Blast from the Past: the Ultimate Levi's 501 Jeans Trailer

For all you former Newboldians, this commercial deserves another look. It came out in theaters during my year there, 1990-91, and it was soooo cool.

Later, during the Newbold Talent Show, Gunther and I spoofed this commercial. Gunther came riding into Assembly Hall riding a moped we had borrowed. Andrew Cox was at the front of the hall, wearing a Newbold Business Club sweatshirt and trying to pick up Suzanne Jean-Baptiste.

Gunther rides up, wearing his sunglasses and looking cool, pulls a Newbold Student Association sweatshirt out of his leather jacket, and gives it to Suzanne. She casts a scornfull look back at Andrew and got on the back of Gunther's moped.

Classic!

Good times, folks. Now those were good times, weren't they?

Blog Recommendation

I usually only link to friends' blogs, but there's one I'd encourage you to check out. Amar C. Bakshi has a new blog with the Washington Post called "How The World Sees America."

Having lived overseas for an extended period--and therefore caring very much that my country is a positive influence in the world (unlike the current administration), I find Bakshi's comments fascinating. Currently he's in Britain on the first leg of a trip that will take him back to his ancestral home of India (via Pakistan, no less).

So far, he has found a Manchesterian who admits he used to pretend to be an American sailor just to pick up girls in his home town (wouldn't work now, he admits). Bakshi also finds a group of drama students practicing their American accents (with mixed results).

In an interview with Prospect Magazine founder David Goodhart, Bakshi learns that the current anti-Americanism is temporary:

“This sentiment will disappear in five seconds,” [Goodhart] says, "when American leadership changes hands. "Come Obama, everything changes."

One can only hope! Even so, Obama, quickly come!

News Update

It's graduation season, so I don't have a lot of time to write.

I wanted to let you know that Jenny's brother, Johnathan, is now recuperating at home in Clinton, Tennessee. By all accounts, he has healed well, and he continues with his medication to allow his body to accept the new liver.

He stayed at our house the weekend before he went home. He has a huge scar across the top of his tummy--about 25 inches long. It's almost as wide as the grin on his face, I like to say. I'll include a picture of the George siblings to let you see the happy family for yourself.

U2 and Green Day for Comparison

This is the video of the original song--Jonah's version is below.

I just love this video. The song is great, and it tweaks the United States for its misguided priorities. What if National Guard and defense units had been on hand to bring relief to New Orleans in 2005? We'll never know.

As the closing scene states, "Not as seen on TV."

The Saints are Coming Jonah Style

We have this song on my "U218" CD, and Jonah just started singing it one night in the bathtub. I'll let you enjoy his version for yourself.

Accounting for Two Weeks

It's been far too long since my last post--a sign, perhaps that I've been far too busy.

I don't want to load you down with all the school projects that I've completed (school ends in just 3 1/2 weeks). As important as it seemed, it paled with the momentous events in Jenny's family. The good news is that Jenny's brother Johnathan has received a long-needed liver transplant at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville!

Jenny's family has known since 1992 (the year she spent as a volunteer in Cameroon, West Africa) that Johnathan had an auto-immune disease called Primary Sclerosing Colangitis. It was a death sentence in many ways--one that could only be overcome through a liver transplant. Megan and Robyn will remember what a difficult time this was for Jenny--what a trial of faith it felt like at the time.

Johnathan went on the transplant list soon after, but he was a low priority on the list. He married in 1993 and had two kids, Ava and Nathan, who are now 8 and 4. He steadily weakened. He left work and went on disability about six years ago. In recent months he had taken a real serious turn. Spots had shown up on his liver. The concern was that they might be cancerous, which would disqualify him from transplant and serve as a death sentence at age 37. His skin became ever more jaundiced. (I snapped the picture at right with my cell phone last Sunday when we saw him in the hospital awaiting the transplant. The contrast of the yellow skin on his arm with the white sheets is not an anomaly--he was that yellow!.

Last week, his poor health raised him to the top of Vanderbilt's transplant list. It was life on a razor's edge for the family: he was sick enough to get the transplant he needed, but if he waited too long, he would be disqualified. He received the transplant late last Sunday night. His family--was either at his side or resting here at our house.

