Skip the Stamps

Skip the Stamps

I have once again returned from promenading around my favorite blog sites, and a theme that keeps appearing is writing as a means of therapy.  When English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote that the pen is mightier than the sword, I figure he was referring to strategies for raising the collective conscience of the masses.  Words are powerful tools, when utilized to their full potential.  They can hurt, they can incite, and they can heal.

I have used words in many different contexts in my life, but one effective use for me, is the writing of letters to people, with no intent of ever mailing them.  I worked sixteen years in the middle school, on a staff overwhelmingly dominated by women.  Of the thirty-nine full-time teachers in our district, there were only four men in the K-8 arena, and only two at the middle school level.  

My second year teaching, I teamed up with Paul, who had been on staff for ten years, and we set about to create a program which embraced the restructuring efforts of our school district.  We bucked the old-school traditions by creating a program which consisted of sixth, seventh and eighthth graders in the same classroom.  We used literature as the foundation and integrated it into the other disciplines. 

So if we were reading Steinbeck’s The Pearl, then we would probably be studying scorpions in science, writing essays about whether Kino was greedy or not in language, and looking at the native cultures of Mexico in social studies, in conjunction with seventh grade curriculum covering the Incas, Mayans and Aztecs.

Paul and I worked hard to present all three learning styles to the kids, so that those who learned aurally and those who learned by using their hands, had access to the material as well as those who were good readers.  We did projects around the middle school that directly benefited the students and allowed them to take pride in their surroundings.  When we did the French drain system so as to eliminate the bogs which rapidly formed on the two front lawns of the school, once the rainy season started, we were able to create some unique educational opportunities.

The water from the roofs of the classrooms came through carefully circuited gutters, and spewed out onto the “lawns,” which predictably became mud holes, with no vestige of greenery.   Students dug the trenches, calculated the amount of perforated pipe and gravel, and ordered the materials, to re-route the water and allow the lawns to grow and flourish.

All was well with our multi-graded, literature-based, thematic, project-based curriculum, and the kids were thriving.  Correct?  Well, there was dissension in the ranks.  There was muttering in the staff room, and disparaging glances-if not discouraging words-from other colleagues on the middle school staff.  Our teaching methods provided a contrast to more traditional approaches, and therefore created unhappiness.

To say that we encountered rough seas, may be to overuse an old cliche, but change does produce ripples, and ripples will swell to tsunami proportions under the right conditions.  It’s not that any issues were gender-related, it was more of old school versus change, with the women on one side of the swirling whilrpool, and the [two] men on the other.

I used to hammer out long letters on the newly acquired computers in the language lab, a result of the purchases made from the restructuring grant money, in which I addressed the philosophical disparities between our approaches, and articulated our differences of opinion.  Of course, under the careful orchestration of Mr. Matlock, we hashed the boundaries out in staff meetings, but never got to address the more volatile issue of why Paul and I had to go and be such stuff-stirrers.  Why couldn’t we fit into our niche, and remain seen and not heard?

I derived phenomenal therapeutic value from being able to assert myself to the rest of the staff, if only on paper, and if only for the perusal of Paul and myself.  It seems kind of inane, and maybe I should have actually sent the letters and waited for the tidal wave of emotion, but it wouldn’t have made me feel any better, and we would have been swept out to “sea,” by the resulting rush of “water.”  

Writing helped me sort the whole morass out, and kept me from making any mistakes that could not be taken back.  I learned early on that once something is written down-and delivered-it couldn’t just “be returned to sender.”  By sorting and classifying all factors involved, and writing it all down, I managed to be able to continue to function, without saying or writing something that would rattle our world and produce a tsunami, that was bound to leave me gasping on the beach. 

I don’t mind gasping on the beach, but I prefer it be as the result of sticking my foot in the cold water, and not from sticking it into my mouth.

Strangers Radiating Kindness

Strangers Radiating Kindness

I am still wobbling, even tottering, from my diametrically opposite experiences with the Net yesterday,  within a very short period of time.  I will start with the negative, because it occurred first.  Among my new pursuits, pertaining to technology, is a penchant for visiting sfgiants.com.  I only began visiting this site a year ago, after the Giants had won their first World Series in 56 years.

