To give you an idea of how important it was for me to see Kathleen Belew read from her book (BRING THE WAR HOME) at The Tattered Cover last night, you need to realize that I chose not to go to a whiskey tasting paired with food at Butcher's Bistro scheduled for the same night. When I first heard about the whiskey tasting, I immediately called my son-in-law Ken, a fellow whiskey lover, to see if he wanted to go. He did. When I started to call to make my reservations, I noticed it was scheduled for April 5, Kathleen's big night at the bookstore. As it happened, that was the only night in the entire month of April that I had something scheduled. I called Ken and told him to forget the whiskey night. I had more important things to do.
After dinner with C. Fite (Kathie was too sick to join us.), we went into The Tattered Cover a little early so I could buy a copy of Kathleen's book and find where we were supposed to go for the reading. There were maybe thirty or more chairs set up in front of a table and lectern on the bottom level and it was quickly filling with folks. Nicole Gonzales (I forget her married name.) was there. Jean-Luc Davis was there, fresh from a jazz tour of Australia. Kathleen's folks were there and so were a bunch of other people, all armed with questions to ask after Kathleen finished her reading.
I just sat there next to Cindy basking in Kathleen's accomplishment. I mean the book is a scholarly exploration into the development of the white power movement between Vietnam and the Oklahoma City bombing. It has one hundred pages of footnotes! The scholarly blurbs on the back cover of the dust jacket are expansive in their praise of Kathleen's scholarship. And I'll bet the folks at Fox are apoplectic at Ms. Belew's scholarly indictment of white supremacy. After all, white supremacy is what Fox is all about.
It was a terrific evening and I drove home happy that I was a teacher and able to work with young people like Kathleen, who in addition to being an author published by Harvard University Press, is an assistant professor of History at the University of Chicago.
The bottom level of The Tattered Cover on Colfax is devoted to young adult literature, middle school literature, and travel books. As Cindy and I were browsing around waiting for the festivities to begin, I wandered around and found Mike Merschel's book (REVENGE OF THE STAR SURVIVORS)in the stacks. It was an interesting position for a retired English teacher. Here I was in The Tattered Cover of all places and two of my students had books on display. I, of course, attributed all of their success to the fine tutelage they got at good old GMHS and wanted to go over to all those people sitting and waiting for Kathleen to approach the podium and let them know that I was the one who taught Kathleen how to master the Controlling Statement, content in the knowledge that the first thing she did when she finished her research was to reduce the entire thing into that one sentence formula. I resisted the temptation and sat quietly down. I even grudgingly admitted that Kathleen and Mike were at least partially responsible for their successes.
When I was driving home, I came to the rather thrilling realization that, yes, I was most proud of these impressive adults, but I remember feeling just as much pride, just as much satisfaction, when they were high school kids bringing down the buddy buzzer bullshit in the library and writing opinion pieces that caused waves among the powers that be. It was with the same sense of accomplishment that I read Kathleen's succession of one page poem analyses in Advanced Placement. It was with the same sense of pride that I saw hundreds of kids walk across the stage at Red Rocks.
I never thought I was responsible for all those successful graduates, just like it wasn't my responsibility for the ones that failed, or ended up in jail, or on drugs, or just held down by mediocrity. Mostly, I just loved being part of it all.
In THE THROWBACK SPECIAL, one of the characters maintains that the biggest part of love is just the willingness to watch your loved one go about his or her daily life. There are, of course, other things about love, but watching is key. That's what happens when you are a teacher. You get to watch scores of young people negotiate their ways through their teens and into adulthood. That's what I'm really proud of, all that watching.
Friday, April 6, 2018
Thursday, April 5, 2018
GRANDGIRLS
It's nice to wait outside the grandgirls' school.
I stop and crack the window just a bit,
A magazine beside me as a rule,
With cars lined up behind me as I sit.
Jaydee's first and looks around for treats,
A sippy cup of juice, a bag of chips.
Sitting like she owns the place, she eats.
And then in half an hour we end our trip.
Later in the day it's Willa's turn,
Her face all smiles, she bounces out the door.
And in the car with energy to burn,
She laughs, she floats, she absolutely soars.
