Over the Edge

     When I was twelve years old I was a boy scout. This didn't last very long, but for a while it was a source of adventures for me that I would not otherwise have had as a boy. Like camping out in sub-zero temperatures in a homemade shelter and waking up to find my leather gloves frozen into hand-shaped rocks, useless to my freezing fingers, while my friends and I yelled at each other about how we were going to survive until our mothers could come and pick us up. Or getting stuck in a bog of something like quicksand while portaging a canoe during a wilderness trip, watching my khaki green-clad comrades pass me by on the dryer part of the trail, considering themselves lucky I'd found the wrong path first.
     One of these adventures I still remember was my first and only experience rappelling. I'd seen this feat of daring do on television and thought it looked easy enough. In true Boy Scouts fashion, we were told it could be a useful skill in case we ever needed to rescue one of our clumsy compatriots who'd fallen over a rocky ledge. (The Boy Scouts are very much into being prepared for the most unlikely of scenarios.) To us, honestly, it just sounded fun. So on the designated day, we met our leaders at the top of a 60-foot bluff to learn the language of climbing harnesses, D-bars, carabiners, diaper slings, and double-figure-8 fisherman's knots. Then we wrapped nylon ropes around our asses and prepared to go skipping down the side of a cliff.
     Turns out, it's harder than it looks. And scarier. The thing about rappeling is that it looks one way when you're down at the bottom and have a full view of the exercise. It looks totally different from the top. You can't see anything. You can't see the side of the cliff you hope to meet feet-first. You can't even see the ground you plan to reach, preferably in very gradual fashion. You simply have to walk up to the edge of the cliff, strap yourself in, turn around backward, then sit yourself way out into space with nothing but blue sky and clouds behind you, and then push off. Once you're away, the face of the cliff will appear before you. And if you aren't truly sitting in the air when you leave the ledge, trusting yourself to what you cannot see at the beginning, it's not going to be a smooth ride.
     I may be unusual in this regard, but I was born with a full allotment of self-preservation instinct, and as I stood with my back to the edge of that sixty-foot rocky drop, I felt keenly that I was about to do one of the stupidest things I'd ever done. "Just sit out over the edge," they said. "You'll see the face once you've pushed away from the edge," they encouraged. But I couldn't make myself do something so obviously ill-advised. So I didn't. I just jumped. I pushed my instincts aside for just long enough to leap over the edge of a cliff standing straight up in the air.
     And it was only in that instant that I understood why I should have been sitting. For once my backward momentum reached its limit, I saw the face of that cliff swinging toward me fast and I had nothing but my face and torso to stop me. I suppose there's something to be said for learning the hard way. "Whack!" I hit the rock wall with enough force that I nearly lost hold of my ropes. And it hurt. I hung there in the air, stunned at my stupidity, and then, I lowered myself into the proper sitting position and rappeled down the side of the bluff. I got to the bottom safe and sound, mostly, with little more than a few cuts and scrapes and a bruised ego to mark my mistake. But in the end, I had done it. Against my better judgment, I had gone over the edge and made it to the ground below.
     It would be nice to say that that was the beginning of a life-long love for rappelling. But that would not be true. The fact is, I never did it again. I did go back to the top of the bluff and prepared for another try. But I didn't do it. Facing the blank and empty air again, I decided that once was enough for me. I've never changed my mind about that.

