Category Archives: Uncategorized

In the past several years since I retired (in 2003), a new custom has played itself out early on the first day of school (today).  After hearing me go on about how nice it was not to have to get up early and go to school and face hordes of students every day, many of whom would rather have been anywhere else, my friends Wanda Boley and Martha Cannon, chorus and math teacher extraordinaire respectively, call me when they are up that day, usually shortly after 5 A.M.  I pretend I am awake and share the joy they feel going off for the first day. It’s a great example of teacher humor and cameraderie (and also a reminder that I need to keep my mouth closed when tempted to share my good fortune and happy state).

Ms. Boley and Ms. Cannon are representatives of the people I know who are teachers. I did not come from a family of teachers, although I learned a lot from my parents and aunts and uncles and cousins, but we know a number of people involved in education. Obviously, I continue to be an advocate for teachers, believing it to be “the toughest job you’ll ever love” (a slogan used by the Peace Corps, many of whom are teachers). I continue to keep my hand in teaching, working with a young adult Sunday School class and teaching an ESOL class also at our church.  I believe each of us is or has the potential to be a teacher, whether we are showing a child how to tie a shoelace or leading a class in calculus at the college level.

I know there are some who do not share my enthusiasm for teachers and for public education. I am sorry you don’t, but unless you were educated by your parents at home (and there are those people), you are where you are today partly because of teachers. (The idea was so well articulated by education advocate Frosty Troy, former editor of the Oklahoma Observer, to which he continues to contribute as well as continues to peak to numerous groups.”)

That said, there are some bad teachers. There are some rotten teachers.  They should not be teaching.  And worst of all, there are those few who ignore the sacred trust placed in them and abuse children in their care. I try to be kind and forgiving, but in this case I would gladly help torture anyone convicted of such crimes.  Sorry about the baldness of that statement, but it shows how strongly I feel about the relationship between teacher and student. Jesus also had a few words to say on the subject: “And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.” Couldn’t agree more. Bring it on.

But I’m here to talk about the teachers we know, to salute them and thank them for what they do.  Some are retired, some  are still active, but all contributed mightly to the development and well-being of children. Starting close to home, there’s my wife Becky, who has taught music to generations of children whom she calls “her music babies.” It’s an incredible to watch her work with a roomful of children and show them how to create beautiful music together.  Then there is our daughter Amy, starting her twelfth year, a natural teacher if I ever saw one. Add to that her fourth grade teaching team at Signal Hill Elementary School and the amazing staff and faculty there.

I’ve already mentioned Wanda Boley (chorus) and Martha Cannon (math), so beloved by their students. Then, in no particular order, there is Debbie Schlecte (choral director at Parkside) whose groups produce some of the most incredible choral music anyone has ever heard; Susan Briscoe (kindergarten) who takes on the tough kids and makes a difference in their lives; Jane Cole, an enthusiastic and talented elementary music teacher; Mark Dodge, a physics teacher who engages students with unique lessons and who came into teaching from a career at IBM; Jan Cersale, a phenomenal teacher who teaches with Amy at Signal Hill; her daughter Katie, a new mother; Carol Bryant, a former Marine D.I. who teaches Sunday School with me and who has a deep understanding of young people and more ideas than anyone I’ve ever known; my friends at Robinson, Mike Karpicus, Lisa Green and Tara McCord; former student,  Facebook friend and present English teacher Mary Gallagher Gray; former (and now retired) Robinson head librarian, car pool buddy friend and neighbor Mike Bartlett; his wife Pat, tamer of middle school kids; newly retired Rachel Myers (enjoy!); baseball coach Larry Crowder (coaches are teachers, in essence); retired English teacher Suzie Shaw, who taught both our girls; retired elementary teacher Mary Staggs (and possible cousin with the maiden name of Varner); Nanacy Slusher, who taught at my elemetay school in Fairfax, Westmore; and there are many others I know I have missed (my apologies).

Have a great school year, teachers, students, staff, parents all!  As tiny Tim famously said in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, “God bless us, everyone!”

