Ty Roth

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Trust

I recently had the honor of speaking at a banquet for high school seniors who had been chosen as “Elks Student-of-the-Month” at some point this past school year and their guests. What follows is an abridged version of that speech.

I’d like to begin with a simple question: Do you trust me? For trust is a rare commodity these days.

Can you trust a 60-year-old white male; an educator for 38 years; a married man of 36 years; a graduate of a Catholic elementary, middle school, high school, and university; a father of three young men – all of whom have turned out to be decent, hard-working citizens; a grandfather of three; a taxpayer; a registered voter; and a disciple of both Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift?

I’ll ask you again: Do you trust me?

If you do not, I don’t blame you because your distrust of my generation is well earned.

My youngest son, who is a bit older than you seniors, whenever he wishes to express his exasperation with me, will call me a “Boomer,” and not in a flattering way. It is a designation I cannot deny. For, if I accept sociologists’ categorization of those born between 1946 and 1964 as Baby Boomers, I am – through no fault of my own – guilty as charged.

I say “guilty” because there is much for which my generation owes yours an apology regarding the state of the world we’re about to leave you with managing. For right or wrong, our generation’s parents taught us to trust our neighbors, who acted as proxy parents; to trust police officers, who didn’t wear body cameras; to trust priests, who were like Jesus; to trust that schools, which had no need for resource officers and whose teachers were trusted to choose appropriate books for reading and subjects for discussion, and to trust our elected officials.

Obviously, some of that trust was misplaced as some of our neighbors were rather creepy, some of our police officers were abusive of their authority, some of our priests turned out to be less than priestly, and some of our elected officials have behaved less-than-honorably while in office and beyond. However, that trust made both order and progress possible.

So, again, if you don’t trust me and what I have to say tonight, I do not blame you.

The label “Baby Boomer” is a sociologist’s term, which I am, but I am also a literary scholar. In that field, we refer to the second half of the twentieth century and its bleeding into the twenty-first as the Postmodern Age, and it is on that period that we Boomers have left our reactive mark, cloaking much of it – including its storytelling – in an aura of distrust that is now your unfortunate inheritance.

In our defense, you need to remember that Boomers were born into a post-World War, post-Holocaust hellscape and came of age during a time that witnessed America’s repeated entrance into additional wars with highly-questionable justifications; a time in which a president resigned in shame; a time in which the Declaration of Independence’s promise of equality remained largely limited to white men; a time in which income inequality would grow at an exponential rate; a time when the chance to achieve a quality of life superior to one’s parents became less and less achievable; and a time that fostered the rise of political polarization stoked by charlatans on talk radio, on so-called news stations, and on the Internet to the point that an ideological civil war is tearing the citizenry of this country apart.

Is it any wonder then that trust and civility have eroded to such an astonishing degree that some school board meetings look like episodes of The Jerry Springer Show; that – God forbid – you unintentionally cut off a driver in the next lane and spark an outburst of road rage; that a young person knocking on the wrong door, turning her car around in a stranger’s driveway, or playing hide and seek in a neighbor’s yard could result in their being shot by a paranoid person claiming to “stand his ground.”

All of the above were spawned from a generation of Baby Boomer/Postmodernists who relished and promoted ironic disassociation, sarcasm, irreverence bordering on disrespect, pessimism, even nihilism, but – most damaging of all – distrust of any and all authority. All of which we transmitted to succeeding generations to the point that today’s Millennials and Gen Z have largely turned their backs on the once widely-shared grand narratives that held us together as Americans, such as the belief in the American melting pot, the plurality of religions, the American Dream, and the Golden Rule, but we’ve left nothing to replace them.

If Baby Boomers and Postmodern artists are to be correctly criticized, it is for exactly that: we have been quite adept at pointing out the problems of our era but less-than-proficient – or even interested – in offering solutions. We have failed to outline a road map that might return us to the grand narratives mentioned above and to such once commonly-held virtues as sincerity, respectfulness, kindness, optimism, love, cooperation, tolerance, and most importantly, TRUST.