Picture Day

I suppose it's one of the unfortunate attributes of human psychology that we tend to remember best the experiences of our lives that have felt the worst. Shouldn't it be, wouldn't it be nice if it were the best memories that were brightest in our minds? But these seem to become vague and indistinct over time, though we may still recall that something happened to us once that was very nice. The bad experiences, they live on, like ghosts haunting the halls of our waking lives. Who knows how often they form the stuff of our nightmares? And no matter how many years we have behind us, it is especially the negative experiences of our childhoods that continue to live large in our memories.
     When I was a third grader, I attended a small elementary school in Louisville, Kentucky. It was a neighborhood school really, and I could walk to it every morning from my home. My family had just moved to the city that summer before, so this was my first year with these students. It was not going well. From the very first day, I was made aware that the other students in my class saw me as different. It was not just that I was new. My family had moved to Louisville from a small town in western Kentucky, and the place of my origin was very apparent in my accent. So, naturally, the other students enjoyed teasing me about that, the flat and distorted sounds of my vowels, so that the 'i' in "finger" sounded more like the 'ai' in "ain't", fainger. I had five faingers and one thumb on each hand. And that's just one example. I quickly began the long work of learning to speak in round vowel sounds. (Today, most people would never guess the rural Kentucky beginnings of my life.) And yes, I would have considered "ain't" a word back then, along with the rest of my family. But this regular teasing about my accent (a brogue, my mother called it, mimicking a more "sophisticated" southern drawl), was minor compared to the trauma of my first picture day.
     My mother had a houseful of male children, and for some reason she always wanted her boys to be "mod." That was the term we used back then. "Mod," for modern. It meant you were up to date in terms of style and thinking. This was the early seventies after all. So my mother let her boys wear long hair while some dads were still insisting on a barber's cut. In third grade, my hair nearly came down to my shoulders. The clothing was just as important as the hair, however, and that's where we come back to picture day.
    In honor of our first school pictures in our new place of residence, my mother not only wanted her boys to have something new, she wanted it made from scratch. We were country boys in a new "city" environment, remember; on the broad spectrum of what was cool and what was not, we had some serious ground to make up. If our clothes were made from scratch, she must have reasoned, then no one else would have anything quite like them. That would be very mod, right? My mother, therefore, purchased a pattern for a very mod, broad-collared, puffy-sleeved shirt. In the heat of inspiration, she purchased a vest pattern as well. Then she hired a professional seamstress to do the work. On picture day I was fully decked out in a new, bright-yellow puffy-sleeved shirt and a blue buttonless vest for accent. I was the epitome of third-grade cool. Or so I thought. I walked to school in style, very proud of my new outfit, trusting that my mother knew what she was doing.
     As the new kid, it was my misfortune to have to sit at a desk in the front of the classroom, the seat nobody else would want, and all morning long there was a tittering and whispering behind my back that seemed to grow in intensity and volume as the minutes crept toward our picture time. My confidence in my new attire began to falter, though I could not understand how my clothing could be the problem--maybe it was too mod, maybe these city children were not as sophisticated as we'd assumed. The noise behind me finally grew loud enough that the teacher noticed and demanded to know what all the whispering and giggling was about. "He's wearing a girl shirt!" one boy blurted out, "It buttons down the back like my sister's!" And the whole class erupted into laughter.
     If I had had more confidence, I might have stood up from my front-of-the-room seat and taken a grand bow, as if I'd only been waiting for them to get the joke. But I was not a confident child. Instead, I sat there utterly humiliated, unable to think of anything cool to say to defend myself, a daylong spectacle for all the other children to enjoy.
     I'll admit I felt betrayed that day, not by the children, but by my mother. In her determination to help me fit in, she had purchased a pattern for a girl's blouse, assuming her aim could be achieved just the same--the sleeves looked the way she wanted them to at any rate--and she had made me into a joke for the rest of the class. Beyond betrayal of trust, however, I also felt a little sorry for my mother, who desperately wanted her small-town boys to "fit in" to our new city suburban life, but didn't know how to make that happen for us. Whether she knew it or not, when it came to being cool, we were on our own.
     I refused to wear the shirt for the rest of that year no matter how many times she suggested it. I never told her why, and eventually, she let the subject go. Sometimes, I would be so bold as to wear the blue vest, with a different shirt. I hoped that would be enough to make her happy.

From Whom Do You Come?

     I come from country people, though I am not really a country person myself. When my parents moved to the city (or the suburbs of a city), they ended generations of country life for my specific family line. I don't think they ever got over it. When their children were grown and gone, they promptly moved back to the small town they'd moved from twenty years before. And then, just a few years later, they moved back to the country outright--complete with land, a barn, chickens, and even a few horses. For all those years in the city, they'd never really felt at home.