These grand girls, they make my day;
I hope our lives will stay that way.
Wednesday, April 4, 2018
GEOMETRY
That lonely highway running through the plains
Bisected all those verdant fields of corn.
And in our car so dwarfed by all the grain
I cuddled up for warmth against the morn.
I watched it all go blurring past the window,
The geometrics of the golden fields.
Straight and diagonal, the endless rows
Seemed to crosshatch fertile nature's yield.
One winter weekend we drove back that way.
The geometrics covered up with snow,
There was stubble where the rows of corn held sway
And in the field atop some hay, a crow.
My mother's brother died in bed.
The sky above looked just like lead.
Sunday, March 25, 2018
A CoupleThings
The Blue Mountain School District in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania has seen to it that students be provided with rocks to hurl in case a shooter comes barging into their classroom. One principal, in an effort to make the new policy even more effective, has provided each classroom with a bucket, not just filled with rocks which, depending on their size and mass, might have variable effectiveness, but with river rocks! You know, the kind we see around the necks of weekend weather girls on local television.
While I think that arming kids with river rocks makes a lot more sense than arming teachers with AR-15s (for one thing, there are fewer moving parts), I can't help but see some logistical problems. Will these buckets be locked up in a book cabinet when not in use? If they are locked up, will the teacher have time to find the right key to the cabinet (Wait! Is that a double A or a single A key?) and distribute the lethal projectiles to his or her students before the shooter, presumably armed with assault rocks, comes barging into the room? Or, and this certainly gives me pause, will the bucket of rocks be sitting by the classroom door under the bulletin board as the students walk in? Will the kids, then, just pick a rock and put it in his or her pocket (Is that a rock in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?) to have handy in case of an armed intruder?
What if all those kids are armed with lethal river rocks and no intruder shows up? I had a few sixth hour classes where the thought of 30 kids armed with rocks would certainly have made me work extra hard to create interesting lesson plans. An idea like that might even take the place of pay for performance contracts as a way to motivate all those lazy non-rock carrying teachers out there.
I guess the idea behind the river rocks is that when the shooter breaks into the classroom, all the kids will stand up, start screaming "stone him, stone him, stone him" and he will end up like some biblical adulterer, dead under a pile of granite. Of course, a handful of kids would end up dead as well, but that is the price we pay to guarantee the freedom of the NRA and the profit margin of gun manufacturers.
There is another rather large problem with the whole rock throwing scenario. Kids today have rotten arms. Have you seen them trying to play softball in the park? Of course not. They're too busy bullying each other on social media, arranging play dates, flash mobs, sharing gossip, and feeling ennui to work on their arms. And what about primary grade kids? Having a bucket of rocks at Sandy Hook probably would not have changed the outcome of that particular tragedy. And that is not to mention the fact that most teachers, since we don't have driver's ed and shop anymore, are women. At the risk of sounding like a sexist creep, women with rocks are no match for white supremacist nut cases with AR-15s.
* * * * * * * * *
Today is Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week in the Catholic calendar. When I was an altar boy in Estes Park, this was my favorite time of year. It was my chance to be a star. Why was it my chance to be a star, you ask. Because I was the head altar boy at Our Lady of the Mountains. I worked my way up from Acolyte, to Thurifer, to Master of Ceremonies, that's what Father Sanger called the altar boy who got to stand next to him during high mass and see to it that all the candles were correctly lit, all the things needing incense were properly addressed, all the cruets and patens and bells were there at the ready.
First, there was Palm Sunday. My mom dropped me off at church at six in the morning and I served every mass. Then came Holy Thursday, a high mass and the liturgy a reenactment of the Last Supper. Good Friday wasn't a mass; it was just a solemn service commemorating Christ's passion, kind of like something Mel Gibson tried to do, but without the gore. Then, my favorite, Holy Saturday, another high mass. And the best part was by this time all the parishioners couldn't help but notice that I was a prominent figure at all these services. When I walked out of the sacristy after it was over, it felt like my granddaughter Brooklyn must have felt when she emerged from the dressing room after "Seussical." Easter Sunday was another day where I served every mass and had breakfast (lunch) with Father Sanger and his two sisters, Margaret and Bess, after the noon mass finished. Then, after breakfast, Father Sanger would give me a ride home and I would go eat Easter candy and colored eggs with my family.