It has been an eventful week with mostly good news and some scares. Johnathan's body did show signs of rejecting the transplant a couple of times, but this was managed with medicine by the experienced medical staff there. We expect him to move out of the hospital any day now into a campus apartment, from which he can meet with his transplant doctors daily until he is completely stable with his new live.

Keep Johnathan in your prayers. It is nothing short of miraculous what has happened so far, but his continued health and his full recovery are in the able hands of Gods grace and faithfulness.

A Mysterious Note

After my last class had ended Thursday, I found a note on my podium. It read:

Mr. Dittes your zipper is undone.

They weren't writing a lie. Unfortunately, by the time I corrected the matter, there were no students left to teach.

To be honest, I don't know when the note was put there. I had been teaching all day--and I hadn't been to the bathroom, so it could have been at any time!

Praise God for humble moments!

Another Day, Another Beach

On Wednesday we went to Tybee Island Beach, one much closer to Savannah (and much more crowded with beer-swilling college students who, like me, were enjoying Spring Break).

First, a cool beach shot. I had promised an Ellie/bikini picture in today's post. I remember posing like this with Ellie's mama when I was about 40 pounds lighter, alas.

Jonah and I did some wave riding. He got on my back, I did push-ups on the sand, and we bobbed up and down. Jo-Jo even learned to do it with no hands!

Julie had bought the kids little motorcycles. Jonah and Joshie took turns running them through the sand, flying over jumps, and splashing them in the water. This picture is the last time we saw the bike Joshie was using. It ended up buried somewhere on the beach, and we couldn't find it when we left.The day ended where all days at the beach end: in the bathtub. Julie has a super-sized bathtub with jets and everything. The boys had fun playing with animals and goofing around. Owen and Jacob refused to get out for more than 40 minutes!

What I Did on My Spring Break

Girls in bikinis, white sands, tons of sand. You could say I have had it all this week, and I'm only two days into my visit with my sister, Julie, and my nephews, Jacob and Joshie.
The crew is featured above: besides Owen, Ellie and Jonah, I have Jacob (age 5) and Joshua Gates (2). We went to Jeckyll Island on Monday, and we couldn't go anywhere without climbing all over the first oak tree we could find. These things amaze me. Their branches are often longer than 60 feet, yet they seldom touch the ground.

In its day (the first three decades of the 20th century), Jeckyll Island was a super-exclusive winter playground for the rich and famous of New England. Families like the J.P. Morgans, the Goulds, the Macys--they hung out here. This place was SO EXCLUSIVE that you had to be born a millionaire to have a house here. Nouveau riche need not apply. The kids are standing in front of the clubhouse (now a hotel).

We quickly left the Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous for the beach. Jonah and Joshie had a blast. When they weren't flashing buttcrack at the rest of the people on the beach, they were running in and out of the waves. Last August, when we went to the beach, Jonah was too scared to even get his ankles wet. You can see here that he was totally into the wave action!
On the beach, I dug up a conch shell. The animal was still living inside it. Joshie spent time tickling the animal (it recoiled, bubbled and gurgled when we touched it). Then we buried it in the sand. That was the first time I had ever found one of those shells.

The boys' big project for the day was digging a "bath tub" (they needed one once the day was over--I didn't know it was possible for Jonah to get so sandy). Here you can see them demonstrating its usefulness...moments before the tide came in and erased all their work.

I realized I didn't have any pictures of Ellie! I'll rectify that tomorrow.

Spring Around the House

Look at the pictures below. They were taken six days ago. Only six days.

In that time, during which temperatures have been in the mid-to-high seventies every day, Tennessee has turned green before my eyes. I took some pictures on my property to share with the world how beautiful this is. (It goes without saying, I guess, that this is my first spring with a digital camera.)
Jenny planted these tulips last year around our anniversary. They are coming up along the wall that separates our driveway from the yard. You can see our ivy-dressed garage in the background.

Dogwood and redbud trees are the most colorful in Tennessee during the spring. Our property is just covered with them. There is a pair growing at the end of our driveway (above left). I tried to get an up-close picture of the dogwood flowers so you could see how beautiful they are.