     They'd grown up in the country on neighboring farms. Their houses were a mile apart, and they were each other's closest neighbor. When my father started working for the telephone company as a young man in the late 1950s, he ran a single telephone line between their two houses and hooked up a crank telephone at each end so that my two grandmothers, who were friends, could call each other and have a little conversation without having to walk a mile to do so.
     That primitive telephone is a fitting symbol for the nature of their everyday lives. It would have been one of the most modern things in their two households. There was no running water and no indoor plumbing. Their water came from a well in the front yard. They took baths in galvanized washtubs, the kind of thing people fill with ice and beer or sodas at a party these days. And a trip to the toilet required a walk down the path to the outhouse, which had to be shoveled out occasionally for obvious reasons.

    When my grandfather--my father's father--started farming in the early 1900s, he didn't have a tractor. He used a workhorse hitched to a plow, or whatever horse-drawn farming equipment was required. I used to see the old rusted pieces of ancient tools and machinery sitting here and there like skeletons of a by-gone day whenever I'd go to visit the place as a boy. They grew tobacco as a cash crop, because this was Kentucky, and Kentucky was a major tobacco state back then. But for the most part, they grew everything they ate, whether that was vegetable or meat. They canned the vegetables and smoked the meat to have food for days when nothing was growing. On my father's side at least, from what I've heard, they were good at it. They worked very hard and they made a living of it.

     That's how my parents grew up, and in that way they were closer to their ancestry than I have ever been. When my father decided to take a job with the telephone company instead of staying on the farm, he broke with the tradition. His life was more comfortable, I believe, because of that choice.

     ...

Two Prose Poems as Examples for My Students

I am the mocking bird in the backyard tree. My songs are myriad but none of them are really my own. I can imitate a degree of mastery to rival the original. Those who are the true artists are likely to mistake me as one of their number. I enjoy the deception. And, for the most part, it serves me well. If others have had the great thoughts, written the great books, sung the great songs, someone else will need to relay the message in the voice of imitation. That would be me. And through my songs from every source I enable others to hear what they would not have heard otherwise, what, in fact, they do not even have access to without my singing. So I sing. A teasing song that invites others to stop for a moment, pay attention, and consider the value of such music in their own lives …

I am a palm tree blowing in the breeze. I admit the apparent fragility of my construction. No limbs. Nothing more than a stalk with fronds at the top. The truth is, I’m really a sort of weed. But the thing about a weed is, the thing about a palm tree is that it can pretty much grow anywhere. Too much moisture? Not really a problem. Too little rain? Not really a problem. I’m a survivor. My situation may be harsh, challenging, even threatening, but I am there, still, making the most of my circumstances. I know not everyone can say this. Some are more susceptible to the vicissitudes of life. I adapt. That’s why I’m still here, from year to year, ultimately undaunted by the force or direction of the wind. If you know how to bow and bend, you know how to make a stand without being moved. … 

A "B" is Pretty Good

I was six years old and in my very first year of school. The first grade, with Mrs. Branson, at Grapevine Elementary School in Madisonville, Kentucky. In that part of the world, at that time, Kindergarten was an elective. My parents had elected to keep me out of it, so First Grade was indeed the first grade.

It was all new to me. From endless hours of play in my own back yard and the simple rules of come when you're called, clean your plate, and be nice to your sisters and brothers, I found myself in the closed classroom of paper and paste and fat pencils and Dick and Jane and Spot—See Spot run.—and new rules and measures of my worth. My only advantage in this new world of teachers and time-outs (read stand with your nose in the corner), and grades marked by letters I was only just learning was that I had an older sister and brother who had gone before and who seemed no worse for the experience. I could be hopeful that the same would be true for me. And as the first few weeks went by, my hope seemed to be justified. This was easier than I’d thought it would be, and it had its rewards.

When I received my first report card, I experienced for the first time that I can remember the focused, attentive praise of my parents. When you’re the third in line (out of what would be eight), you tend to feel a bit lost in the shuffle, expected to follow the example of your older siblings with less need for parental correction and praise as motivation. Consequently, the praise for my straight-As on my very first report card made an impression on me. It felt good to know that I had pleased my parents, and it felt good to have them tell me so. With growing confidence I returned to school for more reading and writing and ’rithmatic. And when the time came for the second report card, my six-year-old heart was full with the expectation of my parents’ pride-filled approval. That is, until I opened the report card.

