Unburned Pieces of The Mind

Getting lost in Houston

2006-07-13T13:57:00.000-05:00

On July 11, I called my mother to wish her a happy birthday. As I was talking with her, I could hear a loud crackling over the phone. “Do you got static going on?” I asked.

“Yeah, I got a rip-roaring thunderstorm going on over my head.”

We talked just long enough for me to give her the news that I accepted a job offer as a Public Assistance Advocate.

“That’s great. Almost a birthday present in itself now that I don’t have to worry about you,” she said as the line crackled again. “Did you hear that?” she asked. “I think I need to get off the phone.”

“Call you tomorrow,” I said.

The job offer from MASH (Medical Advocacy Services for Healthcare} could not have come at a better time. I’ve been in Houston for over a month now and I’m just about flat broke. Thanks to food and other expenses being less than what I had anticipated, my funds have held up fairly well. But I’m not sure how I’m going to get through the next couple of weeks until my first check. I told my cat not to worry, though. Pigeons are plentiful here.

The job almost didn’t happen, and I really didn’t expect to be offered the position since I was horribly late for the interview. Although I’m getting better at finding my way around, Houston is, as some people say here, “inmenso” in its geographical size.

How big? Well, bigger than the state of Connecticut. Yeah, imagine that. Over 6,200 sq, miles compared to Connecticut’s area of 5,800 sq, miles. I’ve learned that when somebody says, “Oh, we’re just ‘cross town,” you better look at a map. They could be 40 to 60 miles from where you are. Though Houston is the fourth largest city in population, its geographical area makes it the largest city in the United States. Good luck if you get lost here. MapQuest even has a hard time figuring out where you are, much less where you want to go.

And so it was on the day of my interview with Tim Lacy that I happened to get quite lost on the 610 Loop. I headed out an hour before my 2pm appointment, figuring it wouldn’t take more than a half hour to get to the Washington Mutual building where he said his office was located. I followed the route exactly as MapQuest had given, except that when I got off the exit it gave, I could not find any of the landmarks Mr. Lacy had indicated. No cross street named Buffalo Speedway, no stadium, and no bank building. And even though the frontage road sign said I was in the 3000-3500 block, which is where I needed to be, something clearly wasn’t quite right.

I looked at the directions again. From the route it gave, I was where I was supposed to be, but it was obvious something was wrong. The only things adjacent to this block were a lone convenience store, and a run-down residential area. I looked at the time. Ten to two. Great. The one job opportunity that looked tailored made to my background in social service and education, and I felt like I was about to kiss it goodbye.

I hopped back on the 610 and started to backtrack in the direction I had come, but when I didn’t see anything that made sense as to where I was, much less where I was going, I pulled off and stopped at a Valero station. I approached the lady behind the counter. “Do you know how to get to S 3003 W Loop?” I asked. She shrugged her shoulders and said she didn’t know.

After asking a few more people, I gave up. It seems most people don’t know how to get to any other place in Houston, either, except the place they’re already in. Knowing I didn’t see anything that looked even close to what Mr. Lacy had described, I got back on the 610 and headed south. Ten minutes past two, I called Mr. Lacy and apologized for being late, and then explained I was quite lost. “Where are you?” he asked.

As if I knew.

“I just went back over the harbor channel heading south.”

“Oh, my, you’re quite a ways out. Didn’t you see Reliant stadium? We’re right across from there. You want to take the Buffalo Speedway exit and then turn left. The Washington Mutual building will be on the right. Don’t worry, though. My 2:30 is early, so I’ll start with her. Just try to be here in the next thirty minutes. I have a plane I need to catch back to Dallas.”

“On my way,” I said, thanking him for being understanding.

Twenty minutes later, Reliant Stadium came into view. And there on the left was the Washington Mutual building, I parked my car and jaunted up the stairs to the second floor. “Hi, I’m Scot Cunningham,” I said, announcing myself to the receptionist.

“Oh, you’re the gentleman who’s lost,” she said.

“Was,” I said.

“I’ll let Mr. Lacy know you’re here.”

Mr. Lacy proved to be very gracious and accepting. As I stood up and thanked him for taking the time to meet with me, I apologized once again for being so horribly late.

“Can I see the directions you got from MapQuest?” he asked.

I handed him my printout.

Chuckling, he said, “Well, here’s the problem. We’re S 3003 W Loop, but the address you put in is N 3003 W Loop.”

All I can say is I’m glad it wasn’t a Yellow Cab position I had applied for. Still, I seriously doubted I’d be offered the position considering I was such a numbskull on passing the mental test with typing in the wrong address. The position I applied for requires accuracy with processing information, and yet I botched a simple rule of always making sure to double check. No wonder why Map Quest couldn’t figure out where I needed to be.

When Mr. Lacy did call and offered me the position after reviewing the results of a personality and temperament test I’d taken the previous morning, I just about gelled into my car seat. Come Monday, I’ll begin a new adventure in a career that will be similar to the work I did as a Medicaid eligibility specialist with the state of Florida many years ago.

Moving to Houston from Maine has been like moving from the trunk of the car to the engine. It’s a city with a lot of rev. As I sat on the Woodhead Bridge over Highway 59 later that evening, watching streamers of red shoot out from underneath me, I felt grateful that after several applications and interviews, I finally had a job. Taking in the sun setting on an orange creamsical sky, I thought, I'm going to like it here just fine.

By S. L. Cunningham

Just a note

2006-05-26T11:28:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I closed the door to my apartment for the last time. Today, I'll be on the road heading for Houston. It is good to have an adventure everynow and then. It keeps us from becoming too complacent with our daily lives.

I'll continue to post whenever I have the opportunity to do so, but it might not be until I'm settled in before I'm able to post on a regular basis.

To my fellow bloggers, I thank you for your readership and support during this past year. I promise not to make the wait too long.

Until then,

Scot Cunningham

Opening the window to chili, honky-tonk, & the promise of better days ahead

2006-05-07T13:27:00.000-05:00

May in New England is always a welcomed change, especially when the days become noticeably longer and warmer with sultry mid-afternoons that hint of summer days to come. It is good to open the windows in the morning—the air fresh with the smell of green grass and dandelions.

After I get home from work, I change my shoes and head right back out the door. With the rain and warm temperatures we’ve had this past week, the drab browns of winter are all but gone as the trees have started to unfurl leaves of greens, yellows, and reds.

Unlike the end of fall when you begin to feel a certain sense of dread, late spring seems to bring promise of better days ahead. This past month has been a busy time at the apartment complex where I live. It seems no one so far has taken up on the landlord’s offer to sell them their own apartment, as is, for $109,000. In Building One, three people have moved out during the last couple of weeks. A few people, including myself, will be moving at the end of this month, and several more will be vacating in June and July. After conversion, it will be interesting to see how long it takes for my apartment to be bought for $150,000. At least it will have new kitchen cabinets, appliances, flooring, and bathroom fixtures.

I’ve managed to get a few boxes packed so far. I’ve also thrown quite a bit out. When I come across something I’ve forgotten about, I ask myself, “Do I need this?” If the answer is “No,” then I’ll either put it in a box with other items to be donated to the Salvation Army, or list it for sale, or put it in the trash bag and banish it from my life for good.

I’m too old to be squirreling, and so I’ve decided this is one move I’m going to make simple. I’m not taking anything with me that can be easily replaced when I get to where it is that I finally settle, which will be somewhere in Texas, either in Houston, or possibly Austin.

My son’s combination futon/bunk bed was sold for $40 this week. I could have possibly gotten more for it, but considering who I sold it to—and who he bought it for—made me feel pretty good.

I had placed an ad in Uncle Henry’s, the weekly swap it or sell it guide that’s distributed throughout Maine and New England. It may not be slick or colorful, but it sure is effective. A couple of days after my ad placed, my phone began to busy itself during the day recording messages from prospective buyers who expressed interest in the particular items I had listed.

One call in particular caught my attention. “Yes, this is David Ferrazza. I’m calling about the combination futon/bunk bed and the Canadian rocker you have for sale.”

David Ferrazza? I wasn’t sure why, but the name sounded very familiar. I called the number he had given. “Yeah, I know where that apartment complex is. I can be there in ten minutes.”

When I answered the door, I was more than certain I knew this individual from somewhere. I took him to the bedroom and showed him the futon/bunk bed. I had bought it for my son as a birthday present, but he didn’t get much use out of it before moving to Houston a year later. It’s quite a space saving design. Constructed of black, tubular steel, it has a single bed on top, coupled with a futon sofa bed on the bottom. After my son left home, our cat, Pebbles, took the bed over as his personal perch and lookout.

“I’ll take it,” David said. “My nephew’s turning 13, and I think he’ll like this for a present.” I went and got an Allen wrench from the utility drawer in the kitchen. After a good half hour of tearing it down, I helped Dave load it into the back of his truck. I then went and got the Canadian rocker that he said he’d take, along with a brand new coffee maker I bought recently but hadn’t used. After everything was loaded up, he paid me the amount I had asked for. “Say, hope you don’t mind me being familiar, but do I know you from somewhere?”

“Well, I would think so,” he said. “You were my eighth grade English teacher.”

I stood there looking at him. It had been sixteen years since I had taught at Crosby Jr. High, and trying to picture the man as the boy who had been in my class put a real hurtin’ on my memory. The name and resemblance was familiar, but the details weren’t. “I wasn’t your best student,” he said. “I was kind of a pain.”

It seems my memory is quite selective. If something is really good, or really bad, I don’t have any difficulty recalling specific details. I remember a few students who had made me feel like the navigator on the Titanic, and I can recall almost every iceberg I had hit with them.

“You pass English that year?” I asked.

“Yeah, I did,” he said, chuckling.

“Well, if you passed, you couldn’t have been that terrible of a student.”

After catching up on the years, I thanked him for helping me get rid of a few items that made my move look less formidable. “Sorry I was a pain,” he said. He got in his truck and drove away.

When I went back into my apartment, I discovered I had a very distressed cat. It seems he was rather fond of the bed I had just sold, and he spent the next couple of hours pacing from one end of the apartment to the other, yowling. Pebbles had been my son’s cat, and when he took to the bunk bed, I thought it was because he liked being perched high up from the floor with a view that extended into the living room. But it seems he was also attached to the bed because he had associated it with my son. I set up another place for him on the desk next to my computer table. At first he didn’t take to it, but now when I sit down to my computer to write, he’ll settle in just fine.

Only a few more weeks left before I begin a new adventure. I don’t like the idea of leaving Belfast, but “affordability” has become a real issue with me. The sale of the apartment complex I live in has made me think long and hard about the sense of trying to live in an area that is beginning to exceed what I can reasonably pay in terms of rent or mortgage.

It used to be that only certain towns and cities on the coast of Maine were considered “gentrified.” If you had the money, and wanted to retire nicely, you could choose Kennebunkport, Boothbay, Camden, or Bar Harbor. Common folk who worked everyday jobs could live fairly well in places like Rockland, or Belfast.

However, even these places are becoming gentrified. For those of us who work regular jobs, our incomes are not keeping up with the increased costs of housing. It’s as if we’re being forced to pay Rolls Royce prices with a Chevy Malibu paycheck. Bring up the issue of “affordability," though, and the realtors and lenders will defend themselves with feigned chagrin by saying, “You’re being provided with the opportunity of owing your own home.” Never mind the fact, though, that you may have to pay over 40 percent of your net income for mortgage, property taxes, and insurance. In light of such apparent chicanery, I have to ask, what kind of opportunity is that?

Not a very viable one I’ve decided. Like so many places on the Maine coast, if you choose to live here in Belfast without the necessary means to do so, you may as well chuck your shoe to spite your foot. If you’re a long-time resident with a modest income, your ability to remain in your home is going to become even more difficult with continued increases in property values and taxes that can only be described as exorbitant and stifling.

I sit down at the table and look out the window. The air is filled with the sound of lawnmowers. It will not be easy to leave this place I so identify with—the rolling hills that meet the sea, the rocky shoreline, and the islands that dot the Penobscot Bay—but it will always be here for many visits to come.

Moving to Texas certainly will be a change, an entirely different culture and way of life, but then again, I just might find a bowl of chili, clear skies, wide-open spaces, and the promise of better days ahead to be a pretty fair trade-off, more so than I may have even imagined. George Strait, anybody?

S. L. Cunningham
Village Soup Citizen, 05/17/2006:29

Moving on

2006-04-20T18:36:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday’s Planning Board meeting in regard to accepting the proposal to convert the Pines Apartments into condominiums could be likened to putting a marshmallow on a turd and then asking the tenants to accept it as dessert. No matter how the attorney presented the owners’ reasoning for providing an opportunity for home ownership, though, it still stunk.

$109,000 for an apartment in "as is" condition, which the owners describe as affordable, I suppose, has to be appreciated in a relativistic sense, since houses in the surrounding area are selling for $180,000 and up. Of course there will be some updating to the outside property, according to the owners, who also said they’re planning on building a gazebo.

Imagine that, a gazebo! What a leisurely sit that will be as you watch the high school kids get out, or bask in the glow of the stadium lights during football season. I’m sure not many places can tout an amenity such as that. Of course, trash pick up, grounds keeping and snow plowing will still be provided. Provided? More like included as part of the expense that’s to be covered by the $170 a month condo fee.

Many of the residents didn’t see this as an opportunity for home ownership. Robert Coller, who spoke before the board, said he had been a home owner at one time, but ended up having to sell because of the continual increases in property taxes that forced him out of his home.

It is mind boggling to think of how many people are being impacted by this, of how many people are going to have to move out of their apartments, of how many people are not going to be able to remain in the area because there isn’t any other available housing that’s comparable or as affordable.

Civic leadership has never been one of Belfast's better qualities. Taking the Pines off the market for available apartments in the city can only have a negative impact on housing costs, especially since the MBNA apartment complex is also going condo. There just aren’t enough apartments in Belfast to absorb the loss.

“I understand where the residents are coming from,” said Board member Elizabeth Minor. “I’m getting priced out of Belfast, too. But we can only follow the laws of the city and state.”

Other members of the board sympathized with the tenants, who had hoped to change the outcome. But as Larry Gleeson said, “We’re constrained by what we can do here.”

City Planner Wayne Marshall said that their only role was to determine whether or not the proposal to convert the Pines Apartments into condominiums was a permitted use under city and state guidelines. Since they determined it was, they didn’t have any other choice except to approve the application. Only one board member abstained, who did so because he felt the issue of affordable housing continues not to be taken seriously.

When I walked home that night, I clearly understood the individual fates that the owners had predetermined for us, that human actions do have their effects on others, and that the consequences of their actions will be felt and argued for some time. After I got back to my place, I sat down on the couch and took in the quiet ambiance of my furnishings and decorations, and realized I’ll have to get busy real soon. It’s time to sort, tear down, throw out, donate, and pack up.

I’ve looked at few places already, and ended up walking away disheartened and discouraged. I love Belfast, the state, the beauty and easy pace of life, but I've never appreciated the hardship that seems to come with it. And since the rest of the state and New England seems to be both equally expensive and economically oppressive, I find myself considering other possibilities.

After looking at a small two-room apartment in town for $550 a month with no closets, I decided economic serfdom is not a good reason for staying here. It may be a necessary condition for living here, but it certainly isn’t a sufficient one. Thus, come the first of June, my cat and I are going to take a pass on what amounts to a life of peonage and move to Houston.

Scot Cunningham

Dear Pines Residents

2006-04-05T16:53:00.000-05:00

Last year when the apartment complex I live in was bought by a couple of real estate investors, I knew it couldn’t be good.

It seems real estate investors today only get in on something if it promises a quick return on their money. Settling into a long term investment, such as what would be normally expected of an apartment complex, is anathema to their current business model. As I said to one of my neighbors, “Only two reasons why real estate investors would buy a complex like this. Either to upgrade the place and flip it, or to convert the apartments into condos.”

After the apartments were surveyed in January, I had a strong feeling the answer would be conversion. Sure enough, that’s exactly what the investors announced in a letter mailed to residents last week. Aside from mentioning the few minor improvements they made to the complex, and promising to continue to do so, they also announced that it is their intent “to convert the Pines apartments into condominiums within the next year.”

Belfast is not known for affordable rental housing, mostly because supply is limited. Most of what’s available for apartments can be found in houses and buildings that have been converted into apartments over the years. These places, when advertised, are described as either “spacious and clean,” or “newly renovated.” “Spacious and clean,” as in putting a marble in the corner of the living room floor and watching it roll to the middle, can be affordable, but “newly renovated” seldom is.

Apartment complexes, though, are few and far between. There’s an apartment complex for low-income people across the street from the hospital, and another ‘cross river, a few complexes for the elderly, and a complex built by MBNA for its employees—which, incidentally, is also going condo—but that’s about it.

Located across the street from the high school, the Pines consist of three two-story buildings with four apartments on each floor. It’s the only complex of its kind within city limits that rents to mid-income people who either work or are retired.

Most of the elderly who live here have retirement incomes that make then ineligible for low-income housing, but for some it isn’t enough to afford living in a retirement community. It is these people who are facing an even worse predicament.

“I can’t do this,” said the elderly lady who lives across the hall from me. “But I don’t know where else to go. I love Belfast. I have a lot of friends here. Where else will I be able to find something similar to what I have now? That’s as nice and as affordable?”

Indeed, that’s the million dollar question the Planning Board will be faced with on April 12, since taking a complex like this off the market can only exacerbate Belfast’s affordable housing crisis.

I look at the letter again, its friendly tone, its promise of making sure that the impact and disruption upon our lives will not be immediate, its reassurance that we will have plenty of time to either decide on purchasing our unit at a reduced rate, or in moving.

At the prices I’ve heard they’ll be asking, I doubt very many of the residents who live here, including myself, will be able to afford buying a condo with a mortgage of $800 or more a month. When you add in a $200 a month condo fee, taxes and insurance, that $800 or more swells to about $1300 a month. That right there, prices me and most of the other residents currently living here right out of the market.

It’s been a good three years here, but since my life has never been about staying in any one place too long, perhaps it is time to think about moving on. Where, though, I don’t know. I suppose I could find a smaller place here in town. Or try finding something similar in Rockland.

As I sit on the couch looking about the room, I’m struck by how much stuff I’ve accumulated over the years. Things. Lots of things, some purposeful and sentimental, but most not fulfilling any specific need except taking up space. The wine barrel used as a lamp table that’s in the corner of the room makes a nice decoration, but I don’t need it. Boxes of books and magazines I’ve read once but likely will never read again can be donated to the school library. Bags and bags of worn out or out of style clothes kept in the closet can also be donated or simply thrown out. At least that would be a start.

From there I can tackle each room and organize my “things” into three categories: must keep, must sell, and . . . just get rid of it, all of it, everything and anything that is of no value or use at all, sentimental or otherwise.

I sit down at the table and look out the window. It’s been raining all day, but with a drop in temperature, the rain has changed to a heavy wet snow with quarter sized flakes. Perhaps April is the cruelest month of the year, a time that promises both uncertainty and new beginnings. I grab my coat and head out the door, wondering about my choices as to where I might move should the planning board give its blessing.

S. L. Cunningham,
Village Soup Citizen, 4/12/06:25

Lay da smack down

2006-03-22T21:15:00.000-05:00

Even though winter seems to be trying to hang on with significant snowfall throughout the mid-west, here in Maine we have bare ground, sunny skies, and mild temperatures. On many of the ponds and lakes, ice is out, almost three weeks earlier than what would be expected in a normal season. More than likely, winter this year will be remembered here as the winter that wasn’t, at least here on the mid-coast of Maine. Our only significant snow was a half foot that fell during the third week of December. It didn’t last long with the rain that fell a few days later. Actually, about the only place in Maine that had winter was northern Aroostook County. Almost everywhere else, though, had very little snow, and the convenience stores, restaurants, and hotels that depend on snowmobilers and cross-country skiing enthusiasts suffered multi-million dollar losses.

This past week has afforded some of the driest weather we’ve had so far. Though still below freezing at night, the day temperatures have been in the mid-forties. The drive to work in the morning on Highway 1 is now in full light of the sun as it glistens on the water of Penobscot Bay. Most days at work I categorized as either good, or not so good. Good, in that the kids had little difficulty with being in class and managed not being asked to take a time out by the teacher. At the residential home where I work, kids first have school on site, and depending on individual circumstances, may eventually be allowed to take a regular class at the high school. Very seldom, though, do we have any kids who are able to attend high school full time.

Today I had to go to the high school to pick up a student and an ed-tech, who had been assigned to him, and drive them to Rockland for his GED preparation class. As I stood in the hallway outside the library to wait for them, I watched the students pass to their classes after the bell rang, and became amused by a simple observation. Like most of our kids back at the house, many of the kids that went by me were dressed in similar fashion. With sagged pants, shirts two sizes too big, and hats worn sideways, it seems hip-hop has become far more influential than I had even imagined.

Not that there’s anything wrong with hip-hop, at least no more so than rock and roll was to my generation. But with hip-hop there seems to be an undercurrent that goes beyond simply challenging the status quo, an undercurrent perhaps far more insidious and pervasive than the gang culture depicted in West Side Story, which almost seems tame compared to what is shown and heard on much of MTV today. Want to know what your kids are tuning into? Just watch. Or better yet, listen to a couple of tracks by G-Unit or the Black Eyed Peas. Pimps, Thugs, Bitches, and a lot of f-this and f-that in-between. Oh, yeah. I be talkin’ now.

While I stood there reflecting on this, I noticed a young lady, about 5’4, in a pink sweatshirt, as she ran down the hallway. Suddenly, as if zeroing in on a target, she leapt about ten feet forward, planting both her hands on the back shoulders of a girl in front of her and knocked her flat to the floor. “Don’t you ever talk shit about me behind my back again, you bitch.”

She then turned and walked away. The girl that was pushed down to the floor gathered up her papers and books and stood up. She looked stunned and uncertain as to what to do next. What I found more upsetting about the incident, though, is that none of the other students offered to help her. I noticed a couple of teachers that were on the other side of the hallway, oblivious to what had just happened. I walked over to them. “Did either of you see what just happened?” I asked.

“Oh, the girl that tripped,” one of the teachers responded.

“Tripped? She was shoved to the floor by that girl,” I said, pointing to the young lady who was now down the other end of the hallway.

“You actually saw that she was pushed?” the other teacher asked.

I was perturbed by his response. “It wouldn’t be too much to ask if one of you went and brought that girl to the office, would it?”

Finally, one decided to go and get the girl and the other left to inform the principal. After the girl had been brought to the office, the principal approached me and asked if I would be willing to write a signed statement, which I did, as to what I saw.

After I had signed my statement, I left with the student and ed tech I had come to pick up. As we were walking out to the van, the student asked why I had to be such a snitch. “Snitch?” I asked.

“Yeah, besides it wasn’t your business,” he said. “You’re supposed to leave it as it is.”

“I’m not sure if I follow you,” I said.

“It’s simple. Someone talks trash about you, you lay da smack down on ‘em.”

“Just like that, huh.”

“Oh yeah, got to keep it real with your homies . . . keep your respect.”

“So, you just give into your emotions, regardless of the consequences. Is that it?” I asked.

“That’s it,” he said.

I didn’t continue further with the discussion. I was still upset by what I had witnessed and found it difficult to concentrate on anything else, let alone a discussion with a kid who thinks smacking other people is a perfectly acceptable way to command respect from your “homies.” Besides, there would be plenty of other opportunities to work that topic in with the discussion group my colleague and I conduct each week with him and the other students.

Later that day as I drove back home under a robin’s-egg blue sky that signified warm spring days ahead, I found myself experiencing a sense of disassociation. I rolled my window down a couple of inches: the cool air, fresh and inviting. In my youth I never felt separate from my home, family, friends, school, or the community I lived in. Whether white collar, blue collar or otherwise, it was if the neighborhoods we lived in existed as mosaics that consolidated a comfortable sense of purpose and belonging.

Even with those of us who chose to have moments of rebelliousness, the community was able to absorb our challenge to the status quo without any lasting consequences. We put away our bell bottoms, beads, and peace buttons, cut our hair, and moved on to pursue bigger and better dreams.

For most young people today, hip-hop is where it’s at. And for most, like those of us who were caught up in the craze of rock and roll, they, too, will eventually move past it. They’ll go on to college, work or the service. Those are the kids I don’t worry about. Our communities are still strong enough to accommodate another generation’s rite of passage without necessarily sacrificing the values that have allowed people over a period of decades to thrive and succeed.

It’s the kids I work with that worry me. Too many of our young people are in trouble today. As to why, though, ends up being a question that gives itself to a lot of rough generalizations rather than any specific answers. Both parents work. Sometimes they lose jobs or can’t hold jobs. Sometimes jobs just disappear. Parents can’t agree on what kind of expectations or limits they should set for their children. The father drinks while the mother is subjected to his continual abuse. And so it goes.

Regardless of whatever the reasons may be, one thing is certain: in an environment of uncertainty, children become anxious and confused. They begin to feel pushed away, unwanted, and left to themselves. Without a clear sense of purpose and belonging, it isn’t long before they seek out and join with others who also feel left out. With its tribalistic style of dress, music, mannerisms, and code of ethics that espouses and glorifies drug dealing, pimping woman, and drive-by shootings--that says easy status can be gained by beating the crap out of somebody, or even shooting somebody--it isn’t surprising that these kids have bought into the Gangsta culture that has proliferated across America. “Hey, Homey G, welcome to da house.”

By S. L. Cunningham

Tying age to the tail of a dog

2006-03-09T20:38:00.000-05:00

"What shall I do with the absurdity—
O heart, O troubled heart—this caricature,
Decrepit with age that has been tied to me
As to a dog’s tail." -- Yeats, The Tower

Wednesdays used to be my long day of the week, and often I wouldn’t get home until 6 pm. To have a twelve hour day in the middle of the week sometimes felt much longer than necessary, especially during the winter months of December and January. Since a recent change in schedule to accommodate an earlier time for staff meetings, I now get home around 4 pm.

Having a couple extra hours does make a difference, especially now that the days are getting longer. Weather wise, this past week has been perfectly scripted: cold mornings and mild sunny days with temperatures in the low forties. Although tomorrow that may change with the prediction of one to two inches of snow. As I’ve been saying quite a bit these past few days, when it looks like spring with only a couple more weeks of winter to go, you may as well as take advantage of it before it gets all mixed up again.

As soon as I got home today, I took off my shoes, put my boots on and headed right back out the door for a walk about town. The sun at this time of day is especially bright and is beginning to set more directly to the west. As I amble on down Waldo Ave, I spot a nickel on the sidewalk. Not thinking much of it, I put it in my pocket and continue on.

As I step off the curb to cross Main St. to the Post Office, I find another coin. This time, a dime. I know I’ve prayed to receive good fortune on my birthday before, but I don’t think this is quite what I had in mind. Fifteen cents these days won’t buy much of anything except maybe a couple of Fireballs from Belfast Variety.

The last time 15 cents meant something was when I was twelve years old. I was a paperboy for the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, MA. After I finished my route of delivering papers around the neighborhood of Center and West Housatonic, I would stop in Hashim’s Grocery on my way home and buy a Drake’s Devil Dog and a ten once bottle of Coke. Back then Devil Dogs came in a single serving package for a nickel, but now they come in a package of two and cost around 89 cents. It was the perfect snack, that is, if you like devils food with a crème center. I would sit on the bridge over the Housatonic River, and take my time eating my snack cake. When I finished, I’d wash it down with the bottle of Coke. For 15 cents, it was a simple pleasure for a simple price.

Not much for mail today, mostly junk, and yet another invitational letter from the AARP. I think they’re trying to tell me something.

I continue on with my walk and head down toward Front Street to see what’s new with the construction going on at Stinson’s and the new foot bridge built across the Passy. Bought up a few years back, the old Stinson’s Cannery has been under development to become a retail shopping complex with condominiums.

Stripped down to its frame, workers during the last few months have been slowly fashioning what will become the new building. It's a fascinating process, but one that leaves you guessing as to how they're ever going to succeed in making what they have now look like the building that’s been rendered on the drawing posted on a sign that describes the complex that’s been dubbed: Wakeag Landing.

Getting back to my place, I notice I have a message on my answering machine:
“Hey, Dad. Just me calling to wish you a Happy Birthday.”

I reach into my pocket and dig out the nickel and dime I had found, and drop the coins into my change jar. I’m not sure what it is about birthdays. Yet again, I’ve managed to live another year, and considering I’m 52 now, I’m lucky, I suppose, that my only physical ailment in life thus far was a gall bladder that went south a few years back.

Even minus a gallbladder, I don’t feel any differently than I did when I was that twelve year old boy sitting on a bridge eating a Devil Dog. Though as I look at myself in the mirror, it’s quite obvious that something remarkable has happened over the years.

Nevertheless, all mirrors aside, I can no more distinguish how I feel now than I could from when I was 12 to 13, or 17 to 18, or 30 to 40. After 40, though, individual milestones seemed to matter less, especially now that I’ve begun marking in earnest the milestones of my son and daughter.