Holy Week isn't like that for me anymore, but I have to be careful. I make it a point to steer clear of churches emptying out their well-dressed congregations because I can't help but get a little emotional and nostalgic for not only the theater of that week, but also for what used to be my faith.
Have a blessed week.
Thursday, March 22, 2018
Evangelicalism in the Marketplace
I have an uneasy relationship with religion. It started when I went off to Regis College as a freshman in 1966. I fully intended to get my BA in English and Education and then toddle off to St. Thomas for my seminary training. It didn't work out that way. It would be the cool and fun thing to say that I discovered the liberating effect the girls at Loretto Heights and Colorado Women's College had on my libido, but that is only a small part of the truth.
Mostly it was the liberating effect Jesuit priests had on my world view (and my libido). Father Boyle used four letter words in class. Father Maginnis seemed to take delight in making freshmen squirm under his relentless interrogations. Father Daly, the poor priest who had to live in O'Connell Hall with the freshmen class, was a sadist and enjoyed nothing more than paddling boys for the slightest indiscretion. At least, it seemed that way to me. These were not holy men like Father Sanger at Our Lady of the Mountains. They were worldly, told off-color stories, drank alarming quantities of scotch, and laid great dinner tables. But more than that, they were brilliant. They were also arrogant, misogynistic, and often mean-spirited.
I had a double major of English (24 hours) and Theology (21 hours) with a minor in Philosophy (18 hours). My senior year, I had an English seminar with six students and one priestly professor. We met three times a week and the last weekly meeting on Friday was always held at Ernie's on 44th and Federal. Ernie was a pretty good piano player and we gathered around the piano bar and talked Shakespearian tragedies. My senior Theology seminar met in the Theology office above the student union building. To give you an idea of the general ambiance of the class, the professor walked in one afternoon and proclaimed, "I'm wearing my Burger King pants, the home of the whopper." After that, we immediately launched into a discussion comparing what we knew of Schillebeeks (I forgot the spelling) and our current reading of the works of Karl Rahner.
All of that combined to make me a lapsed Catholic, but it also informed my faith.
I just got through reading a long article by Michael Gerson in THE ATLANTIC ("The Last Temptation"), an attempt to explain how evangelicals have lost their way. In the third to last paragraph, he says, "At its best, faith is the overflow of gratitude, the attempt to live as if we are loved, the fragile hope for something better on the other side of pain and death. And this feather of grace weighs more in the balance than any political gain."
My faith doesn't go as far as his. I can't bring myself to have the same belief I had as a teenager that there is "something better on the other side. . ." But I think my faith is just as strong. In fact, I think it is stronger. Which is harder, to love and be loved because that is the way to a better something on the other side, or to love and be loved without the hope of any everlasting reward? I used to teach Bible as Literature and I always tried to drum home the point that the Bible wasn't a story about God, so much as it was a story about the power of mankind to love, even to love something as ephemeral as a God. I never said this to my classes because if I did I would have gotten into too much trouble, but I've always believed that man's faithfulness gave God existence, not the other way around.
Because of my training and beliefs, I've always looked at evangelicals as a kind of spiritual joke. Here is what H. L. Menckin said about William Jennings Bryant after the Scopes Monkey Trial (If you've seen INHERIT THE WIND, Gene Kelly plays Mencken.): "a tin pot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the forlorn pastors who belabor half-wits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind the railroad yards." For me, evangelicals have always been willfully stupid people who reject science and huddle around their anachronistic certainties. And, of course, this worries me because those are the people that elected Donald Trump. And when I consider evangelical support for perhaps the most unchristian president in history, I have to add hypocrisy to my indictment.
It is hard for me to say this because my mother was something of an evangelical. She spoke in tongues for Christ's sake! My brother is also evangelical. So is my oldest sister. They're good people. They aren't racists, at least they believe they aren't racist. But they believe all kinds of things that are demonstrably false and there is nothing you or I or anyone can do to change that.
