The Colorado River

I have no idea why I don't feel comfortable posting here until an event is long gone, but there you have it.  If it helps you, PRETEND I just got back from this trip.

Just back from 10 days of adventures in the mountains of Colorado.    Foremost among our activities were rafting, disc golf and geocaching, with a generous amount of decadent consumption sprinkled in.

We spent five days and two nights along some 50 miles of the Colorado River, fantastic by every measure.  For my friends with experience in the North Country, you can equate rafting to canoeing, with the following subtle differences:

• Rafting is easier.  If you aren’t the oarsman, you can swivel 360 degrees to take in the scenery, the wildlife and the sky at your leisure.  There are no portages, so the limit to your packing is the confines of a raft, not your back.  You can thus carry fresh meat, luxurious gear and a king’s weight of your favorite beverage.
  
• There is substantially more drama, from the cut of the canyons, to the thrill of the rapids, to the personalities of the folk you meet.  Part of this is the unpredictability of the mountain river as opposed to the waltzlike rhythm of a canoe on a northern lake.
  
• And…there are no mosquitoes.
  

My heart is still with a canoe, but I’ve spent more hours at dusk and dawn within it’s tapered ends, so you can hardly let that be the judge.

Our companions were a Breckenridge family with two girls, 6 and 4.  These girls are mountain born and bred and I’d put money on them in any venture.  However, they weren’t as used to my blend of enthusiastic hyperbole as my own boys are.  That taught me something about perspective.

In addition to wildlife highlights of river otter and golden eagle, we saw at Colorado National Monument, while camped on a 400’ ridge overlooking a canyon, what I later learned was a hare, but at the time believed was a jackrabbit. 

You can probably hear my voice saying the following (with expletives removed):

“That was the biggest rabbit I’ve ever seen.”

“That thing was a monster.”

“I can’t get over that.  The that jackrabbit was a man-eater.”

My own boys, Star Wars bred from three and constantly with me from the time they could talk, knew these comments for what you know them for.

But Mairi, the eldest mountain girl, looked at me with wide eyes as the sun was setting.

“I’m scared”

“Of what, Sweetie?”

 

…

 

…

 

“Jackrabbits”

…

Lesson learned.

 

I missed by bed, my bike and each of you, but that’s all.

Graduation Speech

Speaking at graduation is a wonderful honor, but I won't lie, it's hard. Everyone wants something different from you and there is a cliche at every turn. Before I ever did it, a colleague who I have a great deal of respect for asked for advice about what to say. I told him, "figure out why they picked you....then give em ten minutes of that."

Here was my attempt, given to 1200 excited and anxious people outdoors at the Minnesota Zoo Amphitheater.

When I try too hard at my writing, I fall into a workmanlike, explicit 5 paragraph essay style. I've been told that when it happens, I sound 'academic' (which would make my friends who are really academic smile) I'm afraid I've slipped into that here.. I rationalize even today that you really almost have to do that with the spoken word, that you have to stick to a visible structure and repeat yourself.

The Myth of Dichotomy

Ladies and Gentlemen, here we are again. It is a great honor to be able to speak to you tonight. Most teachers only get a group of students for a year. Not only have I spent two years with this group, you’ve been good enough to give me ten more minutes.

I hope you already know that as a teacher I don’t believe that best learning happens by you sitting and listening and me talking. The best learning happens by getting real experience. But since you’re about to go about getting nothing but real experience and since we’re all dressed up, I hope you won’t mind if I remind of some things before you go.

There is a tendency, by westerners at least, to break the world into dichotomies. A dichotomy is the categorization of the world into two separate and mutually exclusive groups. An example you all know is called a dichotomous key. Trees, for example are separated into deciduous and coniferous; they are either one or the other. A dichotomous key goes on to separate the leafy trees into simple and complex, toothed and smooth and so fourth. The advantage of a dichotomy is that it helps us simply divide and describe the world. We have a tendency, however; to attempt to make all problems into dichotomies, to make every situations appear as if you must go either entirely one way, or entirely in another. The problem is that the world is often not encompassed into only two possibilities and our belief that it is closes the door to solutions that lie in between. I believe that many of the dichotomies that our world gives us are mythical, that they do not really exist.

Let me give you an example that you have already heard. At the end of your junior year you heard that there are two ways to view the world, classically or romantically. In the classical view of the world there is a desire for explanations for all things in minute detail. That there is unfailing order and organization in the way things fit together that can be discovered and explained rationally. In the romantic view, order need not be found, because the nature of things was contained in the holistic experience of them. One view looked with hard eyes at the trees, the other, with soft eyes, at the forest. I don’t believe that dichotomy exists and there are many people in this class that prove it. The most hard core of you in terms of attention to detail and the ability to reduce things to their component parts have written beautiful essays about the intrinsic, unexplainable value of forests. And the most abstract of you have explained in detail how the components of a forest work together in a system. Clearly there is room in each of us for both the romantic and the classical. The dichotomy does not exist.