A final gift of spring is that violets have just taken over our yard in about five places. These aren't the humble, plain purple violets, either. They are luxurious, proud two-toned purple violets. It's amazing. I love seeing them, but I'm scared to step or mow around my place because of how beautiful these things are.

Robyn & Meg, if you have any tips for bringing out more contrast on digital photos, I'd appreciate it. The distance pics of the trees just don't doo justice to the sight, but the close-ups turned out well.

Spring in TN

Tennessee is a fantastic place to live if you love spring and fall. Tennessee falls are among the most vibrant in the country, with the colors beginning in early October and lasting through November. Temperatures get cool, but not so cold that we cannot enjoy ourselves outdoors right up until Christmastime, when the clouds come and mire our region in gray, wet winters.

Spring is even better. In early-to-mid February, daffodils start blooming (I had some come up at the end of January, but their boldness was stifled by a strong cold snap in mid-February). From February through early June (four, long, wondrous months), there is blooming, greening, breezing...all the best parts of spring.

Last Saturday, we loaded up the minivan and went down to the Natchez Trace, an historic route that runs from Nashville, southwest 470 miles, all the way to the Mississippi River at Natchez Mississippi.

Ellie just finished a school unit on Lewis & Clark, explorers of America's northwester wilds. Merriwether Lewis died at an inn along the Trace at the tender age of 35 from a gunshot wound. Most reliable accounts report that it was self-inflicted, although murder mysteries are a dime a dozen.

I wanted to post some pictures and let everyone around the world share in the beauty of our Tennessee spring.

Redbuds are the surest signs of spring. On Saturday, they were the only tree-things out. None of the leaves had yet emerged from the trees..
This brick house was built in 1817 by the Gordon family, who leased rights from the Chickasaw Indians to run a ferry across the nearby Duck River.

Owen and Jo-Jo checked out the minnow and crawdad action in the creek from a safe distance. Life is just bursting out everywhere. The Saturday before it was a blustery 50 degrees. Seven days later, it was 83!

Jenny and Ellie went wading in the creek, but still took time out to look beautiful.

Making the Grade as a Teacher

My principal gave me an envelope today which contained my Tennessee Value Added Assessment Score. It tells me whether I'm a good teacher or not (an opinion that shifts from week to week, I assure you, as far as I'm concerned).

Of course America is addicted to tests. George W. Bush, in his quest for easy answers, blamed "failing schools" on teachers and their powerful unions, so now teachers are held accountable--even if students, parents, and politicians are not.

Anyway, my 9th-grade and 10th-grade students take tests at the end of each year they spend in my class. These scores are compared with scores from tests they've taken in previous years, and these scores demonstrate whether or not I've taught the kids enough. They call it the TVAAS Teacher Effect.

Here it is:
English 1 (2005)
TVAAS Teacher Effect = -4.69
TVAAS Percentile: 23%
Teacher versus State Average: Not detectably different

English 1 (2006)
TVAAS Teacher Effect = -0.77
TVAAS Percentile: 46%
Teacher versus State Average: Not detectably different

English 2 (2006)
TVAAS Teacher Effect = +2.33
TVAAS Percentile: 76%
Teacher versus State Average: Not detectably different

What does this mean? Considering that I was teaching Advanced Honors English 1 each year, it isn't a big deal. I didn't teach grammar to those kids, I taught The Odyssey and historical fiction and didn't give a patootie about tests. All the same, I consider myself a below-average English 1 teacher.

In English 2, I did a better job: a whopping above average, 76th percentile!

I guess you could say that I'm a below-average to above-average teacher for my students. Faint praise, I guess. Numbers don't lie, right?

A Tribute to My Grandfather

My Grandpa died Tuesday, just one month shy of his 95th birthday. (That's him to the right 36 years ago, holding a most wonderful baby grandson. Just guess who!)

One month ago, I was called away from a church project. Grandpa was in ICU with an infection, a blood pressure of 60/30. My dad and his sister, Francie, had responsibilities at church that day, and they couldn’t stay with him. I dropped everything and hurried to the hospital.

Along the way, I stopped at home and chose a thick binder. It is one of three collections of letters Grandpa wrote my grandma in the early years of their marriage, and it was marked “War Letters 1941-42.”