There were Bs on it.
    In the first few months of first grade I don’t know that I understood the levels of quality associated with particular letter grades. I only knew that “A” was good, “A” was praise-worthy, “A” would make my parents proud of me. I could only assume that “not-A” was “not good”. And this worried me. I didn't want to disappoint my parents. I didn't want them to be upset. So, I decided to fix it. With all the concentrated ineptitude of a six-year-old boy afraid of being in trouble, I took a pencil eraser to the inked-in grades (they were hand-written by the teacher back then), and rubbed and rubbed until I wore the paper away and the worrisome Bs disappeared. Then I flipped the pencil, put point to worn report-card paper, and in the neatest first-grade penmanship I could manage I replaced the little Bs with little As. With trembling hands and my anxiety building, I slid the report card back into its official manila envelope covering and awaited the moment of … well, you know.
    It didn’t work, of course. Later that evening, when my father got home, I came when called and gathered in the living room with my sister and brother for an audience with my expectant parents. My older sister went first. All As. She always made all As. Well done my good and faithful servant. My older brother was next. All As. (But his days were numbered). And my parents rewarded him too with the praise I coveted. Then it was my turn, and with my heart pounding in my chest, and wearing the most convincing smile I could conjure, I handed over the treacherous document, hoping.

My pitiful handiwork was evident immediately, but remarkably, my parents didn't really scold me for what I'd done. I heard words about honesty and words about trust and words about doing my best, but most of all I heard words of reassurance. They seemed to understand, and they wanted me to understand  that a “B” was not so bad. A “B” was pretty good, in fact.

So, a “B” is pretty good.

The words were comforting despite my embarrassment. But I sometimes wonder now if I might have learned the lesson too well. That first straight-As report card of my first grade year would be the last straight-As report card I would earn until my sophomore year in college. “Doing my best,” it seemed, never delivered the best that I could do, but it became the phrase to appease my parents, whether they were saying it or I was saying it. I was a “B” student, or worse, on all the report cards that came thereafter. Yet I always wanted there to be something better in me.

Don't get me wrong. I still appreciate the wise sensitivity my parents showed me that day. But as much as I needed their reassurance, I might have needed their confidence in me even more. Many years later I would change my grades again, but this time I would do so through a determination to learn what I could really do as a student, something it took me a long time to understand. And then, nothing less would satisfy.

I'll admit, in later years I may have become a little obsessed about the grades. And even now, when my last report card is fading into history, I sometimes find it hard to take it easy. Still, looking back on all the years I failed to see my own potential, I think I'd take the obsession over the settling.

A “B” is pretty good, in fact. But I'd still rather have the A.

Imagery and Absence

I reach for the cool handle and press it down with my left hand as I push the door open.  It creaks and pops and separates from the doorframe to allow me access to the room. This room has been closed for some days, its usual occupant gone to college, leaving it much as I expected.  I’m struck simultaneously by the nearly overwhelming mess of it all and the distinctive, unmistakable smell of maleness—the scent of sweat and breath and too much cologne, burnt matches and spent candles. The ceiling fan whirs softly over head, left running, its chain tink tinking against the light globe, spinning a perpetual breeze trapped in the 10 x 10 space.  

I pick my way through clutter on the floor and lower myself to the chair where he sits, the place where he reads and writes and watches movies and laughs.  The worn purple brocade cushions of the chair give way to size and weight that must feel familiar, for he and I are nearly the same in both respects.   I survey the room:  Where to start?  The bed is a pile of pillows and blankets.  The floor is a pile of clothing, some inside out, some half folded, so that I decide it’s safer just to assume that everything needs to be washed.  The bookshelf is stuffed with books read, half-read, and unread, and folded notes, and guitar picks, and coins, and memorabilia with symbolic meaning for him, secrets I will never be asked to understand.  

Around my feet are strewn the remains of meals in the middle of the night.  Empty chip bags.  Candy wrappers.  The peanut butter jar I couldn't find this morning, with a table knife balanced on the top.  To the right, on the makeshift side table that is really a small, black, metal computer desk, stands an array of cups and glasses, their service done, and milk dried to the bottom that I'll have to scrub out with my usual inward and empty threats to leave the work to him.  And among the cups and glasses are empty Coke cans, some standing and some lying on their sides, all gape-mouthed, another sign of his odd, nocturnal nutrition.

