Much can change in two weeks. In a world of constancy, we are faced with what poets called mutability, the reminder that things always change. In small ways this spot in the backyard has been altered in two weeks; in large ways it is no different; in truth it is always the same.
A feeble winter has passed through southwestern Pennsylvania, as if Nature’s energy has been focused elsewhere. Like the parent of a run-away child whose focus wanes on three kids at home, the intensity cannot be evenly disciplined between two places at once. Somewhere winter storms rage, but here in Pittsburgh we waddle through puddles that would have been massive snowdrifts in Winter’s typical attention. It has been a rainy season.
The yard is muck – two weeks ago it was like standing on a moon-surface snow. The crackle beneath the feet would have deterred a criminal in action. Now the heels sink into a trap of sludge, each step a sqa-woosh-pluck-glosh of sound as the boot holds, pops out, lifts up.
The snow has melted yet the yard holds water across its surface in a green-brown soup waiting to be reheated. Pennsylvania clay, they say, is thick that way. Under two or three feet of tillable soil resides clumps of un-mouldable material, useless in all ways other than holding the Earth together. The clay is a barrier that slows filtration and fills my yard with tiny, melted pools. Eventually the water seeps through, down to a water table only geologists and construction workers worry about. Perhaps those who rely on well water are also concerned with levels and depths and natural streams as well. If that clay could be turned to statues and monuments, what yard would I have for my children to play upon? If crayons could be made or if pots and tableware were to be carved from Pennsylvania’s clump, then the snow-melt-January-rain would drip down to the center unimpeded and flow back to the rivers faster.
The air smells of comfortably pungent reserve, no mold, no festering, and yet not quite spring either. Rather, a hint of dry air evaporates the muddy trenches toward the jetstreams and reeks of scant, day-old moisture. The invisible transformation continues before my very eyes. The sun is engaged in the battle, and like a divorce lawyer watching over custody hearings, it too has a say over which water will go to the clouds and which will sink deep into the folds of the planet.
The runaway child drips into the aquifer as the remaining three ascend toward the clouds; their paths will be different.
Here I stand, the last to rise up and follow Sky Mother, so tempted years ago by Father Dirt, and I wonder aloud about choices, about decisions made when we were too young to even know what decision was. The sister who disappeared into the dirt later returned, clean (sober and clean as they say) and seemed worse for the ware. The others rolled into thunderstorms and violent squalls of their own, as I rode the misty forgiveness of soft spring rains. We were kids then, and this yard was our grandparents’ who have now gone on to be amongst that clay, as has the father who lost a custody battle he didn’t wish to fight. It is my yard now, and I can’t help but think that Pap-pap didn’t have to wait for it to drain, nor do I remember standing water at his house. As nature changes, life holds the scars.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Chatham Nature Writing Blog: Prompt #1 Entry
Where Have All the Sidewalks Gone?
Baldwin Borough is a suburb south of Pittsburgh that does not have sidewalks. I spent my formative years here and have wondered often why the town planners who developed the space decided to leave such common appendages from its streets. Perhaps the notion that everyone would one day be driving everywhere moved such a decision forward. Built in the mid-1950s, Baldwin would have been a quintessentially American idea – success lead to progress and progress lead to thinking about the future in different ways, in newer ways. It has never made sense to me.
Those formative years were between the ages of ten and eighteen. While having on-street parking became a pleasant convenience, my younger years seem to have been stagnated by the inability to go somewhere. I just never thought to walk anywhere because directional suggestion was lacking – as if kids should need suggestions for what to do on a summer day!
We rarely road bikes, too many of us had the new-fandangled Atari game systems in our gamerooms, and without sidewalks to lead us anywhere we did little to motivate ourselves. Sure, we had a few friends whose houses we visited often but hardly enough to amount to exercise. The lack of sidewalks likely resulted in many having no motivation at all, a sort of community-wide laziness. We kids of the 1980s settled for the neighbor’s pool and waited until mom or dad got home to take us anywhere.
Some of us got jobs at sixteen, a few even went off to college after buying our own cars. But for the most part we just kind of hung around our own houses, shot occasional hoops into an under-used basket and walked to the store only when the cool lure of Pepsi aspired us to reach above our coach potato personas.
The community swimming pool was so far removed from our homes that a school bus ran through the massive borough each summer morning to pick up kids who had a pool pass stitched into their name-brand swimsuits. No one wanted to be that nerd who actually bought a pass, so we hung out in the small wooded lots that divided the subdivisions, doing little. The library sits dead-center within the borough, equidistant from both sides of the map which show Baldwin to be shaped like two “C”s cuddling, one upside-down and backward hugging the other at its upper crest. The building of books was too far to reach on foot, but really, what kid thought to read in those summers?
The borough didn’t make me lazy, that is squarely upon my shoulders. I eventually learned to work hard motivated by necessity, not activity. I returned to the same neighborhood in 2001 to raise a family. Baldwin’s lack of sidewalks cannot be blamed for complacent youths who grew to carry massive debt, vote less than any generation before it, raise teen pregnancy statistics to all new levels, surge the popularity of binge drinking, pot consumption and tattoo sales, but you have to wonder what could have happened if someone had said no to the idea of an entire community without sidewalks.
Baldwin Borough is a suburb south of Pittsburgh that does not have sidewalks. I spent my formative years here and have wondered often why the town planners who developed the space decided to leave such common appendages from its streets. Perhaps the notion that everyone would one day be driving everywhere moved such a decision forward. Built in the mid-1950s, Baldwin would have been a quintessentially American idea – success lead to progress and progress lead to thinking about the future in different ways, in newer ways. It has never made sense to me.
Those formative years were between the ages of ten and eighteen. While having on-street parking became a pleasant convenience, my younger years seem to have been stagnated by the inability to go somewhere. I just never thought to walk anywhere because directional suggestion was lacking – as if kids should need suggestions for what to do on a summer day!