So yesterday morning there was an article about Freddy Sanchez, our second baseman, who dislocated his shoulder and had season-ending surgery last June.  The article was upbeat, and I thanked the author and wrote a positive comment about how important Freddy is, and how much the Giants need him.  A person responded directly to me with a one word response, “PUKE!!!!!”  his caps and his exclamation points.

I responded immediately, “Thank you for sharing,” and decided I had better things to do with my time than have that particularly insightful kind of comment directed at me.  However, I kept the exchange on the back burner all day, and finally decided that a response was in order.  This was the pithy message I drafted and posted.

“Open letter to all posters:  I started adding my posts recently, because I am fairly new to the world of technology, and only accessed this site a year ago.  Whereas I enjoy the lively discussions that pertain to baseball, the uncouth behavior sure gets old fast.  This morning, when my comment was greeted with a one word response, "PUKE!!!!!" I said, "Thank you for sharing," but I didn't deserve the derogatory message in the first place.  All I did was thank Chris for the post and add support to Freddy in his effort to return.

I have seen this bullying approach many times, primarily on the middle school campus where I taught.  Bullies come in all shapes and sizes, and it's so much easier to bully from behind a computer monitor.  So knock yourself out, belvin_perry, and others who are all eyes, with little sight, not so much brain, as ear wax.  Your responses indicate who and what you are.”

Then, along came Judy’s post, so well-timed, and all was well with the world.  I may be a stranger in a strange land, when it comes to posting, but not when it comes to being able to conduct myself with a modicum of respect and dignity.  But strangers radiating kindness is such a startling contrast, than that which I had just encountered, that it piqued my interest, and warmed the cockles of my soul.

People who read the comments on Major League Baseball, can either respond directly to posters, or they can indicate that they “like” something by clicking on the like button of the post being read.  Immediately after I posted the above comment I got a “like” and a simple response: “Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Mark,” then a second “like,” with the comment, “Yes, there are a few morons who respond like that, but most of us would not,” and then finally a third “like” and a comment that said, “Yes, I have seen your posts, and remember when you came on board.”

Altogether, I received five likes, along with a second “PUKE!” from belvin_perry, with only one exclamation point this time.  I guess he lost some of the wind from his sails, and I can only be grateful for that.

From my seat here, in front of Terra Jean, I navigate the Net in the most amateur of fashions, interacting with “strangers” every day.  I have a fairly thick skin these days, so the two-legged turkeys out there, are far less likely to rock my world, than they might have in the past.  However, I do find it exhilarating to have such a negative scene, so immediately addressed, in such a way as to remove the sting from the one zinger, and embrace the salve of the other.

Timing is everything, tick, tock, so thanks Judy, for having my back.  You accomplished the very thing that had been so effectively obliterated by the rude poster on sfgiants.com.  People reap what they sow, and the rude poster will get his comeuppances when the universe determines it’s time.  Until then, maybe he should just keep a bucket handy, so that when his self-fulfilling prophecy comes true, he’ll have something to direct his invective into, instead of posting it on the airwaves, for everyone to have to dodge.  Dodgeball is old school, thank you; this is baseball territory, and I’ll leave dodging to the hated Dodgers, who at least conduct business on the field, with their bats and not their pens.

Besides, a pen has to do better than four letters, and five exclamation points, to get a rise out of me.  

There Goes the Neighborhood

There Goes the Neighborhood

We have a little Christmas cactus sitting on a window sill, above and to the right of our kitchen sink.  We have had it for one year and two weeks.  It has not been especially noteworthy, lounging in its spot, comfortable enough in its setting, to allow the neighborly daddy longlegs to move in and build its home, between the five-inch flower pot, and the window.

I am the official potted-plant, maintenance man in this household.  My Virgoan nature requires that I water all fifteen of the downstairs plants, rhythmically, and uniformly, and the plants have always shown their appreciation by doing whatever it is that potted plants are supposed to do, and doing it with flair.

This little Christmas cactus has perched next to its African Violet pal, and watched as this violet, the last remnant of Annie’s mom’s houseplants, has pushed purple petals out of itself, unceasingly for six months now.  Up until now, the cactus has been content to be an observer of life, and not the source of any attention.