You may also have heard that you must choose between working hard and taking your job seriously and having a fun, carefree life. I don’t believe this dichotomy exists and you have proven to me every day that it doesn’t. I have seen many of you here between 6am and 6pm, working on unworkable computers to finish a project that was important to you. But invariably, you were here cheerfully and of your own free will. I’ve had some great laughs, shared some great stories and eaten some great baked goods in these out of school hours. Visitors to our school often wonder what makes our students tolerate our challenging curriculum. I tell them that you work hard because you love it here. Clearly, there is a middle ground between hard work and having fun.

Some people say that you have to make the choice between being an active, committed member of a community and being a healthy, unique individual. I don’t believe this dichotomy exists and you have proven to me every day that it doesn’t. Of course, each of you is here tonight with different skills, values and paths for the future. You have, in the past two years, carved a path for yourself that fits your individual talents and needs. At the same time you have consistently showed that you can be your own individual and still help others, still help the community as a whole find its way to be successful as well. If your talent was organization, you have given it, if it was art, you gave it, if it was making the computer work, you gave it. Each time you gave to the community, you earned something for yourself as well. It is possible to serve your self and a group at the same time and you’ve been proving it every day.

You’ll find that wherever you look people will try to limit your choices by telling you must either have one thing or the other. There are dozens of examples:
• You must either be dedicated to a career or dedicated to a family
• You must be a leader or be a follower
• You must either be a law-abiding citizen or a radical dissident
• That you must either use reason to solve the world’s problems or be a person of faith.

Hooey, hooey, hooey, hooey.

I see none of you are writing this down, so let me be clear about what I am not trying to say. I am not trying to say that dichotomies do not exist. After all, there will always be coniferous trees and deciduous trees. I’m not trying to say that you will not and should not lean toward one extreme or another. I am not trying to say that it will be easy to find the middle ground between ideas that appear to be opposite.

What I am trying to say is that to view the world as having two opposed ends closes you off from wonderful possibilities. It closes your eyes to solutions that encompass the best of both worlds. It makes the world seem like it is less complex and rich that it really is. I am saying that you are up to the task of finding the middle ground.

There is one last dichotomy that you have heard a thousand times, perhaps even from me. I’m sure you’ve heard that we must choose between having a healthy environment or having a strong economy. I’ll be honest with you, it’s a sticky wicket because it seems that the two ends are at such odds and I just don’t know if we can have both.

• But as I look out at you tonight I see so many of you that I know very well. I see so many of you whose characters I respect
• whose abilities I admire
• whose friendships I value.
I believe that if there is a middle ground to be found between the environment and our economy, it is you who will help to find it. This is not false hope or pride. I have seen what you can do.

I wish you all the best in your future. I believe in what you can do. Please keep in touch. Thank you and congratulations.

Back

Had a great fatherhood night during the storm last week. Sam traditionally wakes up for storms and comes in to our bedroom (also letting the damn cat in). So, when the storm was coming at bedtime, I volunteered to lay with him for 15 minutes until he got to sleep. He suggested that we lay in my bed so we could watch the lightening. I used to do that as a kid, too, cause I love a storm. He asked questions about electrons and how you burn from lightening and wind and molecules until he was satisfied and drifted off. I love that.

And I had a great teaching night at the open house. Old students looked me in the eye and shook my hand, new, excited students nodded appreciatively at my attempts to comfort them, and proud parents of both smiled at the men and women their children were becoming. Nice work if you can get it. We have three really great new teachers this year and I'm ready to be back in the saddle.

Did you hear Obama speak? I wonder what you thought of him. I like his cry to stop besmirching a person's loyalty, character, or patriotism if they disagree on a matter of philosophy or policy. I'm disgusted by rhetoric that accuses someone of high crimes just for disagreeing...doesn't seem right in a democracy.

I made a rare purchase for myself of a shirt. It’s one I saw at Valley Fair on my first trip there. It says, in small letters, "I'm very excited to be here". Come on, what occasion can you not wear that shirt for? I also commissioned a charature of Andrew, Sam and their almost cousin Jack. It turned out well, they appear as members of a future rock band. While they got painted, I slipped away with Chuck and did the ride the kids refused to do; Tower Power drop. Its the only ride that has absolutely THRILLED me every single time I've tried it. Heart pounding, sweaty handed, involuntary exclamation thrill. Fun.

A little peek at my recent canoe camping trip. The following was written back and forth in e-mails from my friends. These are guys who know my soul and aren't afraid to give me crap. They have a slightly different vision of me than I have of myself, but I find most people do. By the way, I don't fashion myself a fisherman and didn't bring a rod on the trip. I've always been drawn to fly-fishing though and I was trying it for my first time.