I’m not sure why I felt compelled to bring these with me to the hospital. Grandpa was on the edge of death. Perhaps I felt that I could transmit some of the spirit of these letters back into the man who seemed an empty shell of himself, ravaged by his current condition as well as several years of dementia.

When I got to his room, I was struck by how sick he looked. His cheeks were pinched in, his eyes were glazed, and his open mouth took irregular, raspy breaths. The letters were disorganized. I rearranged them until I could have a sense of order. I skipped over the letters from March Field in Muroc, California, and looked for the letters that marked his journey across the Pacific in January of 1942. I began to read to him.

I read of his trip from San Francisco to Australia (it is hard to determine how long it took, because the dates were all cut out by Army censors). He performed an appendectomy on board the boat, but it was an otherwise uneventful trip, with so many medical personnel on board, that he was only on duty every third day. There was much of the mundane: requests for Grandma to send him razors, magazines, and socks.

There was one letter that I was unable to finish that day: a letter that left me too emotional to continue. It was postmarked January 11, 1942, the day he shipped out with little warning. It was a fond, eloquent goodbye to my grandma. Yet reading it there, amidst the constant beep of the monitors, it felt like a goodbye to me, too, along with anyone else who had loved him.

The spirit of 29-year-old Grandpa poured out of the pages I read: his sarcastic sense of humor (he admonishes Grandma, a saintly Christian woman if I’ve ever known one, to “BE NICE!”); and his love of wordplay. These things helped me to love all the more the 95-year-old shell of this great man.

Lt. A.G. Dittes
C 426499
APO 909
C/o Postmaster
San Francisco
608th Engineering

January 11, 1942

Dearest Elinor,

Well, I guess the time has come for me to say that the time has come for a little boat to go sailing over the blue waters, etc., etc. I am glad that I was able to get you off on the train as I did, because the next day (today) we were advised not to bring our wives over on the island. So, you can see that it was for the best…..you would have been sitting over there at the hotel wondering what to do, and it would have been quite heart-breaking all the way through. As it was, it was bad enough. I saw some people come off the train just before the train went off, indicating that I could have done the same thing myself. I waited on the outside till the train left. I looked into all of the windows, and behind the curtains, as best as possible, but was unable to see you behind any of them. When the train finally left, I really felt quite bad. I knew that the person who meant the most to me in this world had just pulled away for a long long time. Well, I guess I might say that it is all my fault in having joined the army in the first place; but I realize that it would have been only a mater of time until I would have had to go, and probably be taken in an outfit that would be a very dangerous one. As I have told you previously, the head officers of this outfit take a rather jovial outlook of it all, and from that I gather that we won’t be going anywhere’s near a dangerous zone of action.

I am hoping very much that we do get stationed in South America, near a large city,
as was suggested by the colonel. That would make the problem of your coming down to see me easy, as we discussed in the restaurant on our last day together here yesterday. As I have already told you, the thing to do is to get a book on Spanish, and learn the stuff, and find out how to get a plane to south American countries. Once we get stationed, we will be at our location for quite some time, and if things are going then as they are at present, it won’t be long until they send us back to the states. Well, let’s hope for the best for the country, and for our own personal selves. I know that I want to do what is expected of me, and do my ordinary duty like any other honest citizens, but I also want to be home with you, and to make a nice home for you, so that you won’t be alone as you are now. Well, as I see things, it won’t be too long until that happy event takes place.

I want you to take good care of yourself physically, as well as in every other way. Eat three good meals each day, and get good exercise, and visit with all of your nice female relatives, and have a good time with them. Go to all the amusements that you want to go to. Buy all the clothes that you see and desire. Travel to Colorado, and to your mother in Chicago, and have a good time. Be happy, and gay…..do your work as a nurse as you desire, and as you see a need for your services. No doubt you will see several situations where nursing care is a real necessity and the people can’t pay, and I think that it would be very nice if you would help out, since you are not entirely dependent (if at all) on a nurse’s salary…

[The letter breaks into a discussion of receiving shares of Grandpa’s army checks, recollections of their time in San Francisco together, and directions on how to handle family members.]

…Above all, I want you to be NICE (Just as I have always said it!)

