Not in the car! Not in the street! Case of the Missing Wallet

It's easy to be a cynic.

Police Officer Callinan met me in less than five minutes after I called yesterday.  Together we reviewed the video footage from four different cameras in the town's burger joint.  From the register to the table, we could see the exchange of money for my order, my wallet, and my purse.  We were in the restaurant less than 20 minutes and after I crossed the street to the gas station, my wallet was gone.

Small, tasty and fast - the sleuths who work here ruled out the shop.  

Losing your wallet is inconvenient. I had every credit and debit card, insurance cards, driver's license and of course, cash and checks in there.  Gone.  If I lost it, dropped it or misplaced it, where was it? 

I left my phone number with the restaurant manager and the police officer.  I called the bank and blocked my cards, though I didn't cancel them, believing it just might turn up.

I replayed the sequence of events during that short lunch visit all day. If the cameras were right, the only place I could have lost it was in the street, during the 30 seconds it took to cross.

The manager and the cashier and the police officer and my teenager who were there all studied the details and the scene.  The manager said to check our shopping bags and the officer said to check my car. My teen said it might be in the street or that "someone filched it." That's a cool word, by the way, for a teen.

It reminded me of Dr. Suess's Green Eggs and Ham.  The wallet was not in the restaurant. Not in the street.  Not in the bags.  Not in the car.  Not on a train!  Not in a tree!!  DAM_  that SAM!  just LET ME BE! 

My kids and husband listened politely and said I needed Sherlock Holmes. 

But I needed money to pick up the car at the dealer, so I went home and found an old checkbook.  Then I wondered about driving without a license.  Later that afternoon when I got on the DMV website, I admit a bit of despair seeped in.  I mean, think of it.  Department of Motor Vehicles. 

Maybe someone needed it, the cash. I can accept that. There's also identity theft . . .  As for the cards, I could order new ones easily enough and get them in a few days, but the license.  DEAR GOD, the license.  I have to go in person to a government agency (see earlier letter, Going Postal for Tax Season) and I got this kind of visceral nauseating reaction like some people do to, I don't know, broccoli, or mayonnaise, or worm infested open sores. 

I hung my head.  I lose everything.  Honestly.  I wear a messenger style purse which is worn across the shoulders because if I had to carry it in my hands, I'd leave it somewhere. 

But SHERLOCK CALLED. 

His name in this case is only three letters long.  Art. 

So, I'll tell you what happened. 

I was right about the street.  When we went back into the restaurant to check out the scene of the lost wallet, two girls outside noticed a black object by the curb.  They picked it up and went to the nearest store, the Mobil gas station.

Meanwhile, back in the restaurant, there we were.  After a few minutes search, I sent my teen to look for it in the only place it could be.  The street. 

The girls were inside the gas station and gave the owner the wallet.

Later, Officer Callinan and I stood on that same curb, talking about the lost wallet, the amount of petty theft in town, the number of trivial calls he got for such things.

Smart people would check their message machines. 

Not until that night, did I notice messages on my machine.  The restaurant manager called, checked the video cameras and wanted to let me know.  Another call was from the owner of the Mobil gas station across the street. 

Art said he had my wallet. 

It's easy to be a cynic you see.  But I believe that most people are good. I said so aloud several times yesterday, hoping to displace my doubts.

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world. (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice)    

 

 

It's a Messy Business - "Urinal Dynamics"

I love Wired magazine and if you aren't already a subscriber, this might be motivation enough for the ladies. 

Most of the readers are men, which is good because they are the target for this article.  But I'll leave targets  to the experts, researchers Tadd Truscott and Randy Hurd.

Men's ability to urinate while standing, in spite of its advantages, has one messy flaw: splash-back. That's the splatter that bounces out of the bowl onto the seat, floor, pants, shoes … Enter Tadd Truscott and Randy Hurd, fluid dynamicists at Brigham Young University's Splash Lab. For a study of “urinal dynamics,” they built a specialized hose that simulated a guy taking a leak, then used high-speed photography to film it in action. By varying the distance traveled and impact angle, the duo pinpointed a spritz-free way to pee. They presented their findings at a recent physics conference, and word spread from there. “One man called to thank us for saving his marriage,” Truscott says. So for cleaner bathrooms, drier pants, and happier housemates, heed this advice. (Wired June 2014)



Splash Lab at Brigham Young University where physicists study urine splashback.

To truly appreciate their work, check out the visuals posted online here, Scientific Tips for Peeing Like a Proper Gentleman.

Here are recommendations which would prove helpful to all.