However, when I was young, birthdays were always anticipated as welcoming recognitions of growing up and becoming an adult. My yearnings were pronounced in simple proclamations to the world: my first bike, my first day at school, my first dance and kiss with Debbie Burns, my first car and license to drive, and, finally, becoming a Marine.

Time seemed like forever, but as I got older, the days and months became shorter. The last few years in particular have gone by in a blur, and before I know it, I find that one day of reckoning when I stand in front of the mirror and see reflecting back at me a marvel of bewilderment, a “caricature” that’s hardly recognizable as the face I’ve so long identified with.

I go into the kitchen and open a can of Friskies for my cat, who’s just recently celebrated his 11th birthday. Unlike me, he doesn’t seem to be the least concerned about his age. But then he never seems to be the least concerned about anything, and appears content with always being in the moment. When he eats, he eats; when he plays, he plays; when he sleeps; he sleeps.

No matter the day, month or season, he’s always one-mindfully in the moment of whatever it is that he’s doing. And so rather than have “age” tied to me like the tail of a dog--always trying to catch up with everyday demands--perhaps I should take a lesson from my cat and do a long stretch like he does, and with one big yawn, simply slow down and just be 52.

By S. L. Cunningham
Village Soup Citizen, 3/14/06: 25

Swirling the snow in a frenzied dance - random thoughts on Dubai and Sheehan

2006-02-26T21:47:00.000-05:00

When it comes to the weekends, I pretty much have my routine down fairly well. Saturdays are usually my do-whatever-I-feel-like days. And usually what I feel like doing during this time of year is going out for breakfast, snowshoeing, taking a drive, browsing at the bookstore, or just sitting at home doing nothing but relaxing on the couch with a magazine or newspaper.

This winter hasn’t been much for snowshoeing, though. Come to think of it, I haven’t been out snowshoeing once this winter. A week before Christmas, we had a half-footer that was washed away by the rain that followed the week after. What snow we’ve had since then has been of the 1 to 2 inch variety. Here today, melted tomorrow, and a lot of rain in-between.

It’s been plenty cold this week. Coldest week we’ve had thus far this winter, but a little late considering we’re going into March. The temperature this morning was bumped down right next to zero, and tomorrow morning, it actually might be sub-zero. Even though it feels like winter, the struggle continues with actually trying to look like it. If not for the snow squall we had Thursday that dropped a couple of inches, we’d still have bare ground.

I’m not sure what six weeks of winter Punxsutawney Phil had in mind, but as far as I’m concerned, this winter is pretty much over. Of course, there’s that one chance of getting a one-footer before the vernal equinox, but at this point, I don’t see myself digging the snowshoes out of the closet.

Usually when I sit down to relax with the paper, I’ll have the news on. Why, I don’t know, especially since I don’t seem to pay much attention to it. Much of what is reported on the news is hyperbolic rhetoric, a slug fest of words between the Democrats and Republicans that the media feasts on as if it were the best prime rib in town.

In response to any perceived blundering or acts of incompetency by Bush, you can pretty much count on Kennedy or Clinton or Schumer to say bananas and baloney. But this weeks response by the Democrats and a few Republicans to the news of P&O’s proposed purchase by Dubai Ports that would “surrender management of our ports to an Arab-based firm” went beyond bananas and baloney: “Bush not aware of the Dubai Ports World bid of P&O before it was proposed;” “Hillary Clinton and other Senate leaders oppose Dubai’s 6.8 billion dollar purchase of P&O;” “Take over of our ports by Dubai poses a serious threat to our national security.” Excuse me, but can anyone say, “Xenophobia?”
If the faulty assumptions that are being made here cannot be clearly seen and understood, then I think we’re in even bigger trouble that goes way beyond last week’s fodder-all over Cheney’s accidental shooting of one tough old bird. The United Arab Emirates, aside from being a very strong ally, also represents the very model of a “moderate” Arab/Muslin government that is beginning to take hold in Afghanistan, and, hopefully, will begin to take hold in Iraq.

Contrary to what some people would like to think, this is not a case of the fox being let in the hen house, or as Letterman put it, “letting Britney Spears baby sit your child.” If anything, it’s a case of ignorance on our part, thus kudos to Karl Rove for suggesting a “cooling off period” so that we might put this argument in proper context, and back away from absurd arguments such as given by Schumer, who said we should be careful before we outsource our “sensitive homeland security duties.” First of all, “security duties” are performed by our U.S. Customs and U.S. Coastguard. The actual operation and management of the port would be by the company, which, incidentally—and I’m sure much to Schumer’s surprise if someone where to tell him—is now operated and managed by a British owned company.

If the brouhaha over the Dubai purchase wasn’t enough, the media’s Chicken Little News Events has turned the spotlight once again on Cindy Sheehan. Like the caricature in the game, “Where’s Waldo?” Sheehan keeps popping up in the most unlikely places. Newsflash: see Cindy Sheehan arrested while attending the State of the Union Address; see Cindy with Cesar Chavez; see Cindy with Veterans for Peace in New Orleans. And where will she be next? Who knows? Who cares? Yawn.

Whatever sentiments one may feel toward her, especially considering she has experienced the loss of two of her children, she is not a modern day Joan of Arc, and the more the media strives to portray her causes as noble and worthy of our attention, the more pathetic and contemptible she becomes.

Enough of the couch and TV. Tomorrow is Sunday. Clothes to wash, and then housecleaning. Later in the afternoon I’ll be going over to my mother’s for dinner. I make a cup of orange spice tea with a dab of honey, and then sit down at the table. I turn the light off, and stare out the window. On a cold night like tonight--the wind busy swirling the snow in a frenzied dance across the yard--I’m amazed by how bright the stars shine.

By S. L. Cunningham

Jumping into an open heart and sky -- my son earns his wings

2006-02-15T20:56:00.000-05:00

When my ex-wife and I attended our son’s graduation from Infantry OSUT at Fort Benning last month, we followed him to his next assignment at Airborne School. At first, we were told his processing would only take two to three hours, so we decided to wait for him out in the parking lot; that is, until we found out later that he wouldn’t be finished with processing until about 8 o’clock. Before we left to pass up the time at Barnes and Nobles in Columbus, I did get to observe some of the training that was going on that gave me a pretty good sense of how rigorous his next three weeks were going to be. One of the companies that marched onto the field broke into a run, chanting as they went:

“Airborne, airborne, everyday
Airborne, airborne, all the way.”

I stood about 100 feet away in front of one of the thirty-four foot towers with mock airplane doors. Cables descended from the door to the ground. Wearing harnesses, the soldiers would attach to the cables, jump out the door, and slide down at an angle similar to how you would come in for a parachute landing. That didn’t seem such a fearsome thing to accomplish. But in the field just beyond the smaller towers stood the three gigantic, 250 foot steel framework jump towers I had heard described by one of the parents after the graduation ceremony that morning.

I stopped one of the soldiers walking by. “Excuse me, Sir. Could you tell me how they get you up to the top of the tower?

“Sure,” he said. “You put on a parachute harness, and then you’re attached to a cable that hoists you to the top. Once you’re all the way up, a mechanism releases you and your chute.”

“Oh,” I said, thanking him as he turned and walked away. Just looking at the monstrous towers was enough to make me experience vertigo. I couldn’t actually imagine being hoisted up to the top of one and let go.

After I brought my son back to his barracks Sunday evening after his mother and I spent the weekend with him, my last image as I left was of the towers, their blinking red lights casting an eerie glow over the barracks. After I got back home to Maine, I settled back into my routine while my son finished Ground Week. He called me on Friday to let me know he was doing well and the training wasn’t as bad as he thought it was going to be. “Next week is Tower Week,” he said. “I’ll call you next Friday.”

Saturday night at about 9 pm, he finally called. As he described how it felt to be hoisted up to the tower and let go, I could hear a couple of women in the background talking and laughing with each other, but they weren’t speaking in English.

“It sounds like there’s a couple of young ladies close by you speaking in Spanish.”

“Yeah,” my son said. “They’re talking about how funny they find American soldiers.”

My son then cut me off, and I heard him say something to them in Spanish. There was a pause, followed by laughter, and then a response from one of the ladies. Next thing I know I’m listening to my son and a young woman conversing with each other in Spanish. At first it sounded like Brendan Fraser in “Bedazzled.” Since I don’t speak that language, I was left clueless as to what they might be talking about, but whatever it was, it was evident they were both enjoying the conversation.

“Dad, gotta go. I’ll call you in the morning.” And just like that, he hung up.

The next morning he called and said, “Guess what.”

“You won the lottery,” I said.

“Better than that. I have a date for tonight.”

“Let me guess, the young lady you started talking with last night?”

Not just any young lady, as it turned out, but the daughter of a Colonel in the Paraguay Army who was at Fort Benning for a training exercise. “Gee, better be careful,” I said, giggling.

“Not a problem. I met her father and asked for his permission to take his daughter out tonight. We’re going to go out for dinner, and then we’re going to see “Underworld: Evolution.”

Imagine that, I thought, my son, going out to dinner and a movie with a young lady from Paraguay. Maybe Army life isn’t so bad afterall. “Just remember,” I said. “Be a gentleman, and have a good time.”

He called me the next night to let me know how his date and his first jump went. “She’s really sweet, and we both had a good time. We’re going to keep in touch by writing letters to each other.”

“So, you made your first jump.” I said.

“What? Oh, figuratively and literally, yeah, I get it. Very funny, Dad. Actually, my jump went pretty good. Well, jumping out of the plane and landing, that is.”

“What, something happened?” I asked.

“Yeah. After I jumped from the plane, I got caught in a little turbulence that sent me spiraling head over heels, and when my chute deployed, I got whipped back up pretty hard. It almost felt like I was going to be split in half at the crotch by my harness. Oh, man, that hurt. Anyway, when I looked up, I saw my chute was only partially deployed.”

I wasn’t sure if that’s the part I wanted to hear.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” he said. “I saw what the problem was and I made a couple of moves that opened the chute all the way. Besides, I had my reserve just in case.”

“Gee, you must have been a little nervous about it,” I said.

“Not really. Actually, it was kind of peaceful.”

“Peaceful?” I asked, uncertain as to whether that’s a word I’d use for a situation such as he just described.

“Yeah, the jump itself. When you hop out of the plane, you’re just out there in the open sky, floating in the air. You count to four and wait for the tug as the chute is pulled out by the static line. Whatever fear you have is left behind on the plane.”

“How’d you land?” I asked.

“PLF’ed on my tippy toes,” he said.

I laughed. “It seems I’m going to be learning a lot of interesting terminology as you go along. What’s PLF?” I asked.

“Parachute Landing Fall. It’s the technique we’re trained to use to minimize injury when we come in for a landing. If you pull up just right before hitting the ground, you can come in as if you were landing on a feather pillow.”

“How’d everyone else do?”

“Pretty good. That is, most of us. Had one guy that came down in a tree, and I don’t know how, but another guy came down in the middle of a pond. Anyway, I gotta get going.”

I wished him well and then told him to make sure he called me as soon as he earned his wings.

“I’ll be sure to do that,” he said. “Love you, Dad. Talk with you later.”

The rest of the week went by and he hadn’t called. Friday and Saturday came and went, and still no call. I figured I probably hadn’t heard from him because he was busy getting his gear ready for his next move to Fort Bragg. Still, knowing his first jump seemed a little wild, I was more than curious as to how his other four jumps went, especially the night jump he had to make. Considering what I had learned so far about the rigors and dangers of jump school, the countless stories I’ve read of broken legs and head injuries, I was pretty anxious to say the least.

Sunday morning, though, I had enough of waiting, and needed to find out for sure. I called his step-brother, Jimmy, in Houston. Sure enough, Michael had called him on Thursday to tell him he passed his training, and earned his “wings.” “He called me while he was waiting to be transported to Fort Bragg on an Army bus,” he said. “I don’t think he had time to call anybody else.”

That Sunday night, my son finally called me from a pay phone to share his good news. “Fort Bragg’s huge,” he said. “It takes forever to get from the base into Fayetteville.” We spent the next ten minutes talking to each other. His next four weeks attending Special Operations Preparation Course (SOPC) will present him with an even greater challenge by testing his physical and mental stamina. After SOPC, he continue on to Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course (SFAS).

Reflecting on my experience when I was in Marine Corps infantry training, I said, “You’re going to have quite a few days that will be real suck fests. You up to it?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a definite,” he said. “But I’ll do just fine.”

By S. L. Cunningham

Becoming An American Soldier

2006-02-04T20:30:00.000-05:00

Michael standing between his friends

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On January 20, my son, PFC Michael Cunningham, completed Army Infantry OSUT (One Station Unit Training), which combines basic training and Infantry AIT (Advanced Individual Training) in a 17 week course, with A Company, 2nd Battalion, 54th Infantry Regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia.

When his mother and I arrived on the 19th for Family Day, we walked up to the Company Area at the barracks for the Turning Blue Ceremony. It could not have been a more perfect day for the occasion: sunny, and a near 60 degree temperature. We gathered with the other family members while waiting for the ceremony to begin.

One of the parents approached me. “Is your son in the third platoon, or fourth?” I looked at him and said I didn’t know. Figures there’d have to be a small glitch. I walked over to my ex-wife. “You know, it never occurred to me to ask what platoon Michael’s in. The first and second will be on the right, and the third and fourth will be on the left.” She positioned herself on the left side of the viewing area, and I on the right.

As the soldiers rushed out in a loud roar and fell into formation, all I saw was a blur of green uniforms and black berets. Trying to pick my son out felt like trying to find one specific collector’s penny in a whole jar. I looked over at my ex-wife, who was now motioning me to come over where she was. “He’s in the Fourth Platoon, last row, first from the right,” she said as I followed her finger to the young man she pointed out for me.

Countless push-ups, sit-ups and 14 minute two-mile runs from when I last saw him, I barely recognized him. He looked taller, and reminded me of how I looked when I graduated from Marine Corps boot camp. As his mother said later, “Slap a pair of Calvin Klein’s on him, and he’d be the perfect model.”

The Drill Sergeants called the men to attention. In a booming voice, they recited “The Soldier’s Creed:”

“I am an American Soldier.
I am a warrior and member of a team
I serve the people of the United States and live the Army values. . .”

The Battalion Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Hickenbottom, then welcomed us to the ceremony and reflected on the experiences these young men had had during the last few months, congratulating them for a job well done. He then gave the parents the opportunity to “turn their soldier blue” by attaching the coveted blue shoulder cord representing the infantry to the soldiers uniform. After a few minutes of fumbling with trying to attach the loop of the cord to the button of his epaulet, my son looked at me and said, “Dad, you were a Marine. It shouldn’t be that hard.”

“We didn’t have cords,” I said as I finally finished the task of turning my son blue by buttoning his epaulet back after I had attached his cord. After several pictures taken of the event, our son introduced us to his Drill Sergeants and his friends he had made while in training.

The soldiers were called back to formation, and leave passes for the day were given. The parents were instructed to make sure we got our son back by 2000 hrs. When the ceremony concluded, his mother had pictures of him taken by a studio photographer. Finished with that, the first thing my son wanted was real food from an Italian restaurant. “Have you eaten at Carrabba’s before? It’s really good,” he said.

The graduation ceremony the next morning was a completely different experience. As my son’s mother and I sat in the reviewing stand on Pomeroy Field, the Battalion Commander welcomed us back and asked that our attention be front and center. Next we knew, we were under attack.

A couple of smoke grenades were tossed onto the parade field. “Bad to the Bone” started playing over the loud speakers as two Bradley Fighting Vehicles entered onto the field from opposite directions and came to a stop in the cloud of smoke. When the smoked had cleared, we found ourselves staring down at an Infantry assault platoon, their M16’s drawn at the ready. “Mommy,” said a little girl sitting just below us, “that’s really scary.”

After the demonstration, you could hear the drill instructors calling cadence. Off in the distance to the right, you could see the soldiers marching in formation toward the field. I was completely unprepared for what happened next. Overcome by an enormous sense of pride, I found myself wiping tears on my shirt sleeve. My son’s mother would later poke fun at me—good naturedly, of course—by mentioning the episode to my son.

The Battalion Commander gave another congratulatory speech and then dismissed the soldiers. Our son, though, was not allowed to leave as many as the other recruits were. He, along with 35 other 18X’s (Special Forces Option) who had successfully completed their training, was ordered to fall out, gather his gear, and head over to the parking lot across the street.

“Your son’s,” said the drill sergeant who had gathered us parents around him, “will be reporting to Airborne School for processing. When they’re finished, which will be two to three hours, they will be given weekend passes.”

It wasn't until about nine hours later that our son had finally finished processing. At eight o’clock at night, we were all hungry and a bit tired after what seemed to be an exceptionally long day that his mother and I had passed by browsing books at Barnes and Nobel at the shopping mall in Columbus. Longhorn Steakhouse sounded like a good choice by my son, who said he could eat the biggest steak they had since he hadn’t eaten lunch.

He settled for an 18oz Porterhouse. After we finished eating, we went back to his mother’s hotel room at the Marriott and watched Nicholas Cage in The Lord of War. The next day was spent at the mall shopping for civilian clothes. When it came time for my son to say goodbye to his mother later that night, I could tell she was very proud of what our son had become. After he completes Airborne School, he goes on to Special Forces Assessment training, and then the actual Qualification Course at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. Considering his desire and determination to make it all the way through, I have no doubt he’ll succeed.

As for his mother and me, we were able to share our son’s achievement without any awkward pretensions. Both of us were entirely comfortable and relaxed around him, and it felt good to share another momentous event with one of our children. Last year it was our daughter’s high school graduation. This year, our son’s graduation from Army Infantry OSUT. If all my ex-wife and I ever have left in common with each other in this life are our children--aside from grandkids maybe later on--well, that’s just fine by me.

By S. L. Cunningham
Village Soup Citizen, 2/15/06:26

A Rainstorm in January

2006-01-14T21:32:00.000-05:00

In the utility closet leaning up against the corner are my snowshoes, a beguiling reminder that for this time of year, I should be out making tracks through the woods. Not today, though, nor any other day this winter thus far. The most snow we’ve had on the ground was a half foot we got last month, but it didn’t stay around very long before it washed away with the rain.

Rain, lots of rain for what seems to be the makings of an incredibly mild winter. The Almanac’s forecast for a bitterly cold and snowy winter is beginning to seem like an over-hyped travel bag promised as a free gift. When it arrives you end up feeling sorely disappointed. Our January thaw this week didn’t have much to thaw out, and the 50 degree temperatures have made the last few days feel more like late October or early April.

Today, though, I’d say early April, especially with the rain that was beating against the windows this morning. Not that I haven’t seen rain in January before, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen rain like this where it comes in huge sheets pushed by thirty to forty mile an hour gusts.

After spending the morning housecleaning, I hopped into the car and drove to Wasses to get a hot dog smothered in grilled onions, mustard and relish. As I stood under the awning while waiting in line, the man in front of me said, “If this had been snow, we’d be up to our eyeballs in it, I tell you.”

“I’m sure,” I replied, smiling, as I reached into the cooler for a Dr. Pepper.

I was drenched by the time I got to the order window. The lady that manages the stand looked at me. “Most people are using the drive-through today,” she said.

“I imagine,” I said. “But what fun is there in that?”

She laughed. “Not much, I suppose.”

She turned about to make my order, closing the window just as another sheet of rain draped over me as if I were taking a shower in my clothes. When I got back inside my car, my Woolwich coat smelled like wet wool mittens after a hard day’s play out in the snow.

As I sat encased in moisture eating my hot dog, it didn’t take long before the windows inside my car steamed up real good. I turned the engine on and put the defroster on full blast. A rainstorm in January’s not so bad, I suppose. The weather can’t always be what you want it to be or expect, so you may as well enjoy it for what it is. Besides, there’s a good two months of winter left. Somewhere during the time remaining I’m sure is that one snowstorm waiting to drop a foot or more of snow. And when it does, I’ll put my day pack together and toss my snowshoes and ski poles in the trunk of my car, and head out to make tracks.

Days like that, I usually start out early in the morning by having breakfast first at Chase’s Daily. I especially like their French toast made from sweet corn raisin bread. Accompanied by a cup of Espresso blend coffee, you have the perfect combination that puts you in an appreciative, contemplative mood as you take in the camaraderie of others engaged in small talk and pleasantries.

After eating, it’s just a matter of deciding where I’m going for my trek. Sears Island has become one of my favorite spots for a day jaunt. Said to be almost a thousand acres, it’s one of the larger islands on the coast of Maine, and sits at the top of Penobscot Bay. Just seven miles from where I live in Belfast, the island is easily accessible thanks to a causeway that connects it to the mainland. The island is preserved as a wildlife sanctuary, thus it’s not open to traffic or snowmobiles. Shaped like an inverted cereal bowl, the island has a slight ascent toward the center and a slight decent toward the shore facing east.

After a snowstorm around the beginning of March last year, I startled a Great blue heron as I began to make my way down to the shore after a hard trek across the island in a good two feet of heavy snow. As the heron flew away across the water, I pulled my fur hat off that covered my head in a heavy sweat, and unzipped my coat. The day after a storm, even though still thick in a gray sky above, affords a clear view of the entire bay and the islands beyond. Something there is about going there, that puts my mind at ease, that makes me feel as if I am absorbed and every bit as connected to that place as the heron I came upon.

I finish the last of my hot dog. The wind and rain sweeps across the parking lot in sheets that sways my car in a gentle rocking motion. There’s much of the day left. On a mild, January day with rain falling in torrents, there’s not much else to do except to be resigned at home with a few magazines and a book. I put the car in gear, and head back to my place.

An Abiding Sense of Home

2006-01-05T21:23:00.000-05:00

"The road was new to me, as roads always are going back." – Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs

January has always been that one month of the year that seems to put me in a quandary of sorts more so than any other month. I’m never sure whether I’m supposed to be completely happy or terribly miserable. So far, winter has been fairly mild for those of us who live here on the coast, whereas Northern Maine has seen more typical weather, especially with sub-zero temperatures and a covering of three feet of snow that they had last week. A perfect back drop, to say the least, for the U.S. Olympic Biathlon Trials at the Maine Winter Sports Center in Fort Kent.

It’s been cold enough, though, for the pond and lakes to freeze over, but we’ve only had a few dustings of snow, and the one significant snowfall of a half foot we had a couple of weeks back washed away with the rain that fell the week next. Unless winter gets here real soon, January thaw might end up going unnoticed this year, unless, of course, you live up in Caribou or Fort Kent.

After I got home from work today, I made a tuna fish sandwich and a pot of coffee. As I was sitting at the table sharing bites with my cat, I started to think about how I have struggled mightily over the years with the question of “home.”

I was born in Bangor, Maine, but as a young boy, I grew up in Pittsfield, Mass. after my mother had moved there from Belfast. During my teens and early twenties, home was central and southern California. As much as I liked those places, and still like going back to visit, they no longer feel like home. And even though I have lived in other places, Kansas and Florida, the one place that has always kept drawing me back has been Maine.

But I don’t think it’s because I was necessarily born here, or because my mother had been born and grew up here, and later moved back here in 1980 to live for good. No. Not for those reasons, although it could be argued that roots might have something to do with it. But it’s not that. As I look out the window and watch the snow that has begun to fall, I find myself reminiscing back to the time when I was nine years old during the summer of 1963. My mother drove to Saturday Cove, Maine with my brothers and me to visit with Uncle Mike, Aunt Mary, and our cousins Beth, Sue and Eben.

The drive up the Maine coast to Northport enthralled me with its scenery of pines and ocean. When we pulled into their driveway, I was amazed that they had the ocean right off from their back yard. I remember sitting at the window seat in my cousin’s second floor bedroom. Staring out at the water, at the fir covered island of Isleboro, I dreamed away the hour in mystery and adventure.

The next morning, after eating a breakfast of eggs, bacon and oatmeal that my aunt had cooked on a woodstove, my cousins and I headed down to the beach, and then went climbing on the rocks along the shore. In between we stopped at a small tidal pool and collected a couple of large starfishes that I dried out to bring back to Pittsfield with me.

Later during the day, my cousin Eben took me back down to the shore to gather mussels. I don’t remember what we had for dinner that night, but when we had finished, Eben went outside and built a small fire in the front yard, and then put a grate over it. He then went and got an empty Maxwell House coffee can and filled it with water. He brought it outside and set it on the grate over the fire. A half an hour later when the water started to boil, he emptied the mussels we had gathered earlier into his makeshift pot. Fifteen minutes later, I tried my first mussel dipped in melted butter that my aunt had brought out for us.

The ocean, the islands of Penobscot Bay, the majesty of the white pines, the walks along the rocky shore, the step-back in time city of Belfast—-those were the reasons I had chose to come to this place to live. My cat nuzzles up to my hand and takes the last bite of my sandwich. As I give him a pat on the head, I feel that maybe, afterall, I did make a good decision by moving back here. Although I don’t live in a house on the shore as I used to dream that one day I would, I do have a nice apartment that’s within a half mile from the harbor.

The view of the bay and the islands beyond is still mine to look at whenever I choose to dream and wile away the hours. Like last night, when I walked down to the City Landing, the air thick in a swirl of fog, it occurred to me that what makes “home” feel like home, is our deep, abiding sense of place. I pulled my collar up close and headed back. For once it felt good I was walking “to” somewhere, instead of away.

S. L. Cunningham

Published in The Village Soup Citizen, 01/18/06: 27

A New Year's Resolution

2005-12-27T19:02:00.000-05:00

It’s the day after Christmas, and outside is not at all what a wintry scene should look like. Forty-two degrees and raining, what snow we had left yesterday is now mostly gone. Although it may be mild today, winter will eventually take claim again and usher the warm air out, burying us in a thick blanket of knee-deep snow that will last through the sub-zero days of January to come.

This last week of December is good to have. After a month long frenzy of shopping and celebrating and exchanging gifts, it’s nice to be able to unwind before the New Year begins. Perspective these days seems to be in short supply, thus anytime to afford sitting on the couch to relax without music or TV is both welcomed and honored.

Add to that a yellow pad of paper, a pen, and a few good books to read, and what you have is the perfect recipe to help overcome any funk brought on by the doldrums, which for me at this time of year seems to be a recurring battle.

It wasn’t until my son moved away, though, that I’ve realized how much of a battle it has been. It used to be that I thought my transition from being married to being divorced was hard to accept, but that experience pales to the transition I’ve made from being a single parent to a single person.

In some ways, it feels like I’m right back where I was twenty-one years ago, though now older, but not necessarily wiser. The only real difference I’ve noticed between then and now is that then, I was in a hurry to charge on and get going with my life, whereas today I am not.

Today, I find myself being more deliberate about how I spend my time. For instance, not only do I take time to pay attention and observe what I’m feeling at any particular moment, I also take time to pay attention and observe the small things that are going on around me: crows hob-bobbing across the yard, chortling amongst themselves, rain beating against the window, and voices heard out in the hallway. Small things that seem like push pins that hold the sleeves of a new day together. How we unfold and wear it does make all the difference, especially on a day like this when the sky is low and gray.

What this coming year will bring compared to what this last year has brought I hope is more tranquil and forgiving. Certainly this past year has been unlike any we’ve experienced in some time. Starting with the Asia Tsunami that claimed the lives of over 200,000 people, and left countless others faced with the loss of homes, possessions and entire communities, the devastation we’ve experienced in our country with Katrina, and the ongoing struggle that the people of Pakistan are faced with in the aftermath of the earthquake that destroyed the northern mountain region of that country, one cannot help wondering what kind of days we are living in. Coupled with the War on Terror, one can’t help wondering, indeed.

It is my hope, then, that in this year to come, we will begin to find ways to agree instead of differ. The too often insane, political rhetoric from Washington D.C. is fractious and counter-intuitive to bringing a nation together that so desperately needs to be joined in a sense of common purpose during a time that is fraught with peril.

The obstructionist behavior of both the Republicans and Democrats has to stop. Aside from our commitment that needs to be satisfactorily completed in Iraq, there are other issues that need to be equally addressed. Affordable housing, healthcare and livable wages, for example, are issues both parties could work together on to try and find acceptable solutions that will allow the citizens of this country to participate in society in more meaningful ways.

Witness today’s middle-class, for example, which seems to have become an economically endangered species. When millions of two-income families can barely afford their rents and mortgages, or seek necessary, preventative healthcare, or have to make choices between paying bills and buying food, something is terribly wrong. Something that goes beyond being conservative or liberal, something that cries for true, effectual leadership that will join us once again as a nation of people who work toward building a good life together for all its citizens, instead of the rampant greed that holds everyone else back, and makes it almost impossible for our young people to get a good start on their lives.

That is what I would like to see as our New Year’s resolution. The mealy-mouthed rhetoric of Pelosi and Haskell, Reed and Frisk needs to end, and so does the tearing down of President Bush. Such behavior does not solve problems, but instead acerbates and creates more problems, especially in terms of how our sense of unity, purpose and resolve is perceived by other world countries.

