180 Days: Day 37–“Never Love A Wild Thing, Mr. Bell”

Holly Golightly gave this salient advise in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And today, I played Holly Golightly for Halloween to a group of ghosts, ghouls, zombies, and steampunk red riding hoods who would rather have been anywhere else but English class. But in English class they sit reading and writing summaries about war. Today is a short class period because of our modified schedule for intervention period–mercifully. So while students write their summaries, I let them “trick or treat” my pumpkin full of smarties candies and tell me about their costumes. Many guess correctly that I’m “Audrey Hepburn” though I’m the character she famously portrayed in Blake Edwards’s 1961 classic. Their guesses allow me the “in” to tell them about Capote and that they should read the book.

Speaking of loving wild things, tonight the Dodgers play the Astros in Game 6 of the World Series too. The ‘Stros are up 3-2 in this wild World Series, so tonight’s win will mean “winner takes all” or “live to fight another day” depending on which team you are. I am glad that the Dodgers are in the finals because they are a home team. I don’t dislike the Dodgers. But I do have a hard time with some of their fans, who heckled my son mercilessly when he was a five year old attending his first major league game proudly wearing his T-Ball uniform, which happened to be not from a rival team, but THE rival team (SF Giants). And Dodger Stadium is a real pain to get in and out of being in the heart of downtown in a ravine with only one way in or out. So needless to say, I typically avoid Dodgers games. It also hurts their cause that they beat my team for the National League title to make it to the Series–I grew up watching the Chicago Cubs. So I have chosen to cheer for the Astros this year. First, because they are representing a city trying to recover from a massive trauma with a millennial flood. Second, because I’ve actually been to see the Astros before, way back in the Astrodome days to see Nolan Ryan pitch. And third, because this would be their franchise’s first World Series win.

So tonight I will hand out candy with my brother and sister-in-law while we intermittently watch the game and horror movies. We will see where the night takes us wild things. And if I have any students showing up tomorrow after their late night prowls tonight.

Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

“Moon River” by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

 

180 Days: Day 15–Dignity and Back 2 School Night

Today was interminably long. It was a normally scheduled school day, but tonight was Back to School Night–so I’ve been on point for over 12 hours with little downtime. Luckily this day only happens once a year. I try not to let it tire me or beat me down because Back to School Night in concept is a good thing. It’s can be an effective time to make a positive contact with parents–who usually only hear from teachers when things aren’t going so well. I enjoyed myself tonight, as I usually do. Seeing parents who love their kids and just want them to have a good experience in school is encouraging to me. So Back to School Night is probably one of only two times (the other is achievement awards night) that I wear my Sunday’s Best. I wanted to display a sense of dignity in how I look and carry myself.

Dignity was the theme of the day today. My students spent time comparing Tim Tebow’s kneeling in prayer versus Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling in protest–were they acting with dignity? Were they showing dignity toward others? Were they speaking to the dignity or lack thereof in others? I only expected this short writing prompt to be a short into for a passage from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Stride Toward Freedom discussing the three ways to meet oppression before launching into a chapter from Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The two pictures of the football players dominated class and we didn’t get to Dr. King or Angelou. But I’m okay with that. I want students to explore their feelings and why they feel the way they feel, so taking a little extra time to do so is fine with me. I did find it interesting that each of my three sophomore classes responded differently. One class didn’t know anything about anything. They didn’t know either of the players or what the controversy was about, but they were curious and asked boatloads of questions. One class was pro-Kaepernick. And the remaining class was anti-Kaepernick. None of them seemed to fully understand the comparison to Tebow. So I promised them I would bring them an article from the Washington Post that I saw last weekend. We’ll see how they respond to the comparison of the two from a professional writer’s perspective.

At the end of the day, the kids did seem to have a concept of what dignity is, how it’s defined, what it looks like, what happens when you treat someone with a lack of dignity, and what happens when you act with dignity and give it to others. We will see how well they can use this lens of dignity to make meaning of our upcoming narratives.

But overall, I feel it was a good day, even if long.

“Dignity” by Bob Dylan

 

Fat man lookin’ in a blade of steel
Thin man lookin’ at his last meal
Hollow man lookin’ in a cotton field
For dignity

Wise man lookin’ in a blade of grass
Young man lookin’ in the shadows that pass
Poor man lookin’ through painted glass
For dignity

Somebody got murdered on New Year’s Eve
Somebody said dignity was the first to leave
I went into the city, went into the town
Went into the land of the midnight sun

Searchin’ high, searchin’ low
Searchin’ everywhere I know
Askin’ the cops wherever I go
Have you seen dignity

Blind man breakin’ out of a trance
Puts both his hands in the pockets of chance
Hopin’ to find one circumstance
Of dignity

I went to the wedding of Mary-Lou
She said I don’t want nobody see me talkin’ to you
Said she could get killed if she told me what she knew
About dignity

I went down where the vultures feed
I would’ve got deeper, but there wasn’t any need
Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men
Wasn’t any difference to me

Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade
House on fire, debts unpaid
Gonna stand at the window, gonna ask the maid
Have you seen dignity

Drinkin’ man listens to the voice he hears
In a crowded room full of covered up mirrors
Lookin’ into the lost forgotten years
For dignity

Met Prince Phillip at the home of the blues
Said he’d give me information if his name wasn’t used
He wanted money up front, said he was abused
By dignity

Footprints runnin’ cross the silver sand
Steps goin’ down into tattoo land
I met the sons of darkness and the sons of light
In the border-towns of despair

Got no place to fade, got no coat
I’m on the rollin’ river in a jerkin’ boat
Tryin’ to read a note somebody wrote
About dignity

