My Winter Running

            It is still very much winter here. (The photograph is from January between snows when most everything was melted away.) We now have a couple of feet of snow and most days the temperature is not above freezing. It’s very beautiful but not so conducive to running and I haven’t gone for a single run the entire month of February. This, of course, means I’m getting out of shape.

            Don’t get me wrong, I love to run but when the snow gets so deep you can only run on the pathways that are plowed which means either the roads or the walking path in the park. All of those places are icy or there are cars and ice. I’m well aware of the fact that when I fall I easily break, having broken my hand a few years ago from a fall while (you guessed it) running.

            So instead of running, I’ve been going on walks. I walk for two or three miles about every other day, usually in the park. There are good things about walking and winter because it slows you down and you see more. I do enjoy that. And I also do some cross country skiing, though this year I have not because I am lazy about dealing with all of the equipment and paying for park and ski passes when I know I’ll probably only get to the groomed trails once or twice. And where I would go right around here by the river there have been moose hanging out so I don’t really relish the idea of a moose encounter on skis.

            So basically I am confessing a sense of guilt about not running (even if I have legitimate concerns) and regret for falling out of shape. I think I should probably consider gym membership for the winter months. I could run and bike for an hour every other day on a treadmill or stationary bike. I’ve never had a gym membership but I think it is time that I seriously consider it if I’m growing so old that I’m concerned about falling on ice. I can say my shoulders and arms are getting stronger. There’s lots of snow to shovel and I have been shoveling it. But March workouts are still probably going to kick my butt. (That’s the end of this week!)

Do not ask me why I am grouchy

Do not ask me why I am grouchy.

Youth should not question the depth of my age.

Quiet yourself and then I’ll be happy.

Though middle aged men may tarry

Hoping the young their minds to engage,

Do not ask me why I am grouchy.

Good students do not swear, are not cagey.

Their good deeds will be seen in my wage.

Quiet yourself and then I’ll be happy.

Urchins are caught in acts quite unruly

And learn too late they have earned my rage.

Do not ask me why I am grouchy.

Young men, tempting death, need not harry

Mine eyes could be softened like those of a mage.

Quiet yourself and then I’ll be happy.

And you, my students, there looking weary,

Curse, bless me now with your ability to engage.

Do not ask me why I am grouchy,

Quiet yourself and then I’ll be happy.

86. Unalienable Rights

            I spoke about American initiative and imagination earlier and I mentioned how it makes us an inventive country. It also makes us a contagious country. By that I mean that people want to come here. People want to enjoy the freedoms and ideals that we set forth at the founding of our nation. People do believe that all mankind are “created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

            Here in the United States we work to ensure those rights. And yes, it creates a steady stream of conflict. How do we assure those rights? How do we assure that everyone that has those rights doesn’t interfere with another person’s rights? We established a constitution that offers us recourse when our unalienable rights are being denied. We established a constitution that we use to organize our nation and our belief systems to ease the conflicts that inevitably arise from there being so many of us, so many individual ideas, so many conflicting ideas.

            I’m an American and I have a tendency to think there are quite a few crazy people in this country, but I fully believe they have an innate right to be crazy. And like most of the Americans I know, I fight to maintain those rights. My point in this little diatribe isn’t how much I love the constitution, but how much I love the structure and ideals of this country that keep our natural human selfishness in check. I think the American initiative to support humanity is commendable no matter how often it seems to fail, because Americans get right back up and try again to support humanity and to fight against inhumanity. Just one more reason to love America.

86. American Initiative

            While sometimes it gets us into trouble, Americans are imaginative and confident. We are the people who invent things and put them to use. Yes, others take what we start and run with it, but we imagine and create it.

            Most of us drive cars to work or on vacation. Henry Ford was as American as it gets. And then there is the airplane. Or what about that phone you now carry in your pocket? These things were all invented by Americans. Like the automobile, many of them have very specific people behind them: Orville and Wilbur Wright and Alexander Graham Bell. But others are just collections of people working together. Things like Teflon, the internet, and nuclear weapons were invented by teams of Americans. Americans take initiative and they don’t give up. So in spite of our almost severe individuality we still work together for common goals.

            This is something I love about my country and living here. And I never really considered that I, too, have this sense of being able to get things done. It’s human to just want to give up when things seem daunting. It’s American to say no to that and to look for help or just pull up our boot straps and do it. Now don’t get me wrong: before being American we are first human so we, too, will give up. But there are enough of us around that we won’t usually accept that from one another.

            So more than any other aspect of being an American, that sense of imagination and confidence in our lives gives me a great sense of pride. Sure we’re anything but perfect, but we try to solve those problems we seek out help. That’s what being American is all about. That’s why I am so proud to be an American.

85. Stable Currency

           

             It’s getting to be less and less necessary to have cash on hand if you want to buy something, so what I’m about to write about might date me. I like the fact that in the US if I have an old coin, say a wheat back penny, I can still spend it. (Though a wheat back penny would garner more value as a collectible item than the value of its coinage.) Once our cash is legal tender it remains such until it is removed from currency and that, in the case of coins, occurs most frequently by collectors wishing to preserve another era of Americana. Of course bills just wear out and are usually destroyed by banks though, of course, many of them are also retained by collectors.

            This legal tender aspect of our currency is not the same in other countries and I am often caught off guard in the UK when I return with cash from a few years back that is no longer acceptable for spending. Stores have sent me away to make cash trades at banks. I guess I can understand it in places like Germany and France where the Deutschmark and Franc have been replaced by the Euro but it isn’t something I would expect in Britain where the pound has been in existence for centuries. I guess the legal tender aspect of our currency makes me feel like maybe, in spite of our relative newness to the cast of nations, we might be one of the more stable countries. So there’s another little tid bit of Americana that most people don’t know, but I’m very thankful for it.