A hard rain has begun to fall. In the quiet space of my living room, the only sounds heard are those of the water running off the roof and the purring of my cat curled in a lazy sleep on my lap. With the distractions and the hustle and bustle we contend with each and every day, the dissonance in search of a consonant, quiet moment such as this is a necessary prescriptive in reminding us why we make resolutions. Afterall, we are only travelers on this planet, each of us embarked on this journey through life together in our continual search for validity and truth. As Frost says so well,

"There is our wildest mount—a headless horse.
But though it runs unbridled off its course,
And all our blandishments seemed defied;
We have ideas we haven’t tried." – From, “Riders”

By S. L. Cunningham

December 21, 2005

2005-12-21T22:47:00.000-05:00

December 21—the winter solstice—the shortest day of the year. For those of us who choose to live here in Maine, that means about 8 hours and 45 minutes of sunlight. The good news? Starting tomorrow, the days will be getting longer as we now move ever slowly toward the summer horizon.

Although we’ve had several days now of below freezing temperatures, we haven’t experienced anything that could be considered frigid. It’s only been this past week that the ponds and lakes have started to freeze over. Still not much in the way of snow. We’ve had a few dustings, and a four incher, but during last Friday’s storm, the changeover to rain pretty much washed out whatever hope we had for a white Christmas.

At work today, we celebrated our annual Christmas lunch with the kids who are in our care. Most of the kids will also be going home to celebrate the holiday with their families, but a few of our kids won’t. For them, this is a time of year fraught with anxiety, disappointment and uncertainty. But as one of them said to me, “It’s better than being at the youth center in Charleston.”

After staff meeting, I started to head out when the young man, who I have been assigned to as his 1:1, came up to me and asked if I was able to get him what he wanted for Christmas. I smiled at him and said, “Well, you’ll have to wait and see.”

Compared to the requests made to the staff by the other students, mine was very simple to fulfill: a pool cue and a gift card from Wal-Mart. We have pool cues at the house, but most are warped and it’s difficult to make a serious shot of any kind. He did have a fairly decent cue stick of his own, but it was rendered useless when another student cross threaded it when he tried to screw the two sections together.

When I was at Wal-Mart yesterday, I had found the perfect replacement for him. “Strengthened with titanium. Will not warp. Break resistant.” Considering the young man I was buying it for, I thought it an apt description. It takes a good couple of months before a young man coming into our program can begin interacting with others on a more personable level.

Usually when students first transition into our program, they bring with them all the signs of gang and drug related culture. The piercings, self-tattoos, oversized pants constantly needing to be pulled up, the rap music of Busta Rhymes and others that they listen to, and the lingo that they express themselves in (“Hook me up, Dog,”) doesn’t feel or seem anything like the rebellion of my youth. The semiotics of my time almost seems kinder, if not tame, compared to the expressiveness of the young people I work with. With them, they’re not talking about their generation, they’re succumbing to it.

But getting past that, though hard as that may seem, is what makes the job worth it. When kids start to get a better sense of who they are in a safe environment that allows them to focus on what needs to be done each day, physically and mentally, self-discovery can become a powerful medicine. They start to think of their future—of where they’d like to eventually be or do—and go on to finish high school or obtain a GED.

As I walked to my car it occurred to me how satisfying the drive to work and the return back home has been. In the morning, about three miles out on 52, I get to see the emerging sunrise. Against the silhouette of the pines, the horizon is bathed in a pink hue punctuated by purple clouds. On the return home, the sky to the west becomes fiery red against the slowly sinking orange sun that seems so large at this time of year. Glimmering faintly to the east, the stars poke through the cold, steel-blue sky.

Against such a backdrop, the tired arguments of our elected officials and pundits in regard to Iraq and the War on Terror almost seem petty and inconsequential. A mile, afterall, is still a mile. With the young people I work with, realizing that can make a crucial difference as to whether or not a child chooses to be flexible. I turned the news off, and enjoyed the ride.

By S. L. Cunningham

A Gift of Faith, Magic & Love

2005-12-14T20:29:00.000-05:00

The December of the year my son was three years old going on four, I had spent the days leading up to Christmas preparing him for the event.

We made a trip into town to buy Christmas lights to decorate our one story house, which I had been renting at the time. Because of its painted, dark brown shingles, my son had dubbed it The Chocolate House. More like a cottage, it was the perfect place to spark a child's imagination during the darkest months of the year.

Snow had not arrived yet, but the nights were getting colder. When we plugged in the blue lights that we had put up on the front of the house, my son asked if we could sleep outside. I was reluctant at first, but before I knew it, we were setting up the tent inside the cerulean glow that reached across the yard. I went back in the house and got the sleeping bags, pillows and extra blankets.

After a snack of brownies and milk, we washed up, brushed our teeth, and then retired to our tent. Once settled in, I tethered the flashlight to use as a reading lamp. I started by telling my son the story of the first night of Christmas and that what we were doing was almost like what the shepherds were doing as they set watches over their sheep. I then began reading Ezra Jack Keats’ "The Little Drummer Boy," a beautifully illustrated book I had bought him the day before:

“Come, they told me,
(pa-rum-pum-pum-pum)
Our newborn king to see
(pa-rum-pum-pum-pum)”

However, I wasn't able to read much more than that. He had fallen into a cherubic sleep.

A week later, the snow had finally arrived. With the passing of each night that brought us closer to Christmas day, my son became increasingly anxious.

“Do you think Santa will really stop at our house?” he asked.

“Of course he will,” I had assured him. “You've been good, haven't you?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “But Santa's really big!”

“Yes, he is,” I replied.

My little Socrates continued. “And he's coming down our chimney?”

Yes,” I said.

“But the hole's not big enough,” my son replied. “If he can't come down our chimney, then will he go somewhere else?”

Not having an answer right away, I said, “Well, I'm sure Santa has some way of getting himself down the chimney. He's been going down all kinds of chimneys for years and years, so I'm sure ours wont be too difficult for him.”

“But how?” my son asked.

After a few moments, I blurted out, “Magic dust, I suppose. When a chimney's too small, he sprinkles magic dust on himself to shrink just enough to go down.”

Knowing my son would look for physical evidence, I bought a bottle of glitter from Ames Department Store the next day. On Christmas Eve, after I put him down to bed and read "The Night Before Christmas,” I sprinkled the “magic dust” from the chimney flue to the Christmas tree.

My imagination, however, didn't stop there. I had to do something more--something special--something other than the glitter, cookies and milk, something that once and for all would convince my son that Santa Claus was real. I went out into the barn and pulled out the scythe I used to whack the weeds with during the summer. I then found a six-foot pole. With a couple of tight wrappings of duck tape, I fashioned an extension to the scythe. I grabbed the ladder, climbed up the backside of the house and went to work.

I positioned myself at the top, being very careful not to break the snow covering on the front of the roof. For the next hour, I used the scythe with the duck taped extension to etch out sleigh tracks. Wanting to make it look like Santa had come in for a landing, I started the track closest to me slightly from the eve, and then I made the next track about three feet in from the other one. I kept both tracks about four feet apart.

Next, I worked on the reindeer tracks, which took more doing than I had thought. After I had finished with that, I guessed the spot where Santa would have exited from his sleigh and made footprints leading right up to the chimney.

When I had finished, I stood up to admire the work I had done. Just as I did, though, my left foot shot out from under me, and the next thing I knew, I was sliding off the roof. I tried to stop, but the scythe wouldn't grab hold.

Realizing I was going over, I chucked the scythe into the back yard as far as I could. I wasn't taking a chance of it landing on me or vise versa. Even with two feet of snow on the ground, I hit hard flat on my back with a thud that knocked the wind out of me. I stood up and walked around gasping for air. After a few minutes, I caught my breath and cursed myself for being so stupid.

The next morning, however, the smile on my son’s face as he woke up and discovered the magic dust, and the marvel of seeing the tracks up on the roof after I carried him outside to show him, had made the entire effort worth it. He believed.

We went back inside. As he unwrapped the toys and books given to him as presents from Santa, I realized I had given my son the greatest gift of all, not placed under the tree, but a gift given from within, a gift of faith, magic and love. After we picked up the wrapping paper, we sat down to a breakfast of banana pancakes and hot cocoa.

By S. L. Cunningham
Published in The Village Soup Citizen, 12/14/05: 27

Least a Half-Foot – Our First Snow Storm of This Winter

2005-12-09T23:46:00.000-05:00

Since Thanksgiving, we’ve only had a few dustings of snow, but today I left work early as the snowstorm that had been promised actually arrived. With the road covered in snow, and little sand, the ride home was a second-third-gear affair. Anything faster than twenty-five, thirty miles an hour was certain to make the rear end of the car fishtail out of control. Four-wheel drive I’m sure is a convenience, but with my front wheel drive Chevy Cavalier, over confidence was one thing I didn’t have to worry about.

The luxury of leaving work early was that I didn’t have to be in a hurry. Knowing I had a twenty-mile best-be-careful drive, I took in the scenery as the swirling curtain of white enveloped the trees and fields in a blanket of heavy snow.

As I meandered down 235 heading toward Lincolnville, I passed by a Christmas tree lot. In the middle of the lot was a warming shack, its outline blurred by the falling snow. There wasn’t any smoke coming out of the stovepipe, but just to the side of the shack, an elderly man wearing an orange hat and a red/black parka, sat in a chair rubbing his hands over a wood fire. I imagined what customers he’d have today would be few.

It took almost an hour to make it home. No sooner than I did, though, I found myself digging out my snow pants and heavy wool socks. Fifteen minutes later and I was trudging a path through the snow. First stop was the post office to pick up my mail. Not finding much in my box except Christmas sales flyers, which I promptly tossed into the recycle bin, I headed to the co-op for a cup of coffee.

The snow was covering Main Street faster than the city could plow. A Ford Taurus slowly made its way up the street, its tires spinning as the car slid from one side to the next, just barely missing a parked car. Behind the Taurus, a Dodge Ram with a plow looked like it was becoming increasingly impatient. At times, the Ram was so close to the rear of the Taurus that I thought for sure it was going to give it a good push up the rest of the hill.

I bought a cup of French roast and sat down at the table by the window, looking out at the falling snow. When I finished my cup, I got up and tossed it in the trash. “Looks like we might get a half foot before it tapers off,” said a grizzled man who looked like he was on break from a construction job.

I smiled at him. “Least a half-foot, I’d say.” I turned and headed out the door. As I walked along High Street, I marveled at how the Christmas lights glimmered against the falling snow. On top of the Colonial Theater, the giant carved wooden elephant wearing a Christmas wreath around its neck stood sentry against the swirling storm.

It felt good to be back in the warmth of my apartment. I sat down on the couch and started to pass the time by reading Bukowski's sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way : New Poems:

the way to create art is to burn and destroy
ordinary concepts and to substitute them
with new truths that run down from the top of the head
and out from the heart.

Staring out the window, I became lost to the swirling flakes that carried me away deep in frozen thought.

It occurred to me that when winter finally looks like it’s suppose to, I really don’t have a problem with it. I thought back to the elderly man I saw earlier today as he warmed his hands over the wood fire, how comfortable he looked as he sat in his chair while he waited for someone to pull in to buy one of his trees to take home and decorate. The Old Farmer’s Almanac is predicting this winter will be long, cold, and snowy. For once, I think they might be more right than ever.

By S. L. Cunningham

On the Advent of this Holiday Formerly Known as Christmas

2005-12-02T20:43:00.000-05:00

Last month I had been considering the possibility of moving out of my two-bedroom apartment to a one-bedroom that had become available over at the next building of the complex I live in. The rent would’ve been sixty dollars less than what I pay now, and when the landlord said she was going to have a full remodel done, I became excited and asked her to put me down on the list.

Since my son has left home, a two-bedroom almost seems too big for my cat and me. Although my cat may mew to differ. A few weeks later, I decided to walk over and look in the windows to see how the work was progressing. The apartment had been gutted and a couple of walls had been taken out to make the living room larger.

As I surveyed the work that had been done, though, I noticed the apartment was trapped by the shade of the other buildings and trees. Two hours of sunlight left, and not one single ray was filtering in any of the windows. Whatever thoughts I had of moving were dashed. Compared to the sunlight I enjoy all day, a northwest exposure would mean little to no sunlight. My bedrooms face the east and the living and dining rooms face the southwest. Giving that up to save sixty dollars a month, especially with the darkest days of the year, didn’t seem to be a sensible trade off.

I’m not one who depresses easily, but given the right environment and circumstances, I can be bummed out to the point where I just sit on the couch all day and stare at the wall. Having learned several times before that it is not wise to act contrary to your intuition, I called my landlord to let her know I had decided to stay put.

With the advent of the Christmas season, I find myself experiencing a bit of melancholy as I look at the spot in the living room where my son and I had put up our last Christmas tree a few years back. My daughter was able to fly out from California for a visit. It had been eight years since the last time that the three of us celebrated the season together. Now with my son in the Army, and my daughter in college, it may be a sometime before we get a chance like that again.

Tonight as I watch the news, I’m surprised to see how much consternation our latest campaign of political correct-madness has caused us. It seems that even “Christmas” is considered offensive to those who do not recognize or celebrate the occasion. Oh, really? Who would’ve thought, and so in deference to their sensibilities, our civic leaders have taken it upon themselves to proclaim that from now and hereafter, Christmas will be known as “Holiday.”

Those who wish to celebrate Christmas may continue to do so in their own homes or churches, but any public celebration of Christmas will no longer be accepted or tolerated. Instead of “Christmas trees,” we will have “Holiday trees”; instead of “Christmas lights,” we will have “Holiday lights.”

I have never appreciated euphemisms, especially when used to substitute words that represent or describe specific customs or beliefs, like Christmas, for example, for words considered less offensive or neutral. The more we resort to the use of euphemisms to replace words that others might be offended by, the more we euthanize another aspect of our culture. What’s peculiar about this, though, is that of all the words to replace “Christmas” with, “Holiday” may have given us traditionalists the last laugh as the word happens to have a bit of an ironic twist to it. Derived from the Old English hāligdæg, “holiday” translates simply as “Holy Day.” Hmmm, go figure. Whose sensibilities are we protecting now?

It seems to me that as of lately our culture has become maladaptive. Instead of a society that builds on shared beliefs and customs while assimilating new ones by enculturation, we now have a generation that says the beliefs and customs our society is based on and lives by is offensive to those who have chosen not to respect our beliefs and customs, all the while insisting we respect theirs.

It is good, then, to see that a few of our political leaders have come to their senses by saying, “Bah, humbug,” to the fodder all. By deciding to preserve tradition by renaming the “Capitol Holiday Tree” back to the “Capitol Christmas Tree,” though not in time to have the brochures printed to reflect the change, shows that perhaps confusion is not necessarily a good trade off for trying to respect the diverseness of those who, because of different customs and beliefs, do not recognize Christmas.

Enough of the news. I turn the TV off and head out the door and amble toward the Christmas lights downtown. Twenty minutes later, I find myself at the city landing looking out across the bay. I haven’t decided whether to put a tree up this year or not. A light breeze begins to pick up. Mesmerized by the rhythmic clanging of the lines and pulleys against the masts, I feel akin to the shepherds tending to their flocks on the night that Jesus was born. Oh, what it must have been like to witness such a star shimmering brightly across the desert sands. As I stare out at the buoy light, I sense the power and beauty of the annunciation, the acclamation that on this day our Savior was born, the humility of the magnificat:

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen

By S. L. Cunningham

Charging Against The Cold

2005-11-26T22:05:00.000-05:00

Sitting at my desk this morning, I couldn’t quite tell what kind of day it was going to be. From my window facing east, it looked like the promise of a great day, a blue sky, sunny, and white puffy clouds. From the southwest window, though, the sky split in a confused dark gray that said whatever pleasant weather seen from the other window would be short lived.

I decided to head out for a walk down to the library. At 28 degrees, it didn’t seem that cold, but after I went a couple of blocks, the wind coming off from the ocean made me realize I should’ve worn my rabbit fur hat. The hat I normally wear provides ample protection for the top of my head but does little for my ears.

Most of the sidewalks and yards had a slight covering of snow and ice left from the Alberta Clipper that blew through on Thanksgiving Day. Aside from the periods of snow and rain that fell, the grand finale was the thunderstorm we had just before the rain changed back to snow, the lightening flashes illuminating a swirl of flakes falling from the sky.

After spending a good couple of hours in the library, I stumbled on John Gould’s Stitch in Time, a collection of humorous essays that reflect on his observations of the people who live and work in Friendship, Maine. I’ve read an occasional column of his before in The Christian Science Monitor, but I’ve never taken the time to actually read one of his books.

After I checked out, I headed over to the Belfast Co-Op and bought a cup of coffee, and a semi-dark chocolate bar. The table by the window looked like a good spot and so I sat down and spent the next hour reading a few of Gould’s stories. What impressed me immediately is his ease in engaging the reader to go along with him from beginning to end as he tells his stories of ordinary people whose foibles or peculiarities have caught his attention. “Except the Eggs,” “Garden Surprise,” and “Only if Funning” were just a few that had me chuckling more than once. When it’s cold and blustery, a little tongue-in-cheek sometimes can be the perfect cure to what might otherwise be a long, dreary day.

I put the book away in my coat pocket and looked out the window at the Christmas lights strung out over High Street, abandoned to my thoughts as I sipped and nibbled the last of my coffee and chocolate. A light snow began to fall, and against the backdrop of the First Congregational Church, Belfast emerged Currier & Ives perfect in its wintry repose.

It used to be that I liked the arrival of winter. I would mark the day of the first snow on my calendar, and would hurriedly get dressed to go for a walk. But it’s been sometime since I’ve done that. As picturesque as a winter scene might be, it is, nevertheless, cold, and cold is not friendly. It permeates everything, the layers of your clothes--the marrow of your bones. Once chilled, it seems to take forever to warm back up. The dismal mood I had spiraled into, however, didn’t last very long. As I stood up to throw away my coffee cup, a small boy brushed past me and hopped up on the chair I had been sitting in. “Look, Mommy,” he said with his hands outstretched toward his mother. “It’s snowing!”

Smiling, I charged against the cold, and headed for home.

By S. L. Cunningham

Until Victory Is America's and There Is No Enemy

2005-11-18T18:35:00.000-05:00

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. –The Rifleman’s Creed

Tonight my son calls from Fort Benning, Georgia to let me know how he is progressing with his boot camp training. He’s only allowed to make an eight-minute call, so it’s not really a conversation. He reports on what has transpired since he last talked with me, and by the time he’s finished, I have just enough time to say, “It sounds like things are going really well,” before I’m cut off.

“I have to go, Dad. Good talking with you.”

I put the phone down and go out to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. With the sun setting at around 4 P.M. now, seven o’clock feels much later than it is. I sit down at the kitchen table and look out the window. A light rain is falling, and the wind is beginning to pick up. From what my son said, it seems he’s enjoying his experience, and making the most of it. This past week, his training focused on marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat. “I made it up to five-on-one before somebody finally got me in a headlock I couldn’t get out of. I had to tap out.”

As I reflect on what his experiences have been with boot camp these past six weeks, I become reminiscent of the very same experiences I had thirty-four years ago when I was a Marine recruit at USMCRD San Diego. I was a bug-eyed 17-year-old kid that the drill instructor thought had been let in by mistake. “Boy, this is a man’s organization. The Boy Scouts is just down the road.”

I looked straight ahead. “Yes, sir,” I would say, and no matter how hard he tried to humiliate and mock me in front of the others by referring to me as Private Baby Huey, no matter how many times I had to respond with “Quack a Doodle Doo" whenever I was called to come forward, I refused to allow myself to give in or give up. Even still, those first five weeks had me questioning more than a few times whether I made a big mistake. The drill instructor seemed to have a certain knack for choosing me to be his example—“Quack a Doodle Doo"—of how not to march, to fire a rifle, or to block against an opponent in hand-to-hand combat. In each instance, he would then demonstrate the correct way, and then I would have to demonstrate to the other recruits that I could do it correctly.

If the drill instructor still weren’t satisfied with my efforts, the rest of the platoon would have to do punishment PT until I did get it right. While I demonstrated the skill, stood for correction, and then demonstrated again, the rest of men would have to do push ups, bends and thrusts, and “extended port.” During that time the M-14 was still used as a training rifle and at nine pounds, your arms would start to burn after holding it fully extended after a few minutes. Later on during the night, my fellow recruits would thank me by honoring me with a blanket party. In spite of almost a good month of sporting multiple bruises, I didn’t give up. I just kept at it, and I think all that extra practice actually made me more proficient when it came time for the tests we had to take. After I took out some of the biggest guys in the platoon in rifle and bayonet fighting and hand-to-hand combat, the drill instructor stopped making me an example of how not to do something. Instead when I executed a move that took down my opponent, the drill instructor smiled at me and said, “Damn, Cunningham, that was good.”

Two weeks before graduation I was walking my post on Fire Watch, giddy with the thought that I’d actually made it. I felt satisfied knowing that I had succeeded with the most difficult thing I had ever tried to do in my life. No more Baby Huey. I had become Private Cunningham. The three-mile runs, the forced field marches, the obstacle and confidence courses, marksmanship training, the intimidation and humiliation, the drill movements I had been so clumsy with in the beginning, I had learned all of it, had overcome my fears, and I was not the worse for it, but the best, a rifleman, a United States Marine.

What I didn’t know then, though, was how much I would hold on to that feeling throughout the rest of my life. As a 17 year old high school drop out who earned the title of Marine, I would later go on to earn a GED, and eventually a BA and MFA in English. The Marine Corps ingrained in me a sense of stick-to-itiveness that has stayed with me throughout my life. Reflecting on my conversation with my son, I recognize in his voice that same sense of excitement and self-assuredness that comes from the realization of individual success.

“You know, Dad, during the first couple of weeks, there were a few times when I said this really sucks. I mean I felt like I made a mistake. But then I realized that thinking that way didn’t change my situation. So, I decided that I would make the most of it, and I’ve been doing just great since then. I actually like it. I can’t wait until you’re here for graduation. You’ll have to meet my drill instructor. He was in the Marines, and the guy’s just crazy, but I’ve come to really respect him.”

My son, a man, a warrior, stepping on the “great doorstone” facing a vast horizon not only of adventure and possibilities, but also of uncertainty and danger during this time of war that he may be called upon to fight. Of all the values we may strive to live by, duty perhaps may be the least understood, especially when it results in paying the ultimate price with one’s life. But as cultures continue to move relative to all others, rigid and firm in their own beliefs and purpose, the call to duty will be answered by our Marines, Soldiers, Airman, and Sailors when events fracture into chaos, leading to war.

9/11, however, was not a minor earthquake; instead, it was an 8.0 magnitude paradigm shift that has altered our daily lives in ways only Orwell could imagine.To protect our freedoms, and to bring the message of freedom and liberty to others, we have greatly curtailed some of our most precious freedoms here at home. And that scares me more than the terrorists who have committed themselves to making us subservient to their kindly, bow to Allah, maliciousness that they have perpetrated on us. “Death to America,” is not a slogan, or a hollow understatement, it is the loud rumbling of Hannibal’s elephants marching over the Alps. Just as the Romans never imagined the day they would see pachyderms in Northern Italy, never did we imagine jet planes used as missiles to bring down the World Trade Center. What this time means, and the challenges we will have to face as a consequence, in spite of the nasty political bantering that has erupted between our political leaders, has yet to be defined and understood.

That my son has decided to serve our country during this time of war does make me a little nervous. During my time when I was willing to serve, I had no fear of the ‘Nam. But now as a parent, I understand my mother’s concern then as my concern now. I can only hope and pray my son’s choices in life are good ones, and that his quest in life is one of purpose and meaning, of a life lived in confidence in the pursuit and fulfillment of his dreams. And should he be called to serve in Iraq, or elsewhere, I pray his training will have been such that he has been pushed physically and mentally so that if he is faced with a combat situation, he will be able to rely on himself and his fellow soldiers as they help each other complete the mission and get themselves safely home to their families and loved ones. Looking out the window again at the light rain that continues to fall, I begin to recite the last verse of The Rifleman’s Creed:

…My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but Peace.

By S.L. Cunningham

The Worm in the Tooth

2005-11-10T18:10:00.000-05:00

Last Friday, I noticed a couple of my teeth on my right lower jaw were starting to bother me, but the pain was slight and didn’t seem that significant. It was also hard to figure out whether it was a tooth, or a couple of teeth that were starting to develop a problem. The pain wasn’t constant and went away after an hour or so. Saturday was pretty much the same. When I woke up on Sunday, though, I felt sharp pain in my bicuspid and first molar. The pain, however, subsided and I was able to eat breakfast like I normally do. Lunch, though, proved to be a different experience. I had made a bowl of tomato soup and set out a few Triscuit crackers to go with it. When I started chewing on the cracker, I discovered it wasn’t the teeth I had thought were involved, it was my wisdom tooth. The pain radiated from the tooth to my jaw hinge. It felt like the side of my face and ear had been turned into a heating pad. My dentist doesn’t keep hours on Sunday and Monday, and so the best I could do was leave my number with her answering service.

Monday afternoon, though, she did return my call. I described my situation to her. She prescribed penicillin for me, which I picked up at the Rite-Aid on my way home from work. Tuesday morning, her office called and had me come in for a one o’clock appointment. “You’re pretty sure it’s your wisdom tooth?” the dentist asked.

“Well, at first I wasn’t. I couldn’t tell which tooth was creating the problem,” I said.

“Do any of these hurt?” she asked as she tapped on the teeth in front of my wisdom tooth.

“No, they feel fine,” I said.

“What about this?” she asked as she tapped on my wisdom tooth.

I didn’t have to answer for her to realize she had found somebody at home. I just about lit out of the chair.

The fun part came next when she said she needed to take an X-ray. The right side of my face had been swollen for the last two days, and I could barely open my mouth wide enough to get a spoon in, and yet she wanted me to open my mouth wide so she could place the piece of plastic containing the X-ray film over my wisdom tooth. “I know this will hurt,” she said; “But you’re going to have to bite down hard, otherwise I won’t get a clear picture of the roots.”

If ever the CIA wanted to devise a new torture technique that was it. The one minute it took for her to position and take an X-ray would’ve had me admit to just about anything to stop the pain. I began reminiscing about how Dustin Hoffman’s character was worked over by the sadistic dentist in Marathon Man.

Five minutes later she came back with the results. “Well, the tooth is definitely abscessed,” she said. “Unfortunately, it can’t be saved. You have a hairline fracture that surrounds the bottom corner of your filling.” She pointed my attention to the X-ray she held under the light. “See, right here, this is how the abscess started.”

“You mean it’s not a tooth worm?” I asked.

“Tooth worm? Oh, goodness, no.” she said with a chagrined look. “That’s some kind of folklore.” However, before continuing with giving me a lecture on the history of dentistry, I let her know I was just kidding. She wasn’t amused.

“It’s going to have to be pulled. I’ll have the receptionist set an appointment for you to come back in ten days. In the meantime, keep up with salt-water rinses, anti-biotic, and take two Advil with two Tylenol every four hours.

The combination of penicillin, Advil and Tylenol seems to be working. My face isn’t as swollen today as it was yesterday. The three teeth before my wisdom tooth have stopped throbbing, which is a good thing, although my wisdom tooth is still quite sensitive. But at least the pain is more tolerable. I’m able to concentrate and focus on my thoughts once again, which I haven’t been able to do for the last five days. Actually, I wasn’t able to do much of anything during the last five days. No reading or writing. No housecleaning, although I did take care of the litter box after my cat threatened anarchy. One small hint—thankfully on the bathroom floor—was enough to make me realize I needed to take care of least one thing other than my pain.

I still can’t eat anything significant, so I’ve been keeping to soft foods such as yogurt, oatmeal, pasta, and soup. If anything, I’ll manage to lose a few pounds before I go back to the dentist to have her rid me of the worm that still seems to be thrashing about by grabbing onto it and giving it a hard yank. A much more direct approach, I think, than what might’ve been suggested as a cure a few hundred years ago. My grandmother, for example, once told me that a popular remedy of getting rid of a tooth worm was to eat a bowl of dirt that’s been gathered up next to an outhouse and mixed with honey. As far as remedies go, I’m glad that’s one I won’t have to consider.

By S. L. Cunningham

This Month of Sepia – Basted Turkey, Cinnamon, Ginger, and Nutmeg

2005-11-02T20:30:00.000-05:00

When October changes to November, when the sky, trees, and hills change to sepia, when I reach out to old friends and gather with family at Thanksgiving, I am reminded of memories that feel like my worn out Marine Corps field jacket that I no longer wear, but still keep hung up in my closet.

Like a snapshot, always there, faded and frayed, yet the details unchanging, certain memories become indelible impressions never to be forgotten.

It is not the event, however, that becomes memorable—the jacket after all is just a jacket—it is our experience with an event, fully and completely, that makes it memorable, that burns an everlasting impression of who we were and what we were doing at that particular moment in time.

