I got stuff to say

I have taught in computer classrooms for as long as I can remember. I’ve taught roughly 100 composition classes and only a handful of them have been in rooms that weren’t wired.

In the early days, I lost a lot of students to the Internet. It’s not hard to tell when one scans a room to tell who is with you and who isn’t. At first it bothered me. One semester, I had a kid who sat in the front row and would randomly click his mouse fast and furious 30 or 40 times. One day I interrupted myself and asked, “student (I’ve forgotten his real name), what are you doing?”

“Oh sorry, I’m playing a game.”

“Ok. I’m going to start calling you Clicky. That’s a little distracting, Clicky,” I said.

“Sorry.”

Clicky would occasionally have clicking fits and I’d just say, “Clicky…” and he’d stop.

Another semester, I handed back argumentative essays. It was a small class, about 12 students in a 102 class. A girl sat in the back row with her laptop open every class, often times with ear buds or headphones on. Her paper earned an F. It was horrible. In fact, I wish I’d saved as an example of what not to do. She came up to me after class in tears.

“I don’t understand why I got an F. I thought I did really well on this,” she sniffled.

“Well,” I said, “you actually did everything we talked in class about NOT doing. You alienated your audience in the first sentence, it’s not well organized (three paragraphs, one a page long), it’s not supported with anything but your opinion, you chose a topic I advised against because it’s too difficult (abortion), there is not style to Works Cited page. That’s just a start.”

“Oh…” she replied.

“You know, it might help if you didn’t sit in the back row and play on your laptop the whole class,” I suggested.

“Yeah, I’m working on that,” she said.

“It’s easy,” I said. “Just shut it.”

Now, games are less common. YouTube (laptop girl distraction of choice) is also less common. They’ve been replaced with Facebook and Twitter, mostly, and while this bothers some instructors, and occasionally me, it’s something we could, as writing teachers, embrace. After all, social media is all about words. And so is my class. Maybe they can work together.

In his essay “Digital Underlife in the Networked Writing Classroom,” Derek Mueller presents some interesting ideas about the nature and purpose of students goofing around on social medias in class.

Robert Brooke, building upon sociologist Earving Goffman, defined underlife as “the activities (or information games) individuals engage in to show that their identities are different from or more complex than the identities assigned them by organizational roles.”

Underlife leads to “backchannel” communication. Backchannel communication subverts the primary communication channels. I’m all about subversion and as a community college instructor, I’m all about shaping a new identity and sloughing off the labels society gives us (see Label post from 2012). Ironically, I friend and man of the clothe is promoting a theological conference this spring called “Subverting the Norm.” In jest, I asked why it sounded familiar (becuause he has really been promoting), he replieded “not sure. Maybe because it is the goal of both of our lives?”

Maybe. There is one main problem with this digital underlife, as with all underlife and backchannel communications–it can distract from information my students need to know (ie how to cite a Facebook conversation).

But how can I use it? As much as I want to deny it, my students think of me as “the man” and I am (as a representative of the academy) the one being subverted. Friending them on Facebook or having them follow me on Twitter takes the “back” out of the “backchannel.” If open, honest expression is what we hope students gain from the self-forming activities of underlife, then we best not mess with it. In other words, the first rule of underlife if don’t talk about underlife.

Maybe how best we can use it to ask students to use it. Encourage discussion of in-class topics outside of class. For example, a few semesters ago I had the ex-wife of a youth pastor in class. Because she’d left her cheating husband (who, ironic for this discussion, cheated on her in “World of Warcraft”), had one foot in the evangelical world and one foot out.

In the course of discussing “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr., we came across the passage “But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.” I asked for reactions.

My student said, “well, I just posted it on Facebook, so we’ll see how it goes, but it rings very true to me. Here we are, almost 50 years later, and it seems to have come true.” Backchannel communication based on class discussion. Who could ask for anything more?

I’ve taught online before and did not have great results. I found students needy with very unrealistic expectations about how available I would be. I got emails like “I work full time and have a family. I can only work on things from noon-6 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Thanks for understand.” Well, I wasn’t understanding. I made what I thought were reasonable deadlines and was responded to questions or messages at least once a day.

I’m prepping to give it another try. I’ve been reading Teaching Writing Online: How and Why by Scott Warnock. His chapter on “Course Lessons and Content” really gave me some food for thought on how I should approach the class.

