Open House

One of the real marathon days of the school year is over and done--for parents and for students. I was at work yesterday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. for Open House. And it's not the Open House your parents went to when you were growing up either. Open House doesn't mean the doors to the building are open from 4 to 6:30 and teachers are in their classrooms grading papers and available to meet and greet parents as they explore the school facilities at their own leisure. Oh no. It's a full-scale, theatre of the absurd-esque, dramatic production, complete with scary clowns "charading" the hallways and miming for money, an hour long public address in the auditorium to a captive audience of antsy observers, and followed by two complete cycles of the bell schedule where parents are forced to race around the building following their children's A day and then B day class schedules. Teachers give the parents ten-minute informational presentations, the bell rings, and then the parents race the clock across the building to the next class, hoping not to be tardy. Four hours later, not a single parent has met a teacher or administrator for any sort of meaningful conversation or introductions, and everyone involved, from the wonderful PTSA volunteer to Danny's poor little sister who is too young to stay home alone, is slam exhausted.

I used to wear a big-fake smile and dance around the room telling the parents all my credentials and qualifications and what they should expect out of their children and my rules and requirements and all about my philosophies and methodologies and assignments and reading. I hated it. I mean really--hated--it. Because you're good and comfortable with kids doesn't mean you like talking to their parents in a setting like that. If I'd wanted to talk to large rooms full of adults, I'd have been a preacher or a politician--or a principal. That's not what I do.

So this year, I continued something I started last year. I put William Carlos Williams's poem "This is Just to Say" on the Smartboard, and I taught it to them.

They signed in, had a seat, and when the bell rang, I walked in, said, "Okay let's get started. This is what we do in class....volunteer to read the poem?.......Mr. Z, thank you. Go ahead..."

"This Is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold"

"Well read! Where might you find this piece of writing.........right! On the fridge........what is it?............ooooo, a confession, good analysis. Nice word..........this is a poetic form known as syncopated free verse--a HUGE little poem that just continues to bloom in the mind over time--in my case, it's been blooming for about 20 years now, unfolding more and more every year...........so you guys identify with this?.............you eat your wife's Ben and Jerry's?! I'd never do that lol...........is the plum an apple? Is the speaker Adam? Maybe. Is it virginity? gasp Innocence? better....maybe........Is it easier to get forgiveness than permission? Yes..........Will your child feed me a line like this at some point in the school year? lol. Yes...............Do ya'll see what's going on in here? Yes........rinnnnnnnnng.....Bye now! Thanks for coming! Call me if you need anything......don't forget your homework!!!!! lol." They shuffled out of the room just like their kids--smiling and joking. It was actually fun. Fast, furious, and fun.

My experience this time turned out to be positive--but only cause I just did what I do everyday instead of trying to kiss proverbial ass with a dog and pony show. The new and improved Open House definitely goes right along with every other aspect of the "more is better" American way. We're gonna force teachers to be transparent. We're gonna publish their test scores in the newspaper. We're gonna make them publish two grades a week on Edline. But the politicians, administrators and parents can run amuck. I heard there were teachers who got grilled about their AP scores. Parents openly challenged one master teacher's methods in this open-to-the-public, classroom setting. I observed it personally during my "prep" period (I sat in her room and saw it with my own two eyes). One teacher of juniors was asked by a parent--publicly, and in an accusatory tone I might add--if they would be exposing his child to rated "R" movies. The teacher had never done such a thing in her career--well maybe a not-rated-R scene from a rated R movie, just to make a point or introduce a lesson. The hallways are rated X. Heaven forbid a history teacher use a scene from Forrest Gump to make a teaching moment come alive a little.

I think, in the end, everyone involved would have been just as happy to mingle around the building, tour the beautiful campus, stand out by the reflection pool for a minute, and go introduce themselves to the teachers that Danny had written down on a scrap piece of paper, his favorites of course, for his parents to make sure and say hello to.

Sing a Song of Sixpence

Rome, Mama, and I have been reading nursery rhymes these last two days. We found a damaged (illustrated) book that's just FULL of great ones at the bookstore last weekend, and they sold it to us for three dollars. A poet-friend of mine had said recently that they are ominous and even frightening sometimes--especially when you're an adult and you understand the imputations. I had no idea what she was talking about until last night when the three of us sat down and started reading them together. Mama and I were shooting wide-eyed looks at each other over the cover of the book.

Like Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater, who had a wife but couldn't keep her. So he put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well. What the heck's going on here? Seriously. Did he, like, dice her up and stuff her in there or something? (My first thought.) I read that she was unfaithful so he improvised a chastity belt out of a pumpkin. Makes perfect sense. No, Mommy, that's siiiiiiilly.