Up until the time I was five years old, for example, what few memories I had of where I lived, or how I played, or what friends I may have had are blurred—snippets at best—but nothing that evokes any specific feelings or associations. Years lived in different places blend different details together, but the focus never sharpens enough to create a complete picture.

But I do remember the Thanksgiving when I was five years old. 1959, we were living in Lanesborough, Massachusetts. It was a cold day, gray, and threatening snow. My aunt and grandmother had arrived that morning from Boston in a red and white Nash Metro that my aunt had just bought. Compared to other cars of that time that seemed more like rolling Titans, her car didn’t seem much larger than my Radio Flyer.

Later that afternoon, just after the turkey was pulled from the oven, my stepfather and I went outside for a quick toss with the football.

Even though he had been trying to teach me how to throw and catch the ball, I still couldn’t quite get the knack of it. But he remained patient, and always lobbed a soft pass toward me. During the third or fourth pass the snow began to fall, first with a few slight flakes and then at a steadier rate that began to cover the ground. I remember how I tried to pick the ball up from the snow, but because I couldn’t quite get a grip on it, I took my gloves off, and then tossed it back to him as best as I could. He caught it, and then tossed it back to me.

I remember the cold burn of my fingers stung by the slap of leather as I made an awkward catch.

After we walked into the kitchen, my stepfather had me stand on a stool in front of the sink, and then took my hand, still burning from the sting of cold, and held it under the warm tap water.

That was when I developed my first real sense of how pleasing the smell of certain foods could be. I became melded to the aroma of basted turkey wafting with the smells of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg from the apple, pumpkin and mincemeat pies cooling on the table, the smell of fresh bread baking in the oven. After a few minutes, he turned the water off, and then handed me a towel. I went out into the living room and sat down next to my grandmother and aunt to wait for the call to come and eat.

There have been a lot of calls to come and eat since then, and even though I have shared in many memorable Thanksgivings, both throughout my youth, and later when I was married, and then as a single parent with my son, I still remain reminiscent of that one Thanksgiving when I was five years old.

Whenever I step in from the cold, whether it’s the kitchen of my mother or a friend, and find myself greeted by the smells combined of basted turkey, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and fresh bread, I am brought back again to that moment when I became aware of how pleasing simple things could be.

And so in this month of sepia, I give thanks to the memories that have colored my life with a sense of hope and fulfillment, to the dreams I’ve been able to create and live out, and to the sense of satisfaction and completion they have brought, but more than that, I give thanks to family and friends for the simple pleasure of being able to gather together to enjoy each other’s company in the sharing of a feast.

By S. L. Cunningham

Published in The Village Soup Citizen, 11/23/2005: 24

As The Shades of Evening Draw On

2005-10-27T17:24:00.000-05:00

October is not a month that I usually associate with rain, at least not in the same sense as I do April and May, but with close to eleven inches of rain so far this month, and another two to four inches of rain expected from the storm that is raging outside, I think a long dry spell for November would be welcomed. Maybe even through December considering that here in Maine our rainfall is already twelve inches above average. However, considering the recent weather pattern we seem to be in, I imagine it won’t be too long before I’m looking at snow piled right up to my windowsill.

The lights have been flickering on and off for the last half hour now. I decide it might be best to unplug the computer and TV, and just make an evening of it at my kitchen table, reading and writing in my journal. Nor’easters are always impressive, and this one so far has been putting on an incredible display of wind and rain since mid-afternoon. The trees bend in a frenzied dance, shedding leaves and small branches that scatter about in the yard and street. Bobbing like a bobble head toy, my cat puts on an amusing show of concern as it looks out the window.

The coffee maker makes its last gurgle just before the power goes out shortly. The power comes back on but it isn’t too long before the lights start to flicker again. I decide enough is enough. If I’m going to have flicker, than I’ll take it in the soft form of lit candles, rather than a harsh, sputtering light bulb. I get a couple of candles out and set them up on the table. Once lit, I cut the lights.

I sit down in the chair and marvel at the change of atmosphere I’ve created. The ambiance from the warm hue of the candles, along with the rain beating against the windows, makes me feel as if I’ve been transported back in time. Considering this is the week ending with Halloween, I decide what better night than this to become reacquainted with Edgar Allan Poe.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” has always been a particular favorite of mine. The opening lines especially have a sonorous, mystical quality:

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.

To read Poe is to read the wrangling of the human soul when it is no longer capable of balancing its connection with the natural world with the spiritual, when it becomes mired in its physical existence, when it becomes relegated to the “unredeemed dreariness of thought.”

Holding to that sentiment I find myself drifting off into the push and pull of the wind against the building: the rain, heavy and certain. And then I wonder how it is that I sit here at this table laden with thoughts of the events that have transpired since 9/11. Something has happened to us since the collapse of the World Trade Center, something insidious and malignant has affected all of us, has changed us, whether we realize it or not, in ways that, though, may not be easily understood, is becoming more evident each day. Al Qaeda has turned our country into a “mansion of gloom.” Instead of a culture of hope and optimism, we have become a culture of fear. And as such, we have become clumsy and ineffective in our response to this war of terror that has been unleashed on us.

Out of fear, we give up our liberties, our freedoms, and our privacy so that we may be protected from those who wish to do us harm. But I don’t feel any safer. When I flew out to California last year, and was subjected to a full search not only of my belongings, but a pat-search as well, I did not feel like I was being protected from ruthless hijackers intent on using my flight as a bomb. As a TSA agent swept me with his wand, I couldn’t rationalize how this end justified any means. Instead, I thought it terribly reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984. Putting my shoes back on, I felt relieved that Big Brother determined I wasn’t a threat, but, nevertheless, as far as I was concerned, the unthinkable had become reality. Our behaviors in society today are being closely monitored, and as long as terrorists wage their psychological and explosive warfare against us, I imagine it won’t be very long before our very thoughts are being closely censored to protect us from Al-Qaeda’s mission of merciless insanity. I pick back up where I left off on my reading and find a passage that seems almost transpicuous of our present dilemma:

"I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect --in terror. In this unnerved-in this pitiable condition --I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR."

We do not have to live our lives in fear. We do not have to succumb to pernicious pessimisms that dictate the tempo of our lives. Though I may not be able to change the reality of our present political and economic situation, I can change how I respond to it and thus affect a change in my reality by choosing to live my life out of courage, hope and love. As the candles I have lit burn down, I reaffirm my belief in our humanity and God, and decide that I am not going to contribute to this “collective consciousness” of Osama Bin Laden butterflies. I like my freedom, thank you very much. And so with that I pinch off the flame of the candles. My cat, nestled against Poe’s collective works, watches me with what seems a curious intent. I scoop the cat up off the table and prop him up to my shoulder.

It is a cold wind that blows tonight, the howl deep and low, the voice of winter to come. Tomorrow morning the drive to work will be that of a more wintry scene, the leaves having been blown off most of the trees, the gray clouds crabbing across the sky like sailboats heading for Isleboro. I decide that to celebrate my newfound freedom, I’m going to get up an hour earlier and walk to Weaver’s Bakery in downtown Belfast. At 5:30 a.m., a tray of apple spice doughnuts will have been pulled from the fryer vat. I’ll order two doughnuts with a cup of coffee, and then go outside and sit on the bench near Main and High Street. When you bite into a hot doughnut like that on a thirty-degree morning, well, I think it’s about as close to heaven as you can possibly get.

By S. L. Cunningham

Driving Across An October Landscape

2005-10-20T20:08:00.000-05:00

After a week of Noah’s Ark-like weather, we have had a couple of days of bright sunshine and cool days. With Halloween just a little more than ten days to go, evidence of the festive occasion is beginning to show up with more and more houses displaying decorations from ghoulish graveyard scenes to orange bloated Gladbag pumpkins.

Things have been a little hectic at work lately with a couple of kids who have just recently come into our program. One kid in particular has proven to be a real challenge just in terms of getting him to stay focused on any one thing for more than five minutes. It's not that I don't like working with young people, I do, but some days trying to help them deal with their frustrations before they have a complete meltdown requires every bit of creative resourcefulness I may have, along with a lot of patience and humor. With most new kids, though, it takes a good two or three weeks before it can be determined whether they are going to be able to participate in our program. Even then, it’s a process of months, sometimes even a year or more. Most kids who do complete our program realize significant success in the process—learning how to overcome emotional difficulties, completion of high school or GED, entrance into a technical college or job corps--and hopefully when they do leave, are able to make the kind of choices that will help them realize a good life free of alcohol addiction and drug abuse.

On the drive home today, I take my usual route. I avoid Highway 1 and follow the back roads that lead me to Rt. 52 that meanders into Belfast. On the few occasions when I have taken Highway 1, I always find myself stuck in the middle of a caravan that moves along ten to fifteen miles under the speed limit. The sixteen miles between Camden and Belfast sometimes can be a forty to fifty minute ordeal. But out on 52, I’m often it, moving along at my own comfortable pace. This time of year the short drive up the knoll from Lincolnville Center feels like I’m driving across the canvas of a landscape painting. To the right are the Camden Hills in a splash of reds, yellows, and orange. To the front of me is Ducktrap Mountain. As I wrap around the hairpin turn I start to pass a succession of fields of thick emerald green—thanks to the recent rains—and mid-eighteen hundreds style farmhouses.

When I finally get back to my place, I feed the cat and then pick back up on what has turned out to be a major undertaking. It’s been a month now since my son went off to Army boot camp at Fort Benning, Georgia. During that time, he’s only called twice. Once, when he first got there to let me know he made it in all right, and then about a couple weeks later when he was allowed to make a five-minute phone call. Within those five minutes, he tried to get in what his whole experience had been so far, and how much he liked the training. By the time I finally got to ask him for his address, he abruptly cut me off. “Well, good talking with you, Dad. Love you. Sorry. I have to hang up.”

I haven’t heard from him since, nor have I received anything in the mail from the Army. I did hear from his mother, though. She had sent me an email last week inquiring about his address and his graduation date. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know so I can make plans to attend.”

Tracking down his address was not an easy task. There are many training battalions at Fort Benning, and within those battalions are several training companies that have several training platoons. Finally, after twelve phone calls, I still wasn't sure if I had reached the right desk. “Alpha Company. Good afternoon, sir/mam, how may I help you?”

I told the desk sergeant who I was and that I was calling to get my son's address. "Do you know your son's name and his roster number?" he asked.

“Well, I’m pretty sure his name is Michael Cunningham, but I don’t have a clue as to what his roster number is.” I then heard the sergeant yell out to one of the other drill instructors:

“Anybody know what platoon Cunningham is in? I need his roster number.”

“Hey, that’s my guy,” I heard a voice say in the background. “Cunningham, what’s your damn roster number?”

Very faintly, I could hear my son reply to the drill instructor. The desk sergeant then gave me my son’s mailing address and graduation date. “Anything else I can do for you today, sir?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “Tell my son to get down and do fifty for making his father track down his address.”

“Will do, sir. Gladly,” he said.

I then thanked the desk sergeant for his help and hung up, and then had a good laugh picturing what my son’s reaction might be to my request of him to do a couple of pushups. He always has said I have an odd sense of humor. To say the least, I’m sure next time he calls, he’ll have something to say about that, and we’ll both end with getting a good chuckle out of it.

The nights are definitely getting colder. It’s only been an hour since sunset and the temperature has dipped from a pleasant 54 degrees to 42. Jack Frost’s artistry might be evident when it comes time to head out for work in the morning. Looking out the window, I see a couple of squirrels scampering about a thick spread of acorn droppings from the two oaks that line the sidewalk adjacent to my apartment building. The Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a long, cold, snowy winter this year. From the way the squirrels seem to be going about it, I’d almost agree.

By S. L. Cunningham

My Pygmalion Dreams

2005-10-14T19:09:00.000-05:00

During the night, I am given to some rather strange dreams, almost all of which have to do with women. Someone once told me I should write these dreams down. But I usually don’t unless it is truly out of the ordinary. Many years back, I bought a book on how to interpret dreams. I gave up on trying to interpret mine. I found I could no more interpret my dreams than I could my life. But at least with dreams I don’t concern myself whether I make sense of them or not. I categorize them as either amusing or weird. Sometimes I reflect on them, sometimes I don’t. But the dreams I have of women have a special category all their own. I refer to them as my Pygmalion dreams.

Last night was a good example. In my dream, I was sitting on my couch listening to Linda Ronstadt’s “Blue Bayou” when someone knocked on my door. When I got up and answered it, I found myself looking at a young woman in her mid-twenties, though no one I knew or recognized. “I was on my way to pick up a pizza at Jack’s when my car broke down. Could I borrow yours?” she asked. “I’ll bring it right back.”

“Sure,” I said. I handed her the keys, which strangely enough just happened to be in my hand. She never came back. Me? I woke up in a panic. Realizing that it was still dark, and seeing I was still in bed, I felt relieved that I hadn’t actually been so obliging. I felt even better when I went to leave for work this morning and saw that my car was still parked where I had left it. Yet even still, there was something about this dream, something oddly unnerving that put me in a real conundrum of sorts as I drove to work.

An even stranger dream was one I had many years ago. I was out walking on a beach when I came upon a naked woman lying on the sand. I never had such an experience like that, and as usual in these kinds of dreams, I felt a sense of panic. I didn’t know what to do. She didn’t seem startled by my presence and looked up at me. I wasn’t sure if I should turn around and walk back the way I came, or just keep on walking by, trying as best as I could to ignore her. But I couldn’t help staring at her. Pure white, radiant, adorned in jewelry, with long flowing brown hair, I found myself trying to figure out how I could possibly introduce myself. “Ah, I was just out for a walk, and I couldn’t help noticing . . .” No, no, too apparent. “Oh, hello. I just happened to parachute from a plane and wouldn’t you know it . . .” But as more often than not with dreams the subject ends up changing long before a solution is ever found, and so when I decided I would just walk right up to her and introduce myself, the scenery had changed and she was gone.

In these dreams, the women who appear are usually in their mid-twenties, early thirties. Usually there seems to be a peculiar familiarity with how they manifest themselves. The woman who shows up at my door and asks to borrow my car, the woman who appears naked on the beach, innocuous and beguiling. Yet nothing ever comes of them, just snippets of unanswered questions, I suppose, of why I failed in my relationships and marriage. With the women who I encounter in my dreams, I find I am completely trusting and accepting. Entirely relaxed with who I am, I don’t find any request odd or unusual. Yet in my day-to-day life, I don’t think I have been as trusting as I thought myself to be. Most times, I would find myself weary or guarded in my relationships, and in my marriage, I struggled with balancing my priorities with the demands made on me by work, my ex-wife, and our two children. What I didn’t realize then is that relationships—work, school, friends, marriage, and children—need to be attended to every day. It’s as if these dreams, these women who appear to me, serve only to give me shades of feelings or intentions that I had been oblivious to, or have not yet come to fully understand.

Perhaps it is because when it comes to love, I have shown myself to be a total idiot, a fool of fools. I am a hopeless romantic, and have been quite skilled in making the smallest infatuation into the love story of my life. Relationships have always been such an enigma to me. I grasp the ideal of being in love, but the reality of actually being in love, and being able to grow in love, I have found to be an unsustainable, illusive tendency. Feelings are hurt, accusations of being inattentive or playing games are made, and then when all is said and done, two people sit across from each other at the table over dinner one night, wondering how they got in such a mess with something that at one time seemed so full of promise and hope. Such as it was with my ex-wife and I. Fortunately we have come to a quiet understanding over the years while our son and daughter grew up. At first, it was an uneasy, awkward friendship maintained more out of civility toward the children rather than out of any mutual feelings of likeability toward each other. Because of the children, though, we stayed in contact and found a way to discuss the larger issues of parenting without being oppositional toward each other. But that was it.

However, since coming back from California after I went out to attend my daughter’s high school graduation, it seems both my ex wife and I have found a way to let go of the hurt. After arriving in Arroyo Grande, I called to let her know I made it in okay. She surprised me by inviting me over for a cup of coffee. I was reluctant at first, and wasn’t sure how I would feel meeting her husband. But I went and soon after being introduced to him, any feelings of awkwardness were short lived. Our daughter’s now attending college and our son is in Army boot camp. My ex and I email each other to share any recent news we’ve had in regard to our young adult children. The tone? Not reserved but cordial.

As I wrap up this day, it occurs to me that maybe the dream I had about loaning out the car wasn’t so crazy after all. I let her have the keys without question or hesitation. And as it turned out, I didn’t have anything to worry about afterall, because in the morning, my car was still there. It would seem, then, that in the absence of questioning and hesitation, of creating expectations, I am beginning to find a quiet acceptance of others, and myself, and that is all that really matters.

By S. L. Cunningham

Living Life Deliberately

2005-10-09T19:47:00.000-05:00

In the periphery of change, October seems to render me in a contemplative state more so than any other month. It is mid-evening and I am sitting here in my chair looking out the window. The rain has been falling steadily for the last several hours and the balminess of this morning has given way to a damp chill. It would seem that the days of Indian summer we had last week are over. This storm tonight is ushering in the colder air spilling down from Canada. Come tomorrow, a coat definitely will be needed as I head out the door for work.

My cat seems to have sensed the change, too. After several minutes of looking out the window while sitting on the desk, it turns and gives my hand a nudge. Mewing, it pounces from the desk to the futon, and then climbs into its round bed and curls up into a tight ball. It isn’t too long before its slight snores start to punctuate the sound of the rain cascading off the roof.

I’m not sure why but it seems that I’ve become more acute with the events that have transpired in my day to day life, and I find myself savoring each day as if it were a gift. It used to be that I would dread thinking about the future. Even worse, though, was how I spent time agonizing on past events, either because of circumstance or choice, before finally realizing that what is done, is done. At one time I was a warrior; another, a teacher. And yet another role in my life was that of a husband and father. But now long since divorced and my two children beginning their own lives, it occurs to me that a life lived really is no more than a composite of experiences that shapes and forms who we are at various stages in our life. For once, I think I am beginning to understand and appreciate what this process of being and becoming is all about.

The wind has started to pick up and is blowing the rain into a pelting swirl against the building. I open the window just a crack. Each gust that comes now creates that eerie, inconsolable whistle of tormented souls. I turn the light off and then sit back in the chair, leaning back and stretching out my legs. It’s starting to rain even harder still. As I fixate myself to the sound of wind and rain, I find myself drifting back in memory to my childhood room at the time I was nine years old. Lying in bed, I listen to the branches of the Meliads with their twiggy fingers scratching, tap-tapping on my window as the shadows of their forms dance on my ceiling and wall. I remember my mother telling me not to worry, that these are friendly spirits, but even still, deep in my pillow I pull the covers up close and turn my head to the side.

Yawning, I am brought back to the present. I reach for my coffee mug and take a sip. Almost every October I’ve lived since I was discharged from the Marine Corps after sustaining a severe injury aboard ship has found me struggling with the question of purpose. And for all those thirty-four years since then, I haven’t had an answer. I’m still not sure if I do, but for the first time in my life I feel that I’m beginning to have a better sense of what this is all about. Reflecting on my experiences has made me realize that purpose in life is not necessarily the careers I chose, the relationships I had, or the family I brought to bear. Instead, it is, as Thoreau says, about having lived my life “deliberately” within those experiences, to “awaken” myself, and keep myself “awake” by having “an infinite expectation of the dawn.”

Looking out the window again, it occurs to me just how satisfying and enjoyable it is to contemplate the circumference of this odyssey called life, for doing so, I feel centered and firm just as surely as the four legs of this chair that I sit in. I stand up and head to the kitchen with my coffee mug. Rinsing it out, I call it a day. Retiring to bed, I await once more for the playful dance of the Meliads.

By S. L. Cunningham

Do the Hike – A Change in Perspective

2005-10-06T16:48:00.000-05:00

October has arrived, and like May and December, it is a month of marked transition. There’s the noticeable change in temperature, the cooler nights, the days that are becoming increasingly shorter, and the pungent, hardwood smell of chimney smoke wafting through the early evening air. The trees are beginning to stop producing chlorophyll, and as they do, the pigments of color that are within the leaves are beginning to show a palate of red, gold, and orange.

With the last of my summer clothes put away, I start breaking out my long sleeve shirts and sweaters. This is a good time of the year to be out and about, and short hikes and forays into the woods should be taken advantage of whenever a good day of clear weather presents itself.

Today was a perfect example. With the temperature in the mid-seventies, it felt like Indian summer. My colleague at work and I decided that instead of having our usual therapy group with our students today, we would instead take them on a hike up Bald Rock that’s part of the Camden Hills. “But do we have to?” one of the kids piped in. “Hiking sucks.”

Mike spoke up. “I know we do group inside, but today’s about the last of any real nice days we’ll have for awhile, and so we’ve decided to get you guys outside for group today.”

Mike and I are responsible for conducting a dialectical behavior therapy group once a week for our eight students who live at the residential facility where we work. What we basically try to do is teach kids how to learn skills that will help them get their needs met in more appropriate, positive ways. For some of them it can be quite a long learning curve until they start using skills to cope with negative emotions or feelings of anxiety and depression. With most of the new kids who come into our program, it’s a pretty simple script: Can’t get what you want right at this minute, fine, yell obscenities, punch the wall, slam the door, and throw something down on the floor. That’s pretty much how most of them try to deal with any given situation that’s contrary to what they think they need or want, or when they’re reminded of an expectation.

“We’re only going to be out for a couple of hours.” Mike continued; “Besides, it will give you guys a chance to practice the skills you’ve learned.” We gathered up what we needed and piled into the van. Fifteen minutes later we were hiking up the trail that led to Bald Rock. No sooner than two hundred yards into it, one of the kids came up to me and said, “This is really stupid.”

“Oh? Why’s that?” I asked.

“Because I could be back at the house playing my new game on the Play Station."

”You seem to really like playing with the Play Station. What's with that?"

"It's the only thing I like doing," he said as he picked up a rock and threw it into the woods.

Looking at him, I decided to give him a nudge. “But you’re not at the school, are you?”

“No, but I could be if I weren’t on this stupid, boring hike.”

“Yes, but you’re on the hike,” I said calmly.

“Yeah, thanks to you and Mike.”

I slowed my pace down a bit and took a few moments to reflect. “Does thinking about being back at the house and playing with the Play Station change anything?”

“No.”

“If it doesn’t change anything, then why continue to dwell on it?”

At this point I reminded the student to start thinking about his skills. I asked him to think about what he could do to try and make his situation better.

“I could stop being pissed off that I’m on this stupid hike.”

“And how would you do that?”

“By accepting that I’m on this stupid hike?”

“Okay, you could accept the situation for what it is. Good. What else might you try to change the situation?”

“I can stop being pissed off about it because there isn’t anything I can do, so I might as well do the hike, I guess,” he said as he kicked up a rock.

The student may not have realized it, but he had grasped a simple truth. Often times when we are given to any one thing, especially when it’s something that we might not particularly enjoy or want to do, we become scattered and frustrated when we start thinking about other things we could be doing or other places where we could be instead. Sometimes, as with the student, we label or judge what we are committed to in negative terms. But by changing our perspective, we can “do the hike.” Focusing on the one thing we are doing, without labeling or judging, allows us to experience activities more fully, especially activities we may not want to do but have to, either because of duty or necessity. Whether it’s work, or washing dishes, or getting our kid to the dance, we can be in the moment. As Goethe said, “There is nothing worth more than this day!”

After the student walked just ahead of me for a ways, he stopped and asked, “What kind of tree is that?”

“Black birch,” I replied. I walked over to the tree and broke off a couple small twigs. “Here, chew on the end of this,” I said as I took the other twig and gave a demonstration.

He looked at me with a reluctant stare and then smelled the end of the twig. “Kind of smells like a Lifesaver,” he said. He then took the twig and started chewing on it. “Hey, that’s pretty weird. What is that?” he asked.

“Wintergreen,” I replied. “You can also use the sap from the tree to make birch beer from. It’s kind of like root beer.”

As we picked back up the pace, I noticed he was actually looking around and observing. He plodded on ahead of me with heavy, deliberate steps. “If you feel yourself trying to catch a breath, pick a spot to take a sit for awhile,” I reminded him. He didn’t answer, but continued on slow, but sure. After reaching the summit, we sat down with the others and looked out at the ocean. The students were surprised by how high up we were, and marveled at how small the houses looked in the village below. The shore was wrapped snug by a blanket of fog that stretched to the horizon. The students then took different places to sit alone as they looked out over the carpet of trees and beyond. For once they were all quiet. As Mike and I observed them being self-absorbed, I could almost imagine the beauty of what such a view must be like for them to perceive for perhaps their very first time.

By S. L. Cunningham

Apples in September – A Prayer of Hope and Redemption

2005-09-29T15:53:00.000-05:00

If there be more, more woeful, hold it in,
For I am almost ready to dissolve,
Hearing of this. --William Shakespeare, King Lear (Albany at V,iii)

For the second time in as many as thirty days we have had to contend with another monster that arose from the sea, threatening to swallow more of the Gulf coast in its angry jaws. Although the news being reported on Rita is that the damage--though significant in some parts of southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana--did not rival what Katrina had done. A collective sigh of relief I'm sure, as we still haven't had time to overcome the devastation that rendered the coasts of Mississippi into a nightmare of broken dreams. New Orleans, though, did not fare as well, and found itself to be the lost Atlantis again as the waters from Lake Pontchartrain began pouring in.

It is not easy sometimes to understand the significance of an event, nor is it always apparent whether we have become participants of something far greater then what is immediately evidenced, but I am convinced more than ever that this time we live in today will be shown years later as a time when people were truly tested. When the year 2000 rolled on in, I felt a sense of excitement for the future--and I still do--but with the event of 9/11, the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated the coasts of Sri Lanka, Thailand and the island of Indonesia with the loss of over 175,000 people, and the unbelievable amount of destruction we've experienced with Katrina, and Rita, one cannot help thinking that perhaps God is part of the equation here. And if He is, I am not even going to try and suppose what the answer to that might be except that we may be living in an age where prayer and hope actually did come to mean something.

Today I had been seriously preoccupied after reading a gripping, heartfelt essay that Liz Strauss of Letting Me Be rendered from an email she had received from her sister-in-law in which she gives a first hand accounting of what it is like to be among people who have lost everything:

We observed and shared the despair of losing the everyday stuff of life,clean underwear, your toothbrush, and the despair of less obvious loss: your neighborhood and your best friend across the street, your favorite grocer, your church, your coffee ladies/men, your photos of your children as babies and your deceased parents, the necklace your grandmother gave you, your doctor, that house you spent a lifetime making a home, control over what food you eat, the rooms where you celebrated your family's milestones, the security you feel when you tuck in the kids . . . --(It's Not at All about ME) Reflections from Louisiana

In spite of such destruction and despair, however, the human spirit proves again to be so indelible. As she says:

They were thankful to be alive. -- ibid

One of the great enigmas of life is that of human suffering. Another of course is our purpose in life. And yet another is death. In our normal day-to-day lives where we are given to the hustle and bustle of work, family and recreation, it would seem that we purposely distract ourselves to no end to avoid thinking about such questions. Instead, we resign ourselves as if anesthetized to the bump and grind of making money, paying bills, and having lots of fun on the weekends with baseball, football, Nascar, mall shopping, eating out, anything for that matter, as long as it keeps us preoccupied and passes the time. We become so enveloped in our lives and in the lives of those around us that we lose sight sometimes of what really matters. We begin to think we're our jobs, our money, the titles we acquire, and the things we buy: large houses, big SUV's, and home theater for weekend cocooning. It's not about keeping up with the Jones's anymore; it's about being the biggest bad asses in the neighborhood. And it seems all well and good until a 9/11, or a tsunami, or a Katrina comes along, and in a horrifying instance of destruction, our lives are in peril and everything we worked so hard for is gone. But in the face of such tragedy when we have lost what we have worked so hard for, when we find ourselves completely stripped of our possessions, an amazing thing begins to happen. We find ourselves again, and in doing so, we realize that we are not just about ourselves, that life is indeed much more than that. We realize that what we're really about is people. And in realizing that, we begin to pull back to the things that matter most: family, friends and community.

After getting off from work today, I decide not to take the usual route home. I'd been watching the news on Rita and Katrina and had become too self-absorbed with how extensive the damage has been. I knew that if I went right home from work, I would find it hard to resist turning on the TV to catch up on the latest reports. And so I drive until I come to an apple orchard in Brooks. There is something endearing about apples in September, memories that go back to childhood when my mother would gather my three brothers and me up in the car and take us out to Bartlett's Orchard in Richmond, Mass for Macs and cider. After deciding on a bag of Cortlands and a gallon of just-pressed-that-day cider, I make my purchase and return to the car.