Techniques to reduce splashes

• Getting as close as possible - a smooth unbroken stream is better than droplets
• Angling the stream - aiming sideways or downwards instead of straight at the toilet water/wall
• Placing toilet tissue in the bowl to soften impact
• Hydrophobic coatings for toilets
• Being a "sitzpinkler" - sitting down instead of standing

(BBC, Physicists probe urination splashback problem)

In the Heart of the Sea, Philbrick - Couples Book Night

As part of an "inaugural town-wide reading initiative," our library chose In the Heart of the Sea, the Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex for its first selection.  Nathaniel Philbrick earned the National Book Award for this retelling of the fateful 1819 voyage from Nantucket. (Link to book)




This ill-fated story inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick.

My reading group (The 3Bs for Books, Banter, & Booze) agreed to read the selection and invited our husbands, a first. Group members were concerned they might not read the book or wouldn't sit through a discussion. So we sent a reminder for Couples Night with "reading encouraged but optional." 

As it turned out, the men changed the tone of the discussion in a good way. Seven couples came and two of the men didn't read the book but stayed for the meeting. 

We discussed the whaling industry in Nantucket, circa 1800s.   Whale blubber was used to fuel lamps and for lubrication in industry.  A whaleship of twenty-one men and five whale boats left port for a couple years until it filled its hold.  It was a mobile processing plant, tracking, hunting and killing whales then stripping and refining the blubber. Early on, there were whales off shore, but as demand and the industry grew, ships head farther out to sea, traversed the Atlantic, rounded Cape Horn into the Pacific, and hunted whale.

Philbrick wrote about all of it: life on Nantucket, the hunt, the kill, the processing of oil, the shipwreck.  About 1500 miles west of the Galapagos, the ship was rammed and sunk by a gigantic sperm whale.  The crew escaped with as much food and water as three small boats could hold. 

Route of the Essex and whale attack in the Pacific after 15 months at sea.

The rest is a story of survival with details and gore about thirst, starvation, and cannibalization. 

This is the kind of story where you know the end at the beginning, with a subtitle "Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" as hint enough.

The book is a case study in leadership and survival and I moderated the discussion around these themes.  We had a lively meeting. 

The host's daughter read the abridged version and gave us her take.  She found it gory.  It had little appeal for her and we appreciated her candor. 

It was an unusual opening to an unusual meeting.

We reviewed our rules of not appraising the book before discussion, equal time, and agreeing to disagree.  Then members read and analyzed passages.  Scott read the ship's contract from Chapter Two. 

Respected Friend,

As thou are master of the Ship Essex now lying without the bar at anchor, our orders are, that thou shouldst proceed to sea the first fair wind and proceed for the Pacifick Ocean, and endeavor to obtain a load of Sperm Oil and when accomplished to make the best dispatch for this place.  Thou are forbidden to hold any illicit trade.  Thou are forbidden to carry on thyself or to suffer any person belonging to this ship Essex to carry on any trade except it should be necessary for the preservation of the ship Essex or her crew: wishing thee a short and prosperous voyage, with a full portion of happiness we remain thy friends.

In behalf of the owners of the ship Essex,

Gideon Folger, Paul Macy

(Chapter 2, Knockdown)

This paragraph is refreshing, especially when contrasted with the three pages required for my son's recent field trip which I shared at the meeting.  The first page was a medical waiver, the next was the park's hold harmless agreement, the last was a media release and personal responsibility statement.  Each had paragraphs of fine print and required multiple signatures.  All for one day.

I asked the group what they thought then directed the question to the lawyer in the room. A distinguished and thoughtful gentleman, he listened to the laughter about the field trip forms and responded.

"It's pithy," he said. 

This did not light the fire to the topic as I hoped.  For the purposes of this letter, I want to reveal what a sorry state of legalese and liability we have when a single paragraph sufficed to guide a captain's crew for years on the seas and today three pages are required for a student outing. 

Details like the letter, the history of the industry, the Nantucket community, and the life of the whalemen are the best parts of the story and Philbrick flexed his writing muscle here, annotating forty pages of notes and a ten page bibliography. 

Whaleboats dispatched from the ship to harpoon whale and attach to its prey, "launching the boat and crew on [its] first Nantucket sleigh ride."

The men mentioned Philbrick's modern slant on the story, how it shaped his telling to support his interpretation, a trap a good historian should avoid.