One thing, in particular, I need to focus on is proper planning. My face-to-face activities don’t always translate well because I so often shift on the fly, even in the course of 50 minute class period. I had general MLA review planned and in evolved into evaluating sources. Face-to-face, that works great. Online, not so much.

What I need to translate to the online classroom is the dynamism of the F2F classroom and that always comes back to the Socratic questioning I learned in the writing center. When a question flops in the classroom, I’m there to rephrase, reposition or reframe. When I question flops online, I’m not necessarily “there” to fix because it takes time to realize it isn’t working. The solution is, I think, to ask more questions and maybe in different formats. It’s not always about the forum online. Of course, the last time I taught online, Facebook was in its infancy and Twitter hadn’t been developed. There are so many new ways to interact.

In retrospect, the F2F sections that have worked well gelled into a community and the sections that didn’t work didn’t ever gel. How can I make the online community gel?

I think the one important way is faces to names. I think that’s what has made Facebook so successful. I used Message Boards back in the 90s. They were themed (the second and one I used most was called The Galactic Starbase). It worked well because all the users were engaged. A way to engage students who are reluctant is to be familiar. Regular use of blogs, podcasts and vodcasts will help build a sense of community. We look forward to getting on Facebook because of what we see: photos, memes, etc. We bond F2F by the informal—telling stories to classmates about our weekend, movies, kids, jobs, spouses/significant others, and life. Having a section to allow informal sharing and conversation (the kind that happens before class starts or on work days) and help build community.

The blog also gives students something they often times don’t get: feedback from their audience. By allowing that real-world collaboration to happen, students can see how their words have power.

For example, I student from a F2F class asked rhetorically “Should people who don’t work out be allowed to wear workout clothes?” With that question, she unleashed the hounds and was rightfully (and I though respectfully) challenged at the absurdity of the question. “Define workout clothes” on asked. “Does that mean you can’t be glamorous for an important date because you’re not a movie start?” asked another. Someone pointed out that maybe someone who she didn’t deem “fit” may in fact be fitter than they used to be.

The original author of the question was taken aback at the tone and passion of their responses. “Why is everyone picking on me!? Ermahgawd!”

“Well,” I said, “you asked the question.” Ideally this is a good lesson in audience for that student. That classroom dynamic needs to be recreated in the online classroom. The only way to do that, it seems, is through a lot of questions and conversations.

I was reading E.B. White recently, as I often do when it’s time for me to write.  I’ve been working on essays lately and while White may be out of style, I still lean on him for inspiration when I need it. It was an early edition of One Man’s Meat and contrary to my normal routine, I started with the forward.

I use “Once More to the Lake” nearly every semester when I teach Eng 101 and it’s one of the essays I re-read each semester when I assign it. As a class, we dive in deep and analyze it forward and backward. My hope is then when we come to the Interpretive Essay assignment after midterm, they feel comfortable with essay dissection.

As part of the discussion, especially day two or three, we put in historical context and in the context of White’s life. The book itself was collected and published in 1942 just after Pearl Harbor was bombed and right before the US entry into the war in Europe. Many of the essays had been published over the previous three to four years in Harper’s and The New Yorker. I always bring up White’s worry about the war in the discussion of his personal life. He was around 40 (midlife crisis), had fled the city for the country, was a hypochondriac, a Luddite, and as a friend likes to say, a curmudgeon (her “favorite curmudgeon” to be precise).

White’s publishers were marketing One Man’s Meat as entirely first person, a fact White was trying to avoid. But as I read, a passage struck a chord with me. White wrote, “The first person singular is the only grammatical implement I can use without cutting myself.” He was sheepish about the fact that in such a time of turmoil, here was a collection of essays about a life of leisure and writing on a small New England farm. But, he goes on to say “Individualism and the first person singular are closely related to freedom, and are what the fight is about.” “A tyrant… knows instinctively that he will get nowhere with his schemes unless he can persuade people to think not as individuals but as a group, or better yet, not to think at all.”