Therefore, I’m going to leave you with a simple antidote to our “Postmodern, Baby Boomer Blues.” Although I say “simple,” I find my own solution highly unlikely to be enacted because it is out of fashion and would require much effort and change, which are two of the things we hate more than anything. It’s a solution that will seem obvious coming from me and maybe even self serving, yet it’s the only avenue I’ve yet to imagine that might take us to a better Post-postmodernism era.

One last time: Do you trust me? Here it is:

READ.

Read, not just anything but read from the classics of literary fiction and nonfiction, including the texts of the world’s great religions. I believe such secular and sacred texts are the only remaining trustworthy sources to find, to learn, and to implement into our daily lives what William Faulkner called the “old universal truths,” which are our only hope of not prematurely hearing what Faulkner also referred to as “the last ding dongs of doom” as nation.

I recommend such texts because, as I’ve learned firsthand, the traditional publication process is slow and highly competitive. It winnows out texts of inferior quality so that mostly the worthwhile survive and make it to a library or bookstore shelf. Also, for works of literature to earn the reputation of being great or a “classic” means that their veracity and trustworthiness have withstood the crucible of time. Finally, I recommend these texts because their authors knew when they wrote them that there was great responsibility on the tip of their quills; in the lead of their pencils; and ink of their pens, typewriter ribbons, and printers. The gospel writers, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Whitman, Woolf, Morrison, etc. all understood that no work of art that aspired to be great and lasting could promote anything but virtuous choices and living. To do anything else would have immediately disqualified them from the pantheon of great authors and their texts from the canons of great literature.

In conclusion, I’m not stupid. I realize that my proffered solution to the decline of trust in our society is naive and pollyannaish, especially at a time when AI has made it increasingly difficult to trust anything we see in photos, on video, or read in print or online and at a time when there are few remaining safe public places. But until we make a leap of faith and are willing to risk trusting one another again, we will continue to spiral downward into an ungovernable state of enmity and anomie.

The last lines from Jurassic World: Dominion, spoken in reference to the fragile interdependence of all living things, take on additional meaning when applied to our current American body politic: “If we’re going to survive, we’ll have to trust each other, depend on each other, coexist.”

If you enjoy my blog posts, you may like to receive an email notification whenever a new article is posted. If so, click on the Menu link above and select “Home,” scroll down to the bottom, and click the “Follow” button. – Always with gratitude and love, Ty

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“Girls in Their Summer Clothes”

In his song “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” from the Magic album (2007), Bruce Springsteen sings, “The girls in their summer clothes // In the cool of the evening light // The girls in their summer clothes pass me by.” The passing girls’ complete lack of interest in him is a blow to the song’s narrator’s ego and a sad coming-to-terms with the loss of his youthful allure and youth in general. Bruce was fifty-seven years old when that song was released.

Similarly, another of my favorite musical artists, the Scranton, PA, pop-punk band The Menzingers in their song “Lookers” sing:

“Lost in a picture frame

The way our bodies used to behave

The way we smiled in the moment

Before they permanently froze

But that was the old me and you

When we were both lookers”

Both of these songs drip with nostalgia for the salad days of the singers’ youth and regret for the impossibility of recapturing them. Both songs speak to me in the way some songs do more than others. There was clearly a day when the narrators in both songs were able to turn the girls’ heads and were much more satisfied with their lives. However, that day is no longer, and they are both being forced to reckon with their diminishing attractiveness and with being slowly written out of the story that is life.

I can’t say that I can identify with the narrators’ days as turners of heads or as “lookers,” but I – and I would assume most people past forty – can identify with their feelings of despondency and yearning for their lost youths. It was George Bernard Shaw who once wrote that “Youth is the most precious thing in life; it is too bad it has to be wasted on young folks.”

