It is Veterans Day.
Ninety-six years ago, the Great War, World War I, or the war to end all wars, ended. Before the war ended, millions of young men lay dead, wounded, or maimed for life. For France, England, and Germany the sacrifice was immense – a lost generation. We Yanks were late coming to the conflict and lost over a hundred thousand young men – slightly less than the population of Naperville, the city where I teach. War is awful!
It’s been over two weeks since I wrote a post. It’s not because I haven’t had ideas. I’ve had loads of ideas and I even started a post last Sunday morning, but I ran out of time. That post died on the vine, it’s no longer relevant.
Since my last post, O has been to her first middle school social. The social was the day after her birthday and she had a wonderful time and could not stop talking about on our way to W’s final regular season football game. We arrived with a minute left in the second quarter to watch the Tigers score a touchdown and take 14-9 lead to the locker room. They needed to win the game to make the playoffs. This is how they did it.
Since then, W’s football team has ripped off two more wins and next weekend play in the state playoff quarterfinals. The team’s first playoff win was in the blinding snow and howling winds on Halloween night with a last minute field goal to tie and a touchdown to win in overtime. The second win was yesterday afternoon – it was a beautiful fall afternoon, perfect for a high school football game. Continue reading The Can Crush
It snuck up on me, I don’t know how it did, but it did. Today is O’s birthday. She’s 12 and it doesn’t seem possible. I remember the morning we went to the hospital. The delivery was scheduled and B’s parents were here from Ohio to keep an eye on W and help where they could. When we came home with O – she didn’t have an official name, yet – we would decide between two choices: O and Hannah. We stuck with O and I’m glad.
So much has happened between then and now – O’s growing up and is now in sixth grade. Sometimes, she’s sassy, but most of the time she’s my O.
Today’s her birthday; and there will be more birthdays to come. There will be more growing and probably a lot more sass, definitely a lot more sass; but she’ll still be my O, and B’s too, but I write this blog, so she’s mine for now.
Last night we looked through the photos of her first day and we snuggled, laughed, and cried. It was a special day twelve years ago and I captured it with our first digital camera. The photos look grainy but we don’t have similar photos of W – he’s pre-digital and I didn’t think to bring a camera into the delivery room when he was born.
Since that first camera, we’ve had five more – including the two we are using now. And, we have loads of photos, more than I can process. I am not including our phones, which happen to have better cameras than that first digital camera from 2002.
O came into the world about 8:35 AM on a Wednesday morning. I had a sub in my classroom and my students were researching in the library. I don’t have a sub this morning, but I’ll share the photo and a memory. Later this morning, my science students will be researching in the library – just twelve years later; my how some things change and some things simply stay the same.
Tonight, will have dinner and a cake – a delicious Italian Cream Cake. It’s our birthday cake, homemade with real buttermilk and frosted with cream cheese frosting. You can’t beat it. A birthday in our home isn’t the same without it. But for now, I’d better get moving. It’s gonna be a great day. I know it and I can feel it, so I had better jump up, jump in and seize the day. Making the days Count, one day at a time, one memory, and one birthday at a time.
Have you ever come close to forgetting a birthday? Or, let one sneak up on you?
I have been to two funerals as a teacher. I do not want to go to another funeral again. Ever.
Both funerals I attended were in my first two years as a teacher. Actually, the first funeral was in the summer of between my first and second years of teaching. It was awful. The second was less than a year later. It was just as awful. I have not been to another funeral since though one of students lost their dad last spring. The teachers were not invited and I wanted to go, but I couldn’t; I had my own family funeral to attend to last spring.
At the time, there were not words in my vocabulary to express the feeling of awfulness I had when I looked into the eyes of my twelve year-old student and told him and her that I was sorry that their mother had passed away. I think I fumbled with some words like “I am so sorry for your loss.” Or maybe I said, “I have been praying for you and your family, please let me know what I can do to help you.” No matter what I said, it didn’t take away the pain of losing their mother. Or the uncertainty of what the future held for them. Those kids – Melinda and Jeremiah – are now in their twenties and out of college and have jobs like me. Occasionally, I get to visit the high school and I ran into Melinda on my way in one time, we had a nice conversation and then we parted. I had Jeremiah’s sister two years after their mom passed away and she wrote an amazing essay about how her mother’s passing was an important event in her life. I remember the essay well, it was good, thoughtful, well written; it was head and shoulders above her peer’s papers. I followed them along in high school occasionally asking high school teachers or counselors whom I knew how they were doing and then they graduated high school and I lost touch. They’re grown now, or as grown as someone is when they are in the second half of their twenties.
