaire. Jo Ellen (her real name, as it would have been difficult if not impossible to come up with a "funny" nickname for her) was a company gal. She had worked her way up from the bottom - starting as a "lunch tuna," or entry level cashier to the lofty perch of assistant manager of the Baseline store. Jo Ellen worked hours that no one else wanted, learned every chore and task in the building, and kept an immaculate set of books. When we were trained to clean the meat slicer or empty the shake machine, we were told "This is the way Jo Ellen does it." Joe Ellen was the measure of all that was America's Roast Beef, Yes Sir.
Again, she was also sadly afflicted with a shocking deficit in the sense of humor and personality department. For the most part, this was a career enhancement for her - she never had to worry much about what she might be missing in the world outside the restaurant. Late one night, Jo Ellen was in the back room working on the books in advance of the closing while her crew cleaned and took care of the trickle of late-night customers. This particular evening, a guy came in with a gun, ready to make a quick withdrawal from the fast-food national bank. Her crew, initially stunned, began to comply to the robber's demands. With very little cash in the register, the focus shifted to the money in the back. Jo Ellen was called from the back room. At this point she must have assumed that she was dealing with an unhappy customer, because she came around the side to the front of the counter to address this gentleman's concerns. The world may never know, but I choose to believe that it never occurred to Jo Ellen to even glance in the direction of the gun. Abruptly sizing up the situation, she chose this approach: "Hey buddy, I know times are tough - but don't you think getting a job would be the way to go here?" Some versions of the story have her handing the guy an application on his way out. It would be my guess that she would have given him an interview if he would have brought it back.
I've saved the best for last - one more little piece of information about Jo Ellen. She was married, and her husband worked in a dynamite factory, handling high explosives. Maybe that's not the real punchline for this story, but it ought to be.

One Down, 179 To Go

I moved the same pile of papers three times around my room, each time leaving it just long enough to forget where it was. By the time I had located it for the third time, it was time for me to head outside. I've been at the same school for nine years now, but I still feel the same mix of anticipation and dread on that first morning. There are class lists, posted in two different locations, and I know that they will be surrounded by parents, children and teachers - all trying to get a glimpse of not just what class they are in, but who else will be there with them.
Out on the yard I move through waves of young kids with their parents, then older kids who don't need mom and dad to take them to their first day. Then there are still others who might rather that their parents had come, but still try to look calm in the face of the eventual beginning of a new year. The last group is the ones with the whole family there, and the fourth grader who can only roll his or her eyes as the parents introduce themselves and share all manner of specific and pointed advice about what to do with their little darling.
And I listen to it. And I smile. And I nod. And I stroke my chin thoughtfully. I'm a parent too, I tell them, but that doesn't really matter because they need to tell me about their child because they are trusting me for six hours a day, five days a week not to forget that Debbie does best when she can sit close to the board and Gregory doesn't get along with Brandon anymore so could I please make sure that they don't sit next to one another please.
When we get inside the room, Debbie is sitting in the back corner. Brandon and Gregory have already plopped down across from one another - thick as thieves. This is how it begins. The door closes and I begin to shape young minds - again.

Methinks We Protest Too Much

Here's one that may have slipped past your wire service: In Smyrna, Tennessee, the God-fearing members of a small church say God is punishing American soldiers for defending a country that harbors gays, and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq. Add this to the already terribly sad story of Cindy Sheehan, and I find it difficult to imagine how different these times are from the 1960's. No, wait - this is much more surreal.
The members of the Westboro Baptist Church are solidly exercising their First Amendment rights. There were the inevitable counter-demonstrations, and here's what one local man had to say: "If they were protesting the government, I might even join them," Danny Cotton, 56, said amid cries of "get out of our town" and "get out of our country. But for them to come during the worst time for this family — it's just wrong." Thanks for the perspective, Danny.
Here's the phrase that keeps rattling around my head: "Crazy with grief." Maybe that's what is happening all across the United States these days. We are all so incredibly sad for the situation that we find ourselves in as a country that we are acting like pinheads. Agree or disagree with the foreign policy of our country, you've got that right (we finished our constitution in record time - over a four year period in the late eighteenth century - read all about it!) The part I have a problem with is when those constitutionalprivilegess get pounded over other people's heads. Imagine that there is a difference between your right and your responsibility. We have passed the 1,800 mark for American casualties in our war in Iraq - approximately 1,700 since "Mission Accomplished." The most recently revised death toll for 9/11 stands at 750. I'm losing track of the logic here. Number of U.S. servicemen killed in combat in Vietnam 47,072. This really is crazy, isn't it? Maybe some of this is necessary for some national catharsis for our country. Are we destined to repeat history in twenty year cycles if only for the opportunity to ask ourselves if this is the way we want to be in the world?