I reason it out.  The milk goes with the peanut butter.  The Cokes go with the chips.  I could be angry at the mess he promised repeatedly to clean before he left.  But I decide, in the end, that perhaps it’s just a problem of definition.  After all, I have no idea what it looked like while he was there.  Perhaps it was much worse.  Perhaps this is what clean is to him.  I take it all in.  I breathe it in.  And I decide it’s too much work to begin at this hour.  But really, I’m simply reluctant to remove the evidence of his palpable presence there.  I’ll clean it before he comes home again.  For now, I can still feel him.

Where I am, right now, in this moment.

     Traveling down the highway at 75 miles per hour, I'm focused on the road ahead. Way ahead. I'm nestled in the bucket seat of a 1980 Chevrolet Chevette, my seatbelt on before the law required it because an occupational therapist friend of mine told me horror stories of car accidents and injuries. I feel safe enough. Above 75 mph the car starts to rattle, so I can't go any faster. I've rolled the windows down to save the gas the air conditioner would burn, and the wind in my face creates the illusion of greater speed. But that's not what I'm thinking about. I'm not really thinking about anything, except how long it will take me to get to my destination. How many more miles do I have to go?
     My eyes keep adjusting to the farthest distance, the horizon I've not yet reached, which gives way to another horizon, and then another, and then another. An endless succession of destinations. I'm lost to the passing of time, and well into my journey. At one moment I notice a crossing road, an overpass, at the farthest reach of my vision. In the next moment I'm passing under it and driving on.
     And this experience finally startles me back to consciousness. I wonder at how quickly I seemed to traverse that stretch of pavement, then realize that I have no memory of the road between my first sight of the overpass and my now leaving it behind. How did I get from there to here so quickly? And why can't I remember anything about the road in between?

     It has been a long abiding curse of my life to be gifted with moments of insight I consider for a time and then set aside, a sort of collection of bits of wisdom that grow dusty on the shelf of my intellect but never really find a place in the midst of my living. As if the insight were sufficient unto itself and warranted my self-satisfaction. I used to pray for wisdom when I was young. I should have prayed for the capacity to live by it. But for some reason this summer finds me pensive, and I recently remembered that moment of insight on the road between Louisville and Indianapolis, when it occurred to me that I could live my life from destination to destination, from horizon to horizon, but miss all the living in between.
     Some twenty-five years later I look back and wonder how often that bit of wisdom has come true. I can remember all the landmarks, I think, the big moments on the map I knew to watch for, or the surprises, for good or ill, that meant some change in direction. But what about the mile after mile moments, the day after day moments? Do I remember these? Did I even notice them? The big moments are important to me, but they are not all there is. Collapse them on themselves and they make for a pretty short journey. Destination after destination after destination, when in truth there were miles and miles of road in between.
     Today, I want to remember the miles, every one, each one. I want to celebrate the beautiful monotony of the road, the speed bumps, the potholes, the sleepy straightaways, the exhilarating curves, the narrow shoulders, the wildflowers defying the authority of pavement, with less concern for the destination and more attention to the road I'm traveling, and the simple fact that tomorrow it may look much the same. For that is, after all, where the real journey takes place, in the mile after mile, in the day after day. It would be so easy to reduce your life to an ongoing journey of waiting to get to the next place, waiting for the next thing to happen. But something is happening now, this day. Something is happening in this moment. And it is all a part of your life.
     It's not a new idea, of course. It's part of the spirituality of pretty much every religion I've ever encountered. And whether one holds to any particular religion or not, the principle is sound. If you don't want to miss your own life, you need to pay attention.
     I think I've been driving too fast lately. Every day I'm up at five and on the road by six, flying down the highway at 80 mph, the Chevy Chevette a distant memory, to arrive at a destination that will not be anxious for me if I arrive a moment later. I think I need to slow down. Better yet, I think I'd like to stop the car, get out, and walk, and finally feel the road beneath my feet, and finally start paying attention to the journey itself ... to where I am, right now, in this moment.