Well, Elinor, sweetheart, I hope that you get my many cards, and that you soon become adjusted to not having me around all the time. Remember what I told you about how nice a job I have, and the conveniences that are given me, and all of that…..you saw most of it for yourself…..so don’t worry too much about what a mess I am in, etc., etc. I sort of take this like a little spot of adventure to brighten up an otherwise orderly medical life. I also consider it a terrible shattering blow to my present marital status, and condition, but know that it won’t be too long until that situation is remedied.

So, little Elinor sweetheart, for the moment I say so-long, “till we meet again” and so
forth, and so on. Give my regards to your mother and father, and to Aunt Lou and Genevieve and Pudd, and to Uncle Tony and Aunt Elizabeth, and all…..also remember me to the Dybdalls, and tell them that we will go on that weekend trip some day when he finishes interning. Saw the show tonight at the post theatre, and it was one of those gangster thrillers, in which the gangsters rounded up a bunch of fifth columnists, and everybody had a good time. There was lots of shooting and fighting, and in the end, all of the bad people were very unhappy.

I hope you are very happy at Glendale, and that you keep busy and active, and happy, and above all, keep in good spirits, and keep in good physical shape, because we want to do a lot of things when I get back.

[Handwritten]
--don’t forget that I love you very, very much and will be always thinking of you.

Very best wishes, and very best love
Al.

P.S. I think I love you
2 P.S. I am pretty sure
that I love you
3 P.S. I am quite certain that I love you
4 P.S. I am very certain that I do love you.
5 P.S. I know I love you.
6 P.S. Be sure to be nice, and to talk nice—for ever in ever [sic] be seeing you soon, little pal

Your sweetheart, etc., etc.------Al.

[As it would turn out, Grandpa went first to northern Australia. His unit was an engineering company, which built roads, ports and airstrips as the front against Japan moved north. Eventually finished his service overseas in Papua New Guinea. He returned home in 1943.]

Book Review: Abraham, The First Historical Biography

My hero of the Bible is Abraham, plain and simple.

Jenny tells the story of a conversation we had in college. She asked me what my life's goal was, and I told her it was to be a "Patriarch."

I'm not sure what got into me at the time. Perhaps it was a love of history and a fixation on greatness. Part of it must have been the admiration I have for my own grandfather, who anchored my family all of my life and gave me much to emulate in my own life (and much to improve upon, too, I should add).

When I look back on the 15 or so years since I said that to Jenny, I realize that "Patriarch" is about the only college-era goal that I have achieved. I enjoy teaching, but my goals of law school and organizational leadership bit the dust years ago. My writing hasn't taken off. The one job I have done well has been to care for three kids and support Jenny in her own, successful, professional endeavors.

I don't focus on unfulfilled dreams, really, because I sit here surrounded by the luxurious trappings of patriarchy: I live in my grandparents' home, the Dittes family seat for over 50 years; I have positions of ministry within my church and service within my community; I am a father to three kids--Jenny nixed the whole "Twelve Tribes of Dittes" idea years ago, sadly. So when I study the Bible, I study Abraham.

When I saw the title to David Rosenburg's book in my book club, I jumped at the chance to read it. It is an outsider's look at Abraham. Rosenburg brings a strong knowledge of Sumerian literature, and from this base in Sumer (the culture which Abram and his father, Terah, left for Haran). He also speculates on the authors whose versions of the Abraham story became enshrined in our Bible. Finally, he introduces a fascinating concept, the "Cosmic Theater," which encapsulates the inheritance that we draw from Abraham.

I had known little about the culture of Sumer aside from a passing knowledge of "The Epic of Gligamesh." Yet it was one of the world's first great civilizations, carried over from India, whose mountains are represented in its pyramid-like ziggurats. By the time of Abram's birth in 1750 BC, Sumer was in decline, upstaged by Babylonians northwest along the Euphrates River. Under the energetic leadership of Hammurabi, Babylonians had coopted Sumerian culture, while elevating the minor Sumerian god, Markuk, to supremacy.

This revelation highlights one of the real ironies of the Old Testament: it begins in the same way it ends: with the exile of the first Hebrew from his home in Ur--a journey from Sumer to Canaan; and with the exile of the Hebrews from Canaan back to Babylon. It makes the Old Testament a complete idea, doesn't it?