"I laugh when I think about Scotto fly casting. It was liking he was
whipping someone to death. Very impressive line speed. A lot of fly
fisherman would kill to be able to cast that fast."

"I was scared."

"His faced was fitted with a scowl, muscles were bulging, and line was
snapping like a whip. Scary."

"I may have hear him whisper "take that, motherf****r"."

The picture that triggered the story was remarkably benign. Its at the top of this post.

And the last regular feature I propose is a list. I’ll take suggestions, if you like, but my pick this week is 10 things I like now that I already liked when I graduated from high school.
Charles Dickens
My mother’s pork roast
My father’s sailboat
Prince
Coca Cola Classic
Oak trees
The planet Venus
Times New Roman
Baseball caps
The Renaissance Festival

My best to you this week.

Moving Day

The date on this, from a book that is optimistically labeled "Journal" is 7/5/02. Talk about pulling something out of a drawer.

I have a policy to always offer help to a friend when he's moving. If you do it often enough its easy work, you can help and tell stories simultaneously, and its appreciated because its a job you just can't effectively do alone. Also, it always comes back around. Its the closest thing to a barn raising we have in modern suburban America.

Everything about the move today was classic Steve. He didn't call me himself, he rarely has ever called me. Instead he had Tom make the calls, figuring he had more clout. Steve is a classic collector of junk. He collects with a zeal no married man could ever match. He's like many teachers in that he revels in taking anything that's free and rarely throwing anything away. Unlike most teachers, however, he is shameless and persistant in asking for donations on behalf of his many entrepreneurships. As a result, his ohouse and garage were filled with flotsam of his failed endeavors. A two foot high plile of heat reflecting tile for passive solar, 20 pair of women's mucluks in various sizes, a large pile of freee pamphlets inclding no less than 40 on duck identificatio nand 50 on recycling in Dakota County.

His decor and housekeeping would not be called classy by anyone, ut at the same time, it would be hard to disagree that it's interesting. Since he's traveled widely, his walls are covered with pictures of places most people only dream of visiting. A series of a sea turtle being released from a net. A picture of Steve next to a Javan rhino in indonasia. A picture of hazardous waste containers being pulled out of a pubic wetland. A large, authentic african mask. The entire series of Topps National League cards from 1972, uncut and framed.

Peppering these interesting and sometimes museum quality relics are some momuments to taciness. These, when found, always elicited commentary form his sympathetic, but wise ass friends.

A large wicker basket filled with deer antlers: "I saw this on Marth Stewart, its the hot thing this year."

A huge and unweildy, half filled, black canvas bag: "One of his ex-wives, taxidermy was getting expensive"

A large synthetic zebra stripe throw rug: "This can't possibly be REAL?"

There were bottles of screws, piles of lumber, panes of glass and a stack of cinder blocks. "Hey, Steve, instead of buying a new house, why don't we build a new one from all this extra stuff?"

You have to endure this sort of thing when you ask for help, but Steve doesn't deserve it.

Part of the Lore

The adults involved in this story wrote it serially. I just pasted the quotes together, made the prounouns match and put them in a logical sequence.

Quite beautiful, really.

It will forever be part of the Lore, "Dad, remember when you chained that guy up in Winnipeg?"...And the other boy will say, "Yeah, remember? You lifted him up by his crotchstrap."

The beer tent, you see, wouldn't let beer out and it wouldn't let children in. It was Scotto's shift to watch the four boys.

We happened to be in Winnipeg on the same night, each on our way to different trips. And the last star to come into alignment was a fringe festival going on downtown that very night.

The freak bound himself in a straight jacket. Four innocent children who he knew, and countless others who he did not, stared intently, fascinated as the freak asked him to tighten the straps of the straight jacket. Veiled S and M references dripping with experience, desire and a hint of solicitation floated gently over the heads of enamored children and drunken homeless natives as Scotto cinched each strap. Brent took a long sip of his Canadian lager as Chuck said "Hey, the freak has Scotto up on stage!"

The freak had an expression of pleasure as Scotto snugged the straps. Scotto, with his arms crossed, loomed over the tiny gay freak, dwarfing the impish performer. Brent uttered, "Scotto is a big fucker". The lights shone hard on the larger man binding the smaller man. By the time he'd cinched the third strap, the freak was sweating through the jacket.

Scotto stepped back a safe distance and looked at the gay imp with both disgust and dislike. The imp began to twist and contort as if he was performing a mating-dance at a gay bar at closing time. Scotto squinted thirstily past the flood lights toward the beer tent. There stood his grinning friends, bottles raised in toast, looking for all the world like the best beer ad marketers ever conceived.

Part Two

Thanks for the great feedback. Much of it was quite passionate and some of it was very specific!!