Evangelicalism wasn't always as absolute as it is today. It started with an embrace of abolitionism and a belief in the redemptive powers of faith. As such, it was an optimistic belief. It premised itself on the idea that men of good will can make the country and themselves better in preparation for the second coming. Of course, the second coming didn't come. And despite all the assurances, it probably isn't due anytime soon. Therefore, what was once an optimistic world view became pessimistic. The world is going to hell in a handbag. Or, to use the words of their latest "savior," "Our country's going to hell," or "We haven't seen anything like this," or "It's a disaster and only I can fix it."
Evangelicalism is also adversarial and angry, thinking that the modern world is against it and mocks it. And since the world is against them, evangelicals are willing to forgive a few transgressions in their new prophet. He doesn't really tell lies; he speaks a larger truth. One Evangelical minister actually said that we should give Trump a "mulligan" on his past sexual transgressions. They are seemingly willing to ignore every decidedly non-Christian thing Trump does as long as the White House continues offering an open door to evangelical Christians, as long as the White House continues pandering to their wants and needs. They really believe that Trump will manage to get Roe v. Wade overturned. They really believe that Trump will protect them from the immoral influences of people from "shit hole" countries and that those very countries will pay for walls, both physical and psychological, that need to be built.
The point I am most taken with in the article is that the biggest contributor to the moral decay of evangelicalism is that it lacks any "organizing theory of social action." Catholicism has such a theory. It can be expressed as an "if . . . then" relationship. If you are pro-life on abortion, then you should be pro-life on immigration or capital punishment. If you espouse family values, then you should decry the breaking up of families by jack-booted immigration officers.
Like all of us, Catholics ignore most of these "if . . . then" demands, but at least they might feel guilty about it.
There are clearly good evangelicals. The evangelical movement has helped countless more people than it has hurt. That is undeniable, but their willingness to sacrifice anything resembling a moral structure simply for the sake of pursuing their political agenda has made their status as a religious movement highly questionable.
Here is the final paragraph of this terrific article. "This is the result when Christians become one interest group among many, scrambling for benefits at the expense of others rather than seeking the welfare of the whole. Christianity is love of neighbor, or it has lost its way. And this sets an urgent task for evangelicals: to rescue their faith from its worst leaders."
Mostly it was the liberating effect Jesuit priests had on my world view (and my libido). Father Boyle used four letter words in class. Father Maginnis seemed to take delight in making freshmen squirm under his relentless interrogations. Father Daly, the poor priest who had to live in O'Connell Hall with the freshmen class, was a sadist and enjoyed nothing more than paddling boys for the slightest indiscretion. At least, it seemed that way to me. These were not holy men like Father Sanger at Our Lady of the Mountains. They were worldly, told off-color stories, drank alarming quantities of scotch, and laid great dinner tables. But more than that, they were brilliant. They were also arrogant, misogynistic, and often mean-spirited.
I had a double major of English (24 hours) and Theology (21 hours) with a minor in Philosophy (18 hours). My senior year, I had an English seminar with six students and one priestly professor. We met three times a week and the last weekly meeting on Friday was always held at Ernie's on 44th and Federal. Ernie was a pretty good piano player and we gathered around the piano bar and talked Shakespearian tragedies. My senior Theology seminar met in the Theology office above the student union building. To give you an idea of the general ambiance of the class, the professor walked in one afternoon and proclaimed, "I'm wearing my Burger King pants, the home of the whopper." After that, we immediately launched into a discussion comparing what we knew of Schillebeeks (I forgot the spelling) and our current reading of the works of Karl Rahner.
All of that combined to make me a lapsed Catholic, but it also informed my faith.
I just got through reading a long article by Michael Gerson in THE ATLANTIC ("The Last Temptation"), an attempt to explain how evangelicals have lost their way. In the third to last paragraph, he says, "At its best, faith is the overflow of gratitude, the attempt to live as if we are loved, the fragile hope for something better on the other side of pain and death. And this feather of grace weighs more in the balance than any political gain."