As students of American history, we learn about WWII in crots. Little bits and pieces that we know are connected but we don’t always know how. I don’t know that we ever really see the war in its totality. We learn and think of Hitler in the context of the holocaust and not as much in the context of a tyrant. To read about Hitler in the present tense is interesting and helps shed light on the prevailing attitude of the time. White concludes his forward by writing about the changes that have happened on the farm since his last revision. White includes his usual catalog of details as he so often does. “The storm windows are down and the screens are up…. Eel traps have been set and have been entered by eels…. Each afternoon three patrol planes go over and are mistaken for hawks by the young chickens…. I have built sideboards and a headboard for the truck, and in a day or two I will receive a siren to be mounted on the truck for notifying people on my stretch of road about air raids.” I never knew how the fog of war loomed not only over this collection of essays, but the country itself. And while White apologizes for a first personal singular book, he reminds us that we are all first person singulars and that our voice matters for ourselves, our country and our way of life. White writes, “I have yet to meet the common man, although I have heard his name mentioned in many circles. Ordinary is the word much used to describe him, but I find him wholly miraculous and I sure he finds himself so.” Most of us would not (and should not) have it any other way.

We live in a first person world now in ways White never did. Twitter, Facebook and bloggers. Talking heads, political commentators, talk radio (sports, politics, local, national, etc). In many ways, the “I” is more important than ever. But for student writers, developing that first person singular voice isn’t always easy. I’ve always been a first person junkie. I love to read it. I love to write it. In fact, writing short first person columns for the school newspapers in high school and college are how I learned to write. But it’s not easy to develop a voice. Young people are some often taught (or forced) to suppress their voices. They (their voices and themselves) don’t matter much. Many do fight it and develop an oral voice in spite of the best efforts to suppress it. But their writing voices don’t grow along with it. It often gets worse in college because by the time I get them, they lack to confidence to write for themselves because now they have to write for the “professor.” They have to sound “smart” because they are in college now. But they fail to use their voice.

I remember taking an Advanced Comp class in high school. It was only a semester long, which was odd when I was in high school.  I remember two things from that class. One, when asked what “prose” was, a muscle-bound male cheerleader answered “stuff written by a pro writer?” Two, during a conference with the teacher, Mrs. Smith (Really. That was her name.), she spoke to me about a piece and voice. She said, “you’re writing like a journalist here and an academic here. With practice you’ll combine the two and have your own voice.” I don’t think anyone had actually ever presented that concept that to me. “My own voice?” I chuckled. “That would be pretty cool.”

I was lucky, I think, to have parents who encouraged me to have a voice. My dad was a journalist (and an editorial writer) and my mom was a history teacher. We watched the news together and we discussed things. I was taught to have an opinion and fight for what I believed in. Not every student gets that at home. But it took time to develop my “voice” and you could very easily argue that I still haven’t found it (or maybe that it’s still evolving).

So how do we instill the voice in a time when theoretically everyone has one but no one can here it? One thing I can do is have the conversation Mrs. Smith had with me with my own students (and I do). Voice matters. A lot. And we all can have one if we try. As White said, there are no “ordinary” men.

Last semester, I had a student named Steve. He was around 50 and rough. Gray hair, slicked back and a bushy mustache. He rolled his sleeves like Danny Zuko and rode a motorcycle. He was a former ironworker and machinist who had been downsized from a manufacturing plant and ended up in my class. I wondered what Steve would produce. While the whole semester he struggled with his MLA style and the  computer, his essays and topics were strong. His first essay was a wonderfully thoughtful piece about “noodling.” Noodling involves feeling around on the bottom of a river for a hole that might hide a catfish protecting its eggs, sticking your hand in its mouth and wrestling it to submission.

Steve had brought home a 30+ pound catfish (about as big as your leg) and put it in a pool of water in the backyard to clean later for a fish fry. His daughter was 3 at the time, and, believe or not, befriended the catfish. She would put her fingers in the water and the fish would swim over and let her pet it. Steve took one look at that bond and had a change of heart. He wrote “I realized that day that I had no right to take the life of a fish older than me so I let it go. I never went noodling again.” Steve had voice and it came from an unlikely place. He was surprised by it, but in many ways I wasn’t. Nontraditional students, especially men, are often wonderful storytellers. It’s part of the blue-collar way of life. On the job site, in the factories, in the bars after work, men tell stories. While Steve was not confident in his writing before the class, he had been developing his voice for years. All he had to do was put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and let it flow. As part of the 20^th Century oral tradition, Steve had probably been revising that story for some time without even knowing it.