I may be misjudging, but I find it odd or disingenuous that most middle aged and beyond folks claim that – if they were given the opportunity – they would never want to be young again. Although, some like to add the caveat that they would but only if they could take their gained knowledge back with them. As in the case of most hypotheticals, the bolder claim is an easy one to make. In this thought experiment, the “bolder case” would be “I’d rather be old and closer to death than young with decades yet to live.” I wonder, however, how many who make that claim, especially those whose bodies and minds are beginning to betray them, would actually jump at the chance to be young again if it were a magical reality. Personally, I never hesitate in my response, I’d absolutely be transformed back into a younger version of myself with or without the lessons I’ve learned along the way.

Perhaps, a part of my willingness to recycle myself is due to the fact that I struggle intellectually to put much stock in a cognizant existence after this earthly life is through. I keep the door open slightly to the possibility that I’m wrong, but I have found it easier to deeply appreciate my life and those who people it with the belief that my existence is finite rather than banking on what may or not be behind Door #2. I have to believe that many of those who would reject the opportunity to be young again do so with firm faith that some sort of heaven exists even if — as is often the case — their own chances of being admitted are dubious at best.

Despite my wistful longing for a return to youth, I know it is a fantasy. In fact and to the contrary, one of my favorite maxims of recent coinage – often attributed to Scott O’Neill, a former owner of the Philadelphia 76ers – is to “be where [and when] your feet are.” In the end, what/when else is there? To quote Shakespeare, “What’s done is done.” And unless the circular theory of time is true, the future is an illusion. The point, of course, is to live as much as is possible in the present moment.

My advice to the protagonists in Springsteen’s and The Menzingers’ songs comes from one of my favorite poems by Lord Tennyson,“Ulysses” in which the eponymous speaker, who in his twilight years after a youth of romance and adventure, encourages:

“Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are—”

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Teacher DEpreciation Week.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this being “Teacher Appreciation Week” as my 38th year in the classroom draws near to its close. Such pondering has caused me to wonder about the state of my chosen profession at a time when so many well-intentioned but misguided parents, politicians, and special interest groups are trying to tell me what books I can read and what topics I can discuss with my students. Many of these same parents, who seem so eager to tell teachers what to teach, are simultaneously outraged by the notion of being told how to parent by a teacher even when it is obvious that many of their child’s classroom challenges begin at home.

All of which has led me to questioning whether it should be called “Teacher Depreciation Week” instead. The coffee, cookies, and cards that we receive during this week of appreciation are nice, but I’d rather be thanked by your trust that I want what is best for our children’s education and maturation as much as you do. Otherwise, I would have been a busy-ness major.

As anyone who has ever purchased a car knows, depreciation is the decrease in value of an asset over time. In the case of a new car, that time is however long it takes you to exit the dealership onto the road. The depreciation of the teaching profession in America has taken a bit longer, but a good car is much easier to replace than a good teacher. And, if we are willing to be honest, the raw materials our colleges of education are being supplied with (meaning students) are not among our “best and brightest,” who, for many of the reasons I list below, are pursuing careers outside of the teaching profession, which contributes to its depreciation.

Teaching is what it is. No one enters the profession clueless of its demands or expecting anything approaching fortune or public acclaim. If they did, they weren’t paying enough attention when they were students. The drawbacks of the teaching vocation have been frequently enumerated. Legitimate teacher complaints consistently on the list include insufficient pay, long hours spent on school work outside of the school day, personal money spent on needed classroom materials, the necessity of secondary employment to make ends meet, the lack of administrative and parental support, the low societal prestige afforded to the profession, etc. One teacher concern only recently added to the list is also the most grievous: school shootings.

Despite the legitimacy of all of the aforementioned complaints, I have rarely given voice or pen to them. For me, the tipping point is reached and this blog is written when folk who are not experts in education or in the disciplines in which licensed teachers are no longer trust my professionality, my ethics, and my ability to properly decide what is age and subject appropriate for the students whom I’ve been assigned to instruct and with whom I have been entrusted. The intrusion into my classroom and lesson planning becomes especially obnoxious when those interloping have an obvious political or religious agenda that is driving their interest and intrusion. They have every right to their beliefs and values, but they do not have the right to force them upon students and teachers in public schools. Instead, they should enter their children into likeminded private schools or take on the burden of homeschooling their children themselves.