My faith doesn't go as far as his. I can't bring myself to have the same belief I had as a teenager that there is "something better on the other side. . ." But I think my faith is just as strong. In fact, I think it is stronger. Which is harder, to love and be loved because that is the way to a better something on the other side, or to love and be loved without the hope of any everlasting reward? I used to teach Bible as Literature and I always tried to drum home the point that the Bible wasn't a story about God, so much as it was a story about the power of mankind to love, even to love something as ephemeral as a God. I never said this to my classes because if I did I would have gotten into too much trouble, but I've always believed that man's faithfulness gave God existence, not the other way around.
Because of my training and beliefs, I've always looked at evangelicals as a kind of spiritual joke. Here is what H. L. Menckin said about William Jennings Bryant after the Scopes Monkey Trial (If you've seen INHERIT THE WIND, Gene Kelly plays Mencken.): "a tin pot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the forlorn pastors who belabor half-wits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind the railroad yards." For me, evangelicals have always been willfully stupid people who reject science and huddle around their anachronistic certainties. And, of course, this worries me because those are the people that elected Donald Trump. And when I consider evangelical support for perhaps the most unchristian president in history, I have to add hypocrisy to my indictment.
It is hard for me to say this because my mother was something of an evangelical. She spoke in tongues for Christ's sake! My brother is also evangelical. So is my oldest sister. They're good people. They aren't racists, at least they believe they aren't racist. But they believe all kinds of things that are demonstrably false and there is nothing you or I or anyone can do to change that.
Evangelicalism wasn't always as absolute as it is today. It started with an embrace of abolitionism and a belief in the redemptive powers of faith. As such, it was an optimistic belief. It premised itself on the idea that men of good will can make the country and themselves better in preparation for the second coming. Of course, the second coming didn't come. And despite all the assurances, it probably isn't due anytime soon. Therefore, what was once an optimistic world view became pessimistic. The world is going to hell in a handbag. Or, to use the words of their latest "savior," "Our country's going to hell," or "We haven't seen anything like this," or "It's a disaster and only I can fix it."
Evangelicalism is also adversarial and angry, thinking that the modern world is against it and mocks it. And since the world is against them, evangelicals are willing to forgive a few transgressions in their new prophet. He doesn't really tell lies; he speaks a larger truth. One Evangelical minister actually said that we should give Trump a "mulligan" on his past sexual transgressions. They are seemingly willing to ignore every decidedly non-Christian thing Trump does as long as the White House continues offering an open door to evangelical Christians, as long as the White House continues pandering to their wants and needs. They really believe that Trump will manage to get Roe v. Wade overturned. They really believe that Trump will protect them from the immoral influences of people from "shit hole" countries and that those very countries will pay for walls, both physical and psychological, that need to be built.
The point I am most taken with in the article is that the biggest contributor to the moral decay of evangelicalism is that it lacks any "organizing theory of social action." Catholicism has such a theory. It can be expressed as an "if . . . then" relationship. If you are pro-life on abortion, then you should be pro-life on immigration or capital punishment. If you espouse family values, then you should decry the breaking up of families by jack-booted immigration officers.
Like all of us, Catholics ignore most of these "if . . . then" demands, but at least they might feel guilty about it.
There are clearly good evangelicals. The evangelical movement has helped countless more people than it has hurt. That is undeniable, but their willingness to sacrifice anything resembling a moral structure simply for the sake of pursuing their political agenda has made their status as a religious movement highly questionable.
Here is the final paragraph of this terrific article. "This is the result when Christians become one interest group among many, scrambling for benefits at the expense of others rather than seeking the welfare of the whole. Christianity is love of neighbor, or it has lost its way. And this sets an urgent task for evangelicals: to rescue their faith from its worst leaders."
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Ten Tiny Book Reviews
Today this is Katherine. Jim has been making scrapple and between steps we've tackled our together-puzzle we do every Sunday morning. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was on in the background.
While Jim cooked, I tidied up a few business bookkeeping things like inventory & a payment I received yesterday. I looked at our checking account & tracked anything that used to be tax deductible. I haven't figured out the new rules so I am soldiering on with the old rules until I learn differently.
Then I checked last week's to-do list. All done there. I backed up into late January. Not so good. Undone item #9 was to catch up on my tiny book reviews. I haven't written a word in ages & this seemed a good way to put my toes in the writing water again. Instead of the other tedious items on my to-do list, I am catching up on my wee book reviews.