For me this has been the most tumultuous of years, with changes abundant in everything I do.  I think differently, which affects every phase of my life.  People who have known me for any period of time, notice the differences immediately, and sit back to see what’s in store next.

There could not have been two more different entities in this house, than me, and the little Christmas cactus, until just these past few days.  Suddenly, however, without warning, this little model of consistency, has leaped outside of its shell, and produced an exquisite bloom, softly pale in its center, but flamboyantly lined along its edges with a deep, blood-red hue. 

Is nothing sacred?  The little cactus has changed.  I have changed.  My change does not come in the form of an exhilarating bloom, so much as a change from within.  If you evaluated my change, you would find that though the same on the outside, I am profoundly different on the inside.  If you examined the change in the Christmas cactus, you would find profound changes on the outside, but that the cactus is still, well, a cactus.

It just goes to show.  You can’t always judge an entity by its plain exterior; you never know what’s going on in the inside, and you never know when those changes will manifest themselves.  I’m just glad I didn’t have to spend the year on a window sill, talking over the back fence, to a daddy long legs. 

Small Minds, Small Pleasures

Small Minds, Small Pleasures

People follow many diverse entertainment options, that encompass every aspect of our culture.  In a perfect world  everyone would have the right to pursue interests, regardless of how others view that particular activity.  In the past few weeks I have had the opportunity to hear about many different leisure activities that folks engage in, and some are very different from the things that interest me.  Vive la difference.

For instance, I am a fan of professional sports.  The sound you hear is a combination of whooshing, as doors all over the blogging world are suddenly slamming shut, and clicking, as fingers direct the cursor to another site.  Many people shy away from modern sports because of the amount of money players make, many dislike the violence of hockey and football, and many see sports as a waste of time.   Who cares what happens to a bunch of men or women, who are playing kids’ games?

I might make similarly disparaging comments about the futility of watching reality TV, when I am starring in my own series, sans the camera, or watching other shows which feature aspects of our culture that defy explanation.  I refer to shows which depict crimes in action, and the way law enforcement deals with them; shows that degrade women, and perpetuate stereotypes of what women should look like, and shows that feature gratuitous violence or sex for the sake of cheap thrills.

I like to follow the 49ers and the Giants, but unlike most fans, I am not as concerned with the winning aspect, as I am with the element of the entertainment.  All of the years my three sons, each nineteen months apart in age from his brothers, were growing up, we made a ritual of carrying around a portable radio, and listening to sports events while we did any number of tasks.

A principle source of fuel for the wood stoves is manzanita.  Most people link manzanita to beautifully polished lamp stands, or to arid climates where the heat is a predominant factor, but in the coastal mountain ranges of NorCal, manzanita grows like devils weed in lawns.  It is beautiful but it also has a proportionately short lifespan compared to most other trees and shrubs.  Consequently, when we first moved here, thirty years ago, the hillsides were strewn with vast unlimited quantities of downed manzanita.  The oils diminish over time, but the wood stays burnable for decades,  When thoroughly dried, it breaks cleanly when hit with a maul.

In addition to as much oak and madrone as I can possibly acquire, without simply picking up the phone and ordering it at a cost of between 300 and 350 dollars a cord, I try to supplement the wood-burning program with as much manzanita as possible.  It burns extremely hot, and very clean, so as to offset the creosote build-up that inevitably occurs with the burning of most other wood, especially fir and pine, which contain so much pitch.  

So as we gathered, broke up, and relocated the wood to near the house, we listened to the 49ers every Sunday on the fall, since there was no TV reception.  And with the Giants playing 162 games in each season, with all games broadcast on the radio, we had job security.  It was a very good tool for the dad and sons to engage in, because it gave me the opportunity to model sportsmanship, especially the part about handling defeat.  My philosophy has always been that if my team wins, I allow myself to be “as giddy as a schoolboy,” as Ebenezer Scrooge phrased it, upon finding out that the ghosts had done their work prior to Christmas morning.