As a teacher of literature, my job is to choose appropriate texts of great literary, social, and cultural value and to accurately represent the authors and themes of those texts without avoiding or whitewashing historical truths. My goal is NEVER to tell my students how to think about these themes and truths but to encourage them TO THINK and to draw their own conclusions.

Don’t get me wrong. I totally appreciate the appreciation, but if anyone really wants to have empathy – which is far more valuable than gratitude – for what I do, come to my room and see how good you are at engaging 25 teenagers for 50 minutes with nothing more than a Shakespearean sonnet written over 400 years ago in a style of language nothing like their own, all the while keeping them off of the mini-computer (cell phone) buzzing with notifications in their pockets. Then do it 5 more times that day.

Now that’s something I’d appreciate.

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House on Fire! What Would You Do?

My youngest son is of a taciturn (doesnt like to talk much) nature. He is also a firefighter. On the occasions that he is willing to talk at all, he will begrudgingly discuss in vague terms some of his on-the-job experiences. Recently, after one such conversation, I recalled that old thought experiment that goes something like “If you woke up in the middle of the night and your house was on fire and you knew all people and pets had already escaped, what would you save from burning on your way out the door?” The purpose of the question is to reveal what things the responder values most in their life. Typical responses include answers like photo albums, heirlooms, collectibles, phones/computers, maybe even their car.

Considering how to answer this hypothetical for myself, a quotation from the fittingly-titled movie Heat popped into my head: “Guy told me one time, ‘Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner,'” and I realized there was literally nothing (NO THING) I valued enough to delay my exit by even a second.

My first thought regarding this conclusion was “How Pathetic!” But the more I dwelled on it, I realized the lack of irreplaceable things in my life was a positive. Trust me, I’m no Henry David Thoreau “cultivati[ing] poverty like a garden herb.” But I’ve never been much of a materialist either. I don’t covet, I am not envious of, nor am I impressed by the stuff other people own or can afford to do.

I’m one of eight children of hard working but far from affluent parents. Although we were never lacking in basic necessities and somehow our parents always found a way to make Christmases and birthdays plentiful with gifts, beyond that there weren’t many luxuries. Hand-me-downs, communal socks and underwear baskets, shared beds were the norm. In fact, many of my relatives, neighbors, and friends came from similar situations.

My siblings and I when we were young. We look happy in our crowded house.

I think folks who come from such an upbringing respond to it in one of two ways as adults. For some, the paucity of material items in their childhood leads them to make the collection of wealth and material items paramount to their notion of success and purpose. They are driven to provide themselves and their families with the things they lacked when children. On the other hand, there are people like me for whom the statement rings true that “You can’t miss what you never had.” For better or worse, wealth and/or the accumulation of stuff has never motivated my choices in life.

The fact is I could have made other choices that most likely would have resulted in a more materialistic lifestyle. I was a fairly intelligent kid. Had I been so inclined, I know I could have been a straight “A” honors student in high school and placed myself on a career track that would have provided me with more of the so-called creature comforts of life. At that time, however, I just wasn’t that interested in school, studying, or planning for my future. I was more interested in girls, goofing off with my buddies, Springsteen, and sports. In college, I’m confident that I could have succeeded in any course of study if – but only if – I was willing to devote the entirety of my college years to study. I wasn’t. I don’t regret it.

So for 38 years, I’ve been a school teacher, a profession that has allowed me to people my world with and impact the lives of literally thousands of young people. Teaching has also gifted me with something much more valuable than stuff: time. Time to pursue other interests or just to, in the words of Walt Whitman, “lean and loaf and invite my soul.” And with that time, I’ve been able to make my boyhood dream of being writer a reality of sorts. Teaching school was never going to make me rich, at least not financially, but I knew that it wouldn’t when I undertook the quest to become an educator. I was okay with that reality then, and I remain just fine with it today.

My favorite place to “lean and loaf” includes the view from my back patio. Simple pleasures, right?