Driving off, I follow Route 7 back to Belfast. If ever there were a quintessential New England road replete with rolling hills thick in deep green, woods, and dairy farms with cows standing idyllic in the fields as they graze, this is it. My consciousness absorbs the resplendent scenery, and as I look beyond the hills, I begin to feel an easy sense of contentment. For the first time, I understand why I chose to come to this place to live. I reach for an apple from the bag I placed behind the front passenger seat. In the angst of doubt and incessant questioning these past few years, I had forgotten why I needed this place. But as the sun begins its slow decent behind me, I sense what my life has been about. I still think central California might be nice, but for now I am where I need to be. Looking up through the windshield at the wisps of clouds sailing by on a pastel blue sky, I whisper, "Amen."

By S. L. Cunningham

Blogging - A Paradigm Shift of How We Disseminate and Communicate

2005-09-24T23:17:00.000-05:00

Six months ago during a phone conversation with my son, he suggested I create a “blog” after I had told him I had gone back to writing to help pass up the time since he had left home. “Blog?” I inquired. After getting his usual “Gees, Dad,” he spent the next week guiding me through the process of creating my own web log, or "blog," which Brad L. Graham is credited with coining several years back. When I first began posting my writing, I had a sense of what I wanted to “blog” about, but I didn’t have an overall sense of what I wanted to accomplish, or what purpose it might serve other than giving me a healthy distraction to keep myself from going stir crazy. After being an active parent for 18 years, and then finding yourself with an empty nest when your child moves out, it takes a while to adjust to the new pace. It’s like I took the off ramp from the freeway, and decelerated from seventy to zero within seconds. When you come to a full stop like that, it’s hard to figure out whether to go left or right.

In the process of “blogging,” I began reading other bloggers to get a sense of what other people were doing with what seems to be a very unique cultural phenomenon that makes the exchange of ideas, services and products more fluent and accessible. Of the numerous blogs that exist on the net, and are created each day, I am convinced more than ever that we are indeed “language” animals. Blogging also has become unique in that we can choose how we represent ourselves to the world. Even with standard templates, people tinker with them until they get the right format, font, and background that say, “Hello, it's me and this is my blog. Come on in." And with a simple click, the door opens to their small havens of political views, stories, anecdotes, essays, information on a variety of topics, and virtual flea markets where you can buy all kinds of products from books to vitamins.

That others are writing each day by posting to their blogs, regardless of their ability or education, is simply amazing. For hundreds of years, print media served as our conduit for the exchange and discussion of ideas. Blogging, though, makes that exchange both immediate and curiously intimate. Want to know what people are thinking about a specific topic? Easy enough, since all one need do is a Google search on “blog politics," for example, and wham, an unbelievable amount of sources becomes instantly available. From there you can whittle down to a particular topic of interest.

But as with writing for publications, it does take a while to develop an audience. During my first few months of posting, my readership was marginal at best. I hardly had any visits or comments during my first month, and my counter showed only twenty-six people had visited. But even then I was pretty excited. Out of that twenty-six, seven took the time to respond by commenting. In the process of exploring different blogs represented by sites like blogexplosion , Blogcritics and others, I began responding to blogs I liked, and in turn would sometimes receive reciprocal comments as well. By the end of the second month my hit counter started to become real busy, and was up to 3200 visitors, certainly more than I had ever expected. My postings were also generating more comments, which gave me the opportunity to visit more blogs in return. This last month and half, though, has been a watershed, not in terms of my writing, per se, but in terms of the incredible people I have met and corresponded with by blogging. It would seem that blogging has made the world smaller, and has made it possible to become part of a community joined together by common interests and the Internet.

Three bloggers (writers) I have begun to develop a sense of camaraderie with have their own unique perspective on personal issues that matter to them, but instead of trivializing their view points by ranting to no end, or breaking down into silly diatribes that say much about nothing, they breathe life into the ideas they present, and show obvious care about what they think and say.

Phil Dillon, for instance, blogs Another Man’s Meat, which he describes as being a blog that represents “my world and my times through the prism of the Kansas Flint Hills.” As you read his posts, there is no mistaking that here is a writer who has a keen sense of the art of invention and style. When Phil gets his hands on a political issue, he starts to tear it apart like a mechanic tearing into an engine. He does not ride on easy assumptions, but instead tests each one until he gets at the crux of the problem. This from an essay in response to those who took offence to his analysis of Nazi propaganda as similar in tone and reasoning of the anti-war movement that began to flair up in earnest when Cindy Sheehan served as the catalyst for certain groups that seem to have an obvious self-serving political agenda:

I understand the rhetoric is supercharged right now. But I can honestly say that it is not politics, but principle that guides my thinking. You may not agree with those principles, but try as you will, they can not be marginalized, nor will I abandon them. - Dillon, Offensive Enough?

When you read Phil, turn the TV off and pull up your chair with a cup of coffee. He’s a slow read, but well worth the time.

Another blog I began to take an interest in is Clive Allen’s Gone Away. Clive offers a unique British perspective on American culture and politics as a travels around the United States. His descriptions of our people, how we are similar and how we differ from the Brits, remind me of a modern day Walt Whitman:

It was their honesty and optimism that attracted me to them. All my life I had been surrounded by people who would go to great lengths to avoid calling a spade a spade, but here was a nation who saw nothing wrong in going straight to the point. They seemed so open and willing to learn about the world around them, almost innocent in their enjoyment of life. - Allen, “American Experience" p. 9

As I started to become well acquainted with these two writers, I discovered another blogger whose writing I have come to admire. Letting me be by Liz Strauss offers a compilation of writings that focus on a variety of topics specific to her life and to the process of writing. She writes with a deft touch that makes you feel welcomed to be in the company of her words. In terms of style, "The Turkey in the Trunk" exemplifies Liz at her best:

“The drive home took about two hours. It was me, music, and the empty Illinois cornfields. My thoughts were busy with the day to come, seeing my brother would convince everyone to cause diversions while he ate my lunch for me, and how my cousin Joe and I would sneak down to the basement when we were 'peopled out' to get space and catch up on things.”

Especially wonderful and informative are her non-fiction articles from “The 65th Crayon,” which she describes as “. . . a rainbow of news and insights about colorful people, places, and things.” “Scribbles: Snow White Never Kissed,” is an example of her reflections on fascinating tidbits of information. Though more than that, she offers astonishing personal insight and reflection on day-to-day events, but especially impressive is her output. Compared to her I am a definitely a turtle-paced poster. Hmmm, try to say that three times fast.

Anyway--all kidding aside and certainly no offence to Liz--what I have come to appreciate most about blogging these past few months is the sense of friendship and community that seems to have developed not just with them, but with those who also read my blog, and with those whose blogs I read as well. There's JC of Further Ironies; Patry Francis of The Marvelous Garden; EuroYank: An American Alien in Europe ; and many others I am getting to know and enjoy. But I am especially indebted and grateful to Phil and Liz for posting a review of my writing on their blogs, and to Clive for recognizing a need for a forum where serious writers representing a variety of views can link together by joining Writers Blog Alliance.

It used to be that if you wanted to have an exchange of ideas, or stories, you would have to make a considerable effort to belong to a specific community of people who shared common interests and goals. It is easy to do that when you live in a large city. It is even easier to do that when you attend or teach college classes. But in a small community isolated from a larger metropolitan area, it is very difficult to find a similar community. Those that do exist, as I have found, can be painfully provincial. Thanks to the Internet, the world has become smaller by becoming broader in ways that almost seem incomprehensible. Instead of hopping in my car to drive across town to meet with a friend to discuss our writing or a book, I can connect with him or her online. The only drawback, though, is not being able to be in their presence physically. But then, who knows. Because of the camaraderie we develop with our fellow bloggers, especially those who we consider to be in our immediate circle, and the alliances we form with them, we may decide that getting together for a day of discussion might be an entirely plausible proposition. And so here’s to that cup of coffee, virtual or otherwise, that we may someday drink in the spirit and wisdom of friendship, and commune with each other in a lengthy discussion on writing and literature.

By S. L. Cunningham

Making Haste, But Slowly

2005-09-21T10:43:00.000-05:00

Tonight I’m sitting in bed reacquainting myself with Robert Frost while listening to The Great Guitar Concertos played by John Williams. My cat has snuggled itself between my legs as I go about flipping pages and taking notes. It’s been sometime since I’ve last read his poems, but as I do so, I am struck by how his words say more to me now than they did when I first read them in my early days of college:

And dreaming as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

Perhaps this is the essence of getting older, the simple realization that truths about life are more easily recognizable because of the many days of living we have put behind us. In our youth, such truths about the human condition have to be analyzed and mulled about, but even then we still don’t always get it. I know I didn’t, but when you have so many days in front of you, what’s there to get? In our youth we are busy conjuring forth, shaping and living our dreams. Sometimes we succeed; sometimes we don’t. Sometimes because of those mysterious invariables that get tossed in, as Frost so eloquently describes, we become conflicted in our sense of purpose and are compelled to make a choice between two separate paths:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood . . .

Before I met my ex-wife, I was one traveler going down one road. I was a poet. And even though I had modest success with my writing published in several small press magazines--and with numerous readings in bookstores and libraries--I struggled with my words. I struggled hard because often times I’d stumble into areas I had little experience with. I learned that without experience of a day fully lived, you cannot create context, and without context, even though your words may be wrapped in a sheath of metaphor and rhyme, your words are void of compassion. When I look back on my earlier writings, I see that I wrote plenty about people. Frost, however, did not write about people. Instead he created people who lived their lives and told their stories:

Over back where they speak of life as staying
(“You couldn’t call it living, for it ain’t”)
There was an old, old house renewed with paint,
And in it a piano loudly playing.

Earlier this evening my son had called. Tomorrow morning he will be on a flight from Houston, Texas to Fort Benning, Georgia to begin his boot camp training in the Army. I could tell he’s excited, but I also sensed a bit of melancholy in his voice. As we were talking, we started to reminisce about his childhood days--the bike rides and hikes we used to take, the time spent just hanging out with each other in his room while he worked on his computer or played his guitar—when suddenly we both stopped talking. The two of us became lost in a long pause. After a few minutes, we found our words back to the present moment and wished each other well. “I’ll write you and give you my address as soon as I get settled in,” he said. “Don’t worry. I know the training won’t be easy, but I’ve been preparing myself for what to expect, and I know I’ll do well.” And with that we said goodbye. While talking with him, I found myself amused by his sense of hurriedness to get going with his future, to put his dreams into play. It reminded me of how I felt when I was his age, of how impatient I could be when “now” felt like forever. Today, though, my new motto in life seems to be festina lente. “Make haste, but slowly.”

It is good to listen to Williams play Vivaldi while reading Frost, to feel as if you are in their company, their music and words soothing and cajoling as they enliven you with their spirit. My cat wakes from its nap and then steps up into a long stretch, topped with a cavernous yawn. I give it a pat on the head and pick up my books from the bed. The moon is bright through my window, and so I leave the shade up. I once heard it said that life is just a continuous 365-day journey around the sun. What matters is how you enjoy the trip. So far, in spite of the delays and backtracking, I seem to be enjoying mine just fine.

By S. L. Cunningham

Calling The Elephants

2005-09-16T17:45:00.000-05:00

Tonight as I stand in front of my mirror, brushing my teeth, I notice with concern that I’m really beginning to look old. Looking closer, I can tell my face has definitely lost its chiseled Tarzan features, and now looks more like a marshmallow with penned in eyes, nose and mouth.

Pondering over my transformation that seems to have come too suddenly, I remember what someone once said to me: “Getting old sucks!” At thirty-two, I responded indifferently, but now at fifty-one, I’m surprised by how easily I can relate to that. In spite of my best intentions to stay in shape by being active and watching my diet, it seems something has gone awry.

Certainly it has been a long stretch since the days of my youth. When I was nine years old, I loved watching Johnny Weissmuller in Tarzan. He was my hero. Period. I’d spend hours in the woods playing out my Tarzan dreams. The house I lived in Pittsfield, Mass. was close by the Housatonic River. I set up a rope swing in a tree on a branch that reached across the water.

Using a branch just above as a platform, I’d push against the trunk of the tree with my feet, and swing clear across the river and back. The intent was not to swing out and drop down into the water. The Housatonic was not the kind of river you would want to swim in as it was heavily polluted with chemical waste from the factories that emptied into it. No, the intent was to play out my adventure of being in the jungle, swinging through the trees, and calling the elephants with my mighty oh-wa-oh-wa-ohoooooo-waohwahoah.

My first attempt with the rope wasn’t very impressive. As I propelled myself from the branch, I swung twenty feet out over the water. On my return, though, I smacked the tree face first. Somehow my feet found the branch, and I was able to pull myself up, bloody nose and all, without falling to the ground.

After a few more attempts—and close calls—I became an expert at it, just like Tarzan. With my made-from-a-stick hunting knife between my teeth, I’d swing out to take care of the crocodile that had been menacing the villagers across the river.

One day, though, as I swung out across the water, the branch I had tied the rope to cracked and snapped off the tree. Just like that, I landed in the river. It turned out I didn’t have to worry about the “pollution” getting me. When I swam to and crawled up the bank, I discovered I was covered head to foot with leaches. What’s funny, though, is that I don’t remember how I rid myself of them, or who may have helped me, but one thing I know for sure is that I didn’t go home to my mother. Her reaction to certain things could be unpredictable, and it was one of those times when I clearly did not want to test what her response would be.

I didn’t set the rope swing back up, but for the rest of that summer in 1963 I continued with living my life in the jungle. Lions, rhinos, wildebeests, no matter, I could handle them with ease.

I managed to make a lean-to from sticks and leaves that served as my tree house. And in its shade that protected me from the hot African sun, I would read Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes. Between the book and the movies—my imagination filled with vivid scenes of elephants and hyenas—I dreamed I would one day live a life like that. I dreamed of having my own tree house high off the ground with a view of the lush green jungle valley and the misty mountains beyond. I dreamed of finding a woman like Jane and starting a family. I dreamed of living my days enjoying the simple pleasures of gathering bananas for breakfast and spearing fish for dinner. Un-Gaw-Wah.

“Tarzan . . . Jane.” What a simple declaration of love and fidelity. It’s been quite a few years since those boyhood dreams. I never did become a man of the loincloth, but I’ve certainly worn a lot of different hats in my lifetime, none of which I had envisioned as a child: Marine, machine operator, college student, liquor story manager, pizza delivery driver, tour guide on the Queen Mary, teacher of English, car salesman, social worker, manager, and adolescent counselor. And in the middle of being a teacher and a manager, I found the time to be a husband and a father. The husband part didn’t work out but the part of being a father certainly has been my best experience in life thus far.

Even though my crazy childhood Tarzan dreams didn’t pan out, I have two of the best kids that a parent could ever hope for. My son starts boot camp in the Army next week and will be entering as an E-3. He received his first promotion for the college credits he earned for his first year of college and his second for passing their physical fitness test. My daughter will be starting classes at UC Davis in a couple of weeks. I’m not sure what dream or dreams they’ll remember most from their childhood days, but the life they have in front of them is certainly one of hope and promise.

As I look into the mirror, I see the young boy I once was looking back at me. It’s been a long time since those days of swinging on the rope, letting out a Tarzan call for all the neighbors to hear. Rinsing out my toothbrush, I recall Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous lines:

'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

By S. L. Cunningham

In A Hurricane Eye

2005-09-11T12:08:00.000-05:00

Today marks the four-year anniversary of 9/11, the day the World Trade Center towers collapsed after two jet planes--commandeered by al-Qaeda terrorists--crashed into them. Like that morning, it’s a perfect sunny day, low seventies, with few clouds. With the news that’s been non-stop coverage of our recent catastrophe suffered from Hurricane Katrina, I decide it’s not a good thing to be watching TV all day. With the leaves on a few of the trees starting to show a few splotches of red and orange, summer is finally beginning to lose its grip to fall.

I fill a bottle with water, grab my daypack, and head out the door. A hike up Blue Hill makes a much healthier distraction than sitting inside all day with the TV blaring away. Upon reaching the summit, I am disappointed to see that the fire tower has finally been dismantled and removed. It’s still a good view, though, but from inside the fire tower sixty feet up, you had a 360-degree view of the entire area from Blue Hill to Mount Desert, from Mount Desert to Eggemoggin Reach, from Eggemoggin Reach to the Camden Hills and Belfast. Without the tower, the only view afforded now is that of Blue Hill Bay, but still well worth the hike.

The verdant expanse of green trees punctuated by the blue of ocean and ponds, the village of Blue Hill with its white clapboard houses, and the boats in the harbor is beauty incomparable to freeways, malls, and high-rise structures. The breeze is stiff and cool. I button up my shirt and take a sit on a rock. It is good to be here on a day like today, away from the confusion and uncertainty brought on by unexpected events that seem to create a collective anxiety that we participate in by relentlessly watching the news. But there are only so many times you can watch towers burn and collapse, levees break, people rescued, towns and cities swept away by the surge, before you begin to feel insignificant and helpless, too. Motivated by our compassion and sense of duty, we donate our time and money to organizations, the Red Cross, the United Way and many others; we volunteer to open our homes to take in the people that have been displaced, something, anything, to help in any way we can.

The breeze begins to pick up. Something there is about the smell of lichens, bilberry, and moss that covers and grows on and among the granite rocks. The fragrance lingers in the air and puts my mind at ease. My daily life seems so uncertain, so insubstantial. The job I have today may not be the job I have tomorrow. Where I live today may not be where I’m living a year from now. Inevitably just when we think things are good, the proverbial refrigerator falls from the fifth story window. When it lands on top of us, our lives our changed immeasurably with a sickening thud that leaves us uncertain and confused as to what we need to do next. Our spouse files for divorce. We get laid off from our work. Or as in the event of Katrina, we wake up to find ourselves surrounded by water. We return to our homes only to find that our houses have been swept away. Regardless of our lot in life, whether we’re happy or not, we are leery of change, and are especially frightened when change comes so suddenly like a pernicious thief in the night. However, the only real constant in our lives is change. Change is how we become, how we create the lives we live, how we pick back up and create anew when everything we know or have has been literally whisked out from under us.

After coming down from the summit, I walk back to my car and head out to the Country View Drive-in. Ordering a clam-basket, I sit down at one of the outside tables overlooking the pasture of a nearby dairy farm. While eating, I fine myself amused by the antics of a red squirrel that’s busily digging down in the trashcan looking for tidbits to eat. It finally emerges with a styrofoam container clenched between its teeth. Dropping it to the cement pad, it jumps to the rim of the garbage can, and then leaps to the table next to the can. The squirrel notices me and freezes.

Deciding I’m not an immediate threat, it hops down to the cement pad to retrieve its prize. It takes a few minutes of gnawing, nose poking, and prying with its paws before finally popping the cover. Inside is a couple of bites left from a hamburger and a few fries. The squirrel then clutches the container between its teeth and runs off with it, dropping it and then picking it up again before it finally disappears into the woods. When it comes to survival, like animals I suppose, we do what we must in order to live. But more than that, we also live our lives just beyond the horizon; for it is there that we find our raison d’etre, our reason for picking back up, of starting over and rebuilding our lives nail by nail, brick by brick—houses, businesses, and community—until we coalesce again as a town or city.

I leave a couple of clams and fries in the container, and place it by the trashcan. The sun is just beginning to set behind the trees. It’s a good hour’s drive back to Belfast. I turn the radio on and catch the ending of a song by Paul Simon:

So here's how the story goes
There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe
She was baking a cinnamon pie
She fell asleep in a washing machine
Woke up in a hurricane eye.

Turning the radio off, I say a silent prayer for those who have lost their lives to Katrina’s wrath, and for the people whose lives will be immeasurably changed because of it. As with 9/11, Katrina will serve as a continual reminder of how precious—but very tenuous—our lives really are.

By S. L. Cunningham

Baton Rouge - The New, New Orleans

2005-09-06T19:28:00.000-05:00

On September 7, 1900, Galveston, Texas, was a bustling, prominent seaport with a growing population of 40,000 people. The next day when the historic hurricane blew in, Galveston was reduced to a pile of rubble, and over 6000 people had lost their lives. In spite of promises to build bigger and better than ever, Galveston never fully recovered. Today it serves as a seaside tourist destination with a population of 56,000 people. Its seaport and commerce moved inland and became the cosmopolitan city of Houston, Texas, which is now the fourth largest city in the United States today. There has not been a deadlier natural disaster since then, that is, until Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. With the damage and loss of lives that occurred on the Gulf Coast, and the aftermath of the flooding of New Orleans, this storm might be remembered not just as America’s deadliest natural disaster, but its costliest as well.

As the breech in the levee is repaired and the water is slowly pumped out, there are cries that New Orleans will be rebuilt bigger and better than ever. As bare ground begins to reappear, local, state and federal agencies are harping each other in the blame game, and ultimately pointing a nasty finger toward President Bush. Such as it is when people experience strong emotions. Rational and calm thought in the face of such complete devastation becomes a rare commodity. Listen to any TV station, be it CNN, FOX, NBC or others, or any radio show, Imus or otherwise, and what you hear are pundits opining on who is to blame for the slow response to the flood that overwhelmed eighty percent of the city, sinking it into what will be remembered most certainly as an example of failed leadership. But as to who failed, or why, should not be the focus of attention, at least not right now. Right now, we need to finish the job of making sure that the remaining residents have been evacuated safely, and that we as a nation welcome and absorb the residents of New Orleans who have been displaced by the flood.

Without question we will experience the effects—economically, psychologically and spiritually--of this disaster for years to come. Cities in our country have been destroyed and rebuilt before. Chicago in 1871 and San Francisco in 1906 come to mind, but it is hard to imagine how New Orleans could ever be rebuilt. Hundreds of buildings sitting under ten to twenty feet of fetid water simply do not dry out as if nothing happened. They do not burn or crumple into dust but instead stand as erect boxes of mush. With the exception of a few sections of the city that received little water damage, and a good section of the French Quarter that remained unscathed, there really isn’t much in New Orleans that will be salvageable. When the waters are finally pumped out, the shock of just how thorough and insidious the damage has been will become unbearably evident.

We can continue to argue over who’s at fault for New Orleans’ calamity and the social inequity that the flood seems to have exposed, but until the last drop of water is pumped out of the city, the real focus needs to be on, “What now?” How do we help the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been so incomprehensibly disrupted? How do we provide the jobs, housing and schools that they will need? How do we help them become acculturated with their new communities? For those who insist New Orleans be rebuilt as the cosmopolitan city it had been will see a process that will take years? Such an endeavor, though, would not seem very prudent, as it doesn’t make sense to rebuild a city that will still sit ten feet below sea level. After all, is it realistic to make that kind of financial investment when another hurricane of equal or greater force could easily breech the levees again?

And so, perhaps New Orleans should be relegated to become what Galveston, Texas became after 1900: a small, tourist city. Certainly preserving the French Quarter would lend to that. As to the port that that area will still need and the commerce it will generate, can anyone say, “Baton Rouge, the new, New Orleans?” Some might consider that to be a far stretch, but considering that Texas succeeded in building a port inland that’s protected from the Gulf, then what’s to stop Louisiana from applying the same level of ingenuity in finding a more permanent solution. The question is whether there will be the visionaries who can argue convincingly the necessity of practicality over nostalgia, for unless that is done, a rebuilt New Orleans will only stand as a glaring example of hubris, misallocated resources, and the potential for another cataclysmic, human tragedy.

By S. L. Cunningham

Goodnight, America, How Are You? - On The Aftermath of The Flood of New Orleans

2005-09-01T21:17:00.000-05:00

Nighttime on The City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Halfway home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues. –Steve Goodman,
“The City of New Orleans”

Unbelievable. Incomprehensible. Disheartening. Surreal. As you watch the news reports of the devastation that resulted from Hurricane Katrina, words cannot adequately describe the transformation that has taken place on the coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. But what is particularly heart wrenching and sobering is the loss of New Orleans, and the surrounding metropolitan area. One million and a half people rendered homeless, and untold numbers of bodies floating in a sickening soup of debris, chemical waste, and sewage. When the levees were breached and the waters of the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain began pouring in, the unthinkable became reality.

Most of New Orleans’ citizens evacuated ahead of the storm, but the 100,000 people who remained behind were faced with what can only be described as an apocalyptic calamity. No one was prepared when the waters rushed in. With most of the city under ten to twenty feet of water, New Orleans has ceased to function. No water to drink, bathe or flush. No electricity for lights, cooking, electronics or air conditioning. No job to go to. No means of transportation. Without infrastructure or any semblance of order, the city has begun to rapidly deteriorate into a state of anarchy. The French Quarter has been taken over by mob-crazed looters who are not only cleaning out stores of food and drink items, but just about anything they can get their hands on. TV’s, jewelry, and furniture are hauled out of stores, and police seem limited as to what their response should be. It has been reported that the National Guard is on their way to help secure the city, but it seems to me that this should have been put into place days ago. By the time the cavalry finally does arrive, it may be too late. In the absence of shelter and food, people are beginning to gather in a desperate frenzy of hopelessness, and are beginning to turn on each other. Let someone see that you have a loaf of bread, and you may be killed for it.

The sight of people emerging from the water as they join the hundreds of people already gathered on the overpasses with the last of whatever possessions they have managed to salvage, burn indelibly into our memory--images that will never be forgotten. A family huddles against a mattress. All they have left that they can call their own is a small lamp table, a couple of folding chairs and a pile of wet clothes. In the arms of the mother is a young child that is in obvious distress from hunger and dehydration. She and her son are among the many who need immediate help but must wait until someone is able to assist them. So many, many people in need, and yet they must wait and hope that someone will get to them in time. For the unfortunate, the sick and elderly, hope becomes eternal as their bodies are left where they died. Only a few have been shown any dignity by someone who has shown one last act of human kindness by covering them with a blanket, a black plastic trash bag or whatever else may have been available.

In our country, I do not recall any recent event where we have had such a complete disaster that rendered a large population of people into refugees. But refugees are what the citizens of New Orleans have become. 25,000 people bused to the Astrodome in Houston, TX, and another 20,000 are to be bused to San Antonio. Others have been taken in by Baton Rouge and other cities. City officials of New Orleans estimate it may take four to six months to get the city back up and running. Even if such optimism proves to be true, and the city comes back to life within that time, what are the million and a half people who have been displaced supposed to do in the meantime? Is it realistic to expect that you can have 25,000 people living in the Astrodome for that amount of time? And what happens if New Orleans cannot be reclaimed? That we would have lost an entire metropolitan area because of the damage wrought by a hurricane is unimaginable, but each day that goes by, and more is learned about how thorough and complete the damage is, it would seem that nature indeed is the final arbiter, and that it is unlikely New Orleans will ever be revived.

As a nation, I wonder just what our response should be? How shall we help the people and families not just of New Orleans, but also of all the communities that have been destroyed by the storm? How do we absorb the millions, who have been displaced by the destruction and loss of their homes and livelihood? It is incumbent upon all of us, then, to consider what small contribution we might make to help those who are in need. Make a donation to the Red Cross, the United Way, or if you live in or close by to any of the cities that have taken in people, volunteer your services to help in any way that you can.

By S. L. Cunningham

Taking A Hard Alee--In the Path of a Tempest

2005-08-28T14:25:00.000-05:00

“And if some god wrecks me again on the deep, I will
endure it, for I have a patient mind. I have suffered
already many troubles and hardships in battle and
tempest; this will be only one more.” – Homer, The Odyssey

This morning I found myself transfixed to the TV screen. Hurricane Katrina has been updated to a Category 5 storm and is now predicted to pass over New Orleans tomorrow afternoon. Last year, my two youngest brothers, who live on the central east coast of Florida, had to contend with Francis and Jeanne. At first it was thought they were going to take a direct hit, but the storms went in a little further south than had been predicted. Still the area of Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach received significant damage from high winds and flooding. My brother, Glen, still has a blue tarp on his roof, as he is still waiting for a licensed roofing contractor to do the work. Compared to the houses and businesses to the south of them, though, they were fortunate that they didn’t suffer a worst experience than they did.

When watching the TV, it is hard not to feel anxious about the in-depth reporting the news media provides. In light of the coverage on the war in Iraq, and other terrorist acts committed by Al Qaeda, I am convinced that the media’s eternal lacrimation of these kinds of events is indeed a sorry occupation. Unlike terrorist acts, though, the media does a much better job in its prediction of a hurricane, where it’s going, its intensity and size, and the impact the storm may have on people’s lives who live in communities that might be in its path. And as the storm progresses, the coverage becomes relentless in its analysis of the storm. News reporters create a context for what the potential of the storm might be, and then compare it to other storms in the past that were of equal intensity and followed a similar track. Their speculation, though, is quickly rephrased as a “But unlike. . .” “Unlike Camille,” for example, “ this storm is going to produce far more significant damage, especially if it comes in just southeast of New Orleans." From the map on TV, the storm appears as an angry red circle slowly meandering toward Louisiana. Looking at it you cannot help feeling fearful for the people who live there.