Look at the old man that went to bed and snored through some rainy weather. He bumped his head and couldn't get up in the morning. He's dead right? (I didn't find any analysis or history of this one. Tell me, please.)

I guess I haven't thought about these stories since I was Rome's age. Do they teach us the tough lessons that no one else really wants to talk about? They're just another form of myth or something like that--cautionary tales--morality plays? I mean, what were Jack and Jill doin' on a hilltop looking for water? Shouldn't they have been in a low spot somewhere? And why did they fall? It's just a hill. They weren't climbing a cliff. Are Jack and Jill Adam and Eve? Or maybe they were gettin' it on and got caught. So if you're somewhere you shouldn't be, doin' something you shouldn't be doin', you're gonna fall too? Supposedly the earliest, Scandinavian versions were about Jack and his buddy Gill--both boys. That really throws me for a loop.

I just don't know. This is probably old news to most of you. Please, tell me what these stories are about. Anyone?

I'll sign off tonight with my favorite one in the book. I don't think I read or heard this one more than a couple of times when I was a kid. I just LOVE it.

Sing a song of sixpence,

A pocket full of rye;

Four and twenty blackbirds,

Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,

The birds began to sing;

Now wasn't that a dainty dish,

to set before the king.

The king was in the counting house,

Counting out his money;

The queen was in the parlour,

Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,

Hanging out the clothes;

When down came a blackbird,

And pecked off her nose.

They send for the king's doctor,

Who sewed it on again;

He sewed it on so neatly,

The seem was never seen.

Analyze that.

I'm gonna have to include a few of these nursery rhymes in one of my first lessons this year on literary analysis. I need to hear what my brilliant, new seniors can do with some of this stuff. I can't wait.

Oh the lessons of parenthood. They keep coming and coming and coming.

Big John and Matthew

Uncle Matt

I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome my nephew, Matthew, into this wonderful world. My li'l sis had a precious baby boy on August first. All of us who love her and her fantastic husband are bustin' buttons with pride. Especially me. I'm gonna be the best uncle--since ever (to use a line from my favorite new music group). I know I have some tough competition out there.

Take a minute to send some love out to your family today.

Boots

These things are the Devil.

This contraption was out in the middle of the mall. WTF? And where did it come from? Tell me they don't rent these things in malls. Well Mr. RL just made a beeline straight for it, and we were stuck for a good 15 minutes. One of his newest sentences is, "I'm stuck." I think I will call this picture, "Mama and Daddy are Stuck."

Oh, and if you're not already a parent, remind me to tell you about those little rides that you drop a quarter in so they light up and bounce up and down. Well it's not a quarter anymore, and if RL ever finds out they move, we won't be able to go out in public ever again.

Redbank: 1958

Papa knelt before Turkey Creek and lowered his arm and cupped his hand and drank from it while the boy swung the pendular axe by the throat and knocked the arch of his boot with the pole of the axe. Papa opened the pouch of chewing tobacco and pinched it, chewed it and spat then rose and returned to the fell. The boy clasped the saw, moved the choke to half, and drew the cord. The saw fired and surged, and he handed it to his father who set the choke back with his thumb, pinching the throttle, and knelt in the heap of saw chips and cut the wood. He lifted and carried and pitched the logs as Papa partitioned them. When the fell was all cut, the boy asked,

“Papa, may I split the logs?”

“Like I showed you,” Papa said.

His father stood over him while he centered the toe of the bit onto the near ledge of the oak log and spread his feet to shoulders' width. The swell knob rested off the heel of his left palm, and he watched his breath. Then, he wheeled and caught the throat of the handle in his right hand and delivered it in line, letting the weight of the bit crack the log and sink into the chopping block. It was a clean first swing that hurled the halves end over end in the crepitant leaf-litter.

“Nice swing young man.”

Fat Pine: 1983

Papa knelt before the hickory embers and wielded the spatula that he cached along with the grill grating in the hickory tree above the fire pit, and he flipped the beef patties. Strewn around in the sandy dirt lay a bow saw, the morning’s newspaper, some ground peppercorn, garlic salt, a hatchet, and a tin of minced onion flakes. The smoke from the embers wafted over to Dad and finally him and on through the clearing into the mother-naked hardwoods.