Rosenburg doesn't find the God of the Hebrews among those of Sumer. He describes the Sumerian religious festivals and traditions--their penchant for dressing up their idols and feeding them every day. Rosenburg notes that Sumerians believed in gods who interacted with man: watching us even as mankind scans the heavens trying to understand them. He describes this as the "Cosmic Theater." Abraham and his descendants invented the idea of a God who takes an interest in the individual, interacts with men, and asks people to interact in this theater that transcends dimension, time, and death itself. He believes that Yahweh was a family god in Abraham's family who was elevated by Abram's faith--and who rewarded Abram in return.

(Consider the Egyptian gods, who ruled the sky and the afterlife, yet had little to do with daily life; or the gods of Gilgamesh who try to hide from him the secret to everlasting life.)

Rosenburg has written previously on the authors of the Old Testament. This is an area of theology that I'm not sure of, but Rosenburg makes the case that one author, J, was actually a female scribe in the court of Reheboam. She comes out in the strong female characters of Sarah and Rebekah, and in the unique voice of Abram's faith experiences. She is also a well-educated author, drawing from earlier Hebrew sources for the story of Abraham as well as a library of texts from Sumer and Babylon. She is named "J" because she uses the name "Yahweh" for God (which starts with a J in German, where this theory originated).

The other major author Rosenburg identifies is "E" for "Elohim," an author writing in the northern kingdom of Israel 200 years later. E is concerned with procedure and hierarchy, and he tries to fill in the blanks with numbers (the ages of Abraham and Sarah when they conceived and died). In reading these sections, it occurred to me that we have to realize that we use two lenses to understand history and the Bible: we try to understand these stories using our own cultural parameters, the cultural parameters of the people who wrote down the stories many years after they happened, and finally the factual circumstances that are told in these stories.

Rosenburg mentions one other author of the Abraham story: Isaac. The fact that he plays such a small role in Genesis may imply that he was the one responsible for recording his father's journeys and transmitting them to the next generation. Abraham never gives up the feeling of being an immigrant in Canaan (he buys a field to bury Sarah in, stating explicitly that he has no land of his own). In a way, it was through Isaac that Sumerian culture was transmitted to the Hebrew people and down into our lives today.

As you can see, Abraham is a pretty ambitious project--trying to connect so many divergent ideas together into the story of one patriarch. At some points, it sags under the weight of its ambition. I would have been satisfied with a mere discussion of Sumerian culture and its echoes in the Old Testament or with a dissertation on J and E and the authors of the Old Testament or a reflection of the history of the "Cosmic Theater." All in all, however, this is a fascinating book, one that I'm happy to add to my collection of Abraham readings.

Diddy Gras and the Season of Lent

I'll admit something strange: I've really been looking forward to Lent this year.

Perhaps it is because I have already been fasting each Monday for my friend, Johnny (he has responded miraculously to treatment, far above our fondest expectations). Maybe I'm finally getting the hang of Lent in my ninth year of celebrating it. I'm not sure what it is.

I do know that I longed to fast. I longed for 40 days to get away from the gunk in my life and focus on God. I longed for the darkness of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. I long to experience the luxurious joy of Easter at the end of these 40 days of deprivation.

About two weeks ago, I started asking the kids what we should fast from. We're celebrating Lent as a family this year. I mentioned sweets & desserts. Our home has been covered with candy ever since Halloween. We were finishing up the last of the junk food when Christmas rolled around. Then there was Valentine's Day. Yuck!

The kids didn't like the idea. But it was Owen who brought it up three days later. He had told his friends at school that he would fast, and he seemed to like the idea. Ellie bought in too. Everyone agreed once I told them we would celebrate Diddy Gras on Fat Tuesday: we would take all of the candy and ice cream out of the cupboards, and we would eat as much as we could stuff our guts with!

In cleaning out the cupboards, I filled a whole grocery bag full of junk food. We stopped at Food Lion and bought pints of Ben & Jerry's. We pigged out that night until we were sick (everyone but Owen, who was too obsessed with his GameBoy game to notice the food). To be honest, it hasn't tempted me since.

To me, the goal of Lent is casting aside vanities. Whenever I'm tempted to think of what I've given up for Lent, I merely remind myself of the things Christ gave up for me. It really puts things into perspective and gives me more reasons to thank God for the gift of Christ.