Philbrick exposed contradictions in the Quaker community, the bloodlust of the hunt and their religious beliefs in pacifism.  They reconciled themselves to the task by exalting God's belief of man's dominion over the animals.  A Quaker elder named Peleg Folger who was once a whaleman explained this view:

Thou didst, O Lord, create the mighty whale,

That wondrous monster of a mighty length;

Vast is his head and body, vast his tail,

Beyond conception is unmeasured strength.

 

But, everlasting God, thou dost ordain

That we, poor feeble mortals should engage

(ourselves, our wives and children to maintain),

This dreadful monster with a martial rage.

(Chapter 1, Nantucket)

After this verse, Philbrick wrote that the Quakers maintained a "peaceful life on land while raising bloody havoc at sea." He closed with this: "Pacifist killers, plain-dressed millionaires, the whalemen of Nantucket were simply fulfilling the Lord's will."

Folger's poem is near reverent for the whale: a monster it is, mighty and vast and strong beyond conception.  And by comparison, he saw himself as a "feeble" mortal.  Yet Philbrick cast the whalemen as cold-blooded and his modern conceit raised its ugly head throughout the book.  He chided them for the folly of their livelihood, mocked them with monikers, and blamed them for the decimation of the species.

Philbrick is right on this last point, driving it home at the book's end. 

It is estimated that the Nantucketers and their Yankee whale-killing brethren harvested more than 225,000 sperm whales between 1804 and 1876...... Some researchers believe that by the 1860s whalemen may have reduced the world's sperm-whale population by as much as 75 percent. ....Today there are between one and a half to two million sperm whales, making them the most abundant of the world's great whales. (Chapter 14, Consequences)

Hindsight makes it easy to judge our predecessors.  But scarcity and necessity introduced kerosene which crippled the whaling industry, ending Nantucket's prominent role in our nation's economy. Philbrick's slant on this is tantamount to judging the Cherokee and colonialists for their sustenance and livelihood in the deerskin trade which resulted in the near extinction of the deer population.

Philbrick also highlighted Pollard's leadership failures and we analyzed these. On three occasions the Captain reversed his decisions.  The first was to continue the voyage despite suffering an early "knockdown," and the second decision to sail to the nearby islands was overruled to pursue a 3000 mile circuitous journey to South America.  For the third time, the Captain reversed his decision and allowed his crew to draw lots to determine who would die to feed the starved crew.  The outcome resulted in his nephew's demise.

Members said the story was "riveting."  The men liked the adventure and I liked learning about the lifestyle, the ship, and the times.  I lost interest after the whale attack and found the aftermath tedious and gruesome.

The group shared their own stories and the men mentioned other survival situations like Shackleton's expedition.  Having men and women in the discussion was a fuller, more enriching experience.  

My husband asked if all our meetings were like that and Kate's reclusive husband enjoyed the evening despite his disdain for social gatherings.  It's a memorable idea, our town's reading initiative.  In our case, we forged new connections with a young reader and our husbands.

The lawyer suggested a new name for such meetings: the 4Bs or Books, Banter, Booze, & Boys.

Greek Stoic Epictetus - Life is a Festival

Epictetus teaches and instructs, even today, almost 2000 years later.  So it is with the great thinkers.  A freed slave and Stoic, his philosophy is often compared to that of Jesus Christ though he never met any Christian teachers.

Like many teachers of the classical era, Epictetus wrote down none of his teachings.  He delivered his lessons or discourses through dialectic and his student Arrian transcribed them as best he could.  Four of the eight books survive.  Arrian, or Flavius Arrianus, was the first Roman appointment to a key military command and he was also an historian and philosopher. 

In his introduction to the discourses, Arrian says, "that he [Epictetus] aimed at nothing more than to move the minds of his hearers toward virtue."  Not surprisingly, these brief chapters are packed with weighty ideas. If contemporary fiction is candy for the brain, than Epictetus is the main course. And it takes time to digest.

In the four paragraphs which make up Chapter IX, Epictetus answers three questions with other questions.  This Socratic format lets the student or listener arrive at his own conclusions.

Epictetus asks if God brought you here as a mortal, "with a little portion of flesh upon earth, to see His administration; to behold the spectacle with Him, and partake of the festival for a short time.....  will you not depart when He leads you out, adoring and thankful for what you have heard and seen?" 

"But I would enjoy the feast a little longer."

Epictetus answers, "So perhaps, would the spectators at Olympia see more combatants.  But the show is over."

"Ay, but I would have my wife and children with me, too."

Epictetus asks, "Why? Are they yours? And they not the Giver's? Are they not His, Who made you also?"

"Why then, did He bring me into the world upon these conditions?" 

Here's the crux. 