Fourteen years later, I still don’t believe I have the right words. Continue reading Think PINK – Freedom Rock
I did not feel well yesterday, and when a teacher does not feel well, that’s not good. I came home and went to bed. I took two Motrin, crawled under the covers, and fell fast asleep. I could have slept much longer had it not been for the stump grinder coming to finish off the tree. We lost that tree this past June, a week after the arborists came for that tree, B’s dad passed away. He was a sturdy as a tree and he’s been on my mind ever since. The stump grinder coming to finish it off was just another step in the circle of life.
I have been thinking about that tree and all of the trees we’ve lost to Emerald Ash Borer. But, I’ve had more on my mind that just trees, I’ve been thinking of the poem, “Trees,” and its poet – Joyce Kilmer. Sgt. Kilmer was killed in the Second Battle of the Marne on July 30, 1918 and is buried at Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in northern France. Continue reading Death of a Tree – the FINAL CHAPTER
There was a time in my life when I was a nighttime creature. Thirty years ago this past summer, I met a girl and I was attending summer school full-time, working full-time, spending the weekend nights with her and her friends – up all night, and sleeping part-time. I could do it then, but not now.
the end of game discussion – the South end of the field
Thirty years later, that girl is my wife and next week – in seven days – we will celebrate 23 years of marriage.
Thirty years later, my eyelids are heavier than they once were and I can’t hang out too late, but on Friday nights in the fall – there is Friday Night Lights. I have been a high school football fan for a long time and I enjoy watching the games. It’s even more fun because W is out there this year – hanging on the sidelines. He has yet to play Friday night, but he’s there for film, weights, conditioning, and practice working and waiting for the moment when the Tigers will need him. Every Tiger player was there once, too. It’s the way things are. Continue reading Weekly Photo Challenge – Nighttime
Tomorrow is picture day. School picture day. I get my picture taken every year. I’ll be in line early and looking my best for this year’s school picture. Last year, I wore a pink shirt with a blue tie and the year before, a blue shirt and a pink tie; beyond the last two years I cannot remember which year is which. It will be my school ID photo for the next year; and it will be in the yearbook. So, when my students look back on middle school, there I’ll be along with the rest of my colleagues.
We got an e-mail from the principal reminding us, but I knew picture day tomorrow.
Earlier this week I heard about a story about Dale Irby, a teacher from Dallas, Texas who wore the same outfit for all forty of his school pictures. In the beginning, it was by accident; then, he made a conscious effort to wear the same sweater every year. I looked back at my school photos, at least those I could find – and for the most part, I was like Dale Irby. I stuck to the tried and true blue shirt and sensible tie. There were a few ties that weren’t so sensible or more likely it was ‘what was I thinking?’ or ‘did get dressed in the dark?’ I am not sure. The portraits will have to speak for me.
Nevertheless, I didn’t stop there. I went back further and found pictures from elementary school, middle school, high school, and college. When I finished college the first time and started working, I stopped having an annual photo taken so there is a gap from 1982 to 1999. It was fun going back in time and refreshing my memory of what I looked like then and now. About the only thing that is different from all of the school pictures is that for the past couple of years, my hair is longer than it was in middle school OR high school.
Tomorrow is school picture day and I’ll be ready. Blue shirt, sensible tie, and a great smile. Thirty-nine years ago, I smiled an eighth grade smile and had my photo taken. Today was a great day and tomorrow will be a million and six times better. Making the Days Count, one day a time, one school photo, one lasting memory at a time.
When was the last time you went back in time and took a peak at your school photos?
I am a city boy, a suburbanite. B is a country girl. Sometimes we clash, but most of the time we don’t. I met her 30 years ago this past summer. It seems like the other day and I suppose it was.
It sounds sort of harsh – suburbanite conjures up visions of “Real Housewives of ……” or some other recent popular television show. Several years ago, I read a book, Death By Suburb: How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing Your Soul, a writer’s view of living in the suburbs and the author poked fun at suburban culture and offered advice. Regardless, I am a suburbanite.