We can’t all be E.B. White, but that’s ok. We are not at war in the Pacific and on the brink of war in Europe as we were when in 1942 when White wrote the forward to One Man’s Meat. But we are at war in many other ways. We are constantly threatened by the tyranny of apathy. As White said the tyrant “knows instinctively that he will get nowhere with his schemes unless he can persuade people to think not as individuals but as a group, or better yet, not to think at all.” Individualism and the first person singular are closely related to freedom. They should be cherished and cultivated by students and teachers and parents. Voices should be embraced by elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and colleges. Teachers should encourage the development of the voice because “individualism and the first person singular are closely related to freedom.”

White offers One Man’s Meat “not with the idea that it is meaty but with the sure knowledge that it is one man—one individual unlimited, with hope of liberty and justice for all.” A nice sentiment, 70 years old, and still ringing true today. I will continue to search for my voice and I will continue to nurture the voice on my students.

I’ve been slacking on blog entries, but I have been writing. This was published in the Springfield News-Leader on Oct. 5, 2012.

Banning books also bans our speech

As the calendar flips to October, we begin to think about Halloween, football and fall. But it’s also Banned Books Week (Sept. 30-Oct. 6).

It’s easy not to think about banned books this year because it isn’t in the news. But it’s important because somewhere, right now, within our borders, our freedoms are being threatened.

There are the obvious First Amendment issues of banning books, but there are other freedoms at stake as well.

The explanation that some districts and communities use to ban books are the criteria of the Motion Picture Association of America and Entertainment Software Rating Board and not the personal beliefs of a few to remove the books rarely holds water.

While that may be the explanation, it’s never the reason. One could easily apply these ratings to many books, including classics and books we’ve never heard of, and remove many more. If you recall, Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” was rated R for graphic violence. Imagine what rating the Bible would get. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened.

It’s the use of these rating systems that can become problematic. Comparing books to video games or movies is comparing apples and bubblegum. Books at school don’t get read in a bubble. They get read in context of a lesson plan and unit plan. They get discussed. Questions are asked by teachers and answered by students and vice versa.

Ask yourself, when was the last time you had a sit-down with your teenaged child and said, “Son, let’s talk about why you are shooting German soldiers in ‘Call of Duty: World at War’?” Video games and movies don’t happen in the context of a classroom, but discussion of controversial books does.

In 1981, the National Council of Teachers of English adopted the “Guideline on The Students’ Right to Read.” As part of that guideline, the council states that “Freedom of inquiry is essential to education in a democracy. To establish conditions essential for freedom, teachers and administrators need to work together.”

This goes hand in hand with the First Amendment. Is that not our goal, after all, to educate future citizens?

The guideline continues with “The community that entrusts students to the care of an English teacher should also trust that teacher to exercise professional judgment in selecting or recommending books. The English teacher can be free to teach literature, and students can be free to read whatever they wish only if informed and vigilant groups, within the profession and without, unite in resisting unfair pressures.”

School districts and communities that ban books fail to see the connection between freedom of speech and freedom to read. If we aren’t allowed freedom to read, do we really have freedom of speech?

We need to trust our teachers and their training to tackle tough issues and teach our children that the right to read is equal to the right to write.

Thoreau had a hipster beard long before that were cool.

A few months ago I had a friend who kept posting inspirational quotes on Facebook. I generally don’t like quotes, especially inspirational ones. So often they’re trite and taken out of context and thus lose or gain meanings that were unintended. Or, they’re often uttered by someone that we should not be taking seriously. Self-help gurus are modern day snake oil salesmen. They’re also, at times, inaccurate.

For example, a few months ago I wrote down in my notebook a quote attributed to Henry David Thoreau that went “Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” I went to look for it the other day and could not find it anywhere in Walden. It must have come from another essay, I thought. Since I was reading the electronic version of Walden, I searched for “lost” and found the real quote, which is “Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”

While the actual and original version is wordier and maybe dated in its structure, it carries more depth and meaning. In the full version, the aside and explanation are necessary to add a metaphysicality that it needs. And “understand” does not equal “find.” Plus, the academic in me has trouble calling a plagiarized  paraphrase a quote.

But what I like about Thoreau’s sentiment is that at times I sometimes take comfort in being lost, which is why I was attracted me to this “quote” to begin with, because as he says without being lost, physically or metaphysically, “do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.” Getting caught up in the day-to-day drudgery and minutia make us forget “the infinite extent of our relations” and the importance of them. We are all ripples in still water, sharing our small impact with other ripples, some crashing into others and dissipating, others joining with other ripples until we make a wave. But the impact is felt far a wide, however small, and we often forget that. Getting lost means getting found, and finding is a good thing.