Step away from the personal communication device. You're vomiting all over my Twitter feed.

     Have you ever had that experience in a conversation where you realize you seem to be the only one talking, or that for every comment one person makes you seem to have about five responses?  It's not that you're trying to fill the lapses in the conversation, for there's no shortage of others who might offer their particular perspective.  Rather, you simply can't stop yourself.  It's as if you are working out your own personal view of the world in a sort of stream-of-consciousness dialogue with yourself, where others are simply there to prompt your process and acknowledge your success, with the enthusiasm of spectators at a sporting event, or maybe repentants at a revival meeting.
     And then there comes that moment when you realize that you no longer know what you are talking about.  I don't mean you've lost the train of the conversation; I mean it finally occurs to you that your words have actually outstripped your understanding, and probably did so some time ago.  Quite literally, you do not know what you are talking about.  And yet you are still blathering on.
     Upon reaching this moment of self-realization, a bit of self-preservation instinct kicks in and, with a sheepish apology for monopolizing the conversation or at least a bit of inward embarrassment, you finally shut up, and give someone else a turn.  You scold yourself and promise yourself you'll be more considerate the next time.  You may even look for another conversation you can join where you can practice holding your tongue and acknowledge someone else's thought process for a change.  But in any case, the point is, you stopped yourself, because you knew that you should.
     This conversational instinct, it has occurred to me, seems to be missing from online communication.  At a dinner party or office party, or at a table with a round of drinks, the boredom or exasperation of our interlocutors is readily apparent, if we're paying attention.  We can read it on their faces.  In our online communications, however, we are free to be blissfully oblivious, to imagine that everyone actually wants to hear everything we have to say, is even enthralled by our supposed insights.  Since we cannot see our audience we can easily picture them impressed by our endless pronouncements and piercing existential questions, enraptured by our regurgitation of ideas we naively assume are original with us.  And so we blather on, in a sort of creeping megalomania, encouraged by the smiling faces of our followers stopped in the moment of a profile picture.
     I have noted this conversational disconnect most often on Twitter, and it has presented me with a bit of a problem.  Following various Twitter conversations that are relevant to my life and work, I notice particular voices that seem insightful in the moment, and so I decide to "follow" the persons who belong to these voices, which is what a good Twitter citizen should do, or so I've heard.  Most of the time this works out nicely, with an occasional opportunity to overhear a good conversation or eavesdrop on the intriguing thoughts of another.  At other times, however, the result is disastrous, as if I'm trapped in a conversation from which I cannot escape and into which no one, including myself, can fit a word edgewise.
     I open my Twitter feed to find an endless stream of the same profile picture vomiting verbiage on everything from alpha to omega, and I don't know what to do to stop it.  I could simply "unfollow" the voice, but then I might miss the rare moment of insight that could come within the long stream of tripe.  I did follow the person for a reason, after all.  I fight off the impulse to reply to each successive tweet, "Shut up!," "Shut up!," Shut up!" Instead I just give up for the time being and exit the feed, expecting that the individual will eventually decide to have lunch, or maybe need to go to the restroom. But, of course, laptops and cell phones are portable even into the most intimate of spaces.  With no real solution, then, I find myself only hoping in the end that the offending "conversationalist" might realize what they are doing and simply stop, because they should.  But they never do.
     I'm beginning to consider now the possible advantage, and conversational authenticity, of uploading a variety of profile pictures from which I might choose in the particular expediency of the moment, from agreeable smiles to disapproving raspberries.  I might then reply to these oblivious monopolizers with an appropriate countenance and the politest sarcasm I can muster, hoping they will get the message.  But that would actually be an impolite thing to do, and conversational manners, I suppose, is really what I'm asking for here.
     Yes, I am well aware of the irony of my writing about this annoyance.  I'm writing on a blog, which I will publish online. To demonstrate the depth of my frustration on the matter I might do better to sign off of all my online connections, never to return again.  ... But, of course, I'm not going to do that ... because I desperately want you to read this blog entry and admire how clever and insightful I am.