And then there’s the cutaway. Thousands of cars with thousands of people driving a slow march north at a pace slower than the hurricane that’s progressing toward them. A reporter gives a quick assessment of the catastrophe that’s about to befall upon the city of New Orleans. “The levees are only designed to withstand a category 3 storm. If Katrina comes in as a category 5, then the city could be under twenty feet of water by tomorrow evening.” And then the understatement. “The damage could be devastating.” Aside from the immediate impact that this storm is going to have on the people who live there, we are then told of the indirect impact it is going to have on the rest of us. “There are a significant number of oil platforms in that area of the Gulf, and a number of refineries just on the shore. A storm of this size could seriously disrupt production.” What’s that? As if three dollar a gallon gas weren’t enough, it seems as if the weather bureau has just given the oil industry its blessing to raise the price of gas to four dollars a gallon.

I turn the TV off. Its not only bad enough that we have Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists making our way of life difficult, but now we have this monster named Katrina to contend with. I shrug my shoulders, and grab Homer’s The Odyssey off my desk and head toward the kitchen. There’s nothing I can do about the storm anymore than I can do about the terrorists. It doesn’t do me any particular good to fuss about what’s not in my back yard just yet. I wish the people who live there well, and that they have sense enough to get out of harms way. At least with a hurricane, you know where the storm is going to hit before it actually does. The same cannot be said about Al Qaeda. All we do know is that that tempest is out there—waiting, lurking—but unlike any other storm, Al Qaeda can and will strike at will, and often times does so without any warning. Certainly New York, Madrid and London can attest to that. It will be a big step when our goverment can finally track their impending storms on our culture and way of life as well as the weather bureau does with a hurricane.

I make myself a lunch of Dr. Pepper and Triscuit crackers spread with peanut butter and topped with a slice of cheddar. Outside it is a pleasant 76 degrees with a light breeze coming off the ocean. After I finish with my lunch I take a stroll down on the shore, and find myself a rock to sit on for awhile. It’s a Sunday ritual of mine that helps cap the end of the week, and put things in perspective—a perfect prescription for meditation. The water stirs before me. I watch a cormorant dive continually under the water for its food, and reappear on the surface some distance from the point where it dove. A seagull flits above me making quite a fuss—as if I had taken its favorite spot. It lands on the rock twenty feet next to me. Like me it just sits there looking out across the bay. What thoughts it has as it contemplates its universe I do not know. What I do know are the islands across the way, the sun magically turning the surface of the water into a shimmer of diamonds, the solitary sailboat subdued in its easterly trek toward Isleboro.

Standing up, I take a hard alee from the doldrums and say a silent prayer. I give thanks for the joy of being able to live, regardless of how insignificant and illusive my life may be. That I live and feel alive, and have the good company of family and friends is all that really matters or is necessary. I head back up the road and turn for home.

BY S. L. Cunningham

A Mid-August Stroll

2005-08-20T19:59:00.000-05:00

Today I’m much ado about nothing. Sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of strong, black coffee, I look out the window. The oak trees seem much fuller than usual for this time of year. But there are only a few more weeks of summer left, and it won’t be much longer before the lush green leaves turn to a yellow brown.

For the last couple of weeks Cindy Sheehan has consumed me with her misguided protest of the war in Iraq. I’m not one to usually offer an opinion on political issues as I’m generally indifferent to such matters, however, Sheehan quite literally had me tearing at the newspapers with her recondite arguments as to why President Bush should be impeached for his failed leadership policies.

Now that she has had to leave her post in Texas to attend to her ailing mother in Los Angeles, I wonder how much United for Peace and Justice and Michael Moore’s nematodes will be able to keep up with their effrontery to our sense of common decency. I wish Sheehan well, though. She has suffered a great loss, and I hope she is able to overcome her grief and find that quiet place in her heart where she can honor her son in death as she has honored him in life.

Work itself today was a battle. Most of our older students have been discharged from our treatment home, and in the last month, we’ve had four new “mad at the world” students come into our program--two seventeen year olds, and two slightly younger. As with most of our at-risk youth, they have experienced broken homes, alcohol, a variety of drugs, and incarceration for theft, possession, and probation violations.

I like to think my first name is easy to remember. After all, what could possibly be so difficult about remembering, “Scot.” Yet with the new students, it always seems to take a month or so until they actually become comfortable with calling me by my first name. When I redirect a new student—as I did today when I asked a student to find something less violent to watch on TV—the typical response is, “Shut up, asshole.” As I mentioned to one of my colleagues once, I think their epithet they refer to me by may be due to the fact that I’m bald. Sometimes when redirected, though, a kid will demonstrate he’s having trouble with the obvious by shouting, “You’re an asshole!” I just take it as a simple acknowledgement of my presence and the fact that I’m being complimented for doing my job, thus I usually respond by saying, “Thank you.” When I do, the kid will look at me with a confused and uncertain stare, and then get up and walk away shaking his head.

I get up from the table and warm up my cup with the last of the coffee in the pot. My cat is stretched out in his window seat as if to demonstrate he can out relax me any day of the week. Outside it’s sunny, with a few clouds—about 70 degrees. The Colonial Theater in downtown Belfast is playing “Finding Home.” I think I might head on down. It’s only a half-mile from where I live, and if I leave now, I’ll have more than enough time to stop in Darby’s for a char-burger, hand cut fries and a pint of Guinness draft. It’s a one, two, three combination that’s hard to beat, and is truly satisfying to the palate. Instead of walking, though, I think I’ll take a stroll.

There’s a distinct difference between taking a walk and taking a stroll. A walk is more of a point a to point b affair, whereas a stroll is more lackadaisical. The objective of a stroll is its leisure; a walk, its intention. On a walk the urgency is to get there now. On a stroll, however, there isn’t any urgency, for time and destination is of no consequence. Wherever we get to is where we are, and where we are is where we have arrived. It’s as simple as that. On a walk you’re more in your head than out. In your head you churn out thoughts about not having enough money from paycheck to paycheck, thoughts about never being to get ahead in life, the ever-nagging uncertainty of your life’s purpose or work. But on a stroll you’re blissfully out of your head and into your surroundings. When I stroll on down to the center of Belfast, I marvel how the ash trees—sixty to eighty feet tall—line and shade High Street with its cascading branches. I become pleasantly aware of the sonorous cry of the gull, the cackling of the crows, the cadences of the insects, sounds that affirm a late summer day.

Usually I begin by taking in a deep breath, the air pungent with the smell of the ocean. I appreciate how unique and significant Belfast looks--its buildings architecturally designed during the 1800’s in the federalist, Italianate, and Greek Revival style.

When I look at these houses--these grand homes--that were built during this time, I begin to get a sense of how prosperous this place was that is so indelibly tied to the sea.

There’s the Thomas Whittier House, built in 1803, that later became a popular inn for drinking, dining and dancing. My favorite is the Italianate style house built in 1859 for Charles B. Hazeltine, who had made his fortune by supplying California ‘49ers during the gold rush.

And often as I saunter down Primrose Hill, I notice little things: a toy shovel left by a mound of dirt next to the front steps of an apartment building, Black-eyed Susans growing against the base of an old maple with a ragged crown, and the gray, life-sized wood carved elephant that stands on the edge of the roof of the Colonial Theater.

I rinse out my coffee cup and set it on the counter. And so much ado about nothing, I put on my New Balance shoes and cinch up the laces. Grabbing the Pounce cat treats from the top of the refrigerator, I feed a couple of tidbits to my cat. I’m not sure why I do this except that it’s become a customary thing to do each time I go somewhere. I think perhaps I do this to reassure him that I’ll return.

I put on my long sleeve shirt in anticipation of a cool night, grab my hat, and head out the door. When I finally do arrive at Darby’s and sit at the table, I know I will find myself relaxed and eager for that first slow sip of Guinness. It’s days like these that make me realize that perhaps things aren’t so bad afterall.

By S. L. Cunningham

Cindy Sheehan’s Protest - A Mockery of Civil Disobedience

2005-08-15T19:24:00.000-05:00

BY
S. L. Cunningham

“The generations of men are like the leaves of the forest.
Leaves fall when the breezes blow, in the springtime others grow;
as they go and come again so upon earth do men.”—Homer, The Iliad

What perhaps started out as a desperate attempt by a mother to call attention to her grief over the loss of her son now seems to have evolved into a shameful act of debauchery. Partly because of the continuous press coverage, but mostly because of the extremist group, United for Peace and Justice, who have embraced Sheehan as their cause. That she has now become the mouthpiece to espouse their agenda as to why we should not be in Iraq, and to paint the President as a failed leader who has led us into an unnecessary and unjust war, shows a disconcerting rift in our moral fabric.

As such I have to wonder, would a Cindy Sheehan have been tolerated during WWII after our troops landed on the shores of France to begin their march toward Germany? I think not. What’s ironic, though, is that the political climate then wasn’t all that vastly different from our time now—considering that WWII was the war that no one wanted, nor even had expected—but once Americans did become committed, however, they also became very clear as to why our armed forces were there, and what was needed to be done to pull together to make sure that as a nation they prevailed, no matter what.

As to Iraq, WWD was the initial argument for invading that country, but it was not the only one. But not finding any WWD’s does not necessarily make our cause unjust. Saddam Hussein was a dictator: a tyrant who ordered the systematic slaughter of thousands of Kurds, the torture and killing of thousands of innocent people and their families perceived to be political enemies, the harboring and training of terrorists groups—whose main intent was and still is to destroy our way of life, and the Food for Oil Program he used to increase his personal wealth while the people of Iraq where left to go hungry and sick.

Dismissing any of those reasons for being committed in Iraq is not only naïve, but dangerous. If Americans had not remained steadfast as to why we needed to be in Europe in 1943, imagine what the outcome might have been. With enough Cindy Sheehan’s, Hitler might have prevailed in conquering Europe and Britain, and if we continue to encourage and embrace her misguided rhetoric that’s being written for her, we are in danger of undermining our reasons for being in Iraq, and worse, demoralizing our men and woman who are serving there. With the fall of Hussein, Iraqis are in the process of reshaping and redefining their country as a democratic nation governed by the rule of law. Our job will not be done until this has happened. Thus to answer Cindy Sheehan, this is why the war is being continued. President Bush does not need to apologize to her or to the UFPJ that has turned her into a mockery of civil disobedience.

Over the weekend I was checking up on Another Man’s Meat, a blog written and maintained by Phil Dillon. Reading his post of August 9, 2005, I was stunned by his essay, “To the 425th,” which he wrote to the 425th Transportation Company, Emporia, Kansas two years ago as they were preparing to leave for Iraq. It is a cogent, heartfelt plea to the soldiers to be mindful of their call to duty; to the values they represent as Americans, but above all else, a reminder of the “moral imperative” to liberate a nation of people who have lived under a repressive regime so that may experience the gift of freedom. Read it once. Then have a cup of coffee or tea, and read it again.

To the 425th
By
Phil Dillon

I learned today at church that 48 of my fellow Emporians, members of the Army’s 425th, are being deployed to the Persian Gulf in a few weeks.

Like many Emporians, my wife and I prayed first, that war might be averted. We also prayed, that if it could not, that these brave men and women would go reflecting the best of America, and that, in the end, they would all come home safely.

After church, I reflected on those being called and the task ahead of them. Who are they? What values do they represent? What, if anything, could be just in the cause they may be called on to vindicate in battle?

I reflected, first, on my own experience. I went to Vietnam in the summer of 1964 as a soldier and as a “New Frontier” Democrat. John Kennedy’s words, spoken three years earlier, were fresh and alive in my heart and mind - “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Like many, I went believing that our task was to advance the cause of freedom.

I recall vividly, years later, watching the fall of Saigon. As North Vietnamese tanks rolled down the boulevards of the city, many South Vietnamese desperately attempted to flee. They clawed at the walls of the U.S. Embassy compound. Some attempted to board already overcrowded helicopters on the Embassy roof. Most failed and resigned themselves to their fate. They were being “liberated.”

In the days and months that followed, the media gave us all an occasional glimpse of overcrowded “junks” floating aimlessly in the South China Sea. They carried a desperate human cargo, willing to risk their lives to either flee something or to find something else. “What” I wondered, “are they so desperately trying to escape?” “Freedom?” “Justice?” Equality of opportunity?” “America?” “Where were they trying to go?”

Even now, some thirty years later, I’m occasionally haunted by the memory of what might have been. I’ve been told that I take it all too personally. I’ve been told that I, and my country, can’t cure all the world’s ills. When I hear, I just nod and turn away. Their words bring neither answers nor comfort. I know they mean well, but I’m still haunted by the vision of millions of faces now living in the grip of tyranny. My “comforters” mean well, but two sentences, however well meant or placed, will never be able to overpower those faces.

Why, if my thoughts are with the 425th, am I even mentioning my experience? How could it possibly be relevant to them and the task before them?

I write to encourage them with the knowledge that they go supporting principles Americans have always been willing to give their lives for. They go supporting principles that we have, in a very unique way, embraced since we declared our independence in 1776. In his book, Making Patriots, Walter Berns notes that “the terms Americanism, Americanization, and un-American have no counterparts in any other country or language.” That is, those principles we Americans treasure – justice, equality of opportunity, and freedom from tyranny – rise above us and call us to act nobly in their support. Being an American, as Berns puts it, “Expresses the conviction that American life is uniquely founded on a set of political principles.”

Why is it so important that you know this as you go?

If war comes, so will difficulty. If war comes, voices will bellow from the “seat of the scornful” – “It’s all about oil.” “The administration just wants to make war.” “It’s all about American imperialism.” The voices will rise. They always do.

In his first inaugural speech, Abraham Lincoln pleaded for the preservation of the American union. While he spoke to all Americans, he spoke primarily to those determined to retain the obscene institution of slavery. Many in the American south were well aware of Lincoln’s views on slavery. He was the one who had, years earlier, said that a nation could not endure “half-slave and half-free. Many viewed him as an aggressor out to destroy an institution and a way of life. The voices rose up. If there was to be war, he was going to be the one responsible. Lincoln closed his address to the nation with these words – “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without yourselves being the aggressors.”

Even now there are some who would blame a war, if it comes, on George Bush or Colin Powell or Condaleeeza Rice or Donald Rumsfeld. They believe that if war comes, it will come because of a failure on our part to be reasonable or a failure on our part to act in good faith. It can be averted if we only listen to the voices of reason in our midst. They will, by their superior wisdom, show us the way out. They will mention, in passing, that Saddam is a brutal tyrant, but in the end, if war comes, it will be our fault. They will never agree to the idea that the answer to the grave question of war or peace resides in Baghdad. When the sound and fury begins you will need to rise above the call to abandon the sacred trust set before you. You must oppose tyranny. You must support the cause of freedom and justice.

There are some, even now, who say that war will come only because we want it to come. Here, in our local newspaper, for example, there is an on-line survey with the question “Do you think the U.S. should go to war with Iraq?” There are no conditions outlined in the survey question that would lead to war. The question is simply, “Do you think the U.S. should go to war with Iraq?” The question could just as easily be, “Are you a war-mongerer? A yes response would mean that the respondent just adores war and is itching for a fight. A no would mean that the respondent is a reasonable, intelligent, peace-loving person. Of course, as a member of the military you know all too well that no sane, reasonable person wants war. You understand that you may be called upon to give your life if war does come. You’re not a war-mongerer. You’re someone with a family you love. You have noble goals in life. You want nothing more than to live in peace. And you are, thankfully, someone who is willing to serve so that the principles that guide your life may be afforded to those who are denied them.

Some will tell you that this is all about oil. It’s a very effective myth. What they fail to tell you, though, is that nothing could be further from the truth. If all this was about is oil, then we could just leave Saddam alone to bully the Middle East and brutalize his own citizens. All we’d have to do is just leave him alone and we’d have all the oil he can pump out of the ground. We could leave him alone and we’d have, for a while, the illusion of peace. But, in the end, we’d come to see it for the devil’s bargain that it was. Hopefully our eyes would be opened before it’s too late.

If it’s not about oil, then, what is it about? Some years ago, in the wee hours of the morning, a young woman was attacked by a predator in a lower floor hallway of the New York City apartment building she lived in. She screamed and cried for help, but none came. Neighbors heard the screams. Some put pillows over their heads to muffle the cries for help. Some even turned their radios up to overpower the desperate screams. Some just ignored what was going on, believing it was none of their business. The tragic fact was that no one did anything. No one called Nine One One. No one attempted to help. The assailant even left the scene of the crime for periods of time and came back again and again to continue his assault. Morning came and the woman’s body was found and taken away. When her neighbors were asked why they hadn’t helped the answers ran the gamut. “I was hoping someone else stronger than me would help her.” “It was none of my business.” ‘What was I to do? “He might have killed me too?”

In a matter of weeks the incident was forgotten and life went on.

The people of Iraq today are much like that woman who was brutalized years ago. And, to say that intervening would only be about oil is as obscene as a neighbor saying, “It was none of my business.” We are the neighbors who can hear the desperate screams for help. We are not only citizens of a nation, we are citizens of the world. And, like those neighbors years ago, we have a moral imperative to act. In fact, if we fail to act, we in essence would be abandoning principles we say we cherish. We would be frauds whose only considerations would be our own safety and comfort. We can choose to ignore the screams, but the nightmares will surely follow. If we fail to act, that failure will hang from our collective necks like an albatross. We’ll be haunted by the faces of Kurds whose faces, in death, reflect the brutality of the “justice” meted out to them by Saddam. We’ll be haunted by the screams of Iraqi children being tortured in front of their parents.

You see, there is a moral imperative here. It is the people of Iraq.

In Lincoln’s day some tried to frame the issue of civil war in terms of “states’ rights.” In 1863, though, the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation gave the Union cause its true meaning and its proper moral imperative. Thousands of Americans gave their lives to preserve the Union and to emancipate fellow human beings who were treated as property and denied human dignity and freedom. What American, living today, would not be willing to die for such a cause? Who in America would not be willing to gladly lay down their life so that another might live in freedom?

Centuries ago, St. Augustine addressed the issue of whether or not war could ever be justified with the following words (from City of God) – “For better is it to contend with vices than without conflict be subdued by them. Better, I say, is war with the hope of peace everlasting than captivity without any thought of deliverance. We long, indeed, for the cessation of this war, and kindled by the flame of divine love, we burn for entrance on that well-ordered peace in which whatever is inferior is for ever subordinated to what is above it. But if (which God forbid) there had been no hope of so blessed a consummation, we should still have preferred to endure the hardness of this conflict, rather than, by our non-resistance, to yield ourselves to the dominion of vice.”

To my brothers and sisters of the 425th I close with the words of the sixth article of the American Fighting Man’s (or Woman’s) Code of Conduct:

I will never forget that I am an American fighting man (or woman),
responsible for my actions and dedicated to the principles which made my
Country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.

May God be with you. May He vindicate your just cause. May He bring you safely home to us.

Have Cause; Will Travel - Extremists For Hire

2005-08-12T22:31:00.000-05:00

In March 1973 I was honorably discharged from the United States Marine Corps. After landing in Boston from Los Angeles, I took a Greyhound bus to my hometown of Pittsfield, Mass. When the bus pulled into the depot, I observed a rather large crowd across the street with large signs protesting the Vietnam War. One sign said: “Make love, not war.” Another sign depicted Uncle Sam in a wheelchair. “I Want Out,” was its proclamation. But one sign just about made me feel like getting off the bus right then and there and grab the puny, candy ass puke by the throat who was holding it: “We Refused To Serve; So Should Have You.”

It seemed peculiar that people would still be protesting a war that was basically over. When I stepped off the bus in full uniform, I was not prepared for what happened next. The crowd began chanting, “Baby killer, baby killer,” in rhythmic succession. These people knew nothing about me, never met me, didn't know whether I actually served in Vietnam or not, but because I was in uniform, they carried on as if I were the enemy. And then somebody hurled a beer bottle that just missed me. I hurriedly threw my duffle bag into the trunk of the cab, and headed for home. It was not the kind of reception I had expected, and I didn’t quite know what to think of being referred to as “a baby killer,” let alone having something tossed at me. After I got home, I quickly changed out of my uniform. Whatever pride I had felt in serving my country was gone.

With the event of 9/11 it is good to see that attitudes have changed toward our young men and women who serve in the armed forces. The year that followed 9/11 ushered in a wave of patriotism that showed to the world our determination to remain steadfast and resolute as a united people. It was a determination of a people not experienced since WWII, but unlike that time it seems that we are beginning to weaken in our conviction to stay the course, no matter what. Indeed it seems that perhaps we are not a patient people after all, and with continuous reporting of servicemen and women killed in action, we are beginning to show a weakening in our courage to finish the fight that was brought to us with the attack on the World Trade Center.

Lately I have been watching the news, and following the updates on Cindy Sheehan who has camped herself just outside of President Bush’s Crawford, Texas home to protest the death of her son. I sympathize with her loss and can only imagine her grief. The death of a child or loved one is the most painful human experience of all. However, her grief has not been a quiet protest, and as such, she now has over 50 people who have taken up her cause by camping out with her, and helping her with her protests. They have planted little white crosses by the roadside to emphasize how many of our young people in the armed forces die each day as they fight “the war on terrorism.” And as I watch the people who have taken up her cause, the people who stand next to her red, white, and blue bus emblazoned with the slogan, “Impeachment Tour,” I am reminded again of how I felt that day I returned home in 1973.

And just as back then, the angry voices of the anti-war protesters begin chanting: “W killed her son! W killed her son!” But as there was nothing tragic or heroic about the protests of the Vietnam War, neither is there anything tragic or heroic about Sheehan’s protests, nor her cause. What’s worse is that it’s a pathetic display of a mother’s tragic loss. Instead of honoring her son’s death, she instead blames the President ad hominum by declaring him to be the “biggest terrorist of all.”

Amid the chants and the mother’s protests, it seems that the real story that should be told here is being completely ignored. After volunteering to go on a patrol with seven other men to help rescue 19 men whose convoy had come under attack by Iraqi insurgents, her son, Casey, was killed during an ambush. He didn’t have to go; he chose to go--to heed the call of duty. Now there’s an interesting concept but not one easily grasped or understood in a culture of people who expect drive-through results with their convictions. And so when the media attention begins to wane and people have decided they have read and heard enough of Cindy Sheehan, who will the extremists find next, vulnerable and willing, to have their cause taken up.

By S. L. Cunningham

1964, I’ve Got Your Memory (Walkin’ After Dinner With My Grandmother)

2005-08-06T19:14:00.000-05:00

Tonight I’m listening to Patsy Cline’s The Definitive Collection. As always when I listen to her songs, I find myself reminiscent of the time I lived in Seffner, Florida when I was ten years old. When she sings “Walkin’ After Midnight,” it’s 1964. My mother, who had separated from my stepfather, moved me and my three younger brothers from our house in Pittsfield, Massachusetts to Tampa, Florida. We first lived with our uncle before my mother found a place to rent in a trailer park in Seffner just outside of Tampa. We didn’t stay in that park very long. The trailer she had rented was still occupied, not by the previous tenants, but by the biggest reddish black, armor plated bugs I had ever seen, crawling out of a box of Cocoa Krispies.

Conceding to the palmetto bugs, my mother found another trailer park that was owned by an elderly couple. We lived there for most of that summer before my mother started to look for another place to rent that she felt was more suitable to our needs. And so it was just around August when we moved to our third trailer park that sat up on a hill bordered by orange groves and pine trees. The trailer we rented was adjacent to the playground of the old wood framed Seffner Elementary School that had closed the previous year and had moved to a brand new facility where I attended fifth grade.

It was during this time that my grandmother came to live with us to help my mother take care of us boys while she worked. When September came it was time for school. Having to get up early wasn't easy, but there was always a bowl of hot oatmeal waiting for me at the table. The walk to school was a little less than a mile, and most days I made it to school on time, but some mornings I’d be quite late. My imagination full of mysteries to be solved sometimes would get lost amidst the Spanish moss that draped the oaks that lined both sides of the street.

What I liked most about that time when I lived there was the after dinner walks my grandmother and I would go on. Seffner was just a small town that featured a general store, a gas station that closed at 5 p.m., and a café that made the best cheeseburgers and fries around. The gas station was just about a half mile away, but we took our time getting there, and seldom did we ever take the same way. We had about five or six routes, depending on which streets we chose to go down or crisscross that would eventually lead to our final destination.

Most evenings, though, we would take the “pig route.” It was the long way around to the gas station, but the last street we walked down to get to the highway lead by this house that had a back yard with a chain link fence. It was a small house weathered gray with a front porch that had a curious bow in the middle. As we started to walk past the back yard we sometimes would get a King Kong size whiff of “pig poo.” And there in the far corner of the back yard was the white Pig, the enormous white pig with black splotches. On one of our walk-by’s we stopped to gawk at the pig. The old man who lived in the house came outside to greet us. “How you like my 320 pound porker?” he asked.

“Just fine,” I replied.

He then made this shrill noise that sounded like a car horn that shorted out. No sooner than that, the pig came running, snorting and squealing at the same time. “Say hello to Elmer,” the old man said. “He’s kinda like a big dog. You can reach over and pet him if you’d like.”

I looked at my grandmother for reassurance. “Go ahead,” she said, “It’s okay.” Petting Elmer, I marveled at how bristled its hair was. My grandmother thanked the old man and we continued on with our walk.

When we finally got to the gas station, she would open her pocket purse and take out two dimes and give them to me. I would then go up to the soda machine, slip a dime into the coin chute, open the door, and pull out a ten-once, ice-cold Coca-Cola and hand it to her. After getting mine, we sat down on the chairs that were in front of the gas station office and talked a spell. It was she that always initiated the conversation by asking, “So, how are you feeling today?”

Up until my mother had separated, I thought I was a “Dunham,” but after moving to Florida, my mother broke the news to me that I was actually a “Cunningham.” The man I knew as my father was my stepfather, and my three younger brothers were not my brothers, but my stepbrothers. At that age I could not find the words to express how confused and suddenly lonely I felt, but my grandmother sensed what I was feeling and helped me talk about it. Even though I had a new identity, it didn’t change the fact that my mother still loved me and that my stepbrothers were still my brothers. “Nothing in life is always perfect or fair,” she would say. “All we should accept of ourselves is to do the best we can.” Six months later my mother and stepfather reconciled, and we moved back to our house in Pittsfield, Mass. All had become almost right with the world again, just as my grandmother said it would.

I drift back into Patsy Cline singing “She’s Got You,” and I’m struck by the line: “I've got your memory, or, has it got me? I really don't know but I know it won't let me be.” 2005, 41 years gone by. I get up from my chair to get a can of Coke from the refrigerator. Opening it, I thank my grandmother for the time she spent with me as a young boy then, and for helping me later in life with my son after I became divorced.

It was February 28, 1998 when she went on what would be her last walk. After returning home, she sat down to watch T.V. with a bowl of soup that a neighbor had brought over for her. At 84 years old, she fell asleep and never woke up.

It’s after midnight. I decide to go out walkin’ just like we use to do.

S. L. Cunningham

Got To, Get To – Change The Way Your Family Thinks

2005-08-01T18:18:00.000-05:00

BY LINDSAY SMALL

I recently heard a story that has literally changed the way that I, and my family, think about life. The story is as follows:

There was once a high-powered woman in her 30s who ran her own company and was massively successful in business. Yet every single day, at 10am, she visited her elderly mother, who was in an old peoples’ home. When asked if she could attend meetings at that time, she would reply, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to visit my mother”. She sometimes resented the commitment and was occasionally ridiculed, but nevertheless answered, “No, I’m sorry, I’ve got to visit my mother.”

One day her mother died. Soon afterwards she was asked if she could make a meeting at 10am the following day. She started to reply, “No, I’m sorry, I’ve got to visit my mother”, but of course quickly realised that this was no longer the case. Sadly, she realised that for many years she had been saying, “I’ve got to visit my mother” when what she should have instead been saying was, “I get to visit my mother”. She would never "get to" visit her mother again.

So how does the story relate to other situations? I have been surprised by how many times the story has seemed appropriate since I heard it, just a few weeks ago. It applies to so many different aspects of family and working life, from the large to the mundane. For example, I first told my son the story when he was complaining about some extra French classes he was having at weekends (“I can’t believe I’ve got to go to the French tutor”). I explained that he is lucky to "get to" have the French classes: lucky that we care enough to notice he needs them, and lucky that we can afford to pay for them.

I thought of the story last night when my little girl was using every delaying tactic in the book about going to bed, and just refused to settle down. I caught myself thinking, “Oh no, I’ve got to go upstairs, miss the end of the television show I’m watching, and calm her down and settle her into bed” … but quickly replaced the thought with something along the lines of “I’m lucky that I "get to" spend 5 quiet minutes with this funny, amazing little girl, even if I am tired and could do with some rest!”

And I thought of the story again just this morning when the beeper on my tumble dryer annoyed me into emptying my clean washing! I turned some very negative, lazy thinking around by reminding myself that I was lucky to have a tumble dryer, the clothes to put into it, and the family to be washing them for! It was still a chore but somehow it didn’t seem such a bad one anymore.