After lunch, he led his grandfather to the spring for a drink. The glistering frost on the leaf-litter winked and melted in the noonday effulgence while they walked down the drive, the boy watching his breath and balancing on the rib of grass splitting the sandy ruts. They descended the embankment and crossed another trail into the cedar glade where the inky cypress boards constructed a coruscating box of water in the ground. A tarnished ladle was hooked over the backboard, and they both knelt and dipped it in the water and drank from it.

“It’s good Papa.”

“It is good. Mmm. Best water in the world.”

“Where is Dad?”

“He is at the ravine looking for fatwood.”

“Why didn’t he come for water?”

“There is Pepsi Cola in the truck. And work to do.”

“May I help Papa?”

“We need your help.”

“Good. How big is a hundred acres Papa?”

“You know that.” Papa held out his arm and pointed it across the woodland above them. “From the upside-down pine to here, at the spring, and from the far side of the ravine to Turkey Creek.”

“Is that big?”

“Not especially.”

“How many is all of South Carolina Papa?”

“Too many to count.”

They found Dad down in the ravine kneeling before the pine stump digging out the roots with the fold-shovel, brow and forearms beading sweat. His father didn’t stop digging and picking as they drew near. Papa stepped in front of the remnant and wrapped his arms around it and wobbled it, but the stump was not yet free. Papa knelt and his father handed over the shovel.

“How was the spring?”

“It is the best water in the world Dad.”

“Good. Take that shovel from Papa and dig out around those roots.”

He picked and dug, making a small tunnel under the stump, and then he started at it from the other side. Papa lifted his arm and pulled the chewing tobacco out of the shirt-pocket and opened the pouch and pinched it and chewed it. The boy stopped and watched.

“Do you want some young man?”

“No. I won’t be able to dig.”

“No sir?”

“No thank you sir.”

“I’m going for the peach baskets,” his Dad said.

“Will you bring him a Pepsi Cola?”

“Yes sir, you want one?”

“Not now, I’m alright.”

Papa knelt before his grandson and watched him work at the stump. It was almost free. Papa told him to shake it, and he did, but it wouldn’t come. So he handed his grandfather the tool and stood up while Papa finished the business. When Dad returned from the truck, the fat pine lay on its side next to the hole, and he was striking it with the hatchet.

“I smell turpentine! You got it."

“Yes he did.”

The slivers of wood fell before the stump, and the men stacked them into the baskets filling each of them. Then they walked away from the oddment and out of the ravine carrying the baskets and set them in the truck bed.

“Can I feed the fire Dad?”

“Ask your Papa.”

“May I feed the fire Papa?”

“Yes you may. Saw up that hickory branch.”

The men watched him work down the length of the branch with the bow saw. He stopped once to rest and to watch his breath. When he finished he carried the sticks and stacked them next to the fire pit. He went to the truck bed and removed a few pieces of the fat pine from one of the peach baskets and returned to the embers and stirred them with a piece of the lightwood. It lit off straightaway, and he positioned it and the other slivers over the glowing coals, and then he crosshatched the sticks of hickory around the resinous blaze. The flame spread swiftly to the hickory. He plodded back to the truck bed and held out his arms.

“Load me up please.”

“You want a fire, do you not?”

“Yes sir. A big one.”

The boy lugged the split logs and stacked them next to the fire pit. He looked at his father, then propped the logs over the hickory.

“Like a teepee, right Papa?”

“That is right young man.”

“It is a good fire son.”

“It is getting warm Dad.”

“It is a fire son. On a deep bed of coals.”

They stood around the fire pit and watched the wood burn. Then Papa told him the story about the cemetery across the road. Once some boys in the Sunday school class were camping there in the clearing, and they went to the cemetery at dark to look around. An especially ornery boy was pining for something to supervene, and when he sat down and leaned back against the headstone, the grave marker shifted and groaned, and the boy shot hell-bent out of the cemetery hurdling the fencerow and didn’t look back and didn’t let up until he made camp.

Facation

We've spent the last two weeks with family. First, H, RL, and I hopped on a plane and headed to South Carolina to visit my dad. My sister and brother-in-law came into town half-way through the week and joined us. Now, H's brother, his wife, and their three kids are visiting us in Little Rock for several days. Nothing can make a house feel like home the way family does. It's always loud. It always smells like food. There is constant movement. Everybody is comfortable. Love abounds.

Lullaby of the Week goes to:

“If only, if only, the woodpecker sighs, / The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies. / The wolf waits below, hungry and lonely, / And cries to the moon, / if only, if only.”

104.3

I have some time to myself while R.L. sleeps.  He got sick yesterday at daycare, and they sent him home early.  His temp was 103.  When I picked him up, his whole body was burning up.  It's our first experience with a really high fever.  