To close, please consider this portion of a piece by former Oklahoma editor and advocate for public schools and teachers Frosty Troy entitled “A Salute to Teachers”:

(Warning–this is a long post, so get yourself something to drink, sit down and enjoy!)

Labor Day is one of those holidays that has lost some of its original meaning.  Originally established to honor those who labor, it had strong ties to the union movement in this country. I would venture to say that unions are controversial these days. Some see them as an important factor in establishing decent working conditions, benefits  and pay for workers. Others blame them for closing businesses and industries with their demands and contracts. In any case, the holiday has become a transition from summer to fall, from vacation to school, marked by picnics and special sales.For my part, I’d like to add a word or two in praise of those who labored to build this country and who work to keep it going today.

Canadian Gordon Lightfoot, my favorite singer/songwriter (much to the chagrin of my daughters, who consider him hopelessly old school) has had a remarkable career. He began singing publically as a child, and  moved into the folk/songwriter area around 1960. Marty Robbins’ hit “Ribbon of Darkness” is a Lightfoot tune. Lightfoot broke into a wider audience when Ian and Sylvia recorded his “Early Morning Rain” and “For Lovin’ Me.”  Peter, Paul and Mary later covered both songs. I first became aware of him around 1965 when he released his first solo album, “Lightfoot!” and have followed his career since then. He is still performing 62 concerts a year all over North America.  His voice isn’t what it used to be, but he has one of the tightest bands around, with some members 30 year veterans.  The band lost extraordinary guitar player Terry Clements to a stroke a few months back.

Some of Lightfoot’s more popular songs were “If You Could Read My Mind” (1970– to my way of thinking the best pop song every written about failed love), “Sundown” (1973), and  “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (1976–an over six minute recording about the loss of the ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald that sank in a Lake Superior storm in November, 1975. It had considerable radio airplay in spite of its length and subject matter). His catalog includes over 237 recorded songs.  Not too shabby.

Early in his career, Lightfoot celebrated workers who built Canada, and workers in general. He wrote about go-go dancers (“Go-Go Round”), truck drivers (“Long Thin Dawn,”), textile mill workers (“Cotton Jenny”), laborers (“Early Morning Rain” and “Steel Rail Blues”), bush pilots (“Flying Blind”), singers (“Hangdog Hotel Room”), miners (“Boss Man” and “Mother of a Miner’s Child,”), and numerous songs about ships and sailors (“Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” “Triangle,” “Ghosts of Cape Horn,” “Ballad of Yarmouth Castle,” “Marie Christine”).

In two songs, Lightfoot sings specifically about the contribution of workers to building up the country. “Crossroads” is first-person account of a young man who worked all kinds of jobs.

As promised yesterday, here are some observations about the stories people shared about the earthquake of  August 23. These memorable events seem to uncover a human need to share where we were, what we were doing and how we reacted to the news.

The responses of people I talked to and read about shared their experiences with the earthquake almost as if they were answering the same seven questions.  The answers, of course, were varied.

The first thing people seemed to talk about was where they were during the during the earthquake.  Some people were at home; some were at work; some were driving; some were outside. I heard audible gasps from listeners who heard people say they were at work on the fifteenth floor or the eighteenth floor or at another great height.

Not everyone seemed to answer the second question which was, what were you doing? I happened to remember what I was doing but some people didn’t say.  Their responses–folding the laundry, talking on the telephone, working at a computer–formed a clear picture of activities in workaday America these days.

Almost everyone had an initial reaction to what was happening. Some thought the  rumble of the earthquake was an extremely low-flying helicopter.  Others thought, as I did, that their furnace was blowing up (slowly).  Still others thought it was a low-flying jet or loud truck. Several mentioned noise from a washer or dryer.  Some people had a secondary reaction: not a few people mentioned that they thought it was the Marines testing weapons at Quantico, as I did.

The next area people seemed to talk about was when they realized it was an earthquake.  For me, it was when the deck I was on swayed back and forth.  For other people it was when things started vibrating in their house or falling off the walls and shelves.