In Praise of Google+

Dear Friend,
     I wanted to reply to something you said about Google+ in your last note: "I do like the format of google+ as well. Too bad it never caught on."  
     I felt that frustration for nearly an entire year after signing on to Google+.  I was originally drawn to and enthusiastic about its design, the easy management of separate relationships, the easy control of privacy, and what struck me as a more aesthetically sensitive design (as opposed to Facebook, which I had never joined).  Then I began to feel as if I were the only one subscribing.  Almost no one I knew had signed on.  I even wrote to a friend that I felt "lonely out here in Googleland." In the last six months or so, however, I've begun to change my mind.  
     Google+ doesn't seem to have caught on as a social networking tool, but it seems to have a steadily growing population of subscribers who are interested in professional and personal interest networking. To see what I mean, you should roll your cursor over the g+ at the top left of your screen, and then click on Communities. I think you might be surprised at what all is out there. You can search your areas of interest, and the options will be more than you might have expected.  And some of those communities are very active.  
     But be a little patient.  I first joined an English Teachers community (there are many). It seemed like a cool idea.  Unfortunately, hardly anyone ever seemed to post anything on the community site, adding to the frustration I mentioned above. I even made a couple of posts myself as a newbie to see if I could get something started.  Each only received one response, and weeks went by without another post from anyone else.  So I continued my search.  
     I'm presently a member of two very active Google+ Community sites, one on the Common Core and the other an English Teachers Support Group. Both are very active (the teacher group has slowed down just a little for the summer, which makes sense), and both continue to have growing memberships.  Between you and me, I haven't really found the collegial connections and support I might have hoped for at my school. Perhaps it's because I'm older by a bit than pretty much everyone else in the department (but I'm 50; it's not like I'm nearing retirement). I certainly feel no animosity toward any of my colleagues, and I'm willing to accept that the absence of connection is my own responsibility; nevertheless, I've felt that void in my professional life.   
     Then, some months ago when I was following a Twitter conversation on 21st century ed, I began to think more about the idea of an online PLN as actually a better way to create a community of support by finding those you may never really know but who think and write in ways that are professionally helpful to you.  I'm beginning to find that now on Google+, and I continue to appreciate these communities of people whose voices and thoughts I've begun to recognize as those of colleagues.
     So here I am, proselytizing.  I suppose I probably have the hidden agenda of  hoping to meet or hear from more people I actually do know in the communities of interest we may share.

A Silly Sonnet for Summer School Students

A Silly Sonnet for Summer School Students

by Dr. Son (June 2013)

We're all in summer school with Dr. Son!

I could have been at home and chill instead

of having to endure such English fun,

but I flunked English I, or so they said.

I wouldn't know because I never tell

my mother what my grades in class may be,

because I never look myself, and fail

when maybe I'd have earned at least a “C.”

So here I sit depressed all summer long;

The portable’s so hot I nearly melt.

To go to school in summer just seems wrong;

This is the lamest I have ever felt.

Next year I'll try to do my work in class,

and not waste time just sitting on my !@#$%.

Not with a flourish, but with a wave.

     Yesterday the last of my students walked out of my classroom.  Seniors, who will not be back again next year but will be moving on to something else.  The next thing.  Hopefully a good thing.  Most of them I will never see or hear from again.  And they will not hear from me either.  They passed out of my life in the same way they came into it, according to schedule.  The bell rang.  They left.  

     I've grown accustomed to this departure, and I've lived enough years beyond my own that I know how early this is in the stories of these lives.  For now, this is as much of the story as they know.  But so much more will happen.  Looking back years from now this will not be the time that inspires their recollection or requires their reflection.  It's not that complicated.  They had to go to high school.  They had to take an English class during their senior year.  I happened to be their teacher.  A paragraph, maybe a page, in a life.  So many more chapters will be written.  

     It happened with little more than a wave.  We kept it light:  "See ya'."  "Have a nice summer."  "I'll see you at graduation."  We avoided saying 'goodbye.'  There were no tearful embraces, no manly handshakes.  There were no final words of wisdom from the old sage before the hero's journey.  Just a wave, some casual words, and they were gone.  As if this were only a holiday break and not the journey of their lives.  Perhaps the weight of the latter thought kept us to our daily routine.  We hadn't missed the significance of the occasion.  We just didn't want to talk about it.  We're tired.  We're hungry.  We're bored.  That's enough for now.