Doc encouraged us to look at the fever as a good thing.  It means that his immune system is actively fighting a virus, and the fever tells the white blood cells to work harder and makes their work more efficient.  Before we left, he advised us to resist treating the fever with any medication.  Instead, he said to monitor him closely and watch for drastic changes in behavior or symptoms. 

Last night when his temp hit 104.3, I couldn't stop myself.  Gave him a dose of baby Tylenol, and it brought it down to 102.  He's been resting pretty peacefully, and hasn't complained too much.  I can tell he feels terrible, but he's been so sweet.  

So I disobeyed the doctor's orders.  Not sure what to think about that.  All I know is it never gets stale, and I love that boy more than I ever knew I was capable of Loving. 

Horse Whisperer

Advice to My Son

by Peter Meinke

The trick is, to live your days

as if each one may be your last

(for they go fast, and young men lose their lives

in strange and unimaginable ways)

but at the same time, plan long range

(for they go slow: if you survive

the shattered windshield and the bursting shell

you will arrive

at our approximation here below

of heaven or hell).

To be specific, between the peony and the rose

plant squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes;

beauty is nectar

and nectar, in a desert, saves--

but the stomach craves a stronger sustenance

than the honied vine.

Therefore, marry a pretty girl

after seeing her mother;

speak truth to one man,

work with another;

and always serve bread with your wine.

But, son,

always serve wine.

#36 Robin Roberts

When Big J was a boy, Papa and Perky gave him a weekly allowance of 25 cents.  He started his Brae Springs Train Fare Fund with that money, and over a period of several years, he saved up the $17 or $20 necessary to purchase a train ticket from Columbia, South Carolina to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to visit your great, great grandparents, Lee Leslie MacLellan (Dad Mac) and Irma Baker MacLellan (Mom Mac) at their home in Bethlehem, PA.  (I met Mom Mac several times when I was very young.  I called her Mom-mom.)  When Big J was 9, he purchased the ticket, Perky and Papa put him on a train in Columbia, and he made the trip up the East Coast all by himself.  At a changeover in Richmond Perky's sister, Aunt Sally, met him for a hug and a snack.  Then Dad Mac picked up Big J in Philadelphia when he arrived and drove him back to Bethlehem to their home, Brae Springs.

That week, Dad Mac and Mom-mom paraded their first grandson all over town.  Big J went to work with Dad Mac.  He and and his brother, Uncle Alden, owned Plymouth car dealerships in Bethlehem and Allentown.  They visited the Bethlehem Steel Company farm, the owners of which were Dad Mac's and Mom-mom's good friends, to see their champion Labrador Retrievers straight from Scotland--one of the original Lab bloodlines to come to the United States.  They frequented the storied Saucon Valley Country Club where Dad Mac and Mom-mom golfed and socialized with Pennsylvania's educated elite.  And Dad Mac took Big J to his first professional baseball game in Philadelphia to see the Phillies and the Chicago Cubs.

The game was at Connie Mack Stadium (formerly Shibe Park), by that time a decrepit old place.  Big J called it a "barn,"  even though when it was built in 1909 it had been America's first concrete and steel stadium.  He said he sat behind a post because "there weren't many seats in Connie Mack that weren't behind posts.  You were lucky if you didn't get a splinter in your ass, too! [from the weathered wooden benches]"  That ballpark witnessed 7 World Series and 2 All-Star Games and was the site of the first night game in the history of professional baseball.  Your Dad Mac and Big J watched the great Philly pitcher, Robin Roberts, defeat the Cubs 3-1.  The only run he allowed was a solo home run off the bat of Cub-great, Hall of Famer, Ernie Banks.  Your grandfather said he left the stadium "thrilled cause our team had won."

#36 Robin Roberts.  6-00, 190.  Throws right.  Switch hitter.  The Phillies' greatest right-handed pitcher ever.  In his 19 year, Hall of Fame career, he won 287 games and had an ERA of 3.41.  The game's toughest pitcher for most of the 50's, he had 6 consecutive 20 win seasons.  He worked with a great fastball and incredible control.  He challenged hitters, keeping the ball over the plate, so he gave up some runs.  Roberts claimed that he never slept after a loss.  He'd watch the sunrise, the pitches, hits, and runs playing out over and over in his mind.  Critics say he hung on a little too long.  The end of the career was rough.  Several seasons of lack-luster ball hurt his stats, but there aren't many folks around who don't believe he was one of the great right-handed pitchers of all-time.  Big J is convinced.