However, if they lose, what do I care?  I have to get up and go to work the next day regardless, so it is of little or no concern to me, what my team did the previous day.  Additionally, I am not so much a fan of football, or baseball, as I am a fan of the Niners and the Giants.  Rarely will I watch a contest between two teams that does not involve my home team.  I may watch a playoff game, featuring two teams who represent the next opponent of the Niners, but otherwise, not so much.

Finally, I like to emphasize the positive, “the hope that springs eternal, within the human breast,” as it was put in Casey at the Bat.  There is a lot that can be taught about accepting that over which you have no control, and handling disappointment so as not to cloud other elements of one’s life.  Now we get together occasionally for special games, and it is always lightweight and breezy.  With the Niners going into this year’s playoffs, we are pleasantly buzzing with excitement, but also realistic about how hard it is to achieve the Lombardi Trophy.  The Niners have been to the Big Show five times, and have come away with the prize all five times.  No other NFL club has been to more than one Superbowl, who can make the same claim.

So maybe we advance and place another feather in our cap, or maybe we go down, ignominiously, in our first game.  It’s all good, as oldest son Casey would say.  Just being there for the first time since 2002, is huge.  Losing would not diminish this year’s accomplishments.

Like my philosophy of baby steps, my philosophy on sports works for me, because I know my own self, and therefore the axiom, “small minds, small pleasures” applies.  Besides, maybe we get lucky and win, and I can use that red-tailed hawk feather I just found to stick in my cap.  It would go well with the other five.

Whirligig

Whirligig

This phenomena of end-of-the-year assessment is new to me.  I have not made resolutions since I was a kid, and though I am a maker of lists, I do not restrict my list-making to New Years Day.  I have also gone on record as being one who writes for the sake of writing, without tailoring my writing to a specific audience.

However, I cannot help be influenced by what I read at other blog sites, especially when I feel that I am the one who is out of step.  Honestly, I am a very steady individual.  I have had five careers, but only five jobs, one per career.  I have only applied for two jobs in my life and obtained them both.  I have never “lost” a job; I lived seventeen years at Fellowship Street, in SoCal, and thirty years here in this house on our ridge top, in Northern California.  I am not a flighty sort of fellow.

However, I have undergone a profound metamorphosis in the past eighteen months, a Bildungsroman [German: “formation novel”] of sorts, a literary term which refers to the “growing up or coming of age of a sensitive person who is looking for answers and experience.”  I have also broadened my social network to include my community of writers, and have read with great interest, perspectives that are different from mine, and quite fascinating.  Therefore, I have determined that in order to fit in, in a non-threatening way, I need a Word.

I was at S. Stauss’s site this morning, and her word is “tree.”  What she wrote so impressed me, that I decided I was in.  At that instant, when I made the mental shift to get on board, I pictured Feste, from Twelfth Night and the word that flashed across the TelePrompter in my mind said “whirligig.”

The second definition from my new Oxford American dictionary, of whirligig, a noun, is “a thing regarded as hectic, or constantly changing.”  By extension, “hectic” is defined as “full of incessant or frantic activity.”  Thus, I would define myself as a person who has undergone a radical transformation, and who is frantic to continue my unexpected odyssey.  I have noted that my transformation is emotional in nature, and has not affected any of my values, or my feelings about those around me, especially Annie.

I wrote out the sordid details in Six Days a Week, the piece of writing that detonated my explosive outpouring of words.  Freeing myself from forty-eight years of being held hostage to the presence of panic attacks, and the ensuing anxiety which pervades that malady, has produced a whirligig of frenetic action, which has consumed me for almost a year. 

Transformed from a low-key, staid individual, to a person who defines himself as fearless, I have only just managed to hang onto dear life during this unprecedented excursion.  Now, inspired by those around me, I want to try and not so much slow down the process, but rather, attempt to better control it, so that those around me can see that there is a method to my madness, and that I will begin to decelerate.

I saw Dr. Jill for seven visits initially, eighteen months ago, but there is more work to be done.  Who this whirligig is, that I have become, still remains to be seen.  A spinning top or pinwheel, or even merry-go-round, if you prefer, which is the first definition of whirligig, no longer applies, for I have stopped reeling.  But I am not yet a tree.  

