My Patriot's Day realization

Today is September 11, or I guess, Patriot's Day. Every year, I seem to find myself more and more concerned with how we remember the events of September 11, 2001. But today seemed particularly difficult, since, as a fifth grade teacher, I had to deliver some sort of lesson the the importance of "Patriot's Day" to a group that wasn't even born on September 11, 2001. And I realized, as I spoke to the children during my daily "Today in History" segment, that what is shaping these childrens' perception of historical events such as September 11 is the internet. Specifically what they are seeing on sites like YouTube.

And this scares me because there's an awful lot of crap out there about September 11. Conspiracy theories abound and the largely unregulated environment of sites such as YouTube provide a vast canvas on which to spread these theories. And, while I support free speech, I don't for one minute put any validity into these various myths surrounding the events in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on that day. I had too much real interaction with the aftermath to believe anyone who wasn't actually there.

So today, I came to the realization that my role as a teacher and communicator is going to change.  While I still live with the fresh memory of those who perished, both known to me and unknown to me, I can no longer just live with these memories and keep them to myself. But rather, as an educator, my role now is to act as a living history book, sharing the experience and making sure that this next generation of students, those born long after this stopped being "current events" and started being a chapter in their textbook, do not forget what happened on that day, or the lives that were lost, or the heroes that we celebrate.

In some way, I am going to have to become like one of the many that I met this summer who participated in the civil rights events in Alabama in 1963. My travels took me to Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery where I not only got to visit the sites of these great events, but to also meet many of those who were there. Their stories and recollections took what was to me a "textbook entry" and made it alive. I read about it - but they lived and breathed it. I could not have been more thankful for the time they were able to spend with me, sharing their own personal histories.

And now, it is up to me, to continue to share my personal history and those that I am familiar with, with my own students. I hope they find it as enriching as I have.

Today is September 11, or Patriot's Day. Take a moment to pause and remember.

I did.

Preserved in vinyl

Yesterday was Record Store Day, a day designed to celebrate those independent merchants who still peddle recorded music the way it was meant to be peddled – in physical form, preferably pressed into 12-inch disks of vinyl.

I spent some time in my local record shop yesterday with my 22 year old son, browsing through bins of timeworn albums, looking for that one elusive piece that would complete my otherwise never-ending collection of vintage wax.  Among the gems I spotted was an original pressing of the James Taylor album on Apple (a steal at $8, which I readily grabbed), more than two dozen copies of Ian Hunter's “Your Never Alone with a Schizophrenic”, most at $4 (never owned it and still don’t) and a near-mint copy of the underrated “Red Rose Speedway” by Wings (truly completing the only hole in the collection for a mere $20).

Along the way, I had a chance to spend some quality time with my son and, perhaps, give him a glimpse into the way it used to be for me – a Saturday spent browsing through the record bins, trying to maximize the money in my pocket and admiring what is now, in many ways, a lost art form – the 12” record jacket.

But I was so happy to see so many young people in the store, not only looking at the vinyl records, but also browsing their shinier CD cousins and even perusing, dare I say it, the 45s! I was also pleasantly surprised to see how much “new stuff” there is out now on vinyl – although at prices that made me balk (in much the way that the original CD prices made me delay my ultimate purchase). Out of curiousity, I did a little checking and discovered that vinyl sales were up 19% last year, with turntable sales expected to rise 40%. Is this 1975??

I was so nice to see so many “old friends” in those bins – records I’d longed for and then forgotten about, artists who seemed to come and go, and the artwork that was the visual landscape of my youth. Did I spend a little more than I wanted to? Yes, as a matter of fact. But it was so nice to come home with that bag full of those black platters, wondering just what sound was going to emerge once I dropped the stylus of my ancient turntable on my precious stack of vintage vinyl.

And, later, as I listened to one of my vintage purchases, I finally paid attention to the lyrics of one of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs. I think I finally get it now. So, to close, I share those lyrics here:

Bookends Theme

By Paul Simon

Time it was,

And what a time it was,

It was. . .

A time of innocence

A time of confidences

Long ago. . .it must be.

I have a photograph.

Preserve your memories.

They’re all that’s left you.

If you know me, you get this. . .too

Sometimes a lyric is more than a lyric. This one has been hitting home of late.

The Fool on the Hill (J. Lennon/P. McCartney)

Day after day,
Alone on a hill,
The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still
But nobody wants to know him,
They can see that he's just a fool,
And he never gives an answer,

But the fool on the hill,
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round.

Well on the way,
Head in a cloud,
The man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud
But nobody ever hears him,
or the sound he appears to make,
and he never seems to notice,

But the fool on the hill,
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round.

And nobody seems to like him,
they can tell what he wants to do,
and he never shows his feelings,

But the fool on the hill,
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round.

Ooh, ooh,
Round and round and round.

And he never listens to them,
He knows that they're the fools
They don't like him,

The fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round.

Ooh,
Round and round and round

It's Little Christmas!!

 

   Today was my favorite holiday of the year. Or maybe my second favorite holiday, as I really like Easter for some reason. But anyway, as for today, today we celebrated “Little Christmas”, more commonly known among those of the Roman Catholic persuasion as the Feast of the Epiphany.  I know from my own research, that Little Christmas is commonly celebrated in Latin American countries but in my house it is celebrated not because we are of Latin American descent (we’re not) but because I decided I wanted a holiday all to myself.