Reactions once people realized it was a quake were also varied.  Some people ran outside. Others hid under desks and table.  Alyssa and her coworker stood in a doorway. Amy went to her laundry room. One young woman slept through it all, her mother told me.  Californians seemed to realize what was happening more quickly than East Coasters because, of course, of the number of earthquakes California experiences.

People then talked about what they did after the ‘quake.  Most tried to call friends and relatives only to find land telephone lines and cell lines jammed up immediately.  I texted Amy and Alyssa, and Becky managed to call me. Some tech-savvy young people later told me that texts use a different means of transmission than calls.  I did not hear whether email worked or not; Facebook, however, proved a good way to communicate.

The last question was about whether there was any damage. Most people reported none to little; others more, depending where they were.

One curious fact emerged: some people outside during the ‘quake or driving didn’t feel a thing. Others did, and those driving frequently thought there was something wrong with their cars. Some of the effect no doubt depended on the geological structure of the earth at that point.  (I can’t say for sure–I was an English major.)

In the sense that people talked about their experiences in similar ways, the earthquake became a shared experience and perhaps an opportunity for increased community. Although there were some positive aspects to the earthquake, I don’t want to experience one again soon, or ever again for that matter.

I wrote about my experiences and those of my family with the 5.8 earthquake just over a week ago on August 23. The  quake was centered near Mineral, Virginia, about 80 miles southwest of where we are in Manassas. The damage was more than it first seemed, with some schools having to be closed because of structural damage and Orange, Spotsylvania and Culpeper  school systems delaying the start of the school year by a week. National Cathedral was damaged as were a number of buildings in Mineral, and some in Richmond and Fredericksburg.

What I find interesting about the earthquake (among many things) is the human impulse to share where we were and how we experienced the event.  It’s true of certain pivotal events that impress themselves in our memories forever, it seems, where we were, what we were doing, and how we felt. Events in recent memory include the end of World War II (I wasn’t here for that one), the launching of Sputnik in October, 1957 (don’t remember where I was or what I was doing), the assassination of John Kennedy in November, 1963 (in sixth period geometry class at W. T. Woodson High School.  I still remember the silence in the halls after we were dismissed to go home), the landing of men on the Moon in July, 1969 (watched it live on my parents’ black and white television), Richard Nixon’s resignation and departure in August 1974 (watched that in the bedroom of our townhouse.  We were married in December, 1973), the Kent State shootings in May, 1970 (I was a week or so away from graduating from college and heard about it between classes), the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle in January, 1986 (I was driving home in the middle of a school work day because I didn’t feel well), the fall of the Berlin Wall (which happened in November, 1989, although I remember being at Busch Gardens with the family.  That doesn’t compute), the September 11, 2001 attacks (in school with my second period class when we got the news over the p.a.), and the death of Osama Bin Laden (I was watching television late that Sunday night when the news came on).

I’ll write more tomorrow about the Virginia earthquake stories I’ve heard.  Stay tuned!

I think everyone knows that the Washington D.C. area has the worst traffic in the nation. Even though I don’t regularly drive in the bad traffic areas, I’m aware of them by means of the traffic reports from the Glass-Enclosed Nerve Center of WTOP-FM (103.5) which air every ten minutes (with the weather on the eights) around the clock. As one traffic engineer I talked to said, “We have too many cars and not enough roads.” There are a lot of people here because there are a lot of jobs and there is not enough public transportation, or at least public transportation that is good, efficient and inexpensive enough to make people leave their cars and ride a bicycle, bus, train or boat.