#8 Carl Yastrzemski

In the summer of 1982 I was nine.  I had just finished fourth grade at Bradley Elementary School in Columbia, and my best friends were classmates named Tucker and Rob.  

A typical day in 4th grade was pretty dang cool from what I can remember.  I was one of the older kids in the K-5 school.  A proud Bradley Bee. Big J was the President of the PTA.  I had one of my favorite teachers ever, Mrs. Vaughn.  I wore cowboy boots.  I had a crush on a cutie named Lela, and she even had the same last name as me.  Everywhere we went at school, we were together.  While I sat in class, stood in lines, was pictured in yearbooks or checked for lice, she was there.  But the best part was that Tucker, Rob, and I rode our BMX bikes to school rain or shine.  When the bell would ring at the end of the day, we'd race out to the bike racks and tear outta the parking lot like a three-car bullet train and run a course that we had carefully plotted at recess.  The route varied from day to day but always included several distinct obstacles.  One was a long stretch by a chain-link fence with a barking Husky with one brown eye and one blue eye.  One was a ramp in the sidewalk where a water main had busted and a city work crew had torn up the sidewalk into a perfect launching pad.  The last was a wash in the street that collected loose, fine Carolina sand.  After landing the jump clean, we'd stand on the pedals, bikes violently thrashing back and forth beneath us, and in the middle of the wash, slam on the brakes for a big, long skid mark in the sand and at the end sling the back tire around to a perfect perpendicular stop right in front of Lela's house.  We'd wave and then coast on down Dalloz Road to the house for a pick-up baseball game in Scott and Chuck's backyard or turns on the ski rope swing Dad had built us in the oak tree whose limbs reached out over the street from our sloping front yard.  Although we lived in the city, I had free rein on the whole area surrounding our neighborhood.  My home range on bicycle or skateboard was a 2 or 3 mile radius from my house in any direction by the time I was 9.  As long as I checked in every now and then.

That summer, Tucker invited Rob and me to visit his grandparents at Hyannis Port on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  Rob spent summers at his dad's so he couldn't go.  But for two weeks, Tucker and his family showed me one of the best times of my life to this day.  Their place was on the ocean and they had a boat and a floating dock about a quarter-mile out in front of their house.  We'd swim out to the dock in the mornings and do flips off the diving board and go for rides on the boat.  His aunt was a college student, and she liked to skinny dip in the sea.  Didn't even care if her own parents were watching.  Hell, I think all of em did it at one time or another come to think of it.  The highlight of the trip though was a trip into Boston for a Red Sox game.  We sat directly behind home plate about ten rows up in the shade, and the sun shone on the Green Monster of Fenway.  We could here the players talking, see into the dugouts on both sides, practically smell the pine tar.  Before the game, we went behind each of the team's dugouts with our gloves to solicit autographs.  Don Sutton was pitching for the Brewers that day and when Tucker asked him for his autograph as Sutton descended into the dugout after warm-ups, he said something like, "No time kid but have this."  And he flipped him the ball he had thrown his warm-up pitches with.  Tucker stood stunned and stared at the ball for the rest of the game.  I ran over behind the Sox dugout determined to get my own souvenir, and I did, but it wasn't a ball or an autograph.  Yaz spoke to me for a second.  He has been one of my favorite ball players ever since.  

#8 Carl Yastrzemski.  5-11, 182.  Bats left.  Throws right.  CF, LF, 1B, 3B.  Second-best Red Sox player of all-time behind Ted Williams.  452 career home runs.  In his Hall of Fame induction, he told his fans and peers, "I can stand before you today and tell you honestly that every day I put on that Red Sox uniform I gave a hundred percent of myself for my own.  I treated it with dignity and respect in deference to our fans.  A high regard for my teamates, coaches, and management.  Anything less would not have been worthy of me.  Anything more would not have been possible."  I didn't get to watch much of his career.  He retired the next season in 1983.  And I don't remember what he said to me exactly, but in my imagination, it goes like this: "Where you from kid?  That's a long way away.  Listen.  You don't always make an out.  Sometimes the pitcher gets you out."     

New Beginnings--New Hope--New Era

from the memoirs of Mary Rome Foster

January 20, 1993

written at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland

"New Beginnings--New Hope"  

               ...Inauguration Theme, Bill Clinton, 1993.