I learned so much about people from their responses. For example, I met Chuck 15 years ago and probably know some things about him that even his mother doesn’t (sorry Barb). But when I sent him the first draft with the line “Tattooed, sinewy, and pierced, with rock star hair and a biker beard”, I was surprised when he replied, “For the record, I’m not pierced.”

I would have sworn that he was.

A slim majority of you encouraged Chuck to come out of the closet about his heterosexuality. It’s true and it’s easy and has a chance of moving a kid who is clearly stuck. The student’s attitude isn’t going to change, so why not pick a battle that’s winnable? Why not get the kid’s trust first and work on his bias second? In fact, an almost universal phrase in that set of replies was, “why not?”

You can probably tell by my initial description, Chuck is a “why not” kind of guy.

So I was a little mystified as he was telling me the story why he was resisting coming clean.

Viscerally, it’s because it’s none of the kid’s damn business. I know, we’re public figures, celebrities in our own classrooms, so we lose a bit of the luxury of privacy, but wait a second… did you hear how that sounds? I’m willing to be greeted at the mall and spied on in church, but if I should tell a student my sexual preference…what shouldn’t I reveal? Some things aren’t part of the price of admission.

If you’re looking for something noble, it’s that if he tells, it makes it harder for the teacher somewhere in his school who IS gay. What’s THAT guy supposed to do when a student says he can’t learn from a homosexual? He’s got it tough enough without Chuck giving in. You can also bet there’s a different kid in the same class who’ll slump a little lower in his seat when he hears a denial.

The pettiest reason is to not give the parent or the child the satisfaction.

Every teacher dreams of the perfect response, the one that’s funny and biting and doesn’t let the parent or the kid off the hook:

“What makes you think I’m gay?”
“He’s pretty perceptive, but not really my type.”
“I think he’s gay, too.”
“Will you take my word for it, or will you need proof?”

But, alas, neither Chuck nor I are close enough to retirement for that.

In the end, Chuck did exactly what I would have done. He’s not happy with it, but there are a lot of days in public education where you just have to throw up your hands. He let the mom squirm for 10 minutes, then looked her in the eye and said, “It shouldn’t matter one bit, but for the record, I’m not gay.”

The next day, he did the same for her son.

Public Education

The first set of people I sent this commented about how heroic my friend is. My definition of heroic is ordinary people doing extraordinary things in difficult circumstances.

And you have no idea how heroic my friend Chuck is:

I have a true story of public education that has moments of humor and sadness and also ends in a cliffhanger.

My friend Chuck is an EBD teacher at a large high school that lies on the edge between rural and suburban. In a country and in a profession marked by gentle, politically correct euphemisms, EBD is the rare acronym that retains a bit of bite: Emotional and Behavioral Disorder. These aren’t clowns, knuckleheads or pains in the ass. They’ve been medically diagnosed with something serious.

Among these, I believe that Chuck gets the toughest cases. In part, it’s because of he looks like a person that a rough kid would either be attracted to or intimidated by. Tattooed, sinewy, with rock star hair and a biker beard. He plays hockey and sings in a band. He reads Spin Magazine religiously.

He also gets the tough cases because he’s terrible at playing office politics and, I suspect, because he’s volunteered for some of the kids no one else wants to take.

But mostly, it’s because he’s good at it. He’s patient and he’s principled and he’s tough and he knows that it’s important for everyone to laugh every day. I think his love of hockey taught him that there are times for offense, times for defense, and times to play for the tie.

When I say tough cases, I mean this is the end of the line. For many of them, the next step is jail. In fact, for some of them, the previous step was also jail. The powers that be are playing long odds, but they only get longer elsewhere.

There’s a kid in his class who’s a great example. He suffers from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, one of the more horrific disabilities you can imagine. Because the brain is damaged by alcohol in the womb, it is unable to establish effect from cause, unable to control impulses, unable to make new social learning stick. They can be unpredictable and they can be mean and it isn’t because they’re recalcitrant, it’s because they’re physically unable to be any other way.

In addition to his other issues, the kid is refusing to work with Chuck. He won’t talk to him or even look at him, which isn’t a great strategy for success. So, Chuck sets up a meeting with the mother to see if he’s missing information that isn’t in the file. It’s a routinely painful meeting that both Chuck and the mother have played out before, but it takes her 10 minutes to work up the courage to blurt out the issue.

“He has a problem with the fact that you’re gay.”

…

She spent another 10 minutes explaining that she herself didn’t have any problem with his homosexuality, which I would have paid money to see.

I’ll let you in on the dramatic irony.

He isn’t gay.

Something of a stud, if you want my opinion.

I know the end of the story and, in a future installment, I’ll share it with you.

Meanwhile, I’d love to hear what you think. Should he tell the parent that he isn’t gay? Should he tell the kid?