Ahoy. I sail!

When my friend was posting all her “inspirational” quotes, I countered with de-inspirational quotes. (I’m one part Devil’s Advocate, two parts smart ass.) My favorite (at right)

shows a sailboat being tossed about in a storm and says: “Fear: Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know the terror of being forever lost at sea.”

Being lost at sea would be terrifying. But what if you want to sail? What if you want a challenge? The sea is vast but it is not endless. As I said, getting lost almost always connotes getting found. Stay afloat and eventually you’ll end up somewhere.

Labels. We always seem to be concerned with labels, me included. Some of the most bitter office politics I’ve witnessed have come over job titles, which is just a label. Part of me understands this. We like credit for what we have accomplished.

But labels aren’t necessarily bad. I have some obvious labels. I’m a dad because not only do I have kids, but also because I parent them. I stake claim to that title very freely and with pride. I’m also a teacher, and while I struggled with that label the first few semesters I taught, I know now that it’s true, to a degree, but I see myself more as a facilitator. Part of that, though, is how we define teaching. I feel like I give the opportunity for discovery. Sometimes we need an assignment to get us motivated.

Other labels I struggle with. I’m always leery of people who tell me they are “writers.” A couple semesters ago I had a student who was a “writer” and, as he claimed (and had been told) one of professional quality. He failed my class because he turned in only two of five papers. The two he turned in were not very good.

Being a “writer” is something I’ve always struggled with. I write (very occasionally) but am I a writer? I don’t know. The other day my 7-year-old asked me “if you could have any job in the world, what would it be?” Dinner is fun at our house.

“I guess I’d like to be a writer,” I said.

“Well, that’s possible if you want to,” she said.

Who is the parent, I thought?

Saying “I write” has always sounded so pretentious to me, even if it’s true. I may write, but does that make me a writer? If I got paid for it, would that make me a writer? Do I need a certain number of readers? What is that magical threshold I need to make the label stick?

The other label I struggle with is being a “runner.” I began running in late January. My phone app tells me I’ve gone 145.02 miles in five months, but does that make me a runner? That sounds so pretentious, too, doesn’t it? “Hi, I’m Web and I run.” Apparently I’m a douche bag, too.

So why am I ok with being labeled “Dad” and “Teacher” but not “Writer” or “Runner?” I think part of it is because, while I am flawed as both a dad and a teacher, I’ve had success at both. I’ve had students write beautiful essays and blossom in my classes. I’ve had students shake my hand after handing in their final and thank me for a good class. (That ranks as one of my better days.) My kids are wonderful kids. They are polite, empathetic, imaginative and well-behaved. I couldn’t ask for better kids. And while they try my patience at times, I know so far I’ve been successful, but I also know there is a long way to go. The thing both teaching and parenting have in common, for me, is that I’ve grown into both and like to think I still am.

But writing and running are different. To me, writing is like running in that it’s natural. Language acquisition is like learning to walk. We start off slow and add words every day. As we mature, we get better. As we practice, we get better. It’s just one word after another until you get a sentence. Then it’s one sentence after another until you get a paragraph. Then it’s one paragraph after another until you’re done. It’s easy. Later on we start to add layers of subtlety and complexity. Running is the same way. We learn to walk, we learn to run and, as we practice, we get better. It’s just one step after another until you get around the block. Then it’s one block after another until you get a mile. Then it’s one mile after another until you’re you get to 145.02. It’s easy. We add form (that was big for me), speed, distance, endurance and sometimes we get fancy. We jump over stuff or go through things. Sometimes we do it in the cold, which I’ve done, and sometimes we do it in the rain (which I haven’t) and sometimes in the heat. It’s not always easy (like writing) but we persevere (like writing). It seems, at least with me, I like the challenge and I like the pain that comes with both.

So what the hell am I, and maybe more importantly, why do I care? Some labels define us and some don’t. Some we care about more than others. Dad and teacher define me and the reality is I couldn’t stop either even if I wanted to. I will always be both. Writer and runner, though, are things I can (and have) avoided to my mental and physical detriment. But both take discipline and so far, almost six months of running and two months of writing. I am determined to earn those labels and add them to my list.

Live Free or Die

For a long time I loved the motto of New Hampshire—“Live free or die.” It’s probably the most famous of all state mottos. In fact, I don’t know any others off the top of my head. Missouri’s is “The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law” (Salus populi suprema lex esto in Latin) which is a noble sentiment, but doesn’t really ring true as the ruling guide our legislators live by.