We rarely road bikes, too many of us had the new-fandangled Atari game systems in our gamerooms, and without sidewalks to lead us anywhere we did little to motivate ourselves. Sure, we had a few friends whose houses we visited often but hardly enough to amount to exercise. The lack of sidewalks likely resulted in many having no motivation at all, a sort of community-wide laziness. We kids of the 1980s settled for the neighbor’s pool and waited until mom or dad got home to take us anywhere.
Some of us got jobs at sixteen, a few even went off to college after buying our own cars. But for the most part we just kind of hung around our own houses, shot occasional hoops into an under-used basket and walked to the store only when the cool lure of Pepsi aspired us to reach above our coach potato personas.
The community swimming pool was so far removed from our homes that a school bus ran through the massive borough each summer morning to pick up kids who had a pool pass stitched into their name-brand swimsuits. No one wanted to be that nerd who actually bought a pass, so we hung out in the small wooded lots that divided the subdivisions, doing little. The library sits dead-center within the borough, equidistant from both sides of the map which show Baldwin to be shaped like two “C”s cuddling, one upside-down and backward hugging the other at its upper crest. The building of books was too far to reach on foot, but really, what kid thought to read in those summers?
The borough didn’t make me lazy, that is squarely upon my shoulders. I eventually learned to work hard motivated by necessity, not activity. I returned to the same neighborhood in 2001 to raise a family. Baldwin’s lack of sidewalks cannot be blamed for complacent youths who grew to carry massive debt, vote less than any generation before it, raise teen pregnancy statistics to all new levels, surge the popularity of binge drinking, pot consumption and tattoo sales, but you have to wonder what could have happened if someone had said no to the idea of an entire community without sidewalks.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Chatham Nature Writing Blog: Place #1 Entry
Nights With the Kids and Time with Nature (January 15, 2012)
Becca is a smart kid. My twelve-year-old daughter shares the experience that will be my first Nature Writing blog entry as we step outside on a cold January night. Our backyard is of average size but flat with a rough, uncultivated wooded hill behind and a fair view of the sky. We are natural talkers, so we quickly turn to discussing the stars that are visible on a winter evening. I show her Orion; she looks for the Big Dipper; we discuss how star gazers, our name for mappers of the sky, must have lived and worked at night four-hundred years ago.
The sky is skirted along its rim above the horizon, as if a blanket is beginning to grow off of the tangible Earth and toward the dome of atmosphere. It could be frost or ice sparkle, but something of a thin cloud-like band wraps the lower edge of the sky. And then, like an inverted ice cream bowl, the dense gray of the season opens softly across the span and highlights stars against a backdrop that looks more like a negative photo than anything my own eyes could witness.
Cold air has a way of breaking you down. At first, the chill is a thrill, an exhilarating spark of excitement that reminds me of deep, long winters of the 1978 blizzard or the record snowfalls of 1993. The transference of heat through thin cotton sweat pants is no match for the warm barrier provided by a thick, pleated leather jacket yet I feel myself getting cold quickly. I am warm enough to discern the decreasing warmth as we stand and talk.
She remembers a point she had learned in girl scouts – something about seeing from the bottom of a well, a scenario as if you had fallen in; something about stars being brighter even in the middle of the day. It troubles me to think of my kid falling into a well, and I wonder where we even have a such an ancient construct in the South Hills of Pittsburgh.
Becca adds the observation that what we perceive as Orion’s Belt are three stars that are actually millions of miles away from each other. I have three kids. They too will form one identity in my spirit, in my observation, in my life. They already have, yet as their lives go on and forward, they will drift apart and find their own ways, make their own marks, much like the stars. But in a tangible way they will all be part of my personal Orion.
I envy Becca. I didn’t know until I was nineteen what she repeats to me about the stars and about Orion. The clarity of the ages look down at us from illumines millions of miles away, and this observation/writing segment for dad and kid and nature has grown long. We are getting cold, our sentences shorter. The old coat of mine that hangs from her shoulders like a dripping blotch of river-bottom-brown paint is thinner than my jacket. She holds onto the warmth in order to avoid sleep; I hold onto the moment to avoid its passing. There are no wells to drown in, of that much I am certain. A ceiling of stars that have seen the greater magnitude of man’s history will still be here when she lowers me into the Earth some day. My only hope is, that from a grave one can see stars more brilliantly than on any winter night in Pennsylvania.
Becca is a smart kid. My twelve-year-old daughter shares the experience that will be my first Nature Writing blog entry as we step outside on a cold January night. Our backyard is of average size but flat with a rough, uncultivated wooded hill behind and a fair view of the sky. We are natural talkers, so we quickly turn to discussing the stars that are visible on a winter evening. I show her Orion; she looks for the Big Dipper; we discuss how star gazers, our name for mappers of the sky, must have lived and worked at night four-hundred years ago.
The sky is skirted along its rim above the horizon, as if a blanket is beginning to grow off of the tangible Earth and toward the dome of atmosphere. It could be frost or ice sparkle, but something of a thin cloud-like band wraps the lower edge of the sky. And then, like an inverted ice cream bowl, the dense gray of the season opens softly across the span and highlights stars against a backdrop that looks more like a negative photo than anything my own eyes could witness.
Cold air has a way of breaking you down. At first, the chill is a thrill, an exhilarating spark of excitement that reminds me of deep, long winters of the 1978 blizzard or the record snowfalls of 1993. The transference of heat through thin cotton sweat pants is no match for the warm barrier provided by a thick, pleated leather jacket yet I feel myself getting cold quickly. I am warm enough to discern the decreasing warmth as we stand and talk.
She remembers a point she had learned in girl scouts – something about seeing from the bottom of a well, a scenario as if you had fallen in; something about stars being brighter even in the middle of the day. It troubles me to think of my kid falling into a well, and I wonder where we even have a such an ancient construct in the South Hills of Pittsburgh.
Becca adds the observation that what we perceive as Orion’s Belt are three stars that are actually millions of miles away from each other. I have three kids. They too will form one identity in my spirit, in my observation, in my life. They already have, yet as their lives go on and forward, they will drift apart and find their own ways, make their own marks, much like the stars. But in a tangible way they will all be part of my personal Orion.