"Remarkable response."  The words are in my chart  

It's legal--we can really rejoice

The CT scans show no cancer activity in any other

       part of my body

And marked and significant reduction, both in number

     of tumors and in their size, in my lungs

We can really rejoice--I remain on taxol alone as an

     outpatient--will be treated today, return home

     tonight, back for my next cycle February 8 & 9

Inauguration Day!  It's most exciting being in 

     Washington on this historic day

The city is a-twitter and I can feel the excitement

     in the air

It's really quite electric in a subtle and sophisticated way

I do sense a caution in the cold, crisp January air

For today, in many places around the world

There is war and there is rumor of such

Madmen continue to roam and to hold the planet

     hostage at their will

Injustice everywhere abounds--hunger, fear, homelessness,

     anxiety, hopelessness--all forms of oppression

Yet, it's encouraging to watch a veritable parade of

     Americans from every segment of the society

Taking part in and being part of the new order

Presently, I sit next to an HIV-positive, full-blown

     AIDS patient

He played left defense, high school football, could

     bench press his weight

Now weighs 110 pounds (prob'ly soaking wet!)

He coughs and struggles and his only thoughts 

     are of the disease, with occasional lapse into 

     memories of football

He is oppressed and--he is one of the people

I pray he'll be allowed in the parade

Of course I've watched the Inauguration and

     the parade

And I've been moved by the number of times

     the word "hope" has appeared--in speech,

     in music, on posters

Hope--it's one of those elusive words

And it is the stuff of which life is made

Hope is available even in the midst of tragedy and trauma

     and it's usually evident in the lives of those

     who have it

It's late in the afternoon; it's been a perfectly gorgeous

     day in the nation's capital

The brilliant blue sky is beginning to soften as the

     pinks and purples of sunset move across the landscape

Lights are coming on and they add to the spectacular

     beauty as night descends

Strains of "God Bless America" and "America, the Beautiful" 

     pass through my sleepy mind

God bless doctors and nurses and research scientists

God bless Bobby and Sherry and Pam (my Columbia 

     oncology team)

God bless Charlie and Grace and Ron and Winnie

God bless Phillip, Roland and Gena, Carolyn, and Judy

God bless Jack, Gene and Jim, Kathy and Bernie

All these folk and countless host of others--

     they--we are America--we are in community 

     with the world

And so, tonight, even as the lights twinkle and the Capitol 

     and the Lincoln Memorial exude a deeply

     spiritual presence on this day of new beginnings

I celebrate new hope for myself, for my

     country, for my world

And I pray for for every individual who inhabits

     this planet

For we all touch whether we wish to or not

And we, each and all, in one way or another,

     determine the todays and tomorrows of

      one another

May we joyfully embrace the opportunity to be

     involved with living

New Beginnings--New Hope

Uh-hm-m-m.  Works for me

God Bless John and Matt and Mary Catherine and 

     Janis and Pat and... God bless...

Mom continues to teach me.  I always reflect on words that she spoke and sang, but just recently I have begun to clue in on her writing.  Whole volumes--personal essays, poems, theology projects--were dumped on me right after her death.  I wasn't able to read any of it at the time.  Just made me too sad, too angry.  She had written as a hobby her whole life.  Dad reminded me of this piece yesterday morning so I pulled it out and read it and several things leapt out.  

Obviously, it is poignant today, Inauguration Day, 2009, knowing where we have been and what all has unfolded since her hopeful poem.  Still, Mom would be delighted with America today like so many of us are.  She would insist that we get it right this time like so many of us do.  "No distractions.  No hubris.  Most importantly no vendetta.  Take nothing for granted.  But breathe in justice, and move forward," she would say.  She'll be singing "Amazing Grace" at the celebration for those of us who still hear her.  Listen for it.  

Less obvious to most readers is her experimentation with a form of poetry called oracular free verse, a verse form characterized by long, rambling lines channelled by the poet from some mystical or divine source; syntactical parallelism, repetition of sentence structure from line to line; cataloging, or listing; and hanging (or "reverse") indentation, used to delineate line length since paper-pages are only so wide.  Does she allude to Whitman at the end?  Walt Whitman, the American master of oracular free verse?  "I celebrate new hope for myself, for my country, for my world...For we all touch whether we wish to or not," she says, and Whitman: "I celebrate myself;/And what I assume you shall assume;/For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you."  

Could she?  I never knew.  I did not edit her piece at all except to correct her spelling of "innauguration."  She drafted it in her beautiful handwriting while she was hooked up to an IV pumping experimental God knows what into her veins.  She never revised it to my knowledge; it's just a draft.  As a Creative Writing teacher, I was impressed with her willingness to experiment with verse form and her knowledge and application of the appropriate poetic devices.  She was obviously researching and studying the art more than I realized.  A mountain girl from Madison County, NC who learned how to sing and made sure she got herself a good education.  No advanced degrees so she studied on her own.  Couldn't get the man to ordain her so she went straight to the Source.  She never quit growing, and she never quits growing.  