Praise God, Hallelujah, Hip Hip Hooray!

My cousin, Norman McNulty, is engaged. He has posted the exact date and time--even some video on his blog if you're interested.

We haven't had a wedding in the Dittes family (Norman's mom is my dad's sister) since Julie walked down the aisle almost six years ago!

Whoopeee! Congratulations Norm and Joelle. I can't wait to see you wed!

Valentine's Thoughts

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.

Jenny and I got a night out at a Valentine’s dinner at our church. It was fun, but it followed the rigorous and stressful negotiations that involve finding childcare. A number of people on our “list” had other plans, and when we finally did find someone, Ellie entered intensive negotiations to have her moved to a third home for the evening. The fact that this added an extra 20 minutes to our evening didn’t seem to faze her.

In honor of Valentine’s Day—and the lovely Bride with whom I celebrate it each and every year—I want to write a true love story. I’ll try not to make this long, but posterity demands some record of the love between the former Jenny George and me.

I fell in love with Jenny when I was on a date with a different girl.

It was my junior year at Southern Adventist University, about six months after Jenny and I had parted a final time, following one last epic hitchhiking trip through Wales (the details of which would take up a whole blog, so I’ll summarize: Betwys y Coed, Mount Snowdon, Harlech Castle). I had returned to Tennessee to finish my teaching degree; Jenny was in Africa, volunteering at a dental clinic in Cameroon. Our connection was a deep, abiding friendship.

That’s why I was on a date with the other girl.

Jenny’s brother, Johnathan, worked at a Taco Bell near my college. I probably ate there with my friends three times a week (the value menu was decidedly cheaper than our cafeteria). Every time I saw John, I would ask him, “Have you heard from Jenny yet? Have you written to her?”

He always stammered and said something about losing her address. I always grabbed a pen and wrote it on a napkin for him: Jenny George, Clinique Dentaire Adventiste, Cameroon, West Africa. Only the zip escapes me now. This must have happened six times. I was clueless to the fact that my weekly letters to her were anything more than trying to live her African adventures vicariously. Jenny was the best kind of friend: the kind who wasn’t going to break my heart, because I had no intention of risking that friendship on a romantic entanglement.

So I went out with Leslie when I got the chance.

I had harbored a secret crush on her since academy—she didn’t go to my school, she went to Jenny’s, although she was three years below Jenny’s grade. When I saw my chance, I asked Leslie out for coffee and cake at an International House of Pancakes (my cousin, Donnie, had a name for my dates: “cheap and deep”).

We had a great time, sharing stories and talking about our grand ideas. I felt so comfortable with Leslie that I finally revealed my Grand Truth of Dating: romance was a great way to lose a good friend; that’s why I never dated my friends.

Leslie wasn’t impressed. “I just think that’s a bad idea,” she said. “You’re eliminating a group of people that could be the best options for you. Romance is nothing without friendship.”

It wasn’t the first time that one of my grand ideas had crashed and burned under closer examination. As I drove Leslie home, I remember thinking, “She’s right. She is so right.” Then two words echoed in my mind: “Jenny George.”

It would still be eight months before Jenny returned from Africa. It took another three months for me to get up the nerve to ask her to consider taking our friendship into the realm of a serious relationship. Eleven months later we were engaged; nine months after that we wed; 12 ½ years later our love is vivacious.

Instead of dooming our friendship, I think romance enhanced our friendship and grew slowly and enduringly throughout the course of our marriage. Jenny would probably say that I am more romantic with her today than I was in the first days of our relationship. (Part of the explanation lies in the fact that I have to compete with two handsome boys for her affections, no doubt.)

Five years ago I saw Leslie at Jenny’s academy reunion. She is married now, with a little boy of her own. We spoke cordially about our experiences since college, our families and our shared friends. I was never able to bring myself to thank her for the romance that my date with her had engendered—a lifelong romance, only not with her.

Neo-Nazi Concerns

I haven't been posting here as much recently because of MySpace. I joined it on a lark--to keep up with the gossip of my Cousin Stephen and his ridiculously loony love life. My students found me there, and I've been using it to keep up with present and former students in really unique ways.