84. Crowd Etiquette

After spending time abroad another aspect of American life that I really appreciate is our sense of following established rules—especially crowd etiquette rules. We believe in taking turns and waiting our turn. We willingly wait in lines to purchase things, even when we really don’t want to wait. We pay attention at four way stops and allow whomever was first to go first. Oh, I know, this isn’t 100% true because we see our occasional road rage incidence. But if you’ve ever been to a country where pushing to the front of the grouping (because they don’t have lines) is a necessity, or where stop lights are merely suggestions, you know what I’m talking about. We, as Americans, really do believe in equity and we lay down laws and rules that are written and unwritten, spoken and unspoken and we follow those rules as best we can. And when someone doesn’t follow those rules we become incensed. That’s when we make sure things are enforced. Just another thing I love about America.

83. Friendly Sports Rivalries

            I’m a huge Gonzaga basketball fan and I find that I am surrounded by like fans in this part of the country. I also figure I’ve paid a good portion into the Zags as my oldest son went to four years of school at Gonzaga and received his bachelor’s degree there, some of it on my dime. But they’re just a good basketball program with good young men and women who bond together and support each other with lifelong friendships.

            A couple of years ago I met a man from North Carolina at a conference who was a huge UNC fan. We immediately had a great dialogue about basketball as they are Gonzaga rivals. It was friendly. It was fun. Instead of animosity it created a basis of friendship. I’ve been to Seahawks games and seen the same thing with San Francisco fans who were perfectly willing to dress in 49ers gear and sit amongst the 12^th man. There was no fear, there was no animosity, only a respectful and genial rivalry.

            In England, when I went to a soccer game it wasn’t the same at all. There was clear antagonism against the out of town team and a palpable undertone of violence. I had a colleague at my school there who had done an exchange in Canada. He had always wanted to see an American football game but he wasn’t sure about trekking all the way south to Boston for a Patriots Game. His Canadian colleagues assured him that in spite of all the media depiction of American gun slinging, we were, in fact, a peaceable country and that he and his family would be perfectly safe. And, of course, it proved to be true. I love how we are safe to attend sporting events and have peaceful rivalries. That’s a great thing about America.

82. Americans with Disabilities Act

            There is a law in our country that is relatively new but it requires us as a nation to take care of our disabled citizens. It’s called the Americans with Disabilities Act. It requires such things as handicap accessible rest rooms in all public buildings, wheelchair accessible entries, elevators in multi-storied buildings and handicap accessible curbing on our streets and sidewalks. Most able bodied people don’t think much about it, but if you’re in a wheelchair and have no room to transfer to a toilet, what are you supposed to do? This law requires us all to think about that when we construct buildings. I think it’s a wonderful law.

            Part of my admiration for this law is the fact that I have a handicapped son who sometimes uses a wheelchair. For the most part he’s fine with a normal toilet, but he struggles with stairs and curbs. There is a bit of education that we as parents have to sometimes give to people when they don’t understand his handicap. He has a mitochondrial disease that severely limits his mobility even when it doesn’t confine him to a wheelchair. I remember taking a last handicap parking space in a very full lot and we had all just gotten out of the car when a woman stopped behind us and questioned why we were in a handicap space. Teacher alert: teachable moment. A part of me thought (if I wouldn’t have been making my son walk too far) about giving her the space since she had a broken ankle, but then I realized she wouldn’t see the outcome or feel significant guilt and at that point I certainly felt no qualms about depriving someone who was feeling entitled because of a temporary injury. That incident empowered my family to be real advocates for my son, but also others. There sometimes aren’t enough handicap spaces and at some time we will all need a space. We’re, hopefully, all going to get old. So that’s a wonderful American law for which I am thankful.

Shaking, seeming to wretch

Shaking, seeming to wretch

he holds the edges of the basin

leaning into it. Tears streak

his face and every now and then

he wipes them off with the back

of his right hand. Now, for a

moment he stands tall

opening his mouth seeming

to gulp at air only to be

shaken again by these spasms

wracking his body.

He spits into the sink

and the spittle is red and clumpy,

blood mixed with snot.

Somehow he manages to gather

himself, washing putrescence

down the sink, shaving his

neck and again coughing.

He combs his hair,

blows his nose into a tissue

and throws the red stained

rag into a bin, wipes his

face again and rinses

out the sink.

He walks into the living

room and sits in a chair

before the fire, resting.

Slowly, after a time,

he rises, body now and then

wracked by spasms that,

with his hand over his mouth,

he tries to control.

In the kitchen he pours

steaming tea into a mug

and gulps at the hot liquid

as if it were a cup of cold water.

January creeps slowly

into my father’s lungs

and every morning he

courageously tries to cough

it out, warmed by an artificial

August burning in wood.

This time I don’t know

if January will every go away

again for him.

He removes the handkerchief from his

mouth, looks at me, and tries a smile.

81. American Scholar

            There are plenty of workers in the United States and they keep the country moving. But every bit as important are the scholars that study and propel the vision of our country. These people are everywhere in our society and they are often derided for being nerds or bookworms. But these people are the ones who see beyond the everyday workings to the larger patterns and the outcome that might occur if little things aren’t tweaked.

            We have built the world’s best university system in the world because of our scholars. We have invented everyday objects like the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, etc. because of our American scholars. American scholars are why we are here today. To me it’s just exciting to think of people off in library corners reading books, researching events and setting things in motion. But the reality is that they are the ones who drafted the constitution, who now work in laboratories, report from battle fields throughout the world, and work in a variety of research institutions right here at home.

            I have had many of these scholars sitting in my own classroom and I have felt a great privilege just helping them seek new ways to do things. I am very grateful for the American scholar.