We're on the same plane of light this new day, Mama.  I love you.

--MJF

#3 Dale Murphy

Big J moved your grandmother and me from Chattanooga, TN back home to Columbia in 1977 to work with Papa in the Family business.  Your grandparents had lived all over the country while he was on active duty in the Navy, and after I was born they were ready to settle down for a while.  When Aunt M.C. was born in '78, Big J converted a big, screened-in porch on the back of the new house on Dalloz Rd. into a family room and rewarded himself and the family with a new, color TV and cable service.  The year was 1981, and I was eight.

That season, Dad and I started watching TBS games, and manager Bobby Cox moved a struggling catcher named Dale Murphy into center field.  Murphy had a great bat, but his confidence (and 6 foot 5 knees) had suffered as a catcher.  Dad said Murph led the league in "throwing out center field." In 1982, Joe Torre took over Cox's team, named Bob Gibson as his pitching coach, and they won the division.  That's the year Dad took me to my first game so I could see Murph hit a homer in person.  I remember it well.  Several friends and I were begging to go so he loaded us up in our Datsun stationwagon and took every kid in the neighborhood.  We lugged our entire baseball card collections and gloves along to get autographed.  At The Varsity restaurant in Atlanta, it became apparent that the game against the Mets was gonna be rained out.  So we headed on out and toured Fulton County Stadium in the rain and then drove home to Columbia in the middle of the night.   From 1982-1987, Dale Murphy hit between 36 and 44 HRs a season and was named to the NL All-Star team every year.  Dad watched all the games in his new family room on his new color TV with his new cable service, and I missed fewer and fewer the older I grew. I owe a great deal of my love for baseball to Dale Murphy, my first hero.  It seemed like every time I saw him at bat, he hit it over the fence.  I practiced his pigeon-toed batting stance and unique bat-waggle in backyard pickup games with neighbors Scott and Chuck, T.W., and R.S.  We played two on two, taking turns at all-time pitcher. 

#3 Dale Murphy. 6'5", 215.  Bats right.  Throws right.  Center Field.  Murph was a natural lefty, but his folks made him learn to hit and field right-handed.  Dale Murphy was best known in baseball for being Mr. Clean.  He didn't drink, smoke, or cuss--or use steroids as they gained prominence in the league.  With a .265 career batting average and 398 HRs, he's not a Hall of Famer--yet, but he'll always be one of the best in my book.  Seven-time All-Star. Twice voted the NL MVP. Best player in the 80's?  Great human being on and off the field.  If only-if only he coulda laid-off the curve ball down and away...   

--MJF

#44 Hank Aaron

This series is dedicated to R.L. for your first birthday.

Kshof took me to my first baseball card show yesterday.  Several tables set up with striking sports memorabilia.  Cards, coins, pictures, balls, autographs, jerseys and the like.   I was looking specifically for a Chipper Jones rookie card for R.L.'s first birthday, and Kshof found one for us, professionally graded and encased, preserved forever.  Larry "Chipper" Jones is my favorite baseball player of all-time.  

It got me to thinking.  My personal standards for greatness have a lot to do with the baseball players that I watched and/or heard about growing up.  Baseball was paramount in the "F"amily home.  Longtime Braves voices Skip Caray, Ernie Johnson, Pete van Wieren, and Don Sutton helped Dad raise me.  From the day that he subscribed to cable TV in Columbia, through my Camden High School and Mars Hill College summers, until the day that H and I left for Arkansas, we watched more TBS-televised Braves games than we missed.  We were dazzled by Phil Niekro knuckle balls and Dale Murphy home runs.  We saw Glavine and Smoltz and Maddux pitch most of their games in Braves uniforms.  He would fall asleep upside-down in the lazyboy and snore, and I would sneak upstairs usually about the eighth inning unless there was a chance for a complete game or a save.  He tried to take me to games in Fulton County Stadium every so often too.  We'd stop at The Varsity on the way into town and then go to the game wearing baseball gloves and binoculars and listening to Skip on headphones,and we'd eat boiled peanuts and hot dogs.  He got a smile out of Chipper once with his booming game-voice.  We were sitting in right field, and Chipper was warming up out there, playing catch with Deion Sanders and "Crime Dog" Fred McGriff.  Then, he'd drive us home safely while I slept, east into the early-morning Carolina summer air.  My buddies and I danced in the halls of the dormitory when Smoltz shut out the Pirates in Game 7 of the NLCS in '91 to go from worst to first in the National League.  He was the first person I called.  We couldn't even talk over all the ruckus.  That started a run of fourteen consecutive division championships for our Braves, the most stunning feat in the history of sports if you ask us.  We had watched the whole thing develop from the ground up, across two decades, and that's how we learned to communicate with one another, and it's how we became best friends.  We still attend games almost every year at Turner Field.  My standards for greatness stretch beyond Atlanta Braves.  Dad taught me about lots of players and teams.