Sick man lookin’ for the doctor’s cure
Lookin’ at his hands for the lines that were
And into every masterpiece of literature
For dignity

Englishman stranded in the black-heart wind
Combin’ his hair back, his future looks thin
Bites the bullet and he looks within
For dignity

Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed
Dignity never been photographed
I went into the red, went into the black
Into the valley of dry bone dreams

So many roads, so much at stake
Too many dead ends, I’m at the edge of the lake
Sometimes I wonder what it’s gonna take
To find dignity

180 Days: Day 10–Long Day, Short Night

Today was another normal day. Nothing remarkable happened on the whole. The kids read, talked about what they read, wrote, talked about what they wrote. We talked about two reading strategies that I call “the fundamentals” using my sports analogy–we practice using the fundamentals, we will learn to read the right way and with a success that is replicated easily. We also did timed readings so that students could know how much time to give themselves when reading different types of texts. Like I said, it was a normal day.

Another way it was normal: I had a meeting after school. As a leader on campus and off, I spend a lot of time in meetings. I typically don’t mind that meetings tend to add at least two hours to my workday. I consider part of doing the job. Just like grading papers is part of the job. But then I find myself at home wanting to empty my mind and go for a workout. Instead, I sit with a pile of half-graded papers and a half-empty mind. I set a goal to complete at least five sets of papers. Two down. Three to go…so I’m off to grade and listen to a few tunes. Then I can turn my mind the rest of the way into the off position. Gym, my dear, you will just have to wait. Maybe I can make our date to get sweaty and clear the mind of all worries tomorrow night.

“Put me in coach/I’m ready to play today…”
“Centerfield” by John Fogerty

Mixon Story Travels With Sooners To New Orleans — KFOR.com

Oklahoma and Auburn will meet Monday night in the Sugar Bowl at the Superdome and the head coaches for both the Tigers and the Sooners met the media in this very room on Sunday morning, a day before the game. For Oklahoma, not all of the talk is about the Sugar Bowl matchup against Auburn.…

via Mixon Story Travels With Sooners To New Orleans — KFOR.com

*Jules’s Note: I do not approve of Mixon’s actions, but I do approve of second chances for young men and women. Both Molitor and Mixon hopefully learned something of value from this unfortunate and avoidable incident. Hopefully, both have worked to make their lives better and make the lives of those around them better.  

Flying the W: It’s THE White Flag Day

I won’t bore you with the now old news that the Chicago Cubs broke a 108 year curse to win the World Series. I won’t rehash the thrilling come from behind, game 7, extra innings, rain delayed victory. But what I will do is explain why this matters to an LA Girl who grew up in Small Town, Oklahoma.

Playing ball, sitting in the bleachers watching my brother play 1st base, working the concession stands to raise money for our small town little league, scarfing down hot dogs and peanut patties, chewing 3 Super Bubbles at a time while handing out gum from a wrinkled, dingy brown lunch bag in the dugout…these are the memories of hot sunny afternoons and temperate dusky evenings in the late 70s and early 80s.

Abner Doubleday’s invention is encoded deep inside of my DNA. Even when I haven’t been to a game in a long while (which happens more often than I’d like), then I go to one and it’s like I’ve never been away (which needs to happen more often). Enjoying a pitchers’ duel or looking for where the force out is–it’s part of the thrill of the game. Whether I’m watching my university alma mater’s teams vie for College World Series titles on TV (my Sooner Ladies won the WCWS this past spring) or catching a local game (Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium are within driving distance), I connect with baseball on a visceral level. I may not be the rabid fan who wears jerseys everyday or carries my phone with the MLB app open at all times, but so many of my good memories conjoin with baseball.

So how do the Cubs fit into all of this?

In the late 70s, cable TV was new and all the rage. My friend had it and we didn’t. I spent a lot of time at her house for a few years. Then my parents got on board and signed us up for the 13 channels plus HBO and The Movie Channel. My brother and I were on cloud nine. Two of the channels were super channels TBS out of Atlanta and WGN out of Chicago. So despite living only three hours north of Arlington, Texas, we watched the Chicago Cubs instead of our neighboring Texas Rangers. Both the Cubs and Atlanta Braves were more accessible to us because of cable TV. My grandmother loved the Braves, and we loved the Cubs. Names that bring back fond memories for me include Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, Keith Moreland, and Shawn Dunston. My brother was such a big fan of Sandberg’s that he adopted the number 23 on his own baseball jersey for a number of years.

(Ryne Sandberg, Cubs 2nd baseman, Hall of Fame Class of 2005)

A highlight of my college years was catching an exhibition game between the Rangers and the Cubs in Oklahoma City. Nothing beats sitting in the stands with a bag of peanuts and cheering future Hall of Famers (Sandberg for the Cubs, Nolan Ryan for the Rangers).  An even bigger thrill for me was realizing my dream to attend a Cubs home game at Wrigley Field and do the 7th inning stretch with Harry Caray and watch Sandberg one last time (and catch Sammy Sosa in action too). Back then it was a pilgrimage for me. Nowadays, I just look for when the Cubs visit my hometown teams, the LA Dodgers and Anaheim Angels, for an occasional evening of fun.

I know that people may consider me a fair weather fan or just jumping on the bandwagon, but what they don’t know is that I jumped on that bandwagon in middle school.  And it probably doesn’t matter even if I am fair weather. That doesn’t mean the love and memories attached to the Cubs and the game of baseball aren’t hidden in the recesses of my mind and spirit.

So today I wave that white Win Flag to celebrate the many years of memories supplied by the Cubs (and their eternal quest to break the curse). Congratulations on a great season. Well played, Gentlemen!

“Centerfield” by John Fogerty