"He has no need of the discontented spectator.  He wants such as will share in the festival; make part of the chorus; who will extol, applaud, and celebrate the solemnity.  He will not be displeased to see the wretched and the fearful dismissed from it.  For, when they were present, they did not behave as at a festival, nor fill a proper place in it; but lamented, found fault with the Deity, with their fortune, and with their companions.  They were insensible both of their advantages and of their powers -- the powers of magnanimity, nobleness of spirit, fortitude, and that which concerns us, -- freedom."  (The Philosophy of Epictetus, Bonforte 1955, link)

My 13 year old son wandered into the Tree House and he read and talked about these paragraphs.  What did Epictetus mean?

Life is a festival you attend and when it's over, you leave.  You can't take others with you, because they don't belong to you, only to Him, the divine.  And we discussed the last paragraph the longest.

So why are we in this world?  what is this freedom then?

We each have the right to exercise freedom and make choices.  Our power lies in our magnanimity, our nobility, and fortitude. 

My son summarized the passage and we discussed examples of choices, reviewing good and bad choices of our own.  What does magnanimity mean?  nobleness of spirit?  fortitude?  He left the room and he left me thinking. 

Society tries hard to stay at the feast, to watch more combatants, to hold on to life even when the festival is over. There's a time to leave. And it's easy to lose our way from the path, the path whose aim is to move us towards virtue. We have freedom of choice to take advantage of our powers.  If this is the highest and best path, does it matter whether you're a philosopher, a Christian, a Buddhist, or an atheist?

Signs, Superstition, and Life

I'm not superstitious though my family is, at least my mother's side.  It could be cultural and it is certainly an individual thing.  But I am second guessing my own beliefs now.

We lost our dog in April  (Link to post) and I couldn't bring myself to go back to the vet's to get his ashes until this week.  It wasn't hard driving there, but taking a stapled white bag into the car was.  On the way into town, I noticed the white churches located on a hilly knoll called God's Acre.  A gray van pulled in front of me with ads: finalgift.com, "Where veterinarians and pet owners find compassionate aftercare services."

I have never seen a van like this before.  Of course I know they exist, as much as slaughterhouses, morgues, and crematoriums exist.  But why now, at this moment?  It's the same question I asked the day before.

Father's Day was a blue sky, barbecue, run-through-the-water-sprinklers kind of day and we left our doors open on the front and back porches.  My husband played badminton, volleyball, and games with our children.  He came inside to sit down. 

"What!!??" he said and pushed back, jumping out of his seat.

Lying on the desk was a bird.

"Why did the kids put that there?"  he asked. They hadn't, of course.  I said it might be just knocked out from hitting the window too hard.

It was dead: a juvenile robin, its neck broken. My husband took it outside and I cleaned up the counter.  The kids saw it.  I scanned the room, imagining its flight in through the door after a stop by the feeder outside, its frustration with all the windows, and its instantaneous demise at the glass pane by the desk . 

Though it is every bit as natural as birth and life, death disturbs us.  And it's jarring to find a dead animal in the home.

But there's more, a third sign. My dream is hazy and unfinished.  In it I see a green oversized letter with a dark border.  I don't remember much, just that after opening it, the news was devastating.  I closed the envelope to look at it, the edging is black.  Someone died.

Once as common as birth announcements are today, these dire dispatches of the 19th and early 20th centuries usually included a black border around the envelope's edge or around the stamp. Some had black wax seals or an embossment of a flower or crown on them. (Letters of mourning)

The call came last night just after ten.  My husband's mother stopped breathing. 

Beth was a vibrant, red haired Scot who raised three sons and taught New York's children for 40 years.  It's hard to imagine a world without her in it. 

Perhaps I am a bit superstitious after all.  Life is funny like that. It's also precious and fragile. 

God rest her soul. 

** Earlier letter here: Going Home, Aging Parents

Playing His Song, Father's Day

It seems only a short while ago when I wrote this column.  My father lived another three years.

 

To all the fathers out there and to the friends who lost theirs, I will play you a few songs.  My father knew these by heart, the notes and the chords and the lyrics.  He played by ear and he could pick 'em, strum 'em, and sing 'em.

Playing "Whistling Gypsy Rover"

So here's to the music, Dear Ol' Dad.  Some favorites:

 

• A Boy Named Sue
• The Green Green Grass of Home
• Me and Bobby McGee
• Under the Double Eagle
• Whistling Gypsy Rover
• Wildwood Flower

 

 Playing His Song

 

Published:  Jun 18, 2006   Father’s Day         Tampa Tribune

 

“See the streaks?” my father asked, pointing at the window. “Do it again.”