As we are both educators, my wife and I don’t drive fancy cars, we don’t go on lavish vacations, and we wear out our automobiles, furniture, and appliances to their sorry end. In fact, there are times, like both of our sets of parents did, that we struggle just to make ends meet, but somehow we do. It’s easy to say, but I’m confident that we could lose every THING we own, and we’d be just fine.

So, If my house were burning down around me, there’s nothing that would motivate me to risk losing even one of my diminishing number of seconds of future time spent with my wife, kids, and grandkids, my extended families, my friends, and my students.

My answer to the house on fire: I’m getting the hell out of that house.

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Attention: Boomer on Board

Whenever my youngest son finds my ideas lacking or old fashioned, he, not in a flattering way, calls me a “Boomer,” which, technically and according to most sociologists’ classification of the Baby Boomer Generation as including anyone born between the years 1946 – 1964, I am. This accident of my birth day also places me squarely in the midst of what is often referred to by literary scholars and historians as the Postmodern Era, which has run concurrent to the birth, coming-of-age, and waning of the Baby Boom generation.

We Boomers were thrust into a world still recovering from a decade of economic depression, disillusioned by a Second World War, horrified by the Holocaust, and petrified by the unleashing of atomic weaponry. As we aged, we watched as the Cold War commenced and threatened nuclear annihilation; as America found itself embroiled in several more wars with highly questionable motives; as equal rights continued to be unequally granted to many, if not a majority, of Americans; a president resigned in disgrace, and the Catholic Church was forced to confess to its many cases of sexual abuse.

It’s understandable that writers of this Boomer/Postmodern Era reflected much of the angst the aforementioned historical events caused with texts that are steeped in irony, satire, snark, self-reflection, cynicism, black humor, moral relativism, existential dread, agnosticism, and even the nihilistic belief in nothing. Nothing was sacred and no one could be trusted. Think of writers such as Kerouac (On the Road), Ginsberg (Howl), Heller (Catch-22), Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five), and DeLillo (White Noise). Or movies like Dr. Strangelove, Apocalypse Now, Fight Club, and Monty Python movies. Or in television shows such as M*A*S*H, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Seinfeld, and South Park. It has been a golden age for the anti-hero, the smart ass, the iconoclast, and the brick thrower with many complaints but few answers.

To possessing every postmodern trait and luxuriating in every artistic representation of it mentioned in the previous paragraph, I plead guilty. Like everyone else, who I am is primarily a product of when and where I have been. So, my son is correct: I am a Boomer. As in most things, however, there is a caveat, a “but” if you will. For, of late and for better or worse, I have found myself growing increasingly weary of my postmodern self and posture and looking to molt out of its limiting chrysalis into a better version of myself.

My favorite postmodern author is David Foster Wallace, who near the end of his life and career found himself in a similar state of weariness with Postmodernism and forseeing a new era on the horizon. Before he lost his battle with depression and hanged himself, he had begun to call for a “new sincerity,” a sort of Post-Postmodernism, especially in art/literature, but I think also in daily life.

This new sincerity would promote and require the choice of honesty over deception, respect over irreverence, kindness over indifference, optimism rather than pessimism, love over hate, sentimentality over “cool indifference,” trust over skepticism, cooperation and compromise over obstinance, and engagement over indifference. Sadly, the world we Boomers/Postmodernists have created and left for the generations following us is typified by the former in each of the preceding pairs.

Examples of the New Sincerity can be found in Wallace’s last novel, The Pale King, and in the bestselling novels of Jonathan Franzen and in George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo. Ted Lasso, the popular show and its title character with his genuineness, compassion, and hopefulness are a perfect example of the contemporary appeal of the turn away from postmodernist attitudes, techniques, and formulas. And in pop music, one of my favorite bands The 1975 recently had a hit with a song simply titled, “I’m in Love With You,” for which they feared public blowback for its shameless honesty and barefaced expression of emotion. For comparison, consider the 1970 Burt Bacharach and Hal Davids classic, sung by Dionne Warwick: “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.” The 1975 also have a song titled “Sincerity is Scary” in which Maty Healy sings, “And irony’s okay, I suppose // Culture’s to blame // You try and mask your pain in the most postmodern way.”