My goal is to return to a competent therapist, both by myself, and together with Annie, immediately, so that I can lasso this whirligig once and for all, and operate with some degree of equanimity.  Otherwise, I will remain a tumbleweed rather than a tree.  And it’s hard for a tumbleweed to form roots and a foundation.  

So now I have a Word, and I have a list, with one item on it.  I’m ready for action-I’m ready for danger.  Thank you all for validating my ticket, in the parking lot of blogging.  I can now get though the exit gate, and onto the expressway, where the going is bound to be smoother.  Says so in the manual, page 12, paragraph 4, subsection W, for whirligig.

Play it [Again] Mark

Play it [Again] Mark

Brother Noel stopped by my blog the other night to make a comment on my piece about the radio shack. ( http://markyswrite.blogspot.com/2011/12/original-radio-shack.html ) What he ended up saying jogged my brain, so I want to talk about the origins of this bachelors’ quarters, out in the back yard of our house on Fellowship Street. Noel wrote, “Boys would enter that shack, and in time they would exit young men, ready for the outside world.” 

Growing up with six brothers meant that when Papa added onto our 1920’s era home, the four older of us boys ended up in one room, in two bunk beds. As the sixties unfolded, two of my older brothers got bitten by the ham radio bug, and as they pursued this interest, they needed a site to conduct business. As they began to acquire the tools of the trade, it became obvious that they were going to need more space than what our house could provide.

We lived in the last house on our block, before the “new” tract home units were built, beginning in the late fifties, when they bull-dozed down the orange groves, against which our house was built. We had an acre and set back about one hundred feet from the back screen door, was an old shed that was divided into two rooms. One was about ten by twelve and was used as a storage shed; the other was about 16 by 12, and was referred to by all of us as the “boat house,” ostensibly because Papa had originally intended to build a boat in this shed. He never got to the actual construction of any boat it at this time, but the name stuck.

Kicking back in the original radio shack, circa 1969.

When Eric and Noel plunged into the world of ham radio, Papa told them that if they would do the work, he would orchestrate electricity being routed to the old boat house, and the boys could set up operations in this shed. The transformation took place one summer, and what had once been a forbidding edifice, noted more for the presence of black widow spiders, became a freshly paneled, newly-carpeted, brightly-lit bachelors’ quarters.

As long as the boys were still operating the ham radio, the newly named “radio shack” served as headquarters for this activity, and nothing else, really. However, when Noel went off to Dominguez for school and Eric went off to Chicago, no one was left to operate the radio, and I began to eye the radio shack for purposes other than what we had been using it for. In 1967 I was coming off of my freshman year in high school, and began working for Sunrize Market that summer. That meant I was a legitimate wage-earning contributor to the family.

As much as my mom and I went around in circles on this issue, I was required to give 75% of what I earned to the household-we all contributed. Working as a box-boy in the grocery store, I told a parent-sanctioned lie to get into the Retail Clerks Union, as a fifteen-year-old, and was seriously helping the family maintain the home fires. Therefore, when I began to envision the radio shack as a place where I could not only spend the bulk of my time, but a place where I could sleep as well, the folks gave their approval.

Coming home from Sunrize Market, around 9:30, or thereabouts, the rest of the household was routinely in bed, so I could not listen to music or make any racket whatsoever. consequently, I talked Mama into letting me make the move out to the radio shack.

My roommate, Raquel...

Living in SoCal, heat was not an issue, and I transformed my new quarters into a boys’ paradise. We acquired an electric refrigerator for a song, and I was in business. I plastered the walls with posters of Led Zeppelin, the four pictures of the Beatles that came out of the “White Album,” a picture of Raquel Welch, in the film “One Million Years BC,” and I snagged a four-foot-long florescent black light, with a little help from Noel.

We had gone to Orchard Supply Hardware, and the price on the black-light bulb was outrageous, compared to the regular bulbs, and since they looked identical, Noel thought it would be pretty smart to simply switch price tags. I expected buzzers and whistles to go off, as we left the store, or at very least, a plain-clothes security guard, but nothing happened, and the radio shack now resonated with whatever you call the light that a black light makes. It wasn’t very practical, but it was so bitchin’.