In the last four months I read 11 books. If I wait any longer, I will never remember them. They are presented in chronological order. Just so you know.
1. One Summer by Bill Bryson. The book discusses huge numbers of historically important events that converge in the summer of 1927. Babe Ruth, various Presidents, Sacco & Vanzetti. The career of Charles Lindbergh glues the narrative together. Fascinating stuff. Non-fiction.
2. Commonwealth by Anne Patchett. An accidental visit to a christening ends up with divorces & marriages as the result of partner swapping & an odd bond between the six step-kids evolves. The book asks the question: Who owns our stories? One sibling tells their story & a novel about them is the result. Makes you wonder if any of us have stories of our own.
3. Origin by Dan Brown. The book shows off Barcelona wonderfully. The art & architecture descriptions made me want to go there. The Brown trope of a cult Catholic group exists with a bit of a twist this time. The dark-haired beauty is there as well. It is ultimately about the goods & evils in technology ( a poor man's The Circle). A fun & fast read. Not great.
4. Monday Night at the Blue Guitar by James Starkey. This is Jim's first book. He is working at getting this & the other two published. I read it the first time in Santa Fe on the patio of our casita at La Posada maybe five years ago. I love that memory. I loved re-reading it too.
The book follows Jake Merced, high school journalist, as he discovers a mystery at a music store called The Blue Guitar where midnight concerts with dead jazz greats materialize on Monday nights. Jake's English teacher, Mr. Sanger who is nearing retirement, likes kids & hates the phoniness of schools. Both Jake & his teacher have initiations held together by one teaching Catcher In the Rye & the other reading it in class.
5. News of the World by Paulette Jiles. Spoiler alert on this one. A 70 year old ex Civil War soldier finds himself returning a Kiowa captive (10 year old white girl) to an aunt and uncle. He begins with a sense of duty, but he regains love & joy through the little girl & he kidnaps her back from the torturous Prussian immigrant family he returns her to. The book is about the messages of our lives. "Maybe we have just one message, and it is delivered to us when we are born and we are never sure what it says; it may have nothing to do with us personally, but it must be carried by hand through life, all the way, and at the end handed over, sealed." The man is buried with his war messenger badge and this note: "He had a message to deliver, contents unknown." Exquisite book.
6. Beezup by James Starkey. Jim's second book. Jake & girlfriend Kristen are in Estes Park tracking down missing teen piano prodigy Billy Beezup who may have been kidnapped. The book is an ode to the Colorado mountains & great food. Jake bounces between seeing Kristen at the prestigious music camp she attends in Estes & coaching a recreational softball team in addition to working at the Four Season's kitchen in downtown Denver. There are chase scenes and interesting camp characters & tense moments & sweet moments & interesting comments about parenting when it comes to softball and music. The end is wonderful.
7. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. A wondrous book following the Buendia family & the town of Macondo. The first Jose Arcadio creates the town & becomes lost in the insanity of lost & failed dreams juxtaposed to the monotony of life in Macondo. His solitude is spent tied to a chestnut tree in the midst of his delusions chatting with his dead friends. Ursula, his wife, holds all of life together for generations. Each generation finds a descendent in solitude in a silver shop or the house or estranged from the family. The solitude is deadly. The beautiful town is destroyed by civilization--government, religion, business (the banana company does the most harm), nobility, elitism, greed, & debauchery all play their parts. All is circular. Spirits of the dead help and live with the living, but even they vanish. Wish I'd read this years ago.
8. Slaves to the Rhythm by Terry Connell. Terry is a dear friend & this is the story of his caring for Stephan (a remarkable man and the love of Terry's life) as he progressed through an AIDS diagnosis and death when the epidemic first happened. Terry juxtaposes the tragedy of his life tending to Stephan to his Catholic upbringing with 10 brothers & sisters. Efficiency was all & FAITH trumped FAMILY. Terry's struggle to maintain through Stephan's struggles highlights the good his family taught him while attacking his family's lack of compassion for him. They coped with his gayness, but not his relationships. The book made me think of dualities constantly in a very Joseph Campbell kind of way. The love & loss duality & the pain & beauty duality dominate the diary sections where Terry nurses Stephan. Fear & desire dominate the family sections where delightful details highlight his Philadelphia upbringing. I learned so much.
9. Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo. Spoiler alert again. This is the one day experiences of ultra-rich Eric as he rides in his limo, has sex with two women & his wife, sees an anarchist protest (rats are released--creepy), sees a famous rapper's funeral in the streets, and finally talks to his driver, his bodyguard (Eric shoots him) & his childhood barber. He participates in a movie scene. He destroys his financial empire and sees himself shot in the fancy computer stuff he's created (think Minority Report) at the end. Then he is shot. Thank God. This is a dark world. The structure and writing are spectacular. The post-modern world is not my cup of tea though.
That's it for now. A small to-do done & I'll go upstairs & cross off wee book reviews on my to-do list. Thanks for listening
Friday, February 2, 2018
Remembering Dale
Dale Bartkus died last month.
Kathie and I were in Mexico for the first few weeks of January and didn't hear about Dale until a week after we got back in town. We knew he was struggling and we should have expected this news, but it is still a shock.
I've probably never told him, but Dale was one of the giants in my life. He took me under his wing almost immediately after I entered the halls of Green Mountain High School for the first time. He--I can hear his magnificent voice now--cajoled me into becoming a faculty representative to JCEA. He taught me how to do that job and he taught me about the politics surrounding teacher unions and negotiations with the administration. He was instrumental in alerting the editor of "The Insight" to my rather breezy style in memos to the staff and I ended up being a long time columnist. So, what little fame I managed to accumulate in Jeffco is largely due, again, to Dale's influence and that magnificent voice.
He helped my teaching more than I ever admitted to him. He was the one clever enough to get the department to buy COMIC VISION, the book I used to teach Humor in Literature. He insisted I read the Bergson essay in that book and that essay became the foundation of so much of my teaching for the next thirty-five years. He introduced me to Mary Ellen Chase's BIBLE AND THE COMMON READER, an indispensable book for anyone attempting to teach Bible as Literature. We sat during planning periods and talked about those two works and so many others.
Dale's knowledge was encyclopedic and sometimes really irritating, the way Dietrich's knowledge pissed off Barney Miller, but it was always accurate, insightful, and offered with love. We didn't need to Google stuff when Dale was in the department; we just asked Dale.
He taught me about drinking Dos Equis and eating clams and listening to jazz and appreciating art and even about the difference between the active and passive voice. He modeled what a man should do to maintain the nuts and bolts of his life.
Mostly, he taught me how to be reasonable and fair minded, although I still have a hard time with that lesson. I remember when I first started talking to him. One day we were talking about the advantages of a life long career as a teacher and I snapped back that I wasn't going to be JUST a teacher for the rest of my life. My stint at Green Mountain was only until something better, more lucrative, more fame producing came along. I was such an asshole back then. Dale, instead of being hurt, or snapping back, simply said--again in that deep voice--"That's a threatening statement Jim."
Once we were in the lounge and a colleague who shall remain nameless came in braying about something JCEA had done that was outrageous and she launched an ad hominem attack on both of us. As Dawn Troup used to say, I started "getting the jaws." I was ready to lay into this creepy bitch, but not Dale. He calmly and rationally explained JCEA's position, told her he understood her concerns, and gave her the numbers to call. He never raised his voice. He kept a smile plastered across his face. He acted like an adult in a situation where most adults would have punched her out. I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but it is a moment I will always remember.
Kathie and I were among the first inductees to Green Mountain's Hall of Fame. I appreciate the honor, but Dale should have been there first. I was at Green Mountain for all but the first two years of my career and I can tell you that no one loved that school and that neighborhood more than Dale Bartkus. He was devoted to the place and he modeled that devotion to all of us.
More than that, he loved the kids that filled his classroom. He worried about them. He wanted to know everything he could about them. He gloried in their triumphs and cried over their tragedies. I wasn't there, but Kathie remembers a funeral for a beloved student who died in a tragic car accident on highway 93 (I think) between Boulder and Golden. Dale and Kathie were in attendance and after the the ritual was over, he asked Kathie if he could hold her so he could weep in someone's arms. Now, with Dale gone, I know just how he felt.