B Flat Double Bass

I've been making my confessions of a geek to any number of people lately, and the one thing that really sells them on it is when I tell them about being in band. That pretty much seals the deal. "Oh. You were in band." Not only that, but I played tuba in band. That's not the cool instrument to play in band. That's the goofy, comic relief instrument to play in band. When I first told my junior high school band director that I was going to play tuba for him, he asked if I didn't want to play baritone instead. I had spent the summer before taking private tuba lessons, and I wasn't about to be stuck playing some wanna-be tuba - I was going to play the tuba, but thank you very much for asking.
My father used to ask me about my choice, especially when he had to haul me from place to place with my sousaphone (the marching version of a tuba, developed by John Philip Sousa). He wondered why I didn't pick the piccolo, an instrument that I could easily shove in my hip pocket and walk home from school, instead of the great fiberglass beast that filled up the back of our station wagon. It came as a great relief when I entered eighth grade I was allowed to keep the ancient, dented brass sousaphone at my house while I played the shiny white fiberglass version at school. I still needed help dragging my oversized case full of tuba to my weekly music lessons, but they were on Saturday mornings, so I could load up on Friday night and be ready to go the next morning. All I had to carry to and from school was my mouthpiece.
When I got into the high school marching band, I kept the brass sousaphone at home, kind of a parting gift from my junior high band director. I kept practicing, and by the time I was a senior, I was section leader. Well, I was the only one who played tuba full-time. During marching band we had four or five other guys who couldn't really play, but we needed to spell out "BOULDER," so we needed eight sousaphones. When marching season was over and concert band began, I sat with a group of guys who were usually doing the band director a favor by playing low brass because they had too many saxaphones or oboes or whatever. I remained steadfast in my tuba commitment. For about a month, we had a loan of a pair of rotary valve tubas - beautiful instruments that played and sounded like nothing else I had ever experienced. But alas we never chose to buy them, so I went back to the tired old piston valve concert tubas that the school had owned since the Truman administration.
After high school I was done playing music. The sousaphone stayed at my parents' basement for years after that. Much later I collected up my old trombone and the sousaphone and took them to a music shop where they looked them over and told me they would give me seventy-five dollars for the pair. It seemed like a good deal at the time, since they were only gathering tarnish and dust where they were. I heard later that the people that bought them had a side line of turning old instruments into lamps and furniture. I'm guessing that's how my tuba ended up. I kept the mouthpiece; sometimes I play "Taps" on it. It makes a very silly, sad sound, but I guess that makes sense, doesn't it?

Hands-On

When I worked for an employee-owned book warehouse, I was elected to serve on the board of directors after my second full year. When I told my father about this, he replied, "Well, I guess that says something for you, doesn't it? Or maybe it says something about them."
I rose to a position of relative authority rather quickly on that job. I've been lucky or at least fortunate to have made it to the top - or nearly the top - of each of the jobs I've had over the years. Assistant manager is a pretty safe place to to hang your career. I learned the art of clipboard management early on - making notes and making discerning noises as I watched others perform. Still, the proletariat in me has never allowed me to sit still for long. I'm not much of a desk guy.
I used to get in trouble with the other managers at the book warehouse. They wanted to know why I felt it necessary to continue to do so much labor when there was all that management left to do. I figured that the best leadership came from example, so I tried to be the best employee first, and then added the evaluation, scheduling, and system analysis on top of it. I thought that this would be especially appreciated in an employee owned company. It turns out that I was wrong. As much as my employees appreciated my efforts, the rest of the company belonged in front of a computer on a desk in an office. I was a little too "hands-on" for my own good.
Here's the sad note: Most of the places where I've managed or directed have gone out of business or ceased to be for one reason or another. I hear my father's words again - and then I go back to work.

Word on the Street

I'm not certain that I am remembering this correctly, but I recall my mother suggesting that graffiti is a sign of poor toilet training. Maybe this isn't her quote, but it certainly rings with motherly authority. Regardless of its origin, these words played in my head as I rode my bike past the neighborhood park and noticed that the sign at the gate now included the admonition: "This park is owned by the Dubbas."
Well, how do you like that? Apparently any barely literate person with a Sharpie can take ownership of public property by scrawling their barely legible intent wherever the mood strikes them. I confess that it bothered me first on the hoodlum level - Who are the "Dubbas" and should I be concerned about them doing anything more than defacing public property? This is a park that my son, wife, dog and I have gone to play on occasion, and for the first few months the playstructure remained pristine. Free from any young toughs looking to establish their domain by scribbling on any moderately smooth surface with a permanent marker. Then the flurry of "tagging" began. If there's one, there will be a dozen - highly reminiscent of the way my dog stops to mark her territory as we move through the neighborhood.
The lurking delinquent factor is just the beginning though. I know that graffiti can be art. Someone is going around our neighborhood and spraypainting large green cartoonish birds on underpasses and sidewalks. Across town there is a series of odd versions of the street-crossing silhouette: one holding a candle, another sinking in a pool of water. We see boxcars with billboard sized tags with color and shading that make the freight yard come alive. Are these acts of vandalism, or public art? I'm reasonably certain that the bird person would probably get in more trouble just because he or she chose to work in such a large format.
Maybe I'm just fussy about the penmanship, but I'm always happy when they spell their threats correctly.