Sometimes I get a little antsy. There are many social stigmas associated with public school teachers in America today--the primary one being close relationships with students. Of course, this is a terrible thing when it leads to inappropriate sexual relationships, but it really scares teachers like me from burying too much into students' lives.

I've become "MySpace teacher." If the 6:00 news eventually leads off with the headline, "Teacher investigated for MySpcace contact with student" about my case, so be it. I want to be a leader for my students. I want my relationship with some of them to grow and last a lifetime.

That leads me to a student whom I'll call "Jim." In my sophomore class last year, Jim made leaps and bounds, transforming before my eyes from a kind of rebelious kid into a straight-A student--but still a wild card as far as his personality is concerned. He joined the Youth in Government club I sponsored, and we have kept in touch over the summer and this year--when he isn't in any of my classes.

Jim is interested in Germany. Since I am a German teacher, he's asked me about German history, and I've shared books and materials with him. He had a particular interest in Hitler, which concerned me a little. I decided to engage him intellectually on the matter, hoping to use my considerable influence with him to divert any temptations to the "dark side."

MySpace has given me a chance to keep up with Jim and his cousin, Kurt, who took my class for awhile last year, but dropped out of school. Kurt is the lead singer for a "death metal" band. He has played some of his music for me, and I would describe it as something between a low moan and a loud roar. Strange, yes--I would almost describe is as alarming to listen to.

I was following Jim on MySpace last week. He had been absent one day, so I contacted him. I also noticed that he had left the comment on another student's page, "I just saw Satan!" At a club meeting, he behaved erratically and irrationally, as if he had a chip on his shoulder against the world--as if he were trying to push me away from him.

Immediately I scheduled a lunch with him. It occurred to me: Jim is a junior, and I fear that he is at a crucial point where he doesn't really have a plan for a future beyond high school, and he is growing frustrated with home and "kid life."

As we spoke, Jim told me that Kurt was really into National Socialism. He said he had read tons of books about Hitler and Socialism (I don't think he really understands the tremendous gulf between National Socialism and Socialism). Kurt, who has dropped out of school, is some of the influence I'm having to counter.

We talked about his dreams. He's a lot like I was at 17: tired of Tennessee, desperate to get out and see the world. Jim would like to get an English degree and get overseas to teach English and learn about how the rest of the world works. I really tried to imprint upon him this vision, so he might have something to carry him through some of the tough times.

Please keep me in your prayers as this new technology gives me new means to minister to these kids. Kids like Jim desperately want a future that includes hope.

Warming up with Colbert

I'm engaging some friends in debate over Climate Change, and I just loved Stephen Colbert's take on the topic in the video below.

Snow Day

For the record: this is my 100th post in Point Pleasant. It's taken me about 14 months to get here. I'd like to thank my seven or eight loyal readers. How are y'all doing?

Thursday was a typical "Snow Day" for my county's public schools. All day Wednesday the forecasters blanketed the news with predictions of 1 to 2 inches of snow. On the 10:00 news, many school systems, including mine, closed school in advance of a winter storm.

Thursday morning, we awoke, looked out the window, and saw the same brown, muddy gloom that we've experience all winter! About 9:30, a shower of snowflakes drifted by, but otherwise, the day was a wash: the storm had shifted and passed to the north of us!

I was delighted, however, when Thursday night, they announced that my schools had been closed because of a minor flu epidemic. I was even more delighted when I awoke the next morning to find two inches of snow on the ground (none of the weather forecasters had predicted it, this time).

In honor of Megan, who is currently sweltering through a summer heat wave down in Melbourne, Australia, I'll post the following images.

Jenny and Jo-Jo posed outside our show-covered log hogan. Jenny used to look that happy when she hugged me, I might add.

Since she could barely walk, Ellie has celebrated snow by pelting me with snowballs. He she goes again. All I can do is gaze into those gorgeous eyes, savor that glamorous smile and beg (with apologies to Britney Spears), "Hit me baby, one more time!"

These are the sleds we use here in Tennessee (where it only snows once or twice a year, unfortunately). When I was growing up in Ohio, I had these luxurious, long sleds and skeds that sped down the slopes. Here, we are lucky to get four or five runs in before the snow melts. Jonah sure looked bundled up, didn't he?