I envy Becca. I didn’t know until I was nineteen what she repeats to me about the stars and about Orion. The clarity of the ages look down at us from illumines millions of miles away, and this observation/writing segment for dad and kid and nature has grown long. We are getting cold, our sentences shorter. The old coat of mine that hangs from her shoulders like a dripping blotch of river-bottom-brown paint is thinner than my jacket. She holds onto the warmth in order to avoid sleep; I hold onto the moment to avoid its passing. There are no wells to drown in, of that much I am certain. A ceiling of stars that have seen the greater magnitude of man’s history will still be here when she lowers me into the Earth some day. My only hope is, that from a grave one can see stars more brilliantly than on any winter night in Pennsylvania.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The Tan Duffel
This was an assignment for a writing class that will be revised. I was to write about a travel obsession and decided to take a fun angle with the idea. I thought readers might enjoy it.
* * *
The package sat unattended, its position safe but its contents unstable.
I held check, my position secured.
Chatter around the perimeter suggested joyful celebration, as if a long-awaited goal was about to be attained. A rogue adversary approved forward activity.
I positioned myself for visual confirmation and verified my peripherals: a clear line on the target two feet away, entry and retreat uninhibited for a ten-foot radius.
I moved in.
“No, don’t do it!” A child’s voice, the worst calamity.
I drew back but kept my eyes on the package.
The tan duffel sat along the driveway, its black straps limp and disconnected across the concrete, its innards exposed through an open top. The zipper had been ignored, final details unimportant once the bag was filled.
I changed my approach, circled the yard for a clearer route.
* * *
The package sat unattended, its position safe but its contents unstable.
I held check, my position secured.
Chatter around the perimeter suggested joyful celebration, as if a long-awaited goal was about to be attained. A rogue adversary approved forward activity.
I positioned myself for visual confirmation and verified my peripherals: a clear line on the target two feet away, entry and retreat uninhibited for a ten-foot radius.
I moved in.
“No, don’t do it!” A child’s voice, the worst calamity.
I drew back but kept my eyes on the package.
The tan duffel sat along the driveway, its black straps limp and disconnected across the concrete, its innards exposed through an open top. The zipper had been ignored, final details unimportant once the bag was filled.
I changed my approach, circled the yard for a clearer route.
"Kids, let’s go.” The adversary’s voice resonated with stress. “Why isn’t that bag in the car?”
I was caught! “Huh? Oh, hey, Michelle.”
I was caught! “Huh? Oh, hey, Michelle.”
My wife pointed at the duffel. “Throw that in the car and let’s go,” she said.
Every trip we take repeats this same issue. I pack the car and my wife and kids hand me bags that are wide open. I am no highly-trained inspections officer from the Transportation Safety Administration, but I know when a bag looks nice. A bag that is not closed is slovenly. As I lug the burdensome luggage through parking lots, I sense surveillance from open windows. Better dads and proper husbands stare and scoff. I can hear their remarks as drapes slide closed: Guy can’t even close his suitcase. Harumph, grumble, grumble. An overnight bag with a gaping hole across its top is a cavern of chaos waiting to break free should it be toppled.
Soon, we buzzed along the interstate en route to a friend’s wedding. The obsession rattled in my brain like Yahtzee dice wanting to escape their shake and roll cup. I wanted to scream, “Why won’t you just pack four items less so the bags will close?!” But I remained quiet. Operation Stop and Pee had already been set in motion.
I had given each kid a can of Pepsi. “Why not?” I had told them. “It’s a mini-vacation. Go for it!” Had they seen my devilish smile, they would have run. Dad’s up to something again, save us! Not this time. Not this trip. I waited.
An hour into the trip, the first sign of weakness echoed from the backseat of our red Chevy HHR. “Are we there yet?” my son asked. A trained parent recognizes the first response to pressure upon the bladder. He shifted in the seat, approaching the “I gotta go!” moment.
I looked in the mirror, fixed my eyes on Brian. His sandy-brown hair hovered over bored eyelids like a canopy over a canceled picnic. “Not yet, Buddy. Everything okay?” He sighed, uttered yes and leaned his chin on his fist. The thought of the duffel lingered as I gave a courtesy check around the car. “Girls, you okay?” Two sweet voices piped up that all was well, but my youngest, Bethany, added, “I guess.” Operation Stop and Pee had entered Phase Two – the Wait.
Somewhere in the hatchback, the tan duffel sat open. I was distracted with thoughts of exposed garments. There’s no shame in what we own; everyone has underwear, right? It’s the practicality of the matter. Why risk dropping things when the zipper is right there? “Just close the damn zipper!” I muttered.
“What, dad?” my smiling “tween”, Becca, asked from under headphones.
“Huh? What? Nothing. Just calculating the mile markers.” I lied to my kid. How far would I go? The open duffel loomed over my very soul. The obsessive thoughts grew.
In truth, my obsession is a rebellion against excessive behavior. We have too much stuff, and the last thing I want to show weary travelers is that I am raising kids to bundle their possessions like squirrels in winter. Travel is an extension of who you are, it defines you to the people you meet along the way. I can’t show the world my ugly side. I have people to meet, friends to make and good times to have.
My hand gripped the steering wheel. Sixty-seven minutes had passed since Brian asked if we were there. That kid was growing too fast! His bladder had become an impenetrable fortress. If a can of soda could hold in there for two hours, what would become of his college days? My mind wandered. I imagined him taking wide open suitcases and de-lidded boxes back and forth to college; envisioned parties where a beer bong hovered over my little boy like a Gothic ritual. I had to save him. The boy needed to...
“Dad, are we there yet now?”
There it was – Operation Stop and Pee, Final Phase.
“What’s up, Buddy?” I had watched The Bourne Identity. I know how to play these roles. “You okay?” My eyes barely left the road.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said.
I glanced at Michelle, smiled, shrugged. “Guess we gotta stop,” I told her.
“Uh-huh,” she agreed, lost in a magazine.
Four miles on, a sign read: “Rest Stop – Right Lane.” I pressed the gas just enough to creep over the speed limit. I hit the exit ramp hard and threw a spiral of cinders into the air.
My wife flinched.