My husband reminds himself of the story when the alarm clock goes off early in the morning and he struggles out of bed and to the train. He "gets to" go to work. Many people don’t. And I think of it when I am sitting, uninspired, in front of my computer, wishing that I didn’t have admin or website chores to do for Activity Village. The thought doesn’t last long. I may have admin and website chores to do, but I also "get to" provide activities and inspiration to parents, teachers and children around the world every week. How lucky can I be?

Lindsay Small is the creator and editor of Activity Village.co.uk - providing the ultimate one-stop resource for parents and teachers looking to educate and entertain their kids. Visit the website at http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/
and subscribe to the free newsletter at http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/free_newsletter.htm

"Article reprinted from SimplySearch4it! Articles Directory"

2005-07-31T17:04:00.000-05:00

No Need to Click Here - I'm just claiming my feed at Feedster feedster:e814e9bceae4b92db955d04d58c5359b

My Son's in the Army Now

2005-07-31T00:25:00.000-05:00

My son called the other night and said it’s official. He’s enlisted in the Army and starts basic training the third week of September at Fort Benning, GA. Living in Houston, TX for the last year and a half, he was going to begin his second year of college, but decided that trying to be a full-time student while working full-time to pay for tuition and books was too much of a struggle. He figures that while in the Army, he’ll at least get the training and courses he wants to take, and be doing something exciting and worthwhile without having to worry about food and shelter.

As a single parent, saving for his college tuition was not an option. It was all I could do to keep up with food, rent and bills. Without scholarships, my son decided to try and pay his own way. He didn’t want to apply for financial aid, even though I suggested a Pell Grant might be in his best interest. And he didn’t want to apply for student loans to be paid back. Luckily, his grandparents where able to help him with some of his college expenses during his first year, but he didn’t want to continue to ask for their help and support.

With a score of seventy-six on his ASVAB test, he has been allowed to choose his career path. He decided to sign up for the Special Forces Enlistment Option, and after he completes his training, he'll go on to schools battalion to train in communications or computer systems. It is good to hear how excited he is, and how promising his future seems to be.

His enthusiasm reminds me of how I felt when I went into the Marine Corps as a wide-eyed seventeen year old. When I stepped off the bus with seventy-two other recruits at MCRD-San Diego, I knew my life would never be the same--that everything up to that point somehow didn’t really matter anymore. After being shorn of all our hair, we had to change out of our civilian clothes, go through a shower, and then put on our new fatigues. No sooner than we got our boots on we were ordered to “fall in” for formation. From that first march to the barracks, I survived and endured the next twelve-weeks and became a Marine. And in the process I learned about honor, respect, courage, and commitment--values that I still live by.

It seems that I have been marching ever since. From the Marines as a truck driver to General Electric as a machinist; to college, graduate school and teaching; to marriage, divorce and single parenting; my life has been a series of events that only now I am beginning to understand and appreciate.

I wish my son well. Like Odysseus’s son, Telamachos, his adventures in life are only beginning. I can only hope that he will take advantage of the opportunities he is presented with, and that he is able to make the kind of choices that will ensure he lives a long life filled with goodness and hope.

S. L. Cunningham

Too Good Not To Post

2005-07-29T18:26:00.000-05:00

Because of the necessity to keep newspaper article headlines brief, unintended consequences sometimes result. This double entendre from The Courier Gazette: "Fungus bares ash trees." 28 July 2005: A1

Never again will I be able to think of denuded trees the same way.

S. L. Cunningham

The Future of Schooling: Hybrid Institutions

2005-07-25T16:53:00.000-05:00

While doing a search on NCLB, I came across an interesting article on mcall.com. In “The Future of Schooling: Hybrid Institutions,” Chester E. Finn Jr. argues that because of the No Child Left Behind Act, and the “premium” it puts on “reading, math, and science, the American curriculum is beginning to experience a gradual “separation of teaching and learning” from traditional school buildings, and being reshaped into “hybrid institutions.” In this type of setting, Finn says, students “may or may not be in school,” since most of the students’ instructional materials will be provided from “an array of educational providers” that will “enter seriously into the operation of schools and the creation and delivery of education services, both full-time and part-time, in school and out.”

Read More

S. L. Cunningham

"Anything That People Do and Monkeys Don't:" More on Dawkins, Replication, and Memes

2005-07-19T21:49:00.000-05:00

It is not often that I am stumped by the meaning of a word, but ‘meme” has succeeded in doing just that. Actually since my last post I’ve really been stuck on this to the point where my head has needed a good dose of ibuprofen. Because of Dawkins’s definition of “culture as a process of replication,” I am left with a feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty. I can’t say why I find his theory—though fascinating and convincing as it may be—so troubling, but I suspect it’s because intuitively I sense he is so wrong.

As Cosma Shalizi says in his review of Aaron Lynch’s Thought Contagion: How Beliefs Spread Through Society, "Dawkins is an extremely persuasive writer, as are some of those whom he has inspired to write about memes, most famously Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett. The notion of memes has led to a great deal of buzz and hand-waving and speculation, especially on the net, and even a decent sermon on tolerance. It makes a first-rate mind-toy. But some people want more, specifically an actual science of memetics, and at this point, if not before, they meet opposition. Memetics, an intelligent adversary might say, would not even be wrong. After all, social scientists and humanists have been looking at the transmission of folk-tales, myths, rumors, texts, mores, etc. for centuries. If it makes biologists and their sympathizers feel better to call all these things 'replicators,' well and good; no doubt they can even fit some numbers to the replicator equation, if they have nothing better to do." The Bactra Review, 30 September 1998.

To which we might consider the following:

"I don't know about you, but I am not initially attracted by the idea of my brain as a sort of dungheap in which the larvae of other people's ideas renew themselves, before sending out copies of themselves in an informational Diaspora. It does seem to rob my mind of its importance as both author and critic. Who is in charge, according to this vision--we or our memes?"—"Memes and the Exploitation of Imagination." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 48, 127-35, Spring 1990.

Whether we define our culture as a process of replication or not, I’m sure will be a subject of debate for some time. I will be surprised, though, if Dawkin's ethological argument of social biology becomes accepted theory of how we acquire our shared values and beliefs, social behaviors, customs and practices, for a culture defined in such terms lacks transcendence. And without transcendence how do you replicate the sublime?

S. L. Cunningham

Couch Potatoes, Dweebs, and Memes

2005-07-12T17:37:00.000-05:00

As a writer I am always fascinated by how certain words or phrases come into use, and how people sometimes readily use what’s popular or current to express how they are feeling or thinking about any number of things without actually having to think or feel. What’s particularly fascinating about certain idioms or catch phrases is how we so easily glom onto them. By becoming a part of the common vernacular, these expressions or colloquiums in turn describe and define not only the culture of a specific decade, but also an entire generation.

The eighties especially were prolific in spawning coined words and catch phrases. Awesome became annoyingly irksome, and eventually was replaced by bitchin’. And most everybody was easily categorized as couch potatoes, dinks, airheads, yuppies, Joanies, jocks, dweebs and scumbags. To be spontaneous meant going horizontal. And everything about the eighties was way cool. The proliferation continued on into the nineties with back in the day, stylin’, tweak, wacked, going postal, and chillin’ just to name a few.

And so it is with our current decade. During the early 2000’s when I was interviewing for teaching positions, I began to pick up on how my answers to certain questions that were asked of me became a “nice segue.” Segue to what I was never sure of, but whenever I heard it expressed by the person interviewing me, I took it that we were connecting on some deep, personal level. Unfortunately not to the level, though, where I was offered a position.

Presently, one word that seems to have increased in amplitude during the last year has been “meme.” I never heard of it until a few months back when I encountered a blog that featured “book memes.” Curious as to what a “book meme” was, I read the individual’s posts only to discover that what she was featuring were no more than reviews of books that she had recently read. And so my question then was why would a simple review or critique of a literary work be considered a meme? Not exactly sure what the term meant, I decided to look it up. Quite a few dictionaries later I finally found this entry in the 2000 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, which defines meme as “a unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.”

Mulling the definition about a few times to try and get the flavor of it, I remained undecided as to whether or not I liked the taste. To think of a book as a “unit of cultural information” somehow seemed so utilitarian. A little research later I discovered that Richard Dawkins coined the word meme from the Greek, mimema (The Selfish Gene, 1989, p.192), which basically translates as, “that which is to be imitated.” His argument is that certain concepts or ideas related to skills, habits, catch phrases, song, clothing, etc., are passed on person to person in a manner that he describes as a process of replication, (ibid). For Dawkins meme is analogous to gene, and as such should be considered as “living structures” much in the same way as genes, and propagate themselves by a process of imitation. By passing on ideas, believes, phrases, songs, etc., to other individuals, according to Dawkins, you are in essence using their minds as hosts for “propagating” memes from individual to individual much in the same way “that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell,” (ibid).

To me it seems that to describe “imitation” in terms of living structures much in the same way as “genes” strikes me as one of those wild inductive leaps that smacks more of contrivance than science. And yet “meme” seems to have replicated itself in such fervor that it is becoming more evident as to how many people are beginning to make it a part of their everyday vernacular. Do a search on Google and you’ll not only find “book memes,” but you can also find “learning memes,” “personal memes,” “logical memes,” and so on. Even more curious is a recent e-mail that people are passing on to each other that’s called a “meme baton.” I’ve received three invitations to participate, and so far have decided to take a pass. Two of the “meme batons” had to do with music and one had to do with books. The purpose of the “meme baton” is to answer a series of questions, and then pass it on to three other people:

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
The last book you bought is?
What are you currently reading?
Five books you would take to a deserted island?
Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

As the “meme baton” replicates itself from email to email I have to wonder what happens should you choose not to pass it on. Does the “meme” die? Or are you cursed in some way for choosing not to participate? What I find particularly troubling is that a few people who have sent me an invitation express amazement at how contagious this “meme baton” has become. Contagious? It’s as if they had no choice but to respond and pass it on. They were not necessarily compelled to do so, but instead, as Dawkins might put it, were infected to participate.

I wish I could go back a few thousand years or so and seek out Socrates. It would be interesting to see what kind of dialogue we could intitiate in trying to define what a meme is. If it is a process of replication by which invidivuals pass on ideas, beliefs, and so forth as Dawkins describes, then it would seem to me that this would raise a few philosophical questions in determining the validity of his argument. What happens, for example, if an idea is not passed on. Does that mean that idea no longer exists? Do we love, hope, cherish, and pray because our brains have been replicated to do so? And if much of what we do in life is no more than a process of imitation and replication, then what about free will? Perhaps I am begging the issue, but what troubles me about Dawkins’s theory is that ideas, beliefs, and emotions can be so easily quantized and explained without necessarily debating the validity of those ideas, beliefs, and emotions. And so I wonder, just what kind of abstraction am I dealing with here that my poor, humble mind doesn’t understand?

References:
Dawkins, R., The Selfish Gene( Oxford University Press, 1989).

S. L. Cunningham

Getting Kids Out of the Textbooks

2005-07-09T10:27:00.000-05:00

"Science is deciding what we do know and what we don't know. We're teaching them [students] to ask questions."

Nate Larlee of Thorndike, Maine,
Outward Bound Math and Science Program Coodinator in a outdoor science project involving students with investigating the causes for the high phosphorous levels in Pushaw Lake.
Bangor Daily News, July 2-3, 2005, C1

Rescue Me (Training to be a Lifeguard at 51)

2005-07-01T23:30:00.000-05:00

After I returned to work from vacation, I learned that I had been volunteered for lifeguard training. At my age of 51 you’re not sure whether your boss has just given you the ultimate compliment or whether he is totally lacking in reality. Although I do exercise regularly and make a modest effort to keep in shape, swimming has not been my physical activity of choice for sometime. Thus when I was told I was going to have show up at 8 o’clock Wednesday morning at Camp Fairhaven in Brooks, Maine and be prepared to do a 500-yard swim, I felt a little apprehensive to say the least, especially considering that the only swimming I’ve come close to lately has been in my bathtub, and there’s no 500-yards about it.

No sooner than I arrived at the camp, I was greeted by one of the lifeguard instructors. She pointed to the dock down by the water, and told me to head on down. From where I was standing the pond didn’t seem to be that formidable, but when I got down to the dock, I started to have a different perspective on things. It was a perfect day for a swim--clear sky and a bright summer sun glistening off the water--with the temperature already at 80 degrees. Sticking my hand into the water, I was relieved to find it wasn’t too cold. I was greeted by a couple of my colleagues who were also there for the training. It wasn’t too long before the instructor arrived. She called us together and then explained that what she wanted us to do was to swim toward the other shore using a modified crawl and after turning around, to swim back using a breaststroke half way, and then freestyle for the rest. “When swimming out, make sure to keep your head above the water. You want to be looking straight ahead the whole time,” she said.

She then climbed into a kayak and paddled out just a ways. Looking at us, she said, “Anytime you’re ready.” I walked to the edge of the dock and looked across the pond. “This is just nuts,” I said to myself. I stared down into the water, and then dove in. Whether I wanted to or not, I was now committed and decided to make the most of it. In my teens I used to be a long distance swimmer, and won a few one-mile and five-mile swim awards. About a third way into my swim, though, I started to realize that the pace I used to be able to swim at was not the pace I could swim at now. I began to quickly tire and found myself having a difficult time catching my breath. I stopped swimming and asked the instructor if I could just flounder a bit and catch my breath. “Do you need to come out,” she asked. “When I finish I will,” I replied. After catching my breath, I resumed swimming at a slower pace, and finally found myself making progress with forward motion. About 50 yards from the other shore, the instructor finally said, “You can turn around.”

After making the turn, I focused on the dock that I jumped off from. I kept a steady pace and began to feel more self-assured as the dock loomed larger and larger. My arms and legs started to feel like rubber, but I kept on going. Finally I reached the dock and, oh, did it ever feel great to get my hand on the edge. Even though the entire swim was only about 12 minutes it seemed like forever. After two attempts I was able to flop myself up on the dock like a trout that’s been reeled in from a catch. It was good to see that my much younger colleagues were equally exhausted. The instructor climbed out of her kayak. “Congratulations,” she said; “You all passed.”

Thus began our training as a Certified Red Cross Lifeguards. We found ourselves in a class with a group of seven teenagers who work as summer counselors at the camp. For the duration of that day and the next two, we spent time in class learning about injury prevention, techniques used in performing rescues in the water, first aid and CPR. When we weren’t in class, we were in the water, sometimes as long as three hours at a time, learning and practicing skills involved in rescuing a victim near the surface, under the surface, and how to do rescues in the water with victims who may have sustained head, neck, and back injuries in the water.

Even though Wednesday may have been a perfect summer day, the next two days were cold and rainy. Thursday the temperature never broke 60 degrees and after being in the water for a while, my hands started to numb out on me. I find that when I’m cold I don’t concentrate very well, and as a result, I was having to perform a rescue technique more than a couple of times until the instructors finally said, “Good.” After taking the written tests Thursday night, I showed up at the dock at 8 A.M. Friday to take the final water skills test. Unlike Wednesday morning where it had been a sunny 80 degrees, it was 52 degrees and raining. I looked at the faces of the rest of the people who were in my class, and saw they were pretty much equally expressing what I felt. One of the younger persons finally spoke. “I hope I get each skill right the first time, because I don’t want to be in the water any longer than I have to.”

The instructors greeted us and then told us to get in the water. It was hard not to be miserable but all of us surprisingly made the best of it and helped each other get through the Skills Test as quickly as possible. I even surprised myself when I nailed all the difficult rescues in one attempt, especially with the head splint technique that’s used for a face-down victim who’s suffered a possible neck or back injury. The day before I struggled quite a bit with trying to remember that I needed to grasp the victim’s arms midway between the shoulder and elbow. Considering that several of my victims drowned yesterday because I forget one or two steps involved in performing a rescue, I felt good today knowing that all my victims survived. After two and half long days, it felt pretty good to know I passed. My body, though, barely passed. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt completely sore all over. With all the swimming and performing rescues, I’ve discovered muscles that I didn’t think I had anymore. And so Friday night I spent a long time doing my favorite swim—the stationary plop-oneself-down-and-take-a-load-off in a bathtub of warm water with Epsom salts.

S. L. Cunningham

Summer Reading

2005-06-25T23:35:00.000-05:00

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;ampamp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;ampamp;gt; It is not often that I’m asked to promote a book, especially by a writer who has recently had her first book published. Such as it was, though, that I received an invitation by email to do just that.

Jackpot Tsipi Keller
Spuyten Duyvil 2004
ISBN 0-9720662-1-7
224 pages

I was reluctant at first because I was five days away from starting my trip out to California, but I did manage to get a copy to read, and I have to say it’s an astonishingly impressive work.

From Publisher’s Weekly:

A Bahamian vacation turns into a nightmarish dreamworld in Tsipi Keller's smart, sly Jackpot. Maggie has long been cowed by her beautiful friend Robin, so when Robin leaves Paradise Island for a spur-of-the-moment sailing trip, Maggie has a chance to shine. Instead, she descends into wild gambling and even wilder sex, though she somehow retains her innocence. Keller expertly charts Maggie's transformation in this accomplished and oddly gripping novel.

Other reviews are equally favorable:

This marvelously engaging and pleasurable novel is like a cross between watching a sly Eric Rohmer film about the spiritual crisis of vacation and reading a Jean Rhys interior monologue of a woman in extremis. For all its horrific aspects, it has a steady undercurrent of humor: the comedy derives from showing the precise mechanisms of low self-esteem, rationalization and self-indulgence. A wickedly readable,psychologically astute and drolly knowing fiction. Phillip Lopate

Keller’s new novel, Jackpot, has the characteristics of something created by a linguistic survivor. In simple, precise yet enticing prose, it tells the story of a conflict between social convention and raw, dangerous appetite. Like a speaker of two languages, it exists on two levels: one appropriate and familiar, the other foreign and disturbing. Such a structure mirrors the immigrant experience. On the surface it is decorous, appropriate, and earnest; on another, muffled plane, all is anguish and confusion. Bruce Benderson

This book is not easy to put down once you begin to read it. You really begin to care about the book’s main character, Maggie, and at times you feel like a parent to a child who somehow seems to have to make all the wrong choices before making that one choice that finally breaks the spell of self-destruction. Keller’s prose is taut, concise, and at times mesmerizing in her account of Maggie’s “fall from grace.”

S. L. Cunningham

2005-06-25T18:58:00.000-05:00

"Cadillac Ranch--the ultimate roadside attraction!"

Posted by Hello

2005-06-22T19:00:00.000-05:00

"If you ever plan to motor west
Travel my way, take the highway that's the best
Get your kicks on Route 66."

Posted by Hello

Seeing the USA in My Chevrolet

2005-06-17T23:25:00.000-05:00

"A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans,
safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that
after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us."
John Steinbeck

I could have flown out to attend my daughter's high school graduation, but instead I chose to make the 7120 mile round trip journey from Belfast, Maine to Arroyo Grande, California and back in my silver 2003 Chevy Cavalier. After spending almost an entire week on the west coast, I finally arrived back home the other day.

And what an adventure. With my cousin as my traveling companion and co-driver, we made the drive out to California in three days flat. Along the way, we managed to find a couple of stretches of Rt. 66 in Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona to drive on. But the real highlight of the trip out was Cadillac Ranch. We were just outside of Amarillo, Texas when my cousin spotted the buried-nose-first-in-the-ground vintage Cadillacs. It's a short walk through a grass field to the 10 cars speckled in layers of painted graffiti. Though what I found particularly curious was that all the cars were facing west. "Rust henge with cows for a backdrop," I suggested to my cousin. She laughed and said I spend too much time pondering over things that just should be appreciated for what they are. After taking pictures and bemusing over the display, we headed back to the car and continued on with our journey.

We finally arrived in Arroyo Grande the next afternoon, a day earlier than planned. After I dropped my cousin off at a friend's house, I checked into the Great Western Casa Grande Inn. I called my ex-wife to let her know I made it in okay, and was taken aback when she invited me over for a cup of coffee. We hadn't seen each other since we divorced almost 16 years ago. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Together, we had two children: my son, who lived with me while growing up; and my daughter, who has lived with her mother.

My ex-wife was very gracious during the entire event, especially when her parents came to attend the graduation. Not once was I made to feel excluded. Both of us were accepting of the fact that this was our daughter's time, and that we were not going to allow anything to interfere with that.

The day of graduation was made to order, an outdoor ceremony on the athletic field under a clear blue sky. Watching my daughter march up to the stage to receive her diploma caught me in a plethora of surprised emotions. The little girl I had helped welcome into the world was now crossing the threshold into adulthood. After the ceremony, my son, ex-wife and I caught up with her for picture taking, a moment that caused me to experience a brief wave of melancholy.

The next day my daughter and I drove over to Pismo Beach to have burgers and fries for lunch. After eating, she dropped me back off at the hotel. We said goodbye, knowing that it might be sometime before we see each other again. She’s off to college this fall, and hasn’t decided on anything firm for a major. “I want to spend the first year exploring possibilities,” she said.

Sunday morning, we began our drive back to Maine.

While cutting through Nevada, we encountered a bug infestation unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. About ten miles before Winnemucca, we were blitzed by several clouds of yellow, green flying insects about the size of a rice kernel. We stopped at a gas station there, and spent a good fifteen minutes trying to wash the windshield. Little did we know that it was about to become even worse.

For the next 100 miles or so we had to stop every three of four miles to clean the windshield. Sometimes we drove into a cloud that would result in an immediate pullover. After thirty miles the front of my car and my front license plate were no longer distinguishable. The truckers especially were having a hard go of it. As we traveled along, we saw many of them stopped on the side of the road with the hoods of their trucks up, busy with cleaning their windshields. And every store we stopped at for washer fluid or window cleaner had sold out. Although washer fluid with the wipers proved to be totally ineffective, and created a blinding smear of bug goo that made driving nearly impossible.

Luckily when we got into Elko, Nevada, we found a car wash that had warm water. When I finished washing the car, I noticed I had about a three-inch wide and eighth-inch thick outline of the front of the car on the cement floor. My cousin and I just stood there amazed that what we were looking at were the bugs that had been washed off from the front of the car. She looked at me. “Can anyone say, ‘X-files?’” she asked.

Nebraska proved to be a surprise. Instead of flat, barren land with nothing to look at, we instead found a state lush with green grass and rolling hills that made for an interesting contrast with the small farms, almost all of which were nestled in a grove of cottonwoods and oaks. As the sun set behind us, it became a huge orange ball that slowly sank below the horizon, and as it did so, it created a pastel sky of light blue, purple, and fiery red. Like Arizona, the Nebraska sky becomes alive at night. With a display of stars from horizon to horizon, my cousin and I were treated to several falling stars. The next night at a rest stop in Pennsylvania, we spent a considerable amount of time watching fireflies flit about the grass and trees. Compared to the last couple of nights where it was considerably frigid in Utah and Nebraska, we finally experienced what felt more like summer.

I was nineteen years old when I first drove across the country from Pittsfield, Massachusetts to Santa Maria, California. Compared to now I don’t think I had any real sense, nor was appreciative of how vast and diverse this country we live in and call home actually is. Instead of just simply driving or being a passenger, my cousin and I took it all in and became a part of the landscape that enveloped us as we journeyed across America. After seeing the Appalachians, the Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the deserts of Arizona and California, the majesty of the Sierra Nevadas, and the great rivers of the Colorado, Missouri and Mississippi, and the large cities of Boston, New York City, Cleveland, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, Los Angeles and many others that serve as our hubs of government, commerce and culture, it is truly amazing to think of the synergy involved that makes this country work. Whether lobstering off the coast of Maine, or planting corn in Nebraska, or raising cattle in Wyoming, or just going to work everyday with the thousands of jobs we commit to in the thousands of different places we live, each and everyone of us in spite of our heritage or race, political or cultural differences, contribute to making this country such an obliging and magnificent place that we call our home.

S.L. Cunningham
Published in The Republican Journal, 14 July 2005: B10.

Querencia

2005-06-07T15:46:00.000-05:00

"How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you - you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences - like rags and shreds of your very life."
Katherine Mansfield

This morning I woke up after a good night of just plain sleeping. It's amazing how three days of solid driving from Maine to California can make a bed feel. My cousin and I made it in yesterday afternoon, and after I dropped her off at a friend's house, I continued on to Arroyo Grande where I will be attending my daughter's graduation from high school this Thursday.

It's a perfect sunny day, warm, but not too hot because of the cool ocean breeze. After I had breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast and coffee at Corcoran's, I spent the rest of the morning taking a walk on Grover Beach. After awhile I veered off and started following a foot path leading up to the dunes. The vista afforded can only be described as incredible. To the south you can follow the outline of the beach as it wraps its way toward Guadalupe. Running east-west are the
Seven Peaks of the Coastal Mountain Ranges that drop more than 1500 feet toward the coast as you start traveling north toward Avila Beach. When you take it all in, it's hard not to feel overwhelmed with a sense of connectedness--of place--or what the Spanish would refer to as querencia.

Even the town of Arroyo Grande fits within its surroundings--the quaint village and surrounding homes with well landscaped parkways, medians and yards--and features a showcase of civic pride. As much as I hate to admit it, I find that I am really beginning to like this place. Looking back on the Pacific I am struck by how good it feels to imagine what it would be like to live here. In certain ways I'm almost convinced that the quality of my life would improve significantly if I were to move here. Oh, sure, as a drawback, one could argue that it is far too expensive to live here, that the prices are too high, and housing is simply unaffordable. But so is it where I live in Belfast, Maine, which also has incredible beauty punctuated by very long, cold and snowy winters. In comparison Belfast almost seems lethargic to the hustle and bustle of Arroyo Grande.

Saturday morning, though, it will be time to head back to Maine. It's a long drive, but what an experience. You don't really get a sense, nor appreciate how vast this country is until you've driven across it. I can almost hear the line from the Mamma's and The Papa's Creque Alley, "And California Dreaming is becoming such a reality." And so once again I will say, "adios" to this place--my querencia--of hills and mountains of green and golden brown that roll into the ocean, the scrub oaks and sage, the oleanders that bathe the medians of the city streets in reds, purples and white, the green succulents that cover the embankments, and the long, long walks on the beach as the sun begins to sink below the rim of the Pacific. Adios, that is until next time when hopefully I just might return for good.

S. L. Cunningham

Developing A Sound Framework for the Teaching of Composition and Literature

2005-06-02T21:24:00.000-05:00

“Thought is metaphoric, and proceeds by comparison, and the
metaphors of language derive therefrom” Richards, Philosophy of Rhetoric (Galaxy Books)1936, p. 94).

In developing a sound framework for the teaching of composition and literature, I should begin by being perceptive to my students’ needs and interests, and to their psychological development in order to facilitate their growth as learners. I should recognize that students should be allowed choices not only with what they learn, but also with how they learn by encouraging students to pursue and make choices “in words, phrases, syntactic structures, ordering of material, modes of discourse, and the like, (Burke, 1966). Thus, my “map” and the strategies I would use to help my students become involved with their reading and writing would be based on the following decision continuums:

· that the teaching of composition and literature is
a facilitative process
· that learning how to read and write is, primarily,
a process that is autodidactic, and as such, requires
active participation
· that discovery and learning is seen as a collaborative
effort between the teacher and students
· that reading and writing is taught on the basis of
helping students understand themselves in a larger context
· that the reading of literature is taught as a process of asking
questions, of understanding the relationship between thought
and word. It is a dialectical process by which we pursue a
method of inquiry (heuristics) for the purpose of
understanding the inter-connectedness of a work, of how a work
is put together and ultimately, helping the students articulate what
a work means to them (Vygotsky, Thought and Language - Rev'd Edition1962, p. 153).
· that lecture or discussion of composition and literature is understood
as the basis for discourse and as a means of guiding students toward
self-discovery and competence.

It is by asking questions in search for answers that we learn how to generate our ideas to higher principles. As a teacher of Composition and Literature, I must continually ask myself what I want to accomplish by the writing I assign to my students, and by the literature I present to them. Writing and reading are the means by which we explore how language is used. Language,
essentially is our only symbol system by which we communicate to others our ideas and emotions. By studying how other writers use words and syntactical structures, students can learn how to make applications that eventually help strengthen their own thinking and writing capabilities.

S. L. Cunningham

Kahlil Gilbran on Teaching

2005-05-31T19:57:00.000-05:00

"Whoever would be a teacher, let him begin by teaching himself before teaching others, and let him teach by examples before teaching by word. For he who teaches himself and rectifies his own ways is more deserving of respect and reverence than he who would teach others and rectify their ways." Joseph Sheban, ed. Wisdom of Kahlil Gibran(New York: Bantam Books, 1973), p. 93.

Human Mildew

2005-05-27T20:52:00.000-05:00

Although Maine is not particularly known as a wet state, we have had a series of storms during the last week that have dumped an enormous amount of rain, about 6-10 inches total. It seems that because of the constant moisture and lack of sunlight, we have a newly discovered epidemic to contend with. In an article by dermatologist William Gallagher, M.D. (Bangor Daily News, 27 May 2005, op-ed page), several patients with “wooly growth coming out of the ears, and similar wooly changes . . . found on the eyebrows” have been diagnosed with “Human Mildew,” which is said to be a disease that gives the patient a “werewolf like appearance.”