     That's enough for now.  But I will remember some of them.  And some of them will remember me.  And whether I am only a footnote, or even just a name in reverse order (Son, Dr. J. Thomas) in the index, or actually get a mention in the text itself, I have become a part of the story of these lives.  Years later, when they are flipping back through warn pages, they may find me there.  A minor complication to a minor plot.  A benevolent presence in the bottom margin .  One teacher among many who wished them well with a wave.  Whatever my character, whatever my part in the tale, I hope it turns out to be a good story.

For Mother's Day ...

For Mother's Day

     A sonnet for the mother of sons, 

     from their grateful father.

Of chromosomes, the "Y" one is the worst,

Perpetuating brooding, distant males --

In retrospect the 50/50 curse --

The prodigal of old, familiar tales.

They rarely grasp the gift of motherhood,

The bruin-heart, the sacrifices made;

Obtuse by nature, thinking that she should

Give all she has, they take; they go away.

Yet what she's given lingers deep within,

Though outward feeling he'll not suffer long;

The motherhood within the lonely men

Bursts forth in poetry, in art, and song.

These gentle arts confirm their mother's worth,

Bestowed and nurtured in them from their births.

                                        By J. Thomas Son

     When I was a somewhat younger man, about fifteen years ago I think, I participated in a weekend retreat for educators.  It was led by an educator-cum-writer, a devotee of Parker Palmer, and the president of a small liberal arts college as I recall.  I can't remember now what specific topic focused our weekend; I only remember a question and answer session at its close.  Uncharacteristically, I risked my own self doubt in front of my peers and expressed the anxiety that kept me resisting this way of life.  I asked when  it is that a person actually knows enough to assume the audacity of teaching others.  In other words, when does one know enough to teach?  The leader did not miss the opportunity to appear wise (I'd opened the door very wide after all), and she readily suggested that when one is self-aware enough to ask such a question, one is ready to begin teaching.  I could appreciate the rhetorical timing and the inspiration of that moment, but I remained uncertain.
     I still am.  And I'm still asking the question.
     Today I led my final class session with my AP Literature students before they take a three-hour reading and writing exam.  In a sense, we work toward this moment all year long.  It matters to most of them, I think, and they will do their best.  But I think it matters more to me.  It's the measure of my success.  It's the answer to my question: Do I know enough to teach?  It's the scale that weighs how much I know.  As they walked out of the classroom, I felt the inadequacy of what I'd provided them not only today, but every day.  Did I say too much?  Did I not say enough?  Did I leave too many questions unanswered?  Did I answer some questions too easily?  Did I pretend to know more than I actually do know in order to make them confident in themselves, and in me?  Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
     Do I know enough to teach?  Yes.  And I also know enough to be filled with anxiety over how poorly I may have prepared my students for the tests I cannot take for them.

Okay, so the first question that must be addressed is whether or not an old dog can learn new tricks.  It's an old question because it remains relevant.  Every old dog has asked it of himself, I imagine ... probably at about the time he turned 50, if he lived that long. (Please excuse the exclusive gender here. I'm not foolish enough to speak to the experience of women in this regard, so I'll keep the reference male.)  Anyway, in answer to your question (my question), I am writing these first lines of the first blog I've ever written in my life.  Whether I'll learn anything from it is still a question unanswered, I suppose, but I can say I'm making the attempt.  To learn what, exactly?  I'm not sure.  For one, I suppose, I do want to become more familiar and comfortable with the increasingly--almost utterly, it seems--digital and online social means of human interaction today.  To be completely honest, I've been feeling a bit like I'm being left out of the conversation lately.  I'm not certain that I have any particular need to be heard at the moment, though a little acknowledgement now and then would be nice, of course.  I am human after all.  What I do know is that I'm not ready to be absent from the conversation of life.  I at least want to be listening.  For another, I miss the opportunity or occasion for writing, not having any deadlines to meet in that regard, and the need to keep up with a blog now and then could be a means through which I might find, or rediscover, my voice.  And reading what I've written before and after publication will likely make me a better writer, as it always has before--another learning opportunity.  The direction of this blog?  Who knows?  I guess we'll see.