She folded the magazine and tucked it away. “Girls, either of you have to...?”
I heard nothing else. The moment crawled with perfect execution. I edged the car into a spot, popped the locks, and my family sprung forward. Nikes and knock-offs hit the pavement the same way they burst through the door on the first day of summer.
I stood, stretched, took a look around the parking lot.
“Why’d you park so far from the entrance?” Michelle asked.
“They have energy to burn. With an hour left, the walk will do them good.” I leaned on the roof, content. I thought only of the satisfactory plu-chunk of the tailgate as it popped open.
“Aren’t you coming in?” she asked.
“Don’t need to. I went before we left, haven’t touched my Pepsi.” She gazed into the car and saw the unopened can. “Not thirsty,” I said. “I think I’ll just stretch, walk the legs out.”
She shook her head and walked toward the store. Things had all fallen into place masterfully.
The automatic doors slid shut behind Michelle, and I zapped the button on the keychain. The tailgate lifted like an offering. I scanned the lot again for recognizance surveillance. The coast was clear. A man in a fedora puffed away at a cigarette by the entrance, but he didn’t notice. He was someone else’s decoy.
I stepped toward the gate and fished out the open bag. There it sat – wedged under roller skates and someone’s fluffy pillow. I reached for the bag, gave a good tug. The weight above added pressure and it did not budge. “Damnit,” I uttered. I have fast pee-ers for kids, they wouldn’t be gone long. I gave a hefty pull, full reverse throttle, and the bag leapt toward me, bringing a skate with it. The plastic bomb clomped onto my toes and I let out a yell that would stop the mailman. “Son of a” something I cursed. I threw the skate back in and set to work.
I rested the bag against the bumper – no time to place it on the ground. The opening was wide, a gap. The duffel carried clothes I hadn’t seen the kids wear in months. A piece of aqua green swimsuit with a fake palm tree lapped out of one end and a blue shirt hung precariously over the other. I stuffed the contents in and pulled the zipper, hard. It moved a smidge, four teeth gripped at best. I pressed down on the bag, crushing all cotton and any hidden bottles within. If need be, I would pay for laundry services at the hotel. What’s a little shampoo in an open bag, right? Nothing popped inside, but nothing gave way either. I grabbed the duffel from both sides, squeezed the zipper’s unhinged sides as close together as possible. The little connecting nubs cut into my hands but I withstood the pain. With my right hand I again tugged at the zipper; it edged forward a bit closer and then slid away as I let slip my grip. Sweat galloped from my brow. I looked up – no family in sight. I tried again, punched the middle, pulled the zipper, and pressed a knee against the side. I gained an inch, maybe two.
Then I heard it! Bethany’s friendly chatter. She’s a loud kid, like her dad. I canvassed the scene – they were on their way. I tried the zipper again, made no further movement forward. Thirty seconds until I would be caught. Michelle would lob accusations of paranoia and ridiculous worries at me. I tried again, no progress. My right hand burned; little half-circles were indented into the flesh from the zipper tag. My left hand cramped. No time. I yanked the thick cotton shirt from the bag, stashed it between a backpack and another pillow, slid the duffel closed and jammed it into place just as Brian reached the car.
I slapped shut the tailgate, rubbed my hands and smiled. “Everyone go potty?”
“Dad,” Becca warned, “We don’t go potty anymore, we’re big now. It’s just a bathroom.”
“Right, let’s go then.”
Michelle sensed my deception. “What were you doing?”
“Huh? What? Nothing.” All these lies!
“Dan,” she used my name, the sign of serious business. “Why were you in the back?”
“I thought I heard a game beeping.”
“Did you turn it off?”
“Turns out it was the guy next to us – one of those squawk radios. What did your dad call them?”
“A Cee-Bee.” She did not look convinced.
“Yeah, that’s it. Funny, they sound like a computer game. Let’s roll.”
It takes a mastermind to think of everything. I had my tracks covered from every angle. Operation Stop and Pee had been successful. On we rode, a family safe, bags properly secured, children prepared for a solid future. Espionage – it’s not just for Special Agents anymore!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
A versus V (or My Personal Pipe Dream)
I think I am onto something. Hear me out, this is not one of my crazy plans to rule the world. That sort of ended when I realized that the P-52 Space Modulator is not even real!
I am not a Sociologist, but I do have a knack for paying attention to how we live our lives and how people interact. The fact that our society is marred with issues and problems is not unique. While we magnify the controversies of our day, each society throughout history has had its fair share of scandal, debate, pressures and wrongdoings. Look at The Plague – how fun could that have been? Mankind has often faced challenges and We Of the Modern Age have it no differently. I can only care about the context of our time, so I thus offer the following hypothesis.
We need to reduce our definition of success. Okay, maybe that isn’t a hypothesis but let me explain.
I work a modest living at a good school and take what probably falls into the realm of an “average” commute back and forth each day. I can’t complain. I have it easier than a lot of people and find great satisfaction in my career. Still, I spend more time with my co-workers than I do with my kids.
There is something wrong with our society when I have time for in-depth conversations with a math teacher and only enough time to recap the day and preview what’s on the docket for tomorrow with my wife. Don’t get me wrong, the match teacher is a good guy, but that fact alone magnifies what is wrong with how we live in the modern day.
We need to experience a cultural shift, one that is serious and real and refocuses what truly matters to us as a people. I will call it the A versus V Societal Shimmy. “A” relates to Accomplishment; “V” relates to Value. What we value is accomplishment, yet what we should try to accomplish is a refocusing of our values.
We need to change from an accomplishment-centric people to a value-centric people.
We need, quite simply, to find a way to live better, and the solution isn’t all that hard to imagine. I certainly am not calling for a hippy commune of shared survival. We have to work, and we have responsibility. Things need to get done. I just want us to value our lives more and work less. Is that so much to ask?
I propose we advance to a four-day work week and close all non-essential services for two of the three days that we are off. This does not need to extend the weekend; maybe we could take a mid-week break. Work Monday and Tuesday, rest up on Wednesday, return to work for two days before the weekend. Huh? What do you think? How cool would that be? I don’t care whether it is cool or not, I know it could restore a focus on valuing our lives and our time and our society, if we use the time wisely.