Postmodernism has served its purpose in calling attention to a number of unjust and unprincipled policies and in warning of the dangers inherent in placing one’s blind trust in authority of any kind, both as individuals and as a citizenry. However, it has also resulted in a stagnancy in which nothing is sacred, no one can be trusted, and progress is impossible.

Postmodernism has had a good, long run, but it’s time to move past its contempt for nearly everything; to aid in the establishment of this New Sincerity; to risk being called a Pollyanna, a dreamer, and/or simply a fool. To do anything else is to choose to be part of the continuing decline of decency, and hope; and to resign oneself to what William Faulkner called the “last ding dong of doom.” In the words of singer-songwriter Jason Isbell, I can only “hope the high road brings [us] home again // To a world [we] want to live in.”

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The Inamorta: A Review

I seldom write book reviews. When I do, it’s because I’ve been unusually surprised, impacted, or inspired by a text. In the reading of Joshua Rex’s novella The Inamorta, I experienced all three of these reactions.

As I am not generally a fan of speculative fiction, which is Rex’s preferred genre, I chose to read Inamorta more out of curiosity than out of enthusiastic interest, for although he has spent the majority of his adult life on the East Coast, Rex was born in my hometown of Sandusky, Ohio, and is the son of a classmate (Suzi Weyer). What I discovered, however, was a writer of profound depth and extraordinary intelligence, who has meticulously researched his subject matter to pen a haunting narrative that will not soon escape my thoughts. In fact, I became so engrossed in the story that I completed the 130-page text in what was more-or-less a single sitting.

Rather than provide a summary of my own invention, what follows is the plot synopsis lifted from the back cover of Inamorta:

November 1799. Jonas Layne, the acclaimed “world’s greatest violist,” who performs on a notorious viola known as Inamorta, whose previous owners all have succumbed to violent fates, begins keeping a journal. He is weary of the touring life and plagued by a terrifying nightmare of a monstrous wolf. When Jonas and his father/piano accompanist Theodore are commissioned by the enigmatic Count Rufis Canis, they travel to his residence, Teethsgate Castle, in the hinterland. Teethsgate is eccentrically opulent and grandiose, but things there are not as they seem. Something ghostly clings to the castle and its bizarre family. In Larmes Harbor, the decrepit village south of the castle, people are disappearing, and the Count’s seductive daughter, Daeva, has a fearful and powerful secret which will force Jonas to confront one of his own – and the reality that his nightmare might be more premonition than dream.

More homage than imitation, any reader of The Inamorta who possesses a familiarity with the prose of Edgar Allan Poe will recognize the early American master’s influence on Rex and the novella. The story’s setting, the omnipresence of the supernatural, the foreboding mood, the use of an unreliable narrator, the emotional weight, the relatively brief length, and most significantly, the literariness of the story all speak to Poe’s influence on Rex’s ornate style. Echoes of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James, two additional great American dark romantics, also reverberate throughout The Inamorta.

Rex’s diction is exquisite and a true joy for any lover of language. However, his esoteric word choices should not be perceived as an attempt by the author merely to flex his lexiconic muscles, which are formidable, but to reflect the speech patterns of the sophisticated nobles from a bygone era who people the novel. Coupling his diction with a masterful command of sentence structures is instrumental to Rex’s successful transportation of the reader to the late eighteenth century and phantasmagoric world of Teethsgate Castle.

Some readers of popular contemporary fiction – which often sacrifices depth of setting and characterization and the inclusion of detail in preference for fast-paced plotting – may find the diction, syntax, and exhaustive descriptions to be too difficult, even off putting for their taste. To them, I say reading Rex’s prose is similar to acquiring a taste for fine wine. Their patience will be rewarded with an appetite for more texts of high literary value and with an ever-increasing ability to appreciate such texts’ superiority, especially in comparison to the majority of prosaic and formulaic works of mass market fiction that appear on bestseller lists. None of this focus on form is meant to diminish the quality of the plot itself as it was described above. Occasionally, violent and sexual scenes occur, but they are artistically rendered, never gratuitous, and always impactful on the characters and vital for the reader’s investment in the story. Finally, rare is the modern novel that relies so heavily upon or so successfully engages the reader’s senses, imagination, and emotions to the degree of Inamorta.