I’ve always lived in a city or near a city – in the suburbs. The jobs I had out of college meant I had to live in or near a city. When I went back to school to learn how to teach, I dreamt of moving to the country, we dreamed together. Nevertheless, we never did. Instead, we became more firmly entrenched in the suburban life. We had kids, our kids grew, went to school, played sports, joined clubs, and the dream of moving to the country faded. But, I still dream of moving to a place where a five-mile commute includes driving through fields of corn, soybeans, wheat and pastures. Where a drive to the grocery store is a once a week adventure to the city or a snowstorm means we stay home inside and I plow the driveway with my truck or better, a tractor.
Dreams are what keeps us moving. Continue reading Weekly Photo Challenge – Adventure
I’ll admit it, I enjoy high school football. I grew up watching high school football in Texas on Friday Nights. Friday Night Lights is a true story in just about every community across America. I never missed a home game and when I was a high school senior, I attended all ten games – home and away. B grew up much the same – except on a smaller scale and was in the marching band throughout high school. It was the same high school where her dad and her older brother played football, too. And a couple of decades later, our nephew.
Then I went to college – Texas A&M – never missed a home game and was part of the 12th Man. Never sat down as an Aggie, unless the opposing band was marching.
I played football, but I wasn’t very good. I didn’t have much talent, and didn’t work hard enough at it. I played a couple of years, but quit playing. It’s the story of my early life and it’s one of my life’s regrets – not finishing, not playing through. That’s why I admire W, my son. He’s not any more talented than me, but he’s far more persistent. He’s tenacious and he works his rear end off. It’s not just sports but scouting and school, too and just about all he does. He pushes himself to better at just about everything he does. I admire him, because I would have given up when I was his age, in fact I did.
Then adulthood set in, we went off to college, got jobs, got married, had kids, and began spending Friday nights watching the local high school – the Wheaton Warrenville South High School Tigers. At first, we took W in a stroller and then, when he could walk; we’d stand along the fence in the end zone and watch. Then O came along, same story. Time passed, W grew, and O grew, too. W played youth football for a few years and took a couple of years off in middle school to focus on scouting and run cross-country. Something I never did, I admire him. Then it was time for high school and joined the football team, and wrestled and played lacrosse – three seasons – three sports. We stayed along the fence watching until last year when we moved to the grandstand. As a sophomore, his team played at 5:00 PM Friday afternoon then the varsity would play at 7:30 – under the lights. We’d stay and watch. This year, he’s on the varsity and he’s on the team. We’ll watch we’ll be in the stands. Most juniors do not play, seniors play and juniors watch, honing their skills waiting for their senior year and their chance to play Friday night. Juniors get their chance to play the next morning. Then on Monday after school, they’ll be back practicing, working hard, focusing on getting better, stronger, and faster – waiting for the next year.
But, there is more to life than football, more to life than sports. Continue reading Weekly Photo Challenge – Dialogue
There is nothing as fun as hanging onto an inner tube tied to the back of the boat as the driver tries to shake you off – zigzagging over the water, especially when the driver is your wife. Just hanging on was fun, trying to shake me was more fun for the driver.
I stayed on the tube and had a blast, though my arms and shoulders are screaming this morning.
O took the turn before me, and the turn after me; we both had a blast. It was a fun afternoon on the lake.
Our summer has been full of zigzags – highs and lows. I am grateful we were able to squeeze a little zigzagging fun.
Yesterday was GREAT DAY and today is going to be a million and six times better…. I know it and I can feel it. As the the chorus wails……
This could possibly be the best day ever
And the forecast says that tomorrow will likely be
A million and six times betterSo make every minute count
Jump up, jump in and seize the day
And let’s make sure that in every single possible way
Today is gonna to be a great day
“Today is gonna be a great day” – Bowling for Soup
Making the days Count, one day at a time, one zig, one zag, one and one zigzag at a time.
What do you remember from middle school science?
Today’s post is in response to the Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge – prompt – at Word Press. The week’s prompt is “Zigzag.” For this week’s challenge, share with us your own take on zigging and zagging. It can be a winding path, the Herringbone pattern on your coat, a scar: any jagged line that tells a story. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.