The idea of having “Live free or die” on my license plate is pretty cool, but New Hampshire is far away and I’ve not had a lot of luck with my job searches. However, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” So I can co-opt New Hampshire’s motto if I want because, as an American, I’m not an outsider to New Hampshire. We’re not close, particularly, but we are in the roughly the same neighborhood.

Gen. Stark

What’s interesting, too, about the origins of the motto is that it’s shortened from the original statement. Retired Revolutionary War General John Stark was too ill to travel to a reunion of Revolution veterans, so he sent along a note with his declining RSVP that offered this toast: “Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.” Interesting. The meaning I derive from that is “don’t fear for me, friends, because death is not the most evil thing I’ve experienced.” Stark was New Hampshire’s most famous soldier from the Revolution and unlike many, when the war was over he returned to his farm instead of becoming a politician–a true citizen-soldier.

I wish I had the same attitude toward death. Not looking forward to it, frankly, though I am still in love with the idea of living free. We should all be so lucky, but few of us are. The sad thing is we often don’t know it.

Example: since last summer I’ve know the bearings in my rear driver’s side hub have been failing. Over the winter and spring, the noise became worse. I mentioned it to my brother-in-law who is the family shade-tree mechanic. He said it was easy. I put it off. The noise kept getting worse and then I started to feel it rubbing. If you don’t know what a hub does, it’s what lets the wheel spin. If it completely fails, your wheel falls off (not good) or it welds itself together, thus you’d be dragging a wheel that is unable to spin. That’s not good, either. We finally replaced it a couple weeks ago. When we pulled it off, bearings fell everywhere. (That’s not supposed to happen.) My brother-in-law is always impressed with my ability to stretch the life of something to its literal death. Twice, maybe three times, I’ve driven until my brake pads literally fell off. He said it would be driving a brand new car once we were done. I knew it would be an improvement, but I was surprised when he was right. He texted me the next day and asked how it was driving. I responded, “It’s awesome. Didn’t realize how much stress it was causing. Smooth sailing now!” For the last week, I’ve looked forward to driving my car instead of worrying what was going to happen. I knew I was worried, but I didn’t realize how worried. I was not living free.

Lately I’ve thought a revision to the motto was necessary. “Live free or die, just a little bit, every day.”

Living free ain’t easy. A schlub like me has responsibilities. A wife, kids, dogs, a house payment, utilities, etc. Then things we like, but don’t need, like satellite TV, a data plan for our smart phones, high-speed internet, etc.

But, as General Stark shows us, there are times when men (and women) shoulder that responsibility. I don’t begrudge the responsibility, but I do have a problem with the sacrifices we often have to make in order to shoulder that responsibility. I got married on purpose, had a family on purpose, asked my wife to stay home with the kids on purpose. I gladly took on that role as Ward Cleaver in cargo shorts.

But where my soul gets burdened is not at home. That’s where my soul is restored. Where my freedom goes to die is work. Many people do not realize how much they die at work until the leave. Like fixing the hub on my car, leaving a job that robs your soul is a relief. I remember saying after I was downsized, “I don’t think I realized how unhappy I was.” My family noticed. I was not as cranky. I was easier to live with. I had some freedom back, because not living free is worse than death, at least according to Gen. Stark. I think he’s probably right.

So my goal now is to live freer. I’m tired of burden. I’m tired of my soul being robbed. I’m tired of dying, just a little bit, every day because I know it’s killing me. General Stark was right–while death may not be the worst of evils, not living free is.

Like most kids, I used to hate running. I always knew it was good for me physically, but it hurt. At basketball practice, “suicides” were a constant at the end of practice. Start at the baseline then run to the foul line then back to baseline then to half court and back then opposite foul line and back and finally opposite baseline and back. We always ended practice with them but if we lacked focus or intensity, we’d run more as punishment. I’d hate to think how many I ran.

I’m sure every sport has their version. Running as punishment makes one not like running.

About 18 months ago, my wife joined the gym. We’ve joined a couple here and there in our 14 years together, but it never stuck for me. She, however, was working out 10-12 hours a week and loving it. She inspired me and I missed being in decent shape, but my exercise in the past was also play. I’d play sports or ride mountain bikes with friends. We’d ride every chance we got in college. But “working out” was never something I derived pleasure from.