Joshua Rex is a writer’s writer, a prose perfectionist whose devotion to and mastery of his craft is deserving of wide admiration and a mass audience. I highly recommend that you enter the fantastical realm he creates in The Inamorta.

In addition to The Inamorta, Rex is the author of New Monsters, The Coffin Maker’s Book of Dark Tales, The Descent and Other Strange Stories, A Mighty Word, and What’s Coming for You. In addition, he is the host of The Night Parlor, an eclectic podcast on which he “interviews authors, musicians, artists, historians, and others.”

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Are You a Romantic?

All of my novels are — in one way or another — tinged with romanticism, but, today, most people have little understanding of the term’s literary meaning and have reduced “romance” to mean little more than the affectations we assume in the pursuit of the amorous attention of a potential lover. Romance, however, as an artistic movement and as a philosophy of living, entails so much more.

Preparing to begin a unit with my college students on English Romantic Poetry, I was reminded of this little questionnaire I invented several years back to allow my students to measure their own level of romanticism, but it’s fairly applicable to anyone of any age, so I thought I’d share.

Respond to each of the following scenarios below in as honest a manner as possible. The answers and a rating system to determine your romantic level follows the questions. Do your best to be honest and, most importantly, have fun!

It’s the bottom of the last inning in a ball game. Your team is down to its final out and trailing by five runs. There are no runners on base and two strikes on the batter. What do you do? a) begin packing up the equipment, or b) continue to encourage your teammates that you can still come back and win.
You just finished your second glass of your favorite wine. You’re feeling a little tipsy, but the wine tastes so good and you’re just starting to loosen up and have some fun. Your host offers you another glass. What do you do? a) accept the offer, or b) ask for a glass of water instead.
You’re at a party at a beach house. The night is sultry. Someone suggests that everyone go for a swim, but you didn’t bring a swimsuit. What do you do? a) beg off and stand on the beach, or b) strip down and go skinny dipping.
You’re a college student. Due to an excessive amount of pornography being downloaded by students through the university’s server, it has decided to install blocking software. What do you do? a) join fellow students in a march on the administration building to protest such censorship, or b) accept the university’s actions as within their rights and as in the best interest of students’ morality.
Which route do you walk home? a) the shortest, safest, and best paved route, or b) the long way along the beach.
You’ve already made plans. You’ve chosen the movie and opened the snacks. You’re in your pajamas. Your best friend calls and asks you to go with her to the grand opening of a new nightclub. What do you do? a) go clubbing, or b) stay the course and watch your movie.
When you walk past homeless people holding out cups and asking for spare change, what do you do? a) stare straight ahead and walk briskly past, or b) give what change you can spare.
Your friends all tell you that your boyfriend/girlfriend is not the right one for you. Even your own rational brain sides with your friends. However, your heart disagrees. What do you do? a) follow your head, or b) follow your heart?
The sign says, “No Lifeguard on Duty. Swim at Own Risk,” What do you do? a) swim, b) build a sand castle
Which song best describes your philosophy on “hooking up?” a) Stephen Stills’s “Love the One You’re With”? or b) The Flamingoes” “I Only Have Eyes for You”?
Your parents expect you to go to Christmas church services while you’re home on winter break; however, while at college, you’ve become rather agnostic. What do you do? a) go to church to keep your folks happy, or b) refuse to be a hypocrite and stay home.
If given the choice to travel back or forward in time, what would you choose? a) the future or b) the past
Do you believe that the invisible world is inhabited by ghosts, angels, demons, and all sorts of supernatural beings and forces? a) yes or b) no
If, like Achilles, you were given the choice to a) live gloriously but die young, or b) live a long quiet life, which would you choose?
If given the choice by a fairy godmother to be either the a) most beautiful/handsome person in the world, or b) the most intelligent, which would you choose?