I get it – competition breeds hard work, hard work creates success, success leads to a better life and the cycle goes on and on. But when does such a maddening cycle stop!?! It doesn’t. And that is the root of our problems; our problems are so out of control that we just don’t know what to do. But wasn’t success supposed to allow for leisure time? Time to spend with, oh I don’t know…family?
If we claim to support, and want to foster, and even propose to need, the ever-popular “family values,” I think it is high time we change how we function as a society. If we find a way to truly encourage family values, then maybe we would improve some of the things that ail us in the twenty-first century. Again, I am no expert in Sociology, but my hunch is that with a better core value, we could do away with such things as…gee, I don’t know, the pressure of a list... How about we abolish hatred, prejudice, laziness, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, alcoholism, domestic violence, suicide and the drop-out rate for starters? With a value-focused life directed toward true family time, these all can disappear.
Instead of trying to fix these problems, why don’t we look at them as symptoms of a bigger problem!?! That problem being how we live and how we balance our time.
The problem is we push too much toward Accomplishment and care too little about Value.
I don’t care what you have accomplished in your life, tell me what you value.
It doesn’t matter how you spend your family time, it’s about returning the “value” to the phrase family values. If you enjoy going to the park as a family, grab that basket and go! If prayer is your thing for the family, churches on nearly every main street in America will open their doors to you. Go Episcopalian, Lutheran, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhism, it doesn’t matter to me. If sports bring you together, coach up, buy tickets, wear jerseys, though I suggest you leave the beer at home. (Sorry, no plan is perfect!) Movies can be family time – if you talk about them beforehand and afterward. Teach your kids by teaching them how to ask questions. Why was the film script written? What was unique about the setting? There is even an opportunity to take a tour. If you loved a movie, tour the city in which it was filmed. That would be neat.
The point is simple – there are a lot of ways to spend time together. But first we need to change how we go about life in order to have more time together…and that is where A slams into V and causes chaos. (I wish I had that math teacher handy to draw up a formula that would describe that better. Inertia and energy and unstoppable forces, that sort of diagram.)
This is not Utopian banter. I realize life cannot be perfect and peaceful and bursting with free time for everyone; someone has to work. I am willing to do my fair share. But, what if we just cut down on the amount of progress we need to record? What if the seven day week became a week of four work days and three family days? Not leisure time, not get stupid drunk time, certainly not “let’s-shop-more-there-might-be-a-sale” time either! Just time. Time to refocus our values.
It seems to me that we have accelerated the human experience. We live faster, worry about deadlines more and push, push, push to get things done, acquire more goods, make more money and ultimately live unfulfilled lives. Guess what? The only time we cannot control is the minute we die, and then we will be lying there wishing we had all those days back.
I am not a Sociologist, but I do have a knack for paying attention to how we live our lives and how people interact. The fact that our society is marred with issues and problems is not unique. While we magnify the controversies of our day, each society throughout history has had its fair share of scandal, debate, pressures and wrongdoings. Look at The Plague – how fun could that have been? Mankind has often faced challenges and We Of the Modern Age have it no differently. I can only care about the context of our time, so I thus offer the following hypothesis.
We need to reduce our definition of success. Okay, maybe that isn’t a hypothesis but let me explain.
I work a modest living at a good school and take what probably falls into the realm of an “average” commute back and forth each day. I can’t complain. I have it easier than a lot of people and find great satisfaction in my career. Still, I spend more time with my co-workers than I do with my kids.
There is something wrong with our society when I have time for in-depth conversations with a math teacher and only enough time to recap the day and preview what’s on the docket for tomorrow with my wife. Don’t get me wrong, the match teacher is a good guy, but that fact alone magnifies what is wrong with how we live in the modern day.
We need to experience a cultural shift, one that is serious and real and refocuses what truly matters to us as a people. I will call it the A versus V Societal Shimmy. “A” relates to Accomplishment; “V” relates to Value. What we value is accomplishment, yet what we should try to accomplish is a refocusing of our values.
We need to change from an accomplishment-centric people to a value-centric people.
We need, quite simply, to find a way to live better, and the solution isn’t all that hard to imagine. I certainly am not calling for a hippy commune of shared survival. We have to work, and we have responsibility. Things need to get done. I just want us to value our lives more and work less. Is that so much to ask?
I propose we advance to a four-day work week and close all non-essential services for two of the three days that we are off. This does not need to extend the weekend; maybe we could take a mid-week break. Work Monday and Tuesday, rest up on Wednesday, return to work for two days before the weekend. Huh? What do you think? How cool would that be? I don’t care whether it is cool or not, I know it could restore a focus on valuing our lives and our time and our society, if we use the time wisely.
I get it – competition breeds hard work, hard work creates success, success leads to a better life and the cycle goes on and on. But when does such a maddening cycle stop!?! It doesn’t. And that is the root of our problems; our problems are so out of control that we just don’t know what to do. But wasn’t success supposed to allow for leisure time? Time to spend with, oh I don’t know…family?
If we claim to support, and want to foster, and even propose to need, the ever-popular “family values,” I think it is high time we change how we function as a society. If we find a way to truly encourage family values, then maybe we would improve some of the things that ail us in the twenty-first century. Again, I am no expert in Sociology, but my hunch is that with a better core value, we could do away with such things as…gee, I don’t know, the pressure of a list... How about we abolish hatred, prejudice, laziness, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, alcoholism, domestic violence, suicide and the drop-out rate for starters? With a value-focused life directed toward true family time, these all can disappear.
Instead of trying to fix these problems, why don’t we look at them as symptoms of a bigger problem!?! That problem being how we live and how we balance our time.
The problem is we push too much toward Accomplishment and care too little about Value.
I don’t care what you have accomplished in your life, tell me what you value.