Realizing, though, that I was getting older and less healthy every year was eye opening. I kept growing out of pants. Not a good feeling. Then we started eating less “processed” food at home. I hate to sound like a pretentious locavore or health nut, because I’m neither. But we stopped eating easy side dishes like rice and pasta and I dropped 10 pounds pretty quickly. The numbers didn’t matter much to me, but it was interesting and I felt better.

Then I started working out, though with two jobs and a family, it was hard to work in. I was doing some nautilus machines and seeing a little progress, but not much. I would reluctantly do the treadmill. Then one day, I didn’t feel like the treadmill so I went to the indoor track. If I remember right, I was pissed about something and the weights didn’t work it out. And walking on a treadmill didn’t either. And in some odd way, I missed the punishment of running suicides. I needed my ass kicked but I didn’t have a coach to do it. I had to kick my own ass.

I set out to run a mile. My chest was heaving afterward. The next day, my hip sockets were so sore I could hardly walk. A friend posted an article on running “form” from www.goodformrunning.com on Facebook, so I looked at it. The article was about the same thoughts I had: running as punishment, which leads to bad form. I read the article and I changed my posture (more upright and shoulders back) and shortened my stride. The next time I ran, I wasn’t sore. I kind of liked it. So I started running more. Then I tried running outside. This was getting interesting. It was January. It was cold, but not too cold. And I had long sleeves and I hat. The thing I like most was the cold air in my lungs. It hurt, but in a good way.

The other thing I liked most about running was the solitude. It’s pretty easy to be alone, but it’s not too easy to find solitude. There are too many people–at work, at school, at home. Time alone with my thoughts gets harder and harder to come by for me. I used to find solitude in fishing or hiking or biking. Life got in the way of those activities. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Having a job is a very good thing as is having a loving spouse and great kids. But time to clear the mind makes me a better spouse and a better dad, I think

Farm Road

Then one day I got bored. I had been running my neighborhood and the adjacent neighborhood 2-3 times each adding up to about 3 miles. But it got old. That day, I left my neighborhood and instead of running to the next, I kept going. I knew roughly where the farm roads went and that if I took the first right, then the second right, then the third right, I’d be right back at the entrance to my neighborhood about 3 miles later. What I didn’t know was what was in between each right.

What I discovered was a whole lot of nothing, which actually turned out to be a whole lot of something. About a quarter mile from my neighborhood are cattle farms. I knew this. I hear the cows from my deck, especially in the evening when the rest of the world gets quiet. I also hear the coyotes in the distance, which is kind of fun. Listening to coyotes hunt and howl is pretty interesting. There is nothing like the sound of a coyote pack after a kill. The cacophony is almost frightening.

As I ran west out into the country, I was mesmerized. It was beautiful. Instead of watching my feet and avoiding cracks in the sidewalk, jumping over sleeping cats, dodging cars parked on the sideway and basketball hoops, I was watching the sun set. The rolling hills of the Ozarks Plateau and the pasture land just kept going. Clumps of trees here and there with the occasional farm house and barn were all I saw. The cows along the fence lines gave me the most surprised looks. It was almost like an inquisitive look of “what are you doing?” They seemed as fascinated with me as I was with them. It was a good day.

The next time I ran, instead of the first right, I took the second right. My 3-ish miles turned into 5-ish miles. And I saw new farms. I saw one called “Coyote Pass” and thought, “well, that explains a lot.” I saw new cows and the donkey I sometimes heard late a night braying. I also found new hills and I was amazed at how 20 to 30 feet in elevation caused changes in temperature. The valleys were cool and damp and the peaks were hot and radiated heat. These are things I never would have noticed on a country drive or even on my bike. Running slowed things down. I literally had time to smell the honeysuckle in bloom this spring, not because I sought it out, but because it was there and I couldn’t help but breath it in.

Within a couple months, running went from something I dreaded to something I did to punish myself to something I did not just to get away, but for fun. On my country runs, I’ve passed a total of 2 people, 3 cars and 4 or 5 trucks. More cows than people. The sunsets you see as the banner of this blog have all come from my runs. I’ve decided I should collect. No two have been alike.

Sunset on the farm

It’s funny how often we don’t realize we’re missing something until we find it. I found my “zen” moments again where I can get lost in thought and lose time. It feels good physically and mentally. Getting back to basics and feeling good feels good.