 

I protested since I had ‘cleaned’ half the windows in the house already. He showed me how to buff the window and I did it right the next time, having learned a tough lesson as a young child.

 

Father assigned chores around the house and we worked at the family business.  My brother and I worked summers there full time and every weekend of our young lives since I can remember.

 

One summer I got hooked on the soap opera, Santa Barbara.  My father turned off the TV.  “You’re not going to watch TV all summer.  You can sit here and watch people live.  Or, you can get up and live.”

 

He had similar expectations for school and everything else:  get good grades, work hard and pay attention.  We knew early on that we’d better figure out a way to pay for college. That was our burden, not his.  We both earned full scholarships to college.

 

Looking back I’m grateful for that.  His tough love and work ethic taught me a lot about independence. 

 

But, Dad wasn’t all work.  He read to us often, even in high school, from Kipling to the Psalms and his own stories.  Other times, he’d sing old folk tunes playing his guitar at bedtime.  We fell asleep with the lyrics and characters in our heads.

 

In the morning, he’d ask “What’s the importance of today, March 15^th?”  We didn’t know so he’d tell us, “It’s the Ides of March, Julius Caesar’s fateful day.” 

 

He showed us there was so much to know about the world. 

 

I took my oldest daughter to visit my parents recently.  Exploring the house, she observed, “Grandpa has shelves with three guitars on them.”  A Martin, Gretsch and Gibson Les Paul filled those old cases. 

 

“Yes, “ I said.  “Grandpa’s played guitar all his life and he played throughout my childhood, just like I play piano for you. But grandpa doesn’t play anymore.”

 

My father’s in his 70s.   His medication affects his memory and he’s lost a lot of his balance so he stopped driving this year. He’s packed away the books from his life and travels; now dust covers the empty bookshelves in his office.  But he works on jigsaws and reads the new books that I send.

 

I went over to the old Kimball upright I learned on as a child.  I marveled at how much of him I’ve become as I played tunes for my Dad.   Songs he once played for me. 

 

 

 

My Ántonia- Willa Cather - An American Beauty

In My Ántonia, Willa Cather writes about our American past, its western expansion, rugged living, and the indomitable spirit of the men and women of the late 1800s.  The character of Antonia embodies all this, but the book is so much more. It's a portrait of our country's history and its people, their struggle and their triumphs and their story.

The development is simple. 

• Book I  The Shimerdas
• Book II  The Hired Girls
• Book III  Lena Lingard
• Book IV  The Pioneer Woman's Story
• Book V Cuzak's Boys

Book I introduces us to young Antonia's Bohemian family who settled in Nebraska along with Swedes, Norwegians, and Czechs.  The next book follows her life into town as a hired girl along with the other immigrants who hope to help their families and maybe do a bit more for themselves.

In Book III, the narrator, Jim Burden, moves to the university but there's a distraction, Lena Lingard.  Lena wasn't the "nice" girl from town, but Cather lets readers know there is no one path to success for those with pioneering spirit. 

Lena's success puzzled me.  She was so easy-going; had none of the push and self-assertiveness that get people ahead in business.  She had come to Lincoln, a country girl, with no introductions except to some cousins of Mrs. Thomas who lived there, and she was already making clothes for the women of "the young married set."  (Cather, Book III).

The fourth book takes stock of the women we meet in the book, their likely and unlikely futures.  Tiny "was to lead the most adventurous life and to achieve the most solid worldly success." (Cather, Book IV)  And Antonia makes a life for herself despite abandonment. 

The highlight in Book IV is the narrator Jim Burden's visit with Antonia after she is disgraced in a fatherless childbirth. Afterwards, Jim doesn't see her for twenty years, a period of time when he makes his life, marries, lives in New York. 

But he comes back to her and to Nebraska, as he always has in his mind. And in Book V, Jim is reunited with Antonia who has married a poor Bohemian and had a large family.  Her life on the farm has been hard. 

I was thinking, as I watched her, how little it mattered -- about her teeth, for instance.  I know so many women who have kept all the things that she had lost, but whose inner glow has faded. Whatever else was gone, Antonia had not lost the fire of life. Her skin, so brown and hardened, had not that look of flabbiness, as if the sap beneath it had been secretly drawn away. (Cather, Book V)

This story is told amid stark imagery and the plains, using beautiful language. Against this backdrop, Cather tells occasional dark tales that take you by surprise.  Life was never easy, nor was it simple. I found myself going back to make sure I understood.