   Now I didn’t set out to do this in the way that George Costanza’s father created Festivus, but rather because in my house, as in most homes I’d guess, the celebration of the holidays fell to the women. In my home, for instance, it is my wife who has always taken the lead on the holidays and thank goodness for that because, left to me, the holidays would be a dead bush in the corner and bologna sandwiches in front of the television.

   But while I don’t want to take over the holidays, I did want to create something that was Daddy’s day. Not a day where I am celebrated, by the way, but rather a day when I celebrate all of those in my family. For you see, Little Christmas in my home is a day when I give gifts to those in my family with explicit rules that there is to be NO reciprocation. None. I wanted one day when I get to play Santa Claus.

   No discussing of gift ideas with anyone, no shopping with anyone. I have to do it all by myself. The thinking, the buying, the wrapping. And, as a rule, it’s not to be anything big, but rather something small and, in many ways, insignificant compared to the gifts just received on Christmas. Because the idea behind the day is that it isn’t the value of the gift, but rather the fact that I want to show my kids and my wife how much I love them.

   I guess, now that I look back at it on paper, I am doing what God did in sending us Jesus. He gave a gift (albeit a bit more significant than my trinkets) just from him to everyone else. I never thought of it that way and I didn’t intend for this to become religious, but I do see a connection there.

    Anyway, today was my holiday. Tomorrow the lights and the tree come down and we’re back to normal for another three hundred and thirty days or so.  Merry (Little) Christmas.

Columbus, Magellan, and. . .Armstrong

   It's that time of year again, when almost every newspaper and news program recounts the lists of famous people who died this year. CBS Sunday Morning did a particularly good job with theirs (truthfully, they do a good job with almost everything) and, as I watched it, I came to a sudden realization.
   I teach fifth grade and part of what I teach, whether my supervisors like it or not, is explorers. Columbus, Magellan - the guys that roamed the seas in search of what was really unknown. My kids come to know Columbus through stories, paintings and porrly animated shorts. Same for the others - merely pictures in an otherwise useless textbook.
   But Sunday I finally took notice of Neil Armstrong. Not that I wasn't aware of who he is or what he did. But I came to think of him as an explorer - just as significant as the others that came hundreds of years before him. The last man to truly be the first to set foot on a completely foreign land - or planet for that matter.   And, thanks to technology, future generations won't have to rely on distorted paintings or bad animation. They will have the real deal - Neil Armstrong himself - to tell the story and to be celebrated.
   We celebrate so many things - we remember so many people - that I think it gets harder to separate the truly important from the far-less-significant. Not that anybody's life is insignificant, especially to those that love them. But to be blunt, when I see a celebration of Whitney Houston's life - a life not cut short through illness or accident but rather a life consciously thrown away - and I don't see the star-studded celebration of the life of Neil Armstrong, I have to come to the conclusion that we've lost all historical perspective.
   One hundred years from now, when perhaps there is a colony living on the Moon, perhaps one of their holidays will be Neil Armstrong Day to mark that day in July when their home was "discovered." Celebrate with a parade and a day off from work and school. Remember Armstrong for the significance of his achievement - much like those explorers that came before him.
   By then, I figure, both Whitney Houston and I will have faded from memory. And that, perhaps, is how it should be.

Possibilities. . .and a notebook

I wrote the following on the first page of one of the best gifts I've ever gotten from a student - a new notebook.


I told a story once. Most of it was made up. It was meant to get my kids excited about writing. I had asked them to bring in a notebook - a writer's notebook, I called it. And we were going to fill it with all sorts of things.
   And then I told the story - a story of how excited I got at the sight of a new, fresh notebook. How I couldn't wait to open it. To write in it. To create things in it.
   Most of the story was probably nicked from other things I'd heard writers say about notebooks. I didn't care. I made their stories mine.
   It must have been pretty believable. At least to one student. Because, three days before Christmas break, she gave me this present. A fresh, clean, never-written-in notebook. And I had no choice but to be excited.
   But the excitement was genuine. Not necessarily for the notebook, but rather for the look on her face when she gave it to me. The look that said "Here. Here is what you told us you love the most."
   What she couldn't have known was that it's not notebooks that I love the most. It's possibilities. A notebook can become anything. And so can a student.
   Maybe, in the end, that's why I teach. Not for the tangible rewards but for the possibilities - of what might be.
   And so that's how I came to possess this notebook. And, as much as possible, I will try to fill it with stories of school and students. And possibilities.

Newtown

Being that I'm an elementary school teacher, I have taken the events at the school in Newtown, CT very personally. None of us who are teachers can ever be fully prepared for everything that might happen on any given day, but I have always hoped that the most tragic thing I'd have to prepare for was a child throwing up in my classroom. Seems that that has gone out the window now.
     I work with children every day. I see their good days and their bad days. I make them laugh and I dry their tears. I find their missing notebooks and textbooks, make sure they have lunch and try to make their day as fun and meaningful as possible. And now I thank God that I don't have to explain to my students why their classmates won't be in school on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or ever.
    If there is any justice in the afterlife, this shooter will burn in the fires of Hell for ever and ever. And those that were taken from us so quickly will look down on those that are left behind and somehow give us the strength to get through each day. And we in turn will pray for their souls and pray for those that have the power to act to limit the access to guns and look for some way to make sense of the events of this day.