It doesn’t matter how you spend your family time, it’s about returning the “value” to the phrase family values. If you enjoy going to the park as a family, grab that basket and go! If prayer is your thing for the family, churches on nearly every main street in America will open their doors to you. Go Episcopalian, Lutheran, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhism, it doesn’t matter to me. If sports bring you together, coach up, buy tickets, wear jerseys, though I suggest you leave the beer at home. (Sorry, no plan is perfect!) Movies can be family time – if you talk about them beforehand and afterward. Teach your kids by teaching them how to ask questions. Why was the film script written? What was unique about the setting? There is even an opportunity to take a tour. If you loved a movie, tour the city in which it was filmed. That would be neat.
The point is simple – there are a lot of ways to spend time together. But first we need to change how we go about life in order to have more time together…and that is where A slams into V and causes chaos. (I wish I had that math teacher handy to draw up a formula that would describe that better. Inertia and energy and unstoppable forces, that sort of diagram.)
This is not Utopian banter. I realize life cannot be perfect and peaceful and bursting with free time for everyone; someone has to work. I am willing to do my fair share. But, what if we just cut down on the amount of progress we need to record? What if the seven day week became a week of four work days and three family days? Not leisure time, not get stupid drunk time, certainly not “let’s-shop-more-there-might-be-a-sale” time either! Just time. Time to refocus our values.
It seems to me that we have accelerated the human experience. We live faster, worry about deadlines more and push, push, push to get things done, acquire more goods, make more money and ultimately live unfulfilled lives. Guess what? The only time we cannot control is the minute we die, and then we will be lying there wishing we had all those days back.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Trouble
I am troubled today. What troubles my mind is a list of things I can only minimally affect, things that require big change, full progress and many people interested in helping me to ease my troubled mind.
I am troubled by thoughts of a misconstrued apocalypse. Really, is the world ever going to end? Scientists suggest some ridiculous number nearing fifty million years. A religious fanatic predicts it will happen this October. Too much room for error for me. I think I will follow Natalie Merchant’s advice and “let the mystery be.”
I am troubled by a planet that is becoming over-populated, yet equally troubled that the fair distribution of space is nowhere near equilibrium. Have you seen the open countryside? If we could find a way to get jobs and commerce to the “middle of nowhere,” it seems that everyone would have a comfortable homestead.
I am not in trouble often but am troubled by a number of things:
Troubled, by the number of students who opt to drop out of high school. I have read statistics that place the drop-out rate anywhere between 19 and 22% of high school kids. 1 in 5 teenagers won’t finish high school? In the so-called richest and best nation in the world, we let that happen? My goodness, that is a shame.
Not troubled, by similar college numbers – there is much more involved in decisions on the college level. Not everyone is “college material,” and the costs may outweigh the benefits. Let’s face it, we need skilled labor as much as we need menial labor, and college is not intended to prepare a person for all of the jobs we need for society to function.
Troubled, by the rising occurrence of murder-suicides in our nation. Times are bad, I get that. But what ever happened to perseverance? Or, worse, when did it become acceptable to take others out because of your own suffering? Maybe the ultimate act of selfishness is when you can’t see the light so you blacken it from others.
Troubled, by larger issues as well. If a guy from Pittsburgh can comprehend that killing others in the name of religion doesn’t make sense, then why do power-hungry rich autocrats not get that? I ain’t all that smart, folks. It doesn’t take much to see that blind philosophy bent on hatred leads to nothing good.
Troubled, definitely, that my message can only reach those who already know the above to be true. What good is a point if the ones who need to read it, never do?
Troubled, by small things with big implications. Why do we create discounts and tax breaks and incentives for companies to convert corn into fuel when people are starving in the world? Why do so many Americans say “I am starving” when really we are just hungry until our next meal? It is an exaggeration and, sure, we know what you mean. Is it possible to be more sensitive to what words mean in their basic form?
Troubled, that we had to write up hate crime laws to protect the innocent. At what point on the moral compass of humanity did we violate an individual’s right to be who they are born to be? And, if you disagree and think that one is “not born a certain way,” then take that up with your God and leave the rest of us here to make society better through acceptance and understanding. Perhaps (and probably) hatred and its resulting violence has been around as long as mankind has walked its only Earth. Duh! Of course it has.
Troubled, that it took us 2,000 years and more to figure out that bad people come in all shapes and sizes too. They just surprise us more by how and why they strike out.
Troubled, by our systems in this country. It seems that social programs and capital campaigns and political parties and education sectors have all gotten to be too big. Within their colossal scope it becomes more and more difficult to practice control. Not control in terms of who runs the bureaucracy but rather in the context that someone who is running the ship can foresee the eventual outcome of what might come next. (I am troubled that the point I am trying to make here may not be clear enough.)
Troubles abound. I am troubled not by lack of education but by a willingness of people not to care about education. If young people don’t even know they have a chance…then where are we?
Here’s a troubling thought. I have no problem with the self-flushing toilet…but why in the hell did we have to invent that thing in the first place?!? What person began the trend of not disposing of his own waste? That is what troubles me – that the need to invent such things exists because some people are pigs.
I am troubled that teens find more excitement in video games than they do in intellectual curiosity. When did we forget to teach that? It is troubling that we teach to specific tests and “guidelines” and forget that to learn is to think for oneself.
What a troubling thought that marriage is not taken seriously, but yet perhaps more troubling that society insists upon marriage when really it is such a deeply personal decision. Not all people should/ need to / could be married.
It troubles me sometimes that I am a dreamer. We will never get rid of guns, we will probably never stop countries from hating each other, we may very well never be able to endorse the benefits of education to everyone, yet we will continue to have troubles.
I am troubled by thoughts of a misconstrued apocalypse. Really, is the world ever going to end? Scientists suggest some ridiculous number nearing fifty million years. A religious fanatic predicts it will happen this October. Too much room for error for me. I think I will follow Natalie Merchant’s advice and “let the mystery be.”
I am troubled by a planet that is becoming over-populated, yet equally troubled that the fair distribution of space is nowhere near equilibrium. Have you seen the open countryside? If we could find a way to get jobs and commerce to the “middle of nowhere,” it seems that everyone would have a comfortable homestead.