Antonia's father commits suicide in the depths of winter, forcing the family to wait until a thaw to deal with his corpse. One story is circulated about the neighbors: two Russian brothers unloaded a bride from their wagon to escape a pack of wolves.  Their lives are cursed and the evil deed, like the wolves, chases them to their graves.  In the second book, Tony (Antonia) shared a story about a tramp who showed up during threshing.  It wasn't always clear where Tony was going with her stories, but this tramp seemed the same as any you might imagine except when he jumped in to help, he did more than help.  He dove headfirst into the threshing machine with the wheat. 

Some pioneers survived and a few thrived.  But desperate men took desperate measures.  And perhaps, the beauty of the story is similar to its setting; each is exceptional because of a contrast of extremes.

When Antonia's family finally got around to burying the father, none of the churches would accommodate the Bohemian man who took his own life.  So, the family buried him at the corner of their property, "indeed, under the very stake that marked the corner." 

 

This passage is Cather at her best.  It struck me for its eloquence, the simple and final prayer filled with American generosity.

Grandmother looked anxiously at grandfather. He took off his hat, and the other men did likewise. I thought his prayer remarkable. I still remember it. He began, `Oh, great and just God, no man among us knows what the sleeper knows, nor is it for us to judge what lies between him and Thee.' He prayed that if any man there had been remiss toward the stranger come to a far country, God would forgive him and soften his heart. He recalled the promises to the widow and the fatherless, and asked God to smooth the way before this widow and her children, and to `incline the hearts of men to deal justly with her.' In closing, he said we were leaving Mr. Shimerda at `Thy judgment seat, which is also Thy mercy seat.'  (Book I, Chapter XVI)

Read more at Goodreads link to My Antonia.

Not Your Average Birthday, Teen Support Group & Fault in Our Stars

They joined her support group Saturday.  What kind of support?  The best kind, for celebration and friendship.  Do we need cancer to support each other?

The book The Fault in Our Stars opens with John Green’s characters meeting in their cancer support group.   One character’s family leaves “encouragements” around the house, like “Live your best day today.”  Why?  Because the story is tragic and traumatic, and life is transient.  The teens are terminally ill and who wants to read about that? 

I didn’t. 

But I did, and

I’m glad I did.  

The book’s humor is wicked, witty, razor sharp and I laughed out loud more than for any other book this year.  But there’s a price.   You pay for the laughter in tears. 

So this support group that I mention is to celebrate my daughter’s life.  That’s right.  In the book, Hazel’s mom celebrates every holiday and each half year of life because it’s only fair.  Right?  Hazel’s lucky to live into her 20s. 

My daughter chose this book as the theme for her birthday games, an annual tradition that is part scavenger hunt, amazing race, and puzzle.  And friends came to join her support group. And they realized by comparison how lucky they are.

We joined hands because my daughter’s friend asked to do so.  And I said the serenity prayer.  You know it.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Next were introductions:    Name, Age, Diagnosis. 

I introduced my daughter, "15 years & 6 days, she is a bibliophile with NEC no evidence of cancer, a high school student, with good friends.  Thank you for coming today."

For the games, the teens wrote their eulogies.  They wrote a team metaphor.  They wrote encouragements. 

And they learned something.  

You don’t have to be dying to support each other. 

 

 

Activities included "getting in character"

 

Anne Frank Climb:  3 stories, carrying a fifth body weight wearing respirator

Isaac's Revenge, "blind" egging

 

"Find Sysiphus the hamster and tell him how his story ends."  For the games this year, the teens ventured around the town and coaxed answers from strangers to important questions from the story.

 

Here are some winning submissions from the teens themselves.

 

Metaphor: 

Cancer is an angel's caterpillar, eventually it moves on, giving its host their wings. 

My lungs are flooded by a river of death.

Life is like a tree; you can't avoid the lumberjack.

 

Encouragements:

Even the tallest waves only last a shore-t while.

Discover your inner unicorn.

You will never sink if you keep treading.

 

Eulogy;

CB's death was a tragedy.  His life was cut too short, but looking back he lived well. He did well in school, he had fun, and he had good friends.  He worried a lot about the simplest of things.  We won't remember him for his worries.  We will remember him for the happy life he lived.

 

MG was a very special person.  She was funny and kind. She lived in Stamford.  She is sorry she couldn't attend today.  Something came up .....

 

DS was a boy.  He had almost made it through his sister's boring party, but not quite.  His humor was not always understood. When it was though, it was highly respectable. To his grave, he brought his video games for endless entertainment.  His sister also was brought for company. 