To make matters worse, roads must be maintained.  This seems like an obvious statement, but a road can’t be closed completely so it can be resurfaced or whatever.  I know, a road could be completely closed for a period of time, but we know the mess that results from the closure whether it’s due to maintenance or an accident.  There are miles-long backups, and traffic clogs side streets and neighborhoods.  A lot of this work is done at night or between what used to be called “rush hours” (now 24/7 as I said). Even with less traffic between, say 9 AM and 3 PM or overnight, when lanes close, traffic backs up. We picked Amy up from her big Southwest adventure at BWI Airport.  Her flight was due in about 10:15 and we left about 8:15, leaving in what we thought was plenty of time sing Google maps indicated that the 68 mile trip would take about an hour and twenty minutes, in an ideal world. With the amount of traffic and construction closed lanes on both I-66 and 495, we reached the cell lot about 10:15. That’s two hours travel time if you’re keeping track. Coming back, we sat at a dead standstill for ten minutes in the Tysons Corner subway construction area near the intersection of 495 and 123.  Once we got moving (slowly), Amy told us to take the 123 exit to International Drive to the Dulles Toll Road to Route 28 South, none of which had much traffic. It was a frustrating exercise in driving (which Becky did; I was the navigator.)

As I said, we don’t drive in these high traffic areas much.  Congestion can be bad enough around Manassas, but we know which intersections and streets to avoid.  The main commercial artery through town and beyond is Business 234 (to differentiate it from Bypass 234 which runs from Woodbridge past I-95 and on up to I-66), a classic commercial road with shopping centers, restaurants and a variety of other businesses. Business 234 goes from its intersection with Bypass 234 to the south of Manassas, through town, up to the interchange with I-66 and then through the Manassas Battlefield Park and into more rural areas until it intersects with Route 15. Between the City and the Battlefield Park, traffic is dense and slow-moving except for late at night or very early in the morning.

Yesterday I was headed out 234 about 10 AM when I noticed traffic was thicker than usual. It started crawling by the Prince William Hospital Campus, and continued for about three miles where I discovered that a road crew had closed two out of three lanes to repave them.  I supposed that they would work during the day and quit about 5 PM. I supposed wrong.  They were back today, backing up traffic and working past 7 PM. Now I know that 234 Business (also known as Sudley Road, I mention belatedly) is not I-270, but thousands of drivers were inconvenienced, frustrated and made late for their activities. Time spent sitting in traffic also has a negative impact on the economy. Couldn’t the crews have worked at night? It might have cost more but it would have been better for us all. We all want well-maintained roads but we also want reasonably clear roads.  I think we can have both.

I love real tomatoes, the big juicy red ones that come out of gardens or farmers’ markets in the summer, not the puny, hard, tasteless faint pink hockey pucks that we are offered the rest of the year.  I can eat and have devoured real tomatoes three meals a day, at breakfast, lunch and dinner, just sliced up and lying there, so lovely on the plate.  They’re also good as a snack.  I like them on a cold biscuit.  Hey!  That would make a good name for a blog…biscuit…biscuit something…I’ll have to think about that some more.

It has been tomato season for a while now, and one point of reinforcement about the glorious oncoming of this wonderful fruit (or vegetable) was the first Summer Sounds Concert by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason back on Saturday, July 11.  One of the wonderful songs they sang was “Home Grown Tomatoes,” composed by musician Guy Clark, celebrating my favorite fruit. Here’s a link to the song as performed by Ungar and Mason: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoDVEIUR4xs

We were fortunate to have home grown tomatoes growing up since Becky’s dad Oscar and my mom were master gardeners.  The green thumb gene didn’t take in my case: I can kill any living plant with little effort, although the hydrangeas I put in at the start of the summer are doing well. Becky has a rain forest of indoor plants in the room with a northern exposure.  Neither of us grow tomatoes, though.  We didn’t have to when Becky’s dad and my mom were living.  I remember asking her if I should try growing some tomatoes myself and she laughed and said, “Just get some from the farmers’ market.”  That was a good suggestion, and so every Saturday Becky goes to the market and comes home with some beautiful yellow tomatoes for herself and some big juicy red ones for me. So, if you’re feeling down, sing along with the “Home Grown Tomatoes” song and have a tomato!

Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes

What'd life be without home grown tomatoes

There's only two things that money can't buy

That's true love and home grown tomatoes!

Yes, indeed!