We had some monumental ragers there, a couple of them even sanctioned by the ‘rents, because they were parties that were thrown as a result of me getting drafted and ending up in the military. There are a lot of anecdotes to be discussed, when thoroughly rehashing the history of the radio shack, but they will have to be the subject of later posts. But yes, when you went into the radio shack, you were a kid, and when you went off to school, you were not. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement; after all, Mama could only hear “My Baby Wrote Me a Letter,” by the Boxtops, so often, before she was ready to permanently burn that “letter” and get it over with.

“You're asking me if you can move into the radio shack? Does your stereo go with you?” That was all it took and then there was no one to listen in, when I played “Suite Judy Blue Eyes,” by Crosby, Stills and Nash, twenty-five consecutive times, when Kathy Wiseman dumped me, my senior year of high school.  

Mama never thanked me for that.

The Parade of Ruses

The Parade of Ruses

Nothing makes me regret being older more than my lost ability to stay up at night, for auspicious occasions, and to be able party heartily.  Actually, I would settle for partying on, in any manner, whatsoever.  From 1967 through 1971, I went down to Colorado Boulevard, in Pasadena, California, on New Years Eve, and spent the night with approximately two million of my new best friends.  We strolled up and down the five mile course of the Rose Parade, that would be shown on national television the following morning. The parade was followed by the Rose Bowl game, which we watched each year from our living room, while having a family poker game.

“So you used to go watch the parade every year?” you might well ask me, at which I would snort derisively, and respond, “Parade?  No, we didn’t care about the parade-only the night before’s extravaganza.”  It was all a ruse.  If one showed up on New Years morning itself, and tried to find a site from which to watch the parade, one would never be able to squeeze into a spot, because there were so many people already there.  

So the idea was to show up sometime during the night and stake your claim to a niche somewhere along the parade route, where you and your friends could spread out sleeping bags, and/or chairs for conveniently being able to watch the event that took hours to complete.  That is, if you indeed intended to watch the parade.  My parents believed that was our intention, but the reality was, that I never once clapped eyes on a single float.  It was all an excuse to get me into the arena initially.

I went the first year with my older brother Brian, who, at the time, was old school and conservative, but had flummoxed us by slipping outside the parameters of his square box, and purchasing a brand new 1967 Camaro.  He had further astounded us by taking the car to a body shop, and having a rear spoiler installed on this most extraordinarily bitchin’ mode of transportation.  So the two of us drove thirty-five minutes to Pasadena, and proceeded to do nothing more than cruise up and down the five mile stretch of parade route, listening to Jim Morrison and the Doors belt out “Light My Fire,” Jimi Hendrix perform “All Along the Watchtower,” anything from Cream’s “Disrali Gears,” the Moody Blues’ “Days of Future Passed,”  and even the Box Tops.

A couple of years later, we would be listening to Crosby, Stills and Nash, Led Zeppelin, The Grateful Dead,  Abbey Road, Three Dog Night, Steppenwolf,  the Chambers Brothers and the Grass Roots.  And we would be listening to it loudly, because that was the way it was done.  That first year, I kept turning that volume knob up, while Brian was maneuvering through traffic, and then he would turn it back down, and so forth.

We did bring sleeping bags, and we did dress warmly, because though it never rained, the temperature was regularly in the forties, which for SoCal is durn cold.  We would also use all of our wits to wheedle a six-pack of tall Olympia out of some guy going into a liquor store, or even a bottle of-gasp-Boonesfarm Strawberry Wine, enough to make me gag, even thinking about it.  Mama didn’t need to know about the Boonesfarm.  I was not necessarily a wild man, when I was a kid, more of an observer of wild men in action.  I was not a suave, debonair hunk of manhood, so much as a note-taking wannabe, content to have access to the action, even if I really was not a player.  At least it kept the cover story to a dull roar.

When asked why we were home without having watched the parade, all we had to do was look pained, as if the answer were so clear, the question need not have been asked.  We were home because we had decided that home was where it was at; it was as simple as that.

When Papa announced that it was time to deal the cards for the big poker game, with the Rose Parade going on in the background, we congratulated ourselves on having attained the best seats in the house, after all.