And he was so madly in love with Carol, so awed by her talent and her brains. He loved his boys, Tony and Nick, their wives, their children. I can't imagine the depth of their loss.
Dale Bartkus was first and foremost a teacher. He taught me the greatest lesson of all. Being "just" a teacher might be the most fulfilling life of all.
Thank you Dale for everything.
Kathie and I were in Mexico for the first few weeks of January and didn't hear about Dale until a week after we got back in town. We knew he was struggling and we should have expected this news, but it is still a shock.
I've probably never told him, but Dale was one of the giants in my life. He took me under his wing almost immediately after I entered the halls of Green Mountain High School for the first time. He--I can hear his magnificent voice now--cajoled me into becoming a faculty representative to JCEA. He taught me how to do that job and he taught me about the politics surrounding teacher unions and negotiations with the administration. He was instrumental in alerting the editor of "The Insight" to my rather breezy style in memos to the staff and I ended up being a long time columnist. So, what little fame I managed to accumulate in Jeffco is largely due, again, to Dale's influence and that magnificent voice.
He helped my teaching more than I ever admitted to him. He was the one clever enough to get the department to buy COMIC VISION, the book I used to teach Humor in Literature. He insisted I read the Bergson essay in that book and that essay became the foundation of so much of my teaching for the next thirty-five years. He introduced me to Mary Ellen Chase's BIBLE AND THE COMMON READER, an indispensable book for anyone attempting to teach Bible as Literature. We sat during planning periods and talked about those two works and so many others.
Dale's knowledge was encyclopedic and sometimes really irritating, the way Dietrich's knowledge pissed off Barney Miller, but it was always accurate, insightful, and offered with love. We didn't need to Google stuff when Dale was in the department; we just asked Dale.
He taught me about drinking Dos Equis and eating clams and listening to jazz and appreciating art and even about the difference between the active and passive voice. He modeled what a man should do to maintain the nuts and bolts of his life.
Mostly, he taught me how to be reasonable and fair minded, although I still have a hard time with that lesson. I remember when I first started talking to him. One day we were talking about the advantages of a life long career as a teacher and I snapped back that I wasn't going to be JUST a teacher for the rest of my life. My stint at Green Mountain was only until something better, more lucrative, more fame producing came along. I was such an asshole back then. Dale, instead of being hurt, or snapping back, simply said--again in that deep voice--"That's a threatening statement Jim."
Once we were in the lounge and a colleague who shall remain nameless came in braying about something JCEA had done that was outrageous and she launched an ad hominem attack on both of us. As Dawn Troup used to say, I started "getting the jaws." I was ready to lay into this creepy bitch, but not Dale. He calmly and rationally explained JCEA's position, told her he understood her concerns, and gave her the numbers to call. He never raised his voice. He kept a smile plastered across his face. He acted like an adult in a situation where most adults would have punched her out. I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but it is a moment I will always remember.
Kathie and I were among the first inductees to Green Mountain's Hall of Fame. I appreciate the honor, but Dale should have been there first. I was at Green Mountain for all but the first two years of my career and I can tell you that no one loved that school and that neighborhood more than Dale Bartkus. He was devoted to the place and he modeled that devotion to all of us.
More than that, he loved the kids that filled his classroom. He worried about them. He wanted to know everything he could about them. He gloried in their triumphs and cried over their tragedies. I wasn't there, but Kathie remembers a funeral for a beloved student who died in a tragic car accident on highway 93 (I think) between Boulder and Golden. Dale and Kathie were in attendance and after the the ritual was over, he asked Kathie if he could hold her so he could weep in someone's arms. Now, with Dale gone, I know just how he felt.
And he was so madly in love with Carol, so awed by her talent and her brains. He loved his boys, Tony and Nick, their wives, their children. I can't imagine the depth of their loss.
Dale Bartkus was first and foremost a teacher. He taught me the greatest lesson of all. Being "just" a teacher might be the most fulfilling life of all.
Thank you Dale for everything.
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