Games

Its funny what men as boys think of as 'fun.' I remember as a kid, on those rare rainy days, usually in the summer, when the gutter pan filled with water out front in the street. It filled so deep you could float a 2x4 your own twelve-year-old hands built, adding small blocks of wood to the center of that three foot board and nailing them down with big 8 penny nails and floating it as an aircraft carrier down the gutter, all the while finding rocks to lob at it as pretend mortar rounds. If you could hit it hard enough and it tipped over, the twelve year old thought, you count it as a sinking. I never tipped one over, causing me to resort to getting handfuls of loose street gravel and strafing the ship or standing over it and dropping them while holding the rocks close to my face and looking straight down, like a bomb site. 

In high school, out by the handball courts, we played dodge ball with baseballs. We didn't play that a lot. 

'Smear the Queer' was the politically incorrect term for, geez-don't even know what to call what we were playing in fifth grade. Whoever had the ball got, well, speared, by the other twenty kids. Dale Denmen was the best, along with John Battersby. There was another kid who was the toughest at the game. I don't remember his name but he had one of those eyebrows that kind of stuck out, like a caveman and his eyes were kind of far apart. he had the unique ability to see around corners before he got to the corner. I think that was the 'queer' part meaning 'strange'. 'Smear the Strange Kid', yeah. I broke his nose while we played. I ducked my head and hit his nose. He bled like I hit an artery. It was pretty cool.

Speaking of, there was another kid my freshmen year who wanted to grow up and be a Yo-Yo demonstrator. He said they got paid to travel the world and demo Yo-Yo's. He would yo-yo to and from class and at lunch, demonstrated what he could do. 

How about NASCAR?  Had another friend in grade school who worked for his father at his garage and could tell you what any car was by the look of their brake lights on the back of the car. He could tell you the year and the make. On weekends, that's what he did-raced cars as a thirteen year old. You can't tell me any of us watch NASCAR or the Indy 500 and don't secretly wish for a real bad wreck? You know, one that has no injuries, everyone is fine, but the cars disintegrates and flips up into the audience, all of whom, of course, escape the falling, flaming vehicle because they had all gone to the snack bar at the same time.

This weekend is the Highland Games in Phoenix. My ancestors from Scotland, did this. I know they did. How do I know? Because they come from a country where the sponsor of the event is a scotch distillery. When they fought, they used clubs and sharpened iron. They lashed rocks to sticks and went to war. Their women fought with them because, well, frankly, have you seen any of those women? They can birth a child, cook dinner, and cut your face off and make a hat out of it before the day was through. Throwing pounds of iron for sport just seems right for us.

I think we coddle our kids. I do. We need to make sure we don't buy anything they can swallow, cut themselves on, cause any form of body fluid leakage. Look, slinging ten pounds of iron and seeing how far it goes is just what boys and some girls like to do. There is something in our brains that requires us to do just that. When we had the space program, it kind of filled that need-'lets see how if we can throw $1-billion worth of low bids to a far planet, moon, or star and see how close we can get. Throwing a rock is good for us.  It teaches fluid dynamics, some calculus, trajectory analysis, all the while you get to sling iron--not steal---not compressed zinc, but iron, a big piece of rusting metal from Mother Earth.

I'm not saying we go out and buy our kids guns. Heck, that's as bad as toys that talk. Anyone can get a gun and with a little practice, shoot an animal, like a lion on the Serengeti, and make a rug out it. Now, if one was to do that with, lets say, a dull butter knife, now you got some good TV. That would be like the number one show ever. Of course, each week, you would have to get a new contestant.

I'll stick with a 2x4 and some 8 pennies.

Spring Break Therapy!

The idea that teachers and the support staff in a school district have weeks off at a time is the point of many bad jokes. They are the focus of conversations around the barbeque when talk winds around to why Uncle Ned just had his hours increased during third shift and neither he nor his family have  had a family vacation since your cousin's sister got out of rehap. They know who you are and you work for a school and they ask, spitting it out as if talking about you voting independent, 'so, where are you and your family going this spring?' 

Little do they know you signed up for intensive therapy with a specialist in talking people down from ledges.

If people knew, actually knew, what went on in the educational community, they would look at it globally like the old RCA commercial where the dog is sitting in front of the Victrola with its head cocked to one side. "Errr?" And here's the funny part, almost none of it is decided at the school level, some at district, almost all of it at the state or Federal level.

I really like working at an inner city school. The school I work at use to be where the mover and the shaker kids would go. We still get some who send their kids there. It's a good school with great staff and good programs. We also get a lot of kids with numerous problems. Some, wearing ankle braclets, a tracking device put on by their probation officer to track their every move. They are usually the one's wearing their dead grandfather's jeans down passed their bottoms, like the original Marky-Mark (Mark Walberg started it when he was schlepping underwear).

I asked Lamont (of course its not his/her real name---or is it?) "So, Lamont, why the braclet? Whatchya do the Man had to brand you? Pull up your drawers." Actually, there isn't anything much funnier then a fifty-four year old man talking homie.

"Stealin.'"

"Whatchya steal? Burglary? Your pants, pull up your pants."

Lamont nodded the admission to the burglary then caught himself. "Oh, no, not for this. This is for stealing at Wal-Mart."

This, of course, led to the follow up question of what burglary did Lamont do that no one knows about.

Lamont couldn't actually remember. I guess they all kind of bleed together. I'm sure he got caught because he couldn't carry the TV and hold up his pants at the same time. Well, he could, but he just couldn't run very fast.

Then there are the Tonys. They're homeless. They sit quietly, almost in a catatonic state, wearing the same jacket covering up one of two shirts alternated every other day. These guys try to focus in class. They just have a few other things on their mind. They will eat two meals today, breakfast and lunch. They get them at school. After three, yeah, not sure what happens. The Tonys don't talk about that part.

The Angelinas are excited about their birthing class they started to attend with their aunts. They take a lot of bathroom breaks. They don't tell me why, but being a father of three I know its becuase their bladder is getting pressed on by the growing life inside.

"Lamont, your pants. I don't want to see your ass. Pull up your pants."

There are the endless lists of 'Jacks' and 'Jill's' and 'Logimitsu's' who are refugees or exchange students, none of them wanting to go back to China, or Tailand, or the Congo. We call them Jack and Jill because we can't pronounce their real names-there are no vowels in it. 'Xyhgmyywp,' what would you say that is? Hmm? So, its Jill.

Jill needs $6000 to stay for another year or in May she's going back to her village in Tailand. I've seen pictures of her village. You don't want Jill going back to her village.

"Lamont, for all that's holy, pull up your pants!"

Same with Alex. He is the cream of the crop from his town. He wants to stay here becuase, like we already knew, China of TV is not the real China. Logimitsu is fine, these people are refugees fleeing a civil war. He wants to go back after he becomes a doctor. He speaks five languages and runs cross country. His village was burned to the ground.

So, what am I doing on my Spring Break? Trying to recharge before I go back. There is more to teaching than teaching a subject, but it takes a graphic toll on a person. Walls are built up around emotion and guards are posted. I would be fired if I taught at an affluent school. I really would. Sure, those kids have problems, parents that don't care, aren't there, etc. But I am here, at this place. During my break, for whatever reason, I will find myself back at my desk in my classroom, doing something. Habits are hard to break.

"Lamont, I swear to God, if you don't pull up those pants I will set you on fire!!!"