 

SN's death is a GRAVE occurrence.  Her jokes could sometimes make you DIE with laughter. Whenever someone dies, it is important not to BURY your feelings.  Therefore we must ASH ourselves how SN impacted our lives.  She will surely be missed and her legacy will last until our DYING days. 


To appreciate why my daughter chose The Fault in Our Stars, read her review mybooktroll, I forgot to eat. 

 

 

 

 

Handwriting: a Foundation for Communication and Thought

During a year of homeschooling, my children practiced penmanship. The positive impact on everything from legibility to understanding and reinforcement was impressive. A year back in public school and my son's handwriting has regressed.  And he no longer writes in cursive.

Look at our country's founding documents and ask whether today's students are capable of such exquisite handwriting and thought.  Of course they are. Those patriots also filled responsible and respectable jobs in their teens when today's teens can't sign their name ( Cursive is about more than penmanship, N. Borges). Not only do they not know how to write in cursive, they struggle to read cursive.

So what's different?




Declaration of Independence with 56 Signatures



Schools no longer teach penmanship. Cursive is optional and if it is required, it is offered only for a year.  Yet experts realize there are real benefits to handwriting as related in this recent New York Times article.

Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it’s not just what we write that matters — but how.

“When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated,” said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris. “There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain.

 “And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn’t realize,” he continued. “Learning is made easier.”   (What's lost as handwriting fades?).   

My son's handwriting is atrocious and I needn't look far for a reason because my handwriting was horrible. Even today, so much of his school work through middle school and on exams remains handwritten. So my son practiced cursive for home school several times a week using a $13 program called Presidential Penmanship (Link).  He was 11 years old.  You can see his progress below.

Lesson 1,  pretty rough

 

 

Lesson 12 is better.

 

 

 

Handwriting improves with practice and they remember the content.

 

I began dictating stories which they had to listen to and write correctly. This was effective and powerful;  the children could recall the story from memory and learned to spell, punctuate, and copy good writing. Memorization and recitation are also excellent, though I did not require it as often.

As the quality of handwriting improves, other things do as well.  Children remember what they write and other subjects improve.  In our case, the presidential quotes were inspiring and shed light on our history. 

Though I value handwriting, I'm not a Luddite who spurns technology.  The children also used an affordable typing program, Mavis Beacon (Product link), which improved their keyboard skills by increasing speed and accuracy without looking at the keyboard.

This summer, my son must practice penmanship at home because the quality of his handwriting is unfortunate for everyone, his teachers and him.  Many friends commiserate about their sons' handwriting and I don't know how the teachers decipher what they write.

My teenage daughter said a boy in her honors class has to type because he can't hand write due to a disability.  This comes as no surprise. 

If reading is the foundation for learning, hand writing is the foundation for communication and thought; and this is true especially in the formative years.   

I read Dr. Ben Carson's speech this weekend which he gave at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast.  He talked about education and how Alexis de Tocqueville visited our fledgling country in 1831 to understand its early success.  He was impressed with our three branches of government, but was "blown away" by our educational system. 

You see, anybody who had finished the second grade was completely literate. He [de Tocqueville] could find a mountain man on the outskirts of society who could read the newspaper and could have a political discussion . . . could tell him how the government worked.  (Link to book)

In his book on education, Carson discusses "a sixth-grade exit exam from the 1800s - a test you had to pass to get your sixth grade certificate. I doubt most college graduates today could pass that test."

When I look at the signatures on the Declaration of Independence, I am forced to reconsider the role handwriting plays in education.  And I wonder why many high school graduates today do not have the basic understanding of a second grader or sixth grader in the early 1800s. 

On The Beaches of Normandy 70 Years Ago

Yesterday marked the 70th anniversary of D Day. Seventy years is a long time, but not for some.

An 89-year-old British Royal Navy vet was so determined to get to D-Day commemorations in Normandy Friday that he snuck away from his nursing home without warning and boarded a bus for France. (full article British Vet Missing)

On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which, “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Continental Europe. The cost in lives on D-Day was high. More than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 Soldiers to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe, to defeat Adolf Hitler’s crack troops.  (http://www.army.mil/d-day/)

Here is President Eisenhower's letter to the troops

How Do We Teach Creativity? Odyssey of the Mind

In the Age of Information with energy challenges and dwindling resources, we need more and more creative, innovative solutions to the world's problems.  The existing education system does not teach this well.

So how do we teach creativity today? I'm just back from Ames, Iowa and I have an answer for you.

Odyssey of the Mind.