Dr. Gallagher describes “Human Mildew” as a “rare condition caused by an overgrowth of yeasts, fungi and mold.” It is a condition, he says, that is “precipitated by constant wet weather.” He further says that many patients experience “depressive symptoms, i.e. irritability and episodes of crying.” Because very little seems to be actually known of the disease, it cannot be easily determined whether these symptoms are due to constant damp conditions, or to “unexplained toxic effects of fungi on the brain.”

The only “effective therapy” in treating this disease, he says, is “removal of the patient to a warm, sunny and dry environment.” In one case, a patient was “cleared of the lesions after spending a few days in Las Vegas.” Hopefully we will get a break in our weather, and begin to warm up and dry out. Otherwise, as Dr. Gallagher says, “we will be seeing more folks in the mall looking like characters from a Stephen King novel.”

A Third Grader's Perspective On Learning

2005-05-25T18:05:00.000-05:00

"I'm into frogs. I don't learn that from school.
I learn that from books and I learn that from
the woods."

--Alex Hooper, a third-grader leading a team of
24 paddlers around Swan Lake to raise funds for
the Pine Tree Camp. "Quote of the Week," The
Republican Journal, 26 May 2005, A4

Bill Gates on the State of the American High School

2005-05-19T18:28:00.000-05:00

“America’s high schools are obsolete.
By obsolete, I don’t just mean they’re broken, flawed or underfunded,
though a case could be made for everyone of those points. By obsolete,
I mean our high schools...even when they’re working as designed...cannot
teach all of our students what they need to know today.” Bill Gates,
National Education Summit on High Schools

If anyone else but Bill Gates had made the pronouncement that today’s high schools are “obsolete,” it probably would not even get so much as a yawn. After all, it’s been argued for several years now that our present educational system is clearly flawed. But for Gates to address the nation’s governors, along with other business and educational leaders in a February speech at the National Educational Summit on High Schools, and declare that today’s high schools are not designed to meet the specific needs and interests of our students, and leaves them ill-prepared to meet the challenges that will be expected of them later on when they enter college and the workforce, is akin to the proverbial shot that’s definitely been fired as a challenge for all of us to do something about it. Whether what he has said is heard and acted on remains to be seen. Nevertheless, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested almost a billion dollars for the purpose of doing just that, helping to redesign and rebuild the American High School.

In doing so he also proposes in his speech a specific framework for developing better high schools that will be more responsive in meeting the needs and challenges of our students today. “The new three R’s,” as he says that will be the “new building blocks” are:

Rigor—making sure all students are given a challenging curriculum that
prepares them for college or work;
Relevance—making sure kids have courses and projects that clearly relate to their lives and their goals;
Relationships—making sure kids have a number of adults who know them, look
out for them, and push them to achieve.

There is much work that needs to be done in making such a transformation reality, but I would not just start with our high schools. It has been tirelessly argued that our entire educational system is a systemic failure. Because so many of our students who are graduated from our high schools are ill-prepared to meet the challenges that lie ahead, we have experienced a tsunami of educational reform during the last several years from NCLB to individual states determining their own specific mandates. The graduating class of 2007 here in Maine for example is going to be in for a real shock. Under the competencies defined by the Maine Learning Results that they will be required to demonstrate mastery of in order to graduate, very few will be able to do so.

As educators, business and community leaders, we need to join the debate in discussing how we can positively change the school culture from pre-school through 12th grade to make it more responsive to the behavior and learning of our children. But more than simply challenging our most cherished assumptions in regard to teaching, and what an education should look like, we need to develop, as Gates argues, a sound pedagogy that informs educational practice, especially in terms of acknowledging that effective teaching can only occur by tailoring instruction to the specific needs and interests of our students, and by making what we teach, whether it’s English, science, social studies or math, relevant.

It is not that teachers teach that is important; it is that students learn. “Reform” is not the operative word. Reform will not keep a rust bucket running forever. There are only so many times it can be repaired before it just won’t go anymore.

copyright © 2005 by S. L. Cunningham
All rights reserved.

A Thought on Being Authentic

2005-05-18T21:31:00.000-05:00

"Some of what we have learned is trivial; some has changed our lives forever. Much of the time, learning is a joy, especially when it meets a clearly felt need, takes us toward some destination, or helps us make sense of something, formally obscure. But sometimes it brings pain, and we struggle mightily not to see the obvious" (Daloz, Laurent A., Effective Teaching and Mentoring: Realizing the Transformational Power of Adult Learning Experiences (Jossey Bass Higher and Adult Education Series), 1986, p.1).

A Strengths-Based Approach to Classroom Management

2005-05-14T20:22:00.000-05:00

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;ampamp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;ampamp;gt; Trying to vie for student’s attention in the classroom today certainly is not as easy as it was for teachers during my youth. A teacher today, aside from having to contend with student’s emotional and behavioral issues, has to compete with TV, video games, cell phones, pc’s, and a slew of other distractions. Teaching was never meant to be a form of entertainment, per se, yet many students have the unexpressed expectation of being entertained. Thus to get students interested in what you’re about, and become involved as active participants in the classroom, today’s teacher has to be a regular Felix the Cat with a potent magic bag full of learning strategies and tools to gain student’s interest, trust and participation.

As my own son has often proved, young people have incredible energy and enthusiasm, and trying to keep up with them is an incredible challenge in itself. Thus without clear expectations as to what is expected of our students while in the classroom can lead to spending most of the period being Marshall Dillon maintaining law and order. Too often class is said to have gone well if you survived another day without a confrontation with a student that escalated into a major blowout.

In How to Promote Children's Social and Emotional Competence, Carolyn Webster-Stratton offers a strengths-based approach to classroom management by developing a variety of techniques and strategies that will help both teachers and students realize success in the classroom. Even though she says her book is intended for teachers of students aged 3 to 10, her ideas can be easily utilized and applied to older students as well. But not just that, this is a book that could be a terrific resource for parents and homeschoolers. As she says, “ . . . you will find some of the proactive strategies used by teachers to help create a safe and predictable environment for. . . students to learn and a place where problem behaviors are less likely to occur,” (p.50).

Where's My Shorts!

2005-05-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

When I taught eighth grade reading at Crosby Junior High, I had this one particular student in my Period 6 reading class that had cornered the market on “obnoxiousness.” Reading class was supposed to be quiet, but for whatever reasons, John found “silence” an extremely difficult concept to grasp. Every now and then he would have to resort to some measure, any measure, to break the silence. One day it was a belching spasm. Another time it was a gas attack that proved you could never have too many windows in a room, even if it was 20 below zero outside. But there was this one eventful day where he really outdid himself.

Somehow, just before coming to class, he had managed to get a black skirt. How, or where, I didn’t know, and at the time I think I didn’t really want to know. After the students had shared their responses to the books they had been reading, I had them settle in for silent reading. While everyone was quietly at their desks reading, including me, John managed to slip out of his Bermuda shorts, and then slip into the skirt. After putting it on he stood up and started to strut about the room. That’s when the commotion started. At first it was just a couple of giggles, but it was quickly followed by loud hysterical laughter.

During the excitement, one of the students noticed John’s shorts on the floor. While John was putting on his fashion show to everyone’s delight, the student reached over, grabbed the shorts, and then got up and walked over to my desk at the back corner of the room, and tossed them under my chair. After the student sat back down, I went over to my desk as if I were going to get a couple of books. I reached down and quickly snatched the shorts. Without anyone looking, I turned around and stuffed the shorts in my file cabinet.

I then returned to the front of the room and sat down at my table. After John had tired of amusing everyone, and the laughter started to fade back to a couple of chuckles, I redirected the students to settle back in and finish with their reading and writing their responses. John went to sit back down at his desk. Just before sitting down, he looked under his desk and froze. “Where’s my shorts,” he yelled!

The student who had hid John’s shorts under my desk seemed equally panicked when he looked over and saw they weren’t there. He cupped his hand over his mouth, and then put his head down between his arms on the desk. I never let on what I did. After the students had settled back in with their reading, John reluctantly resigned himself to sitting at his desk for the remainder of the period wearing the black skirt he had slipped into.

Just before the bell rang, I retrieved his shorts from the filing cabinet and placed them behind my back. When the bell rang John was near panic. “Mr. C.," he said as he looked at me with a pained look. "Someone took my shorts. I can’t go to the rest of my classes like this.”

I looked at John and said, “The next time you decide to play a practical joke, you might want to think about the consequences.” I then handed him back his shorts. I told him he had detention, and then left to go on break. “Oh, John, after you change back into your shorts, shut the door on your way out. And hurry, you only have a couple of minutes before Period 7 starts.

All I Wanted To Do After I Got Out Of High School Was Drive A Truck

2005-04-30T22:52:00.000-05:00

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school,
It’s a wonder I can think at all.
Paul Simon, The Paul Simon Collection: On My Way, Don't Know Where I'm Goin'

Teaching as a possible career was something I never considered until my senior year at Cal-State Long Beach. I had been recommended by my faculty adviser to teach a course in Comparative Literature. Long story as to how that came about. Anyway, never having taught anything before, I was a little nervous to say the least. It was one thing to be a student sitting in someone else’s class, but to be a teacher standing up in front of a class of unfamiliar faces was an entirely different thing. The fact is I didn’t have a clue as to how to conduct a class. And having a course syllabus that my faculty advisor had helped me develop certainly didn’t instill me with a sense of confidence that I was actually going to be able to pull this off.

The focus of this course was on the quest and fulfillment of a journey by reading and discussing works from Homer’s The Odyssey to Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. After introducing myself to the class and explaining procedures, requirements and evaluation, I wrote the following question on the board and asked my students to write a brief response:

Who are we? Why are we here? Where are we going?

After my students finished their initial writing, I read the opening paragraph to Homer’s, The Odyssey. Just as I was to start an initial discussion, a student raised her hand and told me that class had ended 5 minutes ago. I apologized and thanked them for a great beginning, and gave them their assignment for their next class.

Thus began my journey as a teacher. And until that first day, the idea of teaching as a profession was something I never considered as a career. I was a writer, specifically a poet. And as a poet, I wanted to master my craft. I wanted to be with others who shared my interest not just with writing, but with reading as well. My passion for writing and reading has been and still is a life long ambition. But as any young idealist soon discovers, you can’t pay the bills on ambition alone.

Thus during the teaching of that course, I came to realize teaching would be a terrific way to make a living. As Robert Frost put it, the true marriage between “avocation and vocation,” (1936). It was then that I decided teaching for me would become the means to share with others my passion, joy, as a writer and reader, and by doing so, help them understand the process involved with writing and reading, and as a result, become more comfortable and confident with their own writing and reading.

Because I didn’t go into teaching through the front door by majoring in education, and taking the prescribed teacher-training courses, I encountered quite a few interesting problems and conflicts when I began teaching high school. After graduating Cal-State Long Beach in 1980, I moved to a small town in Maine and tried out a high school teaching position in remedial English. The department head wanted me to use the textbook, workbooks and activity sheets that the curriculum committee had approved for the courses I was hired to teach. In reviewing the materials, however, I knew that I would not be able to provide the students with a viable learning experience, and as such, would not be effective in improving their English skills if I were to use them.

At first I didn’t really understand why I considered the use of the recommended (mandated) materials so objectionable. It wasn’t until I reflected upon my own experiences when I was a public school student that I began to realize why I had such a strong objection to what I was being directed to do. I hated school. And in particular, I hated English. And the reason I hated English—with the exception of one particularly good English teacher I had in eighth grade—was because of the half-witted, unenthusiastic tyrants who bored me to death with textbooks, activity sheets, quizzes, book reports, five paragraph essays, and mind-numbing workbooks on grammar, vocabulary and spelling. My frustration was especially acute, if not ironic, considering that the two things I liked doing the most on my own—reading and writing—somehow never seemed related to what I did in English. By the time I had finished 10th grade, I decided school was not for me. I discovered I could actually learn much more effectively and efficiently at home and at the library then I could at school. Yet, here I was ten years later, teaching English to a group of totally apathetic, if not disaffected students.

It was then that I decided I was not going to be the kind of teacher to them that my teachers had been to me. I helped my students develop reading lists based on their interest and needs for books and magazines available at the school and town library. I required them to keep journals for their individual writing and responses to the books and magazines they read. They were also required to keep a portfolio of all their written work that they did throughout the year. Instead of workbooks and activity sheets, I taught writing and reading skills in context with the books the students actually read.

The amazing thing was how interested and productive these students became with their studies. Class discussion, especially group discussions, became both purposeful and enjoyable. Students started to take an active interest in their reading and writing, and started to read and write more significant content as the year progressed. For their final project, students had to put together a chapbook comprised of their best work for the year, prefaced with an introduction on what they learned about themselves in relation to the reading and writing that they did during the course of the year. During the last week of school, they displayed their work in the library, and made themselves available to talk about their chapbooks, and what they had learned.

In spite of the significant improvement and achievement these students had accomplished, especially in terms of their writing and reading development, none of that mattered. Because I had refused to use the required texts and materials, I was told I would not be recommended for a continuing contract unless I showed deference to their prescribed curriculum. I decided to part company, and headed off to graduate school to pursue an MFA in English.

After I completed my first year of graduate work at Wichita State, I began to teach courses in freshman composition and classical rhetoric under the direction of Professors Anthony Gythiel and Peter Zoeller. It was from them that I learned that the teaching of composition and literature as an object of study should be taught as a process of asking questions, of understanding the relationship between thought and word. To read or to write is to initiate discourse, either with the text or ourselves, and that when we teach literature and composition to our students we do so as a collaborative effort by which teacher and students join together in exploring the means by which we make discoveries. Because of them, I began to reflect on what kind of teacher I wanted to be, and to develop ideas in regard to a teaching philosophy that would not necessarily be student-centered or teacher-directed, but instead a dialectical approach which would allow me to develop ideas that would help me transcend the teaching of composition and literature.

After graduating Wichita State in 1984 with an MFA in English/Creative Writing, I moved back to Maine, and secured a teaching position at George Stevens Academy, a private high school. My four years there were fortuitous in that I was able to experience incredible growth and insight as a teacher. Unlike my first high school teaching experience, I was not monopolized by a prescriptive curriculum. I was given complete autonomy in selecting the books and materials for all courses I was assigned to teach. I discovered that given the actual book written by the author, students would read it so long as the subject was made relevant to them. I discovered that when given choices, students would write about themselves, their homes, and their community. I realized that courses could be content rich, without being content driven, and that you could involve students to read mythology, classical literature, etc., and write about what they read with purpose and direction. I discovered that if you showed a student how to read a book, they would read; that if you showed a student how to write, they would write. I discovered learning involves active participation; but for that to happen the teacher must understand that the students are not merely passive recipients, and that learning becomes meaningful only when it is authentic and retained. Show a student how to think, and they will think. Involve them in the work as active participants, and they will understand. As Ann E. Berthoff says in The Sense of Learning, “…if we make interpretation central in our teaching, than anything we do will have heuristic value, (1990, p. 10).

The secret in motivating students to do well, then, is quite simple: see the class not just as a group, but as a whole comprised of individual learners, accept them at the level you find them, and guide them in the direction you would like them to go. I believe it is also because of this approach that I had very few problems with classroom discipline. Teaching for me is largely a collaborative effort by which the teacher and students join together in exploring a subject or line of inquiry to see what discoveries can be made about a work, or the ideas that a work expresses. In essence it is the willingness on my part as their mentor to initiate and establish a continual dialogue with the students for the expressed purpose of learning together. So long as learning is not perceived as an act of coercive obligation, do students rarely become “a problem” within the class. Instead, they become self-directed and begin to assume responsibility for their reading, writing, and discussion by being engaged with their learning, not by being tortured with irrelevancy and disconnectedness.

copyright © 2005 by S. L. Cunningham
All rights reserved.

"Good To See You."

2005-04-26T18:06:00.000-05:00

During the early nineties I was employed as a Medicaid eligibility specialist with the state of Florida. With the increasing number of applications for nursing home placements and other SSI related programs, I found myself increasingly overwhelmed by the thought that I would never be caught up with my caseload. At times I seemed so far behind, and the demands and expectations put upon me seemed so unreasonable. A couple of times I felt as if I were actually going to lose it.

My saving grace, though, was going home at the end of the day and greeting my six-year-old son. “Good to see you,” I’d say.

“Good to see you, too,” he would reply.

I would then sit down with him and review how things went at school, and then helped him with his homework. After homework and eating dinner, we would go riding on one of our bicycle adventures. Living in Cocoa Beach on a barrier island afforded many different routes that we would take throughout the week. Sometimes we rode a couple of miles down A1A to the Mapco Convenience Store for a root beer and a couple of boxes of Good & Plenty. Sometimes we’d head over to the playground behind the former Freedom Seven Elementary School, and just have a good time swinging and talking. Other times we would work ourselves up an appetite by riding our bicycles down the beach, struggling with the friction from the sand and wind. A couple of miles of that and we were ready for a feast of hamburgers and french fries at Krystals.

Reflecting back on that time, I realize just how much I enjoyed the time I spent with my son. Even more amazing, now that my son has gone off to college, is just how fast that time of “growing up” really goes. As the years went by, I made time for my son no matter what my schedule may have been. And as always our familiar greeting with each other remained constant throughout the years. What I didn’t realize then was that my simple greeting was a wonderful way for me to validate his presence. It was my way of saying, “Hey, you really matter to me and I love you no matter what.” Now that he’s in Houston, we talk often on the phone and occasionally chat with each other on AIM. “Good to see you,” though, has changed to “Good talking with you,” or “Good chatting with you,” And so separated by hundreds of miles, we still remain close.

A Simple Act of Kindness

2005-04-16T19:12:00.000-05:00

Last Tuesday morning we had what I hope is the last snowfall of the season. Like the first snowfall of the season, the last snowfall makes me feel a sense of wonderment and anticipation. It has been a particularly long winter this year, and knowing that warm weather is right around the corner made this snowfall of wet, fat flakes that barely stuck to the ground easy to accept.

I quickly got dressed, and then found myself amused by my cat’s reaction when he jumped up on the desk and looked out the window. Watching the falling snow, the back of his head looked like a bobble toy. After getting dressed, I put on my coat and walked downtown Belfast to Chase’s Daily for breakfast.

The place was packed, and there was quite a long line of people waiting to get a table. Seeing a couple of spots available at the counter, I decided to take the stool on the end. No sooner than I sat down at the counter, a young woman approached and asked if I’d mind if she sat next to me. I didn’t object and went about reading the newspaper I had just picked up. The server then came up to us and asked her what she wanted to drink. “Coffee, please,” she replied.

The server then asked if I would be having coffee, too. “Yes,” I replied. It was then that I noticed the server seemed to be writing both our orders on one check. She didn’t ask the young woman or me if we were together, or if we wanted separate checks. Because we basically sat down at the counter at the same time, the server seemed to have assumed we were together. The young woman sitting next to me didn’t seem to notice what just had evolved. I didn’t say anything. I was curious as to how this was going to play out.

After the server took our order, the young woman next to me asked if I might be the radio announcer on WERU. She said my voice sounded exactly like his. “I’m Andrea,” she said as she extended her hand. After telling her I wasn't familiar with that paricular station, I introduced myself, and then engaged in a little chitchat about the weather, what it’s like to live in Belfast, and her campout on Bald Rock last night. After we finished eating, she got up from the counter and ambled off to look at the artwork that was being featured in the restaurant. The server then came over and placed the check in front of me. “You can pay for that when you’re ready,” she said. I picked up the tab, and sure enough, our server had, indeed, assumed we were together.

At first I thought I’d just mention the mistake to the server, and have her make out separate checks. But then I said to myself, why not just extend a simple act of kindness by paying for her breakfast. And so that’s what I did.

Just as I was walking up to pay the cashier, Andrea was walking back to the counter. I turned to her and said, “The server assumed we were together and wrote out one check for our breakfast. I’ve decided to take care of it.”

“What, pay for my breakfast? she asked. “Oh, no. I can’t let you do that.”

I smiled at her and said, “It’s been awhile since I’ve extended a complete stranger a simple act of kindness. It would be my pleasure to take care of this,” I said.

She seemed flabbergasted. “Well, thank you very much,” she said as she extended her hand for the second time. “That’s very nice of you.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. After paying the check, I put my coat on and left.

Every now and then when an opportunity presents itself to do something on the spur of the moment, especially when it has to do with acts of kindness toward others, it feels good to simply give without being asked. As I was walking back home through the wet snow, I realized that too often in life we sometimes forget that people aren’t all that different, that we are no different from the person sitting next to us. I think my outlook on how I perceive events, situations and people is beginning to change, though in ways I’m not sure I quite understand.

"Do You Think Love Is Selfish?"

2005-04-10T19:21:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon my son called me from Houston, and no sooner than I said, “Hey, how are you,” he responded by asking me a classic esoteric question that was way beyond any simple answer or definition that I could give him. “Do you think love is selfish?” he asked.

Not wanting to bite right off, I asked him what kind of question was that. He said he had a paper due for a class he was taking in ethics and that the topic he had to write on was whether or not he thought love was selfish.

“When’s this paper due?” I asked.

“Last week,” he replied.

“And you’re calling me now about it?”

“Well, I’ve been putting it off because I don’t know how to answer it.”

I suggested that “love” is a basic positive emotion of regard or affection and as such is neither selfish nor selfless. How love is manifested determines whether one is acting selfishly or not. If, for example, someone chooses to express love toward another based on attraction and affection in the expectation that that person will reciprocate in kind could be considered selfish. My son paused for a few seconds and then asked, “So it’s a question of whether it’s conditional or unconditional?”

When my son was born never did I imagine a conversation like this would ensue 19 years later. If I had, I would have immersed him while he was growing up in the writings of Plato, Shakespeare, Emerson, and D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow. I suggested he find a park to take a walk in and take time to think about the question and reflect on what he thinks about it.

After saying goodbye, I sat down and pondered how he might write a paper in which he argues whether love is selfish or not. But then considering I have had several failed relationships and a divorce, I’m probably not an expert on the matter. Maybe in falling in love, but definitely not in sustaining it. Perhaps Lennon/McCartney said it best: “The love you take is equal to the love you make.” Needless to say, I am no great thinker and too often get lost in my own thought long before I can find my way through someone else’s thought. One of these times I’m afraid I just might not find my way back. Is that the phone ringing again?

Growing Some Funk of My Own

2005-04-08T14:33:00.000-05:00

This year definitely will be remembered as a year of momentous events. My son turned 19 in February and is now living in Houston, Texas where he attends college full-time, and works part-time at the Hilton as a server. My daughter, who lives with my ex-wife, turned 18 in March and will be graduating high school June 9th.

To think that my two children are grown up and preparing to begin their own grand-adventures in life leaves me feeling an odd sense of melancholy. Just turning 51 I find myself to be in a real funk of sorts. Perhaps it is because of the realization of my new status as "empty-nester," or the incredibly long winter that has finally come to an end. But then maybe it is because of the realization that I am free to pack up and move to anywhere I would like to.

To do so would be nice in itself, almost an act of desperate liberation. But as I ponder traveling to points unknown, I start to wonder what I would do with all my things. Not that I have a lot of things, but certainly enough to make a free-spirited move turn into an encumbered act of frustration. There's the pine butcher block kitchen table with the mismatched maple chairs, the monolithic couch that has me looking through the yellow pages for listings under “chiropractor" after I've been sitting in it for more than a couple of hours, the queen size bed that is curiously bowed in the middle, TV's, stereos, books, papers and all kinds of assorted knick-knacks acquired throughout the years.

If I were to move, I think I would definitely pare down my "things" to what I actually need and value the most. Heck, even if I don't move, paring down might not be such a bad project in itself. I certainly don't need the 30 odd pairs of mismatched socks, the shirts and pants I no longer wear or would even dare to wear, and the boxes and boxes of books I'll never read again. Better to give those to the school library than to have them taking up all my closet space.

And so at least for the rest of this month, I will spring clean like I've never spring cleaned before. Maybe after doing so I might not feel as ambivalent about my life as I do now. Think I'll get started by culling through the books I have stored in the back bedroom closet. Earth Sciences. Hmmm? Now that's one book I won't be reading again.

2005-04-05T16:32:00.000-05:00

O.K., where's that cup of coffee?

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Reflections On "No Child Left Behind"

2005-04-04T21:09:00.000-05:00

Scot Cunningham, 2005

“Rather than encouraging holistic, progressive, or other alternative programs (public or private) that are WORKING for ALL children in their schools, NCLB and any federal legislation that mandates standardization by grade-level testing implicitly DISCOURAGES the continuation of programs that focus on the particulars of children's needs.” Robin Ann Martin, PHD on “No Child Left Behind.”

During the early eighties when I began to teach English as a career, education was rife with change. Mantra one day became dogma the next. New buzzwords came into play quicker than notes blasted from a rusted trumpet found at a yard sale: whole language, holistic grading, writing process, learning styles, etc. And just about everybody with an edD had a workshop or a writing program that would provide a remedy for just about any situation encountered in the classroom. And as much as I had a tendency to accept some of the “newer” ideas being bandied about—especially those that were presented in the education courses I had to take at the University of Maine to obtain teacher certification—I felt uneasiness with trying to implement them in the classroom. When you have students who have limited knowledge and experience with a new subject, you have to have input and intake from the teacher. To think that a student is going to be able to make discoveries with a text--or in creating text--without the teacher providing some kind of framework is at best naïve.

Too often in teaching, we make the mistake of seeing students as objects rather than individuals. It is almost as if we do this to hide behind a veil of timidity. What’s worse, though, is how we sometimes rationalize our failure to establish trust and rapport with our students. Today’s teaching environment certainly isn’t very friendly, nor is it very conducive to learning. Students do need help initially with defining goals that they can achieve on their own. But if students are to achieve mastery of a subject, than instruction has to be tailored to meet their specific needs, especially in regard to having a sense of competence and relatedness to others.

I think what troubles me, then, with any teaching system or style—whether it be teacher-directed or student-centered—is the unbearable superficiality that evolves whenever a teacher or curriculum committee subscribes to a particular method, or set of beliefs, and tries to put it into practice without fully understanding the theory behind it, or when evidence to the contrary suggests something entirely different. As John Gatto puts it in Dumbing Us Down, “Experts in education have never been right; their ‘solutions’ are expensive and self-serving and always involve centralization” (1992, p. 34).

Now that the federal government has mandated that no child should be left behind, the struggle today continues and seems even more acute now than it was when I started out in teaching. In Maine, for example, the big buzz word for the last couple of years has been “reform,” especially in regard to the new state standards that are covered under the umbrella of the Maine Learning Results, a behemoth document which mandates what students are supposed to learn and know by the time they graduate high school. All curricula for all subjects taught from kindergarten through 12th grade have to be in alignment with the new standards. It would seem Pavlov’s dogs are baying at the door, which I think is ironic considering that the very remedy that educationalists are trying to cure us of is what led us to our malady to begin with, and that is the sickening mediocrity that behaviorist, objectivist philosophy has inflicted us with. But there is hope. The ideas developed during the seventies and eighties in regard to student-centered teaching based on constructivist philosophy continues to evolve and is referred more commonly today as “project-based, authentic learning.” Again, the distinguishing difference is that the emphasis is on “process,” not “product” (von Glaserfeld, 1996).

Teaching is not just a quest. It is a process of becoming and being. It is a testament of what it means to be human. But above all else, it is an expression of love. To effectively teach, you quite literally have to stand before your students as one who has gone before. To teach requires and demands a high level of commitment and responsibility to your students. By teaching, we are guiding our students by showing them the path that will lead them toward becoming self-actualized adults who can participate effectively and responsibly in society. It does not matter necessarily that students may be planning to go on to college or enter the world of work. What does matter is whether they can participate effectively and contribute meaningfully in a society of shared but diverse ideas and standards. Will students who graduate high school have learned to connect with others? Will they have the necessary skills to write and communicate effectively? Will they be able to define and complete tasks? Will they be able to work with others in developing a project to its completion? Will they be able to propose and contribute new ideas? Will they be able to conduct research and analyze information? Will they be IT literate? Read any job description, and you will see that today’s employers not only require new employees have these skills, they demand it.

References:
1. Robin, Ann Martin. Paths of Learning. 2004.
http://www.pathsoflearning.org/library/NCLB.cfm
2. Gatto, John. (1992) Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers.
3. von Glasersfeld, E. (1987). “Learning as a constructive activity.” In C. Janvier, Problems of representation in the teaching and learning of mathematics, (pp.3-17). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
4. von Glasersfeld, E. 1996. "Introduction: Aspects of Constructivism." In Constructivism: Theory, Perspectives,and Practice, (pp. 3-7). C. Fosnot, Editor. New York: Teachers College Press.