We’re located in Manassas (and by we I mean my family and I live in Manassas, Virginia. The use of “we” to refer to a single person is called “the majestic plural.” Mark Twain once allegedly said that “Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‘we.‘ “), about 25 miles or so west south west of the center of Washington DC. The weather here over the range of local broadcast stations can vary greatly because of the topography (mountains in the west declining gradually eastward to sea level shore line with weather also ameliorated by the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean to the east), so exact forecasts for any region are tricky. Snowfalls from east to west or north to south can vary by as much as a foot and temperatures by 10 to 15 degrees.

We are generally on the western edge of any hurricane that comes up along the coast as Irene did, so we weren’t hammered as the unfortunate communities along the Carolina, Virgina and Maryland coasts were. New York City got off easier than expected as the storm weakened. Locally, we got about two inches of rain measured by my working rain gauge) and winds seemed to run 20 miles an hour as far as I could tell using my Cub Scout silver arrow point weather unit skills whereby one estimates wind speed by the movement of flags, trees, small children and large heavy rocks. (Not as accurate as anemometer, I know. Gotta get me one of those.)  Becky said we lost power early Sunday morning but I was asleep. We got off easy.

The earthquake this past week and the hurricane the past few days have served as definitive reminders of the power of nature, if any of us had forgotten.  In the form of tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, blizzards and hurricanes, nature can unleash brutal power that we can do nothing to stop.  I once heard someone call in to a radio show to ask an expert on atomic weapons if one or more nuclear weapons dropped on a hurricane might break it apart and render it harmless.  The expert chuckled and replied that the power of a nuclear weapon, as great as it is, would make no difference to the structure or movement of a hurricane.

Just for the record, here’s a picture of my hurricane readiness kit:

In case it’s hard to tell from the picture what the special items are, they are, from left to right, cranberry sauce (I can pretend it’s Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays, and be happy), rice ( I love rice.  This is microwave rice and takes 90 seconds to fix!  Ninety seconds!), dark chocolate (good and good for you!  Eat up!), a saltine cracker (not elegant, but this is a survival kit, after all) crossword puzzle (must keep the mind sharp and active) and pencil (this one doesn’t have an eraser–it’s just a prop. I couldn’t find one with an eraser.  I’m good with crosswords, but not that good), Kindle (needed to be charged. Oops.  Hope the electricity holds up), chilled Pepsi in a can (delicious sugar infused water!), Art Garfunkel CD (Art is my man and makes me feel better.  Sing “Bridge over Troubled Water” for me, Art!), harmonica (for that lonesome prairie cowboy vibe), cat food (so my cat won’t eat me), TV remote (to control the set while I watch my poor Nats leave dozens of men on base and lose again), American cheese ( symbolic since Bloom had pulled all the cheese off the shelves as they prepared to close early Saturday evening.  No brie for me!  The American cheese product stands in  for it) and battery-powered radio (with little Sony speakers so everyone can gather around and listen just like the Fireside Chats) set to WTOP-FM, home of  the  glass-enclosed nerve center.

Seriously, though all this display of the power of nature was enough to make anyone think and enough to make anyone more than humble.  And thankful for what we just avoided.

As of this writing on Friday, August 26 about 9:00 AM , we experienced this past week one of the biggest earthquakes on record in Virginia and are now awaiting the effects of Hurricane Irene which is somewhere off the Florida coast.  It has been a news week that you just know had news people about to spin their heads off their necks with excitement while they salivated about all those newsworthy events happening in close proximity.  This happens every once in a while, such as the week of William and Kate’s wedding. A couple of days before the royal event, a number of tornadoes ravaged the South.  It was horrible.

While I would not ascribe any eschatological significance to an earthquake and a hurricane in the same week, some might see it as evidence of the ending of the world. I certainly respect anyone’s right to such an interpretation: I just think we don’t know when the end of times will come. The Bible chronicles an ongoing series of disasters including floods, famines, the plagues of Egypt, pestilence, whirlwinds, mighty winds, storms, earthquakes, drownings, collapse of buildings and walls, conquests, captivities, destruction of cities, wars, and falls of empires.  Beyond the Bible, historically we know we have experienced more wars, more conquests, slavery, poverty, starvation, the plague, diseases of various sorts, economic exploitation, the nationalistic wars of the nineteenth century, colonial exploitation, class, racial and sex discrimination, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the use of atomic weapons, the Cold War, terrorism, and the war on terrorism.