This past weekend, I finally taught my 10-year-old how to ride a bike. She’s been baulking for years. “I don’t want to” or “I don’t need to” or “Later.”

Part of the problem has been that she’s outgrown every bike we’ve gotten her before she learned how to ride it. And while she’s getting taller, she’s not quite tall enough to ride my wife’s bike.

Saturday on my way home from the gym, I saw a

The bike.

bike for sale in a driveway. It looked to be a box store mountain bike in pretty good shape. It had 24” wheels, so I thought it would fit her, but I didn’t stop. Sunday morning while we drove to the grocery store, it was still there and on the way back, I showed my wife and we stopped. She agreed to get it if I could talk him down to $20 and we taught her to ride that night. I did talk him down and that evening we set out that evening to climb the mountain.

My daughter is peculiar. She’s smart. She just finished 5^th grade but she’s reading at a high school level. Certain things come easy to her and so she gravitates to them, like reading. She’ll wake up early and read a book. Other things, especially athletic pursuits, do not come easily, and so she gravitates away from them. She’s stubborn and when she gets it in her head that she can’t do something, then she can’t and won’t do it. But that’s where dads step in, right?

After the Memorial Day cookout with my in-laws, I made sure all the tires were aired up. We would have a family ride that night come hell or high water.

Lesson one: get on.

My father-in-law started. He gave her instructions, pointers, tips, and even made her put a helmet on. She made the typical progress and would wobble 20 or 30 feet. Unfortunately, next door was an audience of five or six tweenagers. The pressure mounted and she tried to give up. Tears ensued and it lookde like our family ride was going to go through the hell route. After a few more tears, a band aid and a few “breaks,” I lost it. I took over for Papa and said “it’s time to get this done.”

I am not the most patient person. I can only sit back a watch for so long before I have to take charge. So Bella and I had a “come to Jesus” meeting in the middle of the street.

“Look, this is ridiculous,” I said. “Millions of people all over the world use bikes as their only transportation.”

“But I don’t want to know how to ride a bike! Why do I have to!?”

“Because I said,” in classic dad-speak. “Things aren’t always easy and I’m tired of watching you give up because things get hard. If you think this is hard, wait until middle school or high school or work or life. You think those will be easy? No! Life is hard sometimes and you just have to shut up and do it. Now get back on the goddamn bike and start peddling.”

More tears, of course, because I lost it. But sometimes tough love works—I hoped. A few false starts later, I said “get off your bike and walk it with me.” We went around the corner out of sight of everyone. No tweenagers, siblings, grandparents,  or anyone. Just me and her. More tears and for the first of many times, I’m sure, I heard the “I hate it here! I’d rather be adopted that live here! You hate me!!”

“Bella,” I said with a chuckle, “You can say all the mean things you want to me but I am not going inside until you learn how to ride this bike.”

Then she started to get it. Thirty feet became 30 yards which became 60 yards. We worked on braking, turning, starting without a push until she got it. Then should rode the three or four blocks home without stopping, without crashing, without crying and finally with a smile on her face. When she pulled into the driveway, everyone had gone inside for pie. She burst into the kitchen with a smile on her face and said “I did it!” and everyone was happy.

Bella proved to herself that she could do something hard.

The family bikes.

Sunday afternoon, we loaded the bikes and went to the park to practice. She rode two miles, had a spill or two, learned some lessons, but got better. That night at dinner, she said “I’m proud of myself” and we said “you should be. You’re doing great.”

Sunday night, we ventured back out to the neighborhood where she finally was able to ride bikes with the neighborhood girls years younger than her. The whole family was on their bikes enjoying the suburbs as they were meant to be enjoyed. It was a great day.

What I hope Bella gets from overcoming this obstacle is that obstacles can be overcome. They will have to be every day. Learning to ride a bike is small compared to fighting cancer, but the lessons we learn when we are 10 are the lessons we will use when we are 30 and start worrying about prescription drug coverage or 35 when we get downsized from our jobs and so on. Giving up is not an option. Perseverance is the only option.  She persevered.

And this is why I think sometimes life is a metaphor for life.

Avie flying her kite.

When I was six, I was running with my head turned trying to keep a kite in air and ran into a stop sign. A lot of blood and three stitches later, I was good.

When I was 37, I was running with my head turned trying to keep a kite in the air and tripped over a 4×8 ft raised bed garden. Two twisted ankles and some ibuprofen, I’m good.

Some things never change.