I am not in trouble often but am troubled by a number of things:
Troubled, by the number of students who opt to drop out of high school. I have read statistics that place the drop-out rate anywhere between 19 and 22% of high school kids. 1 in 5 teenagers won’t finish high school? In the so-called richest and best nation in the world, we let that happen? My goodness, that is a shame.
Not troubled, by similar college numbers – there is much more involved in decisions on the college level. Not everyone is “college material,” and the costs may outweigh the benefits. Let’s face it, we need skilled labor as much as we need menial labor, and college is not intended to prepare a person for all of the jobs we need for society to function.
Troubled, by the rising occurrence of murder-suicides in our nation. Times are bad, I get that. But what ever happened to perseverance? Or, worse, when did it become acceptable to take others out because of your own suffering? Maybe the ultimate act of selfishness is when you can’t see the light so you blacken it from others.
Troubled, by larger issues as well. If a guy from Pittsburgh can comprehend that killing others in the name of religion doesn’t make sense, then why do power-hungry rich autocrats not get that? I ain’t all that smart, folks. It doesn’t take much to see that blind philosophy bent on hatred leads to nothing good.
Troubled, definitely, that my message can only reach those who already know the above to be true. What good is a point if the ones who need to read it, never do?
Troubled, by small things with big implications. Why do we create discounts and tax breaks and incentives for companies to convert corn into fuel when people are starving in the world? Why do so many Americans say “I am starving” when really we are just hungry until our next meal? It is an exaggeration and, sure, we know what you mean. Is it possible to be more sensitive to what words mean in their basic form?
Troubled, that we had to write up hate crime laws to protect the innocent. At what point on the moral compass of humanity did we violate an individual’s right to be who they are born to be? And, if you disagree and think that one is “not born a certain way,” then take that up with your God and leave the rest of us here to make society better through acceptance and understanding. Perhaps (and probably) hatred and its resulting violence has been around as long as mankind has walked its only Earth. Duh! Of course it has.
Troubled, that it took us 2,000 years and more to figure out that bad people come in all shapes and sizes too. They just surprise us more by how and why they strike out.
Troubled, by our systems in this country. It seems that social programs and capital campaigns and political parties and education sectors have all gotten to be too big. Within their colossal scope it becomes more and more difficult to practice control. Not control in terms of who runs the bureaucracy but rather in the context that someone who is running the ship can foresee the eventual outcome of what might come next. (I am troubled that the point I am trying to make here may not be clear enough.)
Troubles abound. I am troubled not by lack of education but by a willingness of people not to care about education. If young people don’t even know they have a chance…then where are we?
Here’s a troubling thought. I have no problem with the self-flushing toilet…but why in the hell did we have to invent that thing in the first place?!? What person began the trend of not disposing of his own waste? That is what troubles me – that the need to invent such things exists because some people are pigs.
I am troubled that teens find more excitement in video games than they do in intellectual curiosity. When did we forget to teach that? It is troubling that we teach to specific tests and “guidelines” and forget that to learn is to think for oneself.
What a troubling thought that marriage is not taken seriously, but yet perhaps more troubling that society insists upon marriage when really it is such a deeply personal decision. Not all people should/ need to / could be married.
It troubles me sometimes that I am a dreamer. We will never get rid of guns, we will probably never stop countries from hating each other, we may very well never be able to endorse the benefits of education to everyone, yet we will continue to have troubles.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Twenty Years with Stanley: May 25, 1991 – May 25, 2011
As a kid, you dream of things that may come to matter less when you get older. Some say you grow up, others say that you change perspective. Maybe it is a little of both. My brother had a friend who used to say, “I still got a little kid left in me,” and I never really knew what he meant. I heard it as a verbal conundrum. Was he saying that he was still a little boy, in that he refused to grow up and hoped to remain the proverbial toys-are-us kind of kid? Or, was he suggesting that he hoped to always maintain a bit of kid (as in a “little” amount) within his personality. That way, he would mature but still enjoy the things that make us remember being a kid. I never asked him and maybe will one day. It suggests, however, that each of us should hold onto some strand of what mattered when we were little.
One thing I really wanted as a kid was to be a baseball player. That fell to the wayside when I realized I couldn’t hit a curveball or throw one or even recognize one as a broadcaster. Another thing I wanted was to be a rock star. Not happening! Have you heard me sing? My music skills are even worse. Still, one thing I wanted had nothing to do with my career or my hopes or may lack of talent. Rather, it had to do with being a sports fan.
I was one of the few kids in my Pittsburgh neighborhood who liked hockey. This was before the Mario Lemieux era hit Pittsburgh, the short four year span between the U.S. Hockey Gold Metal at the 1980 Olympics that has inspired talk of miracles, and the day in 1984 when the Pittsburgh Penguins were saved as then-General manager Eddie Johnston announced they had drafted “le nombre soixante-six” or, number sixty-six, known throughout Pittsburgh ever since simply as Mario. Other kids still watched the Lakers and the Celtics or the Steelers and Cowboys. Ever since Mike Eruzione and Lake Placid, I was interested in Maple Leafs, Bruins and Penguins.
Years roll by and by as we age, but as Tom Petty said, “The waiting is the hardest part.” Being a young hockey fan in the 1980s was torturous. The Penguins almost eliminated the defending champion Islanders in 1982, and then made only one play-off appearance in 1989. Throughout my early hockey fandom, they kept losing early in the elimination tournament that is the play-offs. The dream I had and my brother shared was a Stanley Cup Championship. Our goals were simple. We wanted the Penguins to win!
The hockey years tumbled along with the awkward teenage years and I kept hoping for the Penguins to win the Stanley Cup, which for those not in the know, is the trophy given to the hockey champion from the National Hockey League (NHL). The league really should be called the North American Hockey League because Canada is heavily represented. Regardless, I wanted to see the Penguins win The Cup. It seemed they never would. Living through seasons from 1980 through 1990 seemed to be a lot longer than a decade, and much, much longer than the two decades since.