And yet through all of this, people of faith and people of good will have comforted the afflicted, fed the hungry, worked to bring peace, and served the cause of justice.  I believe that they represent humanity at its best, and that’s part of what William Faulkner was talking about in his speech given for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 (the speech was delivered in late 1950) in which he famously declared,  “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”
We have had an earthquake and we have a hurricane coming but we also have faith, hope and strength. Most of all, we have each other. May each of you go with God.

Our younger daughter Alyssa likes to point out that she is the only second-born child in a family of first-borns. This is true, since Becky, Amy and I are all first-borns. I received some help determining this from a web site.  Here it is if you want to figure out your birth order:

How to figure out your birth order

Now that we’ve settled that, we’ll proceed with the business at hand.  It’s my understanding that there is mixed scientific support for the idea that birth order influences personality since there are so many factors that affect personality. The concept is still solidly a part of pop psychology and culture. Here’s a quick rundown of the characteristics, shamelessly lifted from some website:

The First Born

The Middle Child

The Last Born

I console myself by remembering that I am “unselfish and caring by nature,” and not possessed of a “weak personality” or “spoiled and hard-headed.” Thank goodness for that. Right?

Well, of course all the buzz yesterday was about the 5.8–6.0 earthquake the area experienced yesterday, perhaps the strongest ever in Virginia (although Thomas Jefferson predated the Richter Scale so I wonder how historians determine the strength of earthquakes before more scientific measures came along. Maybe accounts of damage to the tobacco crop). The strongest previous quake in Virginia was a 5.8 in 1897. In spite of what my students used to think, I did not experience that one myself.  Neither did I know William Shakespeare personally. I think your momma did, though.

I was on my deck working on extending part of an extension ladder for easier access to my attic (it’s complicated) when I heard a rumbling like the furnace was going to explode. The deck swayed back and forth two to three inches for about 45 seconds. Ace builder Don Libeau rebuilt the deck several years ago after it partially peeled off the house on one Fourth of July (with Becky standing on it). If it were not for Don’s overbuilding I would have landed in the back yard. The swaying stopped and I thought, the Marines must have some big new guns (we can hear explosions and such from the base at Quantico about 23 miles away).Then I figured that it was an earthquake.

My neighbor came out and asked if I had felt anything.  I replied that I did and that I thought it was an earthquake.  I stepped inside the kitchen area and turned on the TV. As the World Turns (or something similar) was airing, so I switched on WTOP radio, an all-news station in D.C. They were reporting a magnitude 5.6 quake with the epicenter in Mineral, VA.

 I tried to call Becky but the phone lines were loaded up and I couldn’t get through. A few minutes later she called me to report that she was in her office on the third floor of the church and thought the furnace was rumbling (brilliant minds think alike) at first and then that the Marines were setting off ordnance (after nearly 37 years of marriage we frequently experience mind melds). The ‘quake knocked one of her African animal carvings off the shelf and she knew it was an earthquake then and evacuated the building.  After a few minutes she went back.

I was interested that texting worked, and I soon heard from Amy who reported that she sheltered in the laundry room which is a small space with large metal objects all around.  Good idea that, and she could have clean clothes for the apocalypse. She also had the foresight to schedule a massage at 2 PM, fifteen minutes after the event.  Good going!

Alyssa texted to report that she worked in a fortress at SRA. Fortress of Solitude, maybe.  She sent an account of her reaction and that of a colleague:

Your tax dollars at work, folks.

So everyone was accounted for and I took a nap.  I’ve been checking Facebook where a lot of people shared their experiences. That worked. It’s a brave new world out there. I’m glad no one seemed to be badly hurt in the earthquake and damage was minimal. I’m also glad I don’t live in California. I don’t think I could take it.