Iowa State University hosted the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals with 833 teams attending from the United States, Mexico, Poland, China, Singapore, Germany, Togo and other countries.

Students from kindergarten through college compete by solving long term and spontaneous problems.  Success requires teamwork, collaboration, and creativity, in no small quantities. 

Odyssey of the Mind World Finals, Iowa State University

Hilton Coliseum Opening Ceremonies 

 

New Canaan High School Team, Division III (Grades 9-12)

Wearing Connecticut shirts and hats




Dr. C. Samuel Micklus, a professor of Industrial Design at Rowan University in New Jersey, founded the program over thirty years ago.  He welcomed everyone at the opening ceremonies in Iowa this weekend and talked about Odyssey of the Mind.

For one of the original problems, he challenged his students to a lake fishing tournament where he set up 50 wooden fish.  Seven teams would fish for three minutes.  The trick was:  they could not use fishing gear.  A little boy watched the teams.  He asked if he could get into the water to get the fish.  The professor told him there was a penalty and the little boy said he would take the penalty and scoop up all the fish before the other teams.

Dr. Micklus realized age did not matter when it came to creative solutions.  So the program grew to include students from kindergarten through college.

Saxe Middle School, Division I   (Grades K-5)

It's How We Rule, Classics Problem

 



Teams worked on a long term solution to one of five problems: vehicle, classic, balsa structure, technical performance, or performance. A team develops its solution to a problem over a five month period and presents it in an eight minute skit.  This Saxe team recreated the historic Elizabethan court and created a fictional court of cards, complete with jester, song, and dance.  They placed eleventh at World Finals.

There are two components to Odyssey of the Mind.

• Long Term solution to one of five problems - developed over five months
• Spontaneous solution to an unknown problem given at the competition -- usually a minute or two to discuss and four to five to solve

Another team chose the Driver's Test which required them to design and create a vehicle with two propulsion systems and complete a test.  The banana mobile, made completely with trash items, moved on a Radio Flyer wagon with dolly and navigated the digestive system, attacking French Fries and other nasty food.  It performed a good deed by delivering the red blood cell to the lungs. They placed 18th in the finals.

Saxe Middle School, Division II  (Grades 6-8)

Driver's Test, Vehicle Problem 

Creative, unique, and elaborate solutions receive more points and it was fascinating to walk through the "Prop Room" for the Driver's Test. We saw an eight foot tall hamster type wheel made of duck tape on rollers, designed for a driver to walk inside; a Model T car constructed from cardboard with a chain propulsion; and various Rube Goldberg type vehicles, many with outlandish décor; one had chicken wire with rolled newsprint inserted, the body resembling a news-floral float.

More than anything else, the students loved pin-trading. They brought their own local and state pins and traded with other competitors from around the world.  Like any marketplace, they learned to negotiate, valuate, communicate, and respect the rules of commerce.

A gentleman stopped to talk with our team and afterwards shared an observation.

"When I listen to the news today, I'm concerned about the future.  But coming here and seeing Odyssey, I'm not worried.  I'm optimistic."

Learn more about Odyssey of the Mind (http://www.odysseyofthemind.com/)

Speaker Tells Grads to "Make Your Bed"

Admiral William McRaven spoke to the graduating class at University of Texas at Austin.  If you read my earlier letter about the Yale Commencement ( link )with its Honorary Degrees and awards for everyone, you will be pleased to hear what the Admiral had to say.

Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Viet Nam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed.

If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack—rack—that’s Navy talk for bed.

It was a simple task–mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle hardened SEALs–but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.

If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another.

By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.

If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.

And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made—and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.

If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.

Read or listen to the Admiral's speech in its entirety here, To Change the World, Start By Making Your Bed. He shared several lessons using examples of hardship, humor, and poignancy.

• make your bed
• find someone to help you paddle
• sometimes you end up a "sugar cookie" 
• life is filled with "circuses"
• don't back down from the sharks
• you must be your very best in your darkest moment

What a welcome contrast to Yale's commencement this is. 

A few years ago a friend interned at Florida State University where she worked in the counseling center as she finished her PhD in psychology.   After her first year there, I asked about the students, their concerns, her observations.  She didn't need much time to think.  She noticed two things: the lack of social skills and the sense of entitlement . 

The Admiral's understanding of this generation is prescient and his speech gives counsel where it is due. 

None of my children made their beds today. We've been traveling this last week and they were tired.  But that's no excuse.

It's often easier for me to do it for them.  But what have they learned?  what lesson did I teach them? 

When they get home today, they will listen to Admiral McRaven's speech. 

Then they will make their beds.