I have long said that every true sports fan deserves to see the team they root for win a championship. It is just that much fun. It is a thrill-ride, it is exciting, it is the fulfillment of the euphoria that makes us fans. I have also said that if you are going to be a fan, you might as well have fun. So, I take this crazy sports fan thing to the level of passion. Who knows why? It has probably been a lot of energy spent that could have been directed toward better projects. Hey, it is what it is and it was fun hoping the Penguins would win. And they finally did so in 1991, twenty years ago this very day.
On May 25, 1991, after a brutal and amazing season, the Pittsburgh Penguins won the elusive Stanley Cup to claim their first NHL Championship. And I had finally realized one of my wishes. At the celebration event, the gritty Phil Bourque raised The Cup above his shoulders and said to us fans, “What do you say we take this thing down to the river and party all summer?!” I had just turned twenty-one and was not a drinker, but I celebrated all summer and fondly recall that year to this day. You have to understand how much this meant to me then. I was dating a girl for what became my first serious and mature relationship. One of the first tings I told her was, “Listen, I think it is important we spend time together, but if the Penguins ever make a run to the Stanley Cup, I will be in front of the television almost every night watching games.” When it happened, she got mad and broke up with me. I walked away clean. I had warned her!
The Penguins have gone on to win two more Stanley Cups in 1992 and 2009, but as they say, the first time is always special. I have also gone on to do a lot of things in the 20 years since. Through so many moves I can no longer count, getting married, having three kids, buying a house, changing jobs several times, going back to school twice and owning ten different cars, it is the night that I blew a fuse for the horn in my first car that I remember most clearly. Sitting on Route 51 in a 1983 Chevy Chevette, cheering with strangers, blaring the horn en route to the airport to welcome our hockey heroes back from Minneapolis with the cargo bay heavier by thirty-four and one-half pounds of hockey glory, I laid on that horn ceaselessly. I was celebrating – fuse be damned!
Hopes, memories, being a kid, being young, being a sports fan. It all mattered then and it still matters today. The Beatles sang, “It was twenty years ago today, Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play.” We Penguins fans can now and forever know that our favorite team won The Stanley Cup, and as of May 25, 2011, it was twenty years ago today…
One thing I really wanted as a kid was to be a baseball player. That fell to the wayside when I realized I couldn’t hit a curveball or throw one or even recognize one as a broadcaster. Another thing I wanted was to be a rock star. Not happening! Have you heard me sing? My music skills are even worse. Still, one thing I wanted had nothing to do with my career or my hopes or may lack of talent. Rather, it had to do with being a sports fan.
I was one of the few kids in my Pittsburgh neighborhood who liked hockey. This was before the Mario Lemieux era hit Pittsburgh, the short four year span between the U.S. Hockey Gold Metal at the 1980 Olympics that has inspired talk of miracles, and the day in 1984 when the Pittsburgh Penguins were saved as then-General manager Eddie Johnston announced they had drafted “le nombre soixante-six” or, number sixty-six, known throughout Pittsburgh ever since simply as Mario. Other kids still watched the Lakers and the Celtics or the Steelers and Cowboys. Ever since Mike Eruzione and Lake Placid, I was interested in Maple Leafs, Bruins and Penguins.
Years roll by and by as we age, but as Tom Petty said, “The waiting is the hardest part.” Being a young hockey fan in the 1980s was torturous. The Penguins almost eliminated the defending champion Islanders in 1982, and then made only one play-off appearance in 1989. Throughout my early hockey fandom, they kept losing early in the elimination tournament that is the play-offs. The dream I had and my brother shared was a Stanley Cup Championship. Our goals were simple. We wanted the Penguins to win!
The hockey years tumbled along with the awkward teenage years and I kept hoping for the Penguins to win the Stanley Cup, which for those not in the know, is the trophy given to the hockey champion from the National Hockey League (NHL). The league really should be called the North American Hockey League because Canada is heavily represented. Regardless, I wanted to see the Penguins win The Cup. It seemed they never would. Living through seasons from 1980 through 1990 seemed to be a lot longer than a decade, and much, much longer than the two decades since.
I have long said that every true sports fan deserves to see the team they root for win a championship. It is just that much fun. It is a thrill-ride, it is exciting, it is the fulfillment of the euphoria that makes us fans. I have also said that if you are going to be a fan, you might as well have fun. So, I take this crazy sports fan thing to the level of passion. Who knows why? It has probably been a lot of energy spent that could have been directed toward better projects. Hey, it is what it is and it was fun hoping the Penguins would win. And they finally did so in 1991, twenty years ago this very day.
On May 25, 1991, after a brutal and amazing season, the Pittsburgh Penguins won the elusive Stanley Cup to claim their first NHL Championship. And I had finally realized one of my wishes. At the celebration event, the gritty Phil Bourque raised The Cup above his shoulders and said to us fans, “What do you say we take this thing down to the river and party all summer?!” I had just turned twenty-one and was not a drinker, but I celebrated all summer and fondly recall that year to this day. You have to understand how much this meant to me then. I was dating a girl for what became my first serious and mature relationship. One of the first tings I told her was, “Listen, I think it is important we spend time together, but if the Penguins ever make a run to the Stanley Cup, I will be in front of the television almost every night watching games.” When it happened, she got mad and broke up with me. I walked away clean. I had warned her!
The Penguins have gone on to win two more Stanley Cups in 1992 and 2009, but as they say, the first time is always special. I have also gone on to do a lot of things in the 20 years since. Through so many moves I can no longer count, getting married, having three kids, buying a house, changing jobs several times, going back to school twice and owning ten different cars, it is the night that I blew a fuse for the horn in my first car that I remember most clearly. Sitting on Route 51 in a 1983 Chevy Chevette, cheering with strangers, blaring the horn en route to the airport to welcome our hockey heroes back from Minneapolis with the cargo bay heavier by thirty-four and one-half pounds of hockey glory, I laid on that horn ceaselessly. I was celebrating – fuse be damned!
Hopes, memories, being a kid, being young, being a sports fan. It all mattered then and it still matters today. The Beatles sang, “It was twenty years ago today, Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play.” We Penguins fans can now and forever know that our favorite team won The Stanley Cup, and as of May 25, 2011, it was twenty years ago today…
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