Today I'm starting a series on greatness through baseball based on the Family way.  Things I learned from Dad and Skip and Ernie.  

#44 Hank Aaron.  We have to begin with him.  6', 180.  Bats right.  Throws right.  Right field. Best Brave of all-time.  Purest power hitter ever.  Under-appreciated as a fielder.  Humble.  Determined.  Serious and often silent ambassador.  He got to where he was with talent and hard work, not performance-enhancing equipment or drugs.  Hand-eye coordination and strong wrists.  755.  A complete man, R.L.

--MJF

  

Vitamin C and Neti Pots

I'm just gonna to tell you, this post falls under the category of too much information.  But it's too good to pass up.  

As I've expressed, there has been a plague on my home for about the past two months.  Every time we all get well, someone starts coughing again or wakes up with a scratchy throat, and the whole cycle resets itself and descends upon us like a mudslide.  Doctor flippantly calls it "Daycare Nose," but we know it as The Scourge.  (And we're counting on this to be over the precise day R.L. turns one, one month from now, February 14th, just like she promised.) 

We haven't been passive victims in this war either.  We've actively resisted the evil forces at work here.  For instance, I've become the vitamin king.  Every morning I'm religiously taking a whole foods supplement, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, an Aspirin, and Glucosamine Chondroitin just in case cartilage and colds are interconnected.   I know the very best over-the-counter cold and cough medicines on the market right now.  Extra Strength Mucinex DM for the cough with a tall glass of water.  Take it to the bank.  I've taken two different kinds of street-sweeping antibiotics.  I've had a steroid shot.  I'm using a Symbicort inhaler for bronchial dilation.  I've taken Tussin w/Codeine capsules, and as a result we had a midnight fire drill because I saw and smelled smoke filling the upstairs of my home and ran into the street in my underwear clutching a discombobulated boy and screaming fire. I've taken more sick days than the previous 3 or 4 years combined.  Whined and complained.  I've tried sucking it up, being the tough guy, using the power of positive thinking.  I've slept for hours thinking rest might be the key.  None of it has worked.  H has experienced similar frustrations.  

This past weekend, we hit the wall.  We started reading up on alternative therapies for the common cold.  "What would they do in India," we asked ourselves, "or ancient Greece?"  

Yogis pour warm saltwater through their sinus cavities to wash away impurities.  In one nostril, behind the eyes and ears, into the back of the throat, and out the other nostril in a steady stream.  It feels great, and it has the most immediate gratification of any cold treatment I've ever tried.  After a Neti Pot (the name-brand that's sold at Walmart) I feel great for an hour or so.  I highly recommend it, twice a day.

Hippocrates invented a version of a treatment that we in alternative medicine now call the Ascorbic Acid Flush (also known as a Vitamin C flush).  This one takes the cake.  Generally the way that it works is that you take a teaspoon of Ascorbic Acid diluted in some water or juice every fifteen minutes until it induces fully fledged diarrhea.  No soft stools here; it has to blow.  The "evacuation" as it is known by some (the "event" by others) is supposed to be an expulsion of all the toxins in the body.  The ascorbic acid molecules bond or something to toxins and take them away when they leave.  As we grew closer and closer to the event, the stuff started tasting nastier and nastier.  H wasn't sure whether she would puke first or just die.  It began with a little rumble in the gut, and then after a mad dash to the can, it was over.  For H anyway.  Me?  I must have been purging demons dating all the way back to my rock-n-roll days cause I'm still experiencing cleansing blasts, and it is Tuesday morning.  

The cool news is that H feels great.  She said yesterday that she feels five pounds lighter, and her cold symptoms are almost gone.  I am finally on the mend.  At first, I think I let myself get dehydrated during the flush, and I had to learn to pound water nonstop.  Ever since I've been loading up on l'eau, I'm feeling better and better.

The latest lesson in Parenthood 101:  Water is the nectar of the gods.  The Truth.  Drink it like your life depends on it cause it does.  

--MJF

Mr. Head

from "The Artificial Nigger"

by Flannery

"The thing to do with a boy," he said sagely, "is to show him all it is to show. Don't hold nothing back."

--MJF