The Romantic’s Answers – Grade Yourself.

b, 2) a, 3) b, 4) a, 5) b, 6) a, 7) b, 8) b, 9) a, 10) a, 11) b, 12) b, 13) a, 14) a, 15) a

Rate Yourself as a Romantic

If you scored 13 – 15: Consider yourself “Wildly Romantic!”

If you scored 11 – 12: Consider yourself “Solidly Romantic.”

If you scored 9 – 10: Consider yourself: “Mildly Romantic.”

If you scored less than 9: Consider yourself: “Boring.”

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Oh, My Word!

In his song “Kill a Word,” Eric Church fantasizes about having the ability to eradicate certain words from the English language. The song targets words that speak to our lesser angels and darker moments as humans and includes such words as regret, fear, lonely, hate, evil, and so on. Clearly Church, who is a very intelligent man, was under no delusion regarding the impracticability of his wish and understood that words are not actually things, rather, they merely name things that are tangible or experienceable. Within seconds of “killing” a word, another word would be invented to take its place; therefore, the attempt would be a perfect example of throwing effort after foolishness. Church’s entire song is written in a subjunctive mood, which indicates that he is aware that what he writes is imagined or contrary to fact, as in what I would do “if I won a billion dollars in the lottery.”

In actuality, there are few systems more democratic than language. As much as grammarians or academicians may wish and attempt to control the words people use and the way they use them, in the end such language prigs are powerless to prevent the will of speakers and writers to use words any way they damn well please. For example, as children, folks of my generation were regularly chided that “Ain’t ain’t a word!” To which I always wanted to argue that they had just used it as such. It was spoken. I heard it. I understood it. So, how could it not be a word? With apologies to N.W.A, “F#ck the Grammar Police!”

Or a more recent battle many defenders of language and grammar purity have been fighting is the popular use of the singular “their,” as in “Everyone should exercise their right to vote.” Technically, “everyone” is singular, and it should be replaced with “his or her”; however, the people want to use “their” in a singular form and the people – as it should be – have won. Even most teachers of college composition, like myself, have thrown in the towel on this. Resisting its use was like trying to put out a forest fire with a garden hose.

Power to the people.

A number of nations actually have institutions devoted to the preservation of their language’s purity. Two of the most famous are France’s Academie Francaise and the Royal Spanish Academy. Most Americans are probably unaware of these organizations because, well, we’re Americans and we pretty much believe the world beyond our borders is irrelevant to our own or vastly inferior and because we do not have such an academy of our own. The closest thing we have is probably the Modern Language Association, whose stated goal is to “strengthen the study and teaching of “language and literature.” Such organizations tend to be exceptionally conservative and opposed to change.

Lacking Church’s self-awareness and genuinely good intentions, Sarah Huckabee – the newly elected governor of Arkansas, a state that U.S. News ranks as 41st in quality of education, 43rd in quality of infrastructure, and 49th in quality of healthcare – made her first priority in office the “killing” of the word Latinx, which she demanded be expunged from all extant state documents and banned from all future ones. In typical right wing, Orwellian doublespeak, she claims it is an attempt to “prohibit the use of culturally insensitive words” although the word’s preference among an admittedly small segment of the population (nonbinary Latinos and Latinas) is a request on their part that others be “sensitive” to their nonbinary status.

Huckabee vaunts the support of conservative Spanish language purists, which I’m sure she possesses, as such people are inherently protective of past practices and systems. However, the so-called banning of the word is actually yet another thinly-veiled salvo fired in a culture war directed at folks who do not share Huckabee’s and other like minded bigots’ conservative Christian ideology. Huckabee’s move is that of a bully, and like one, she directs her abuse at an easy and relatively powerless victim.

Well, good luck with that, Governor.

All authors know that the best thing that can happen to one of their books is to have intolerant, self-righteous prudes like Sarah Huckabee ban it from schools, libraries, and bookstores. Nothing sells more books than their banning. Perhaps, Sarah should remember the biblical result of forbidden fruit.

In the end, she may be able to kill a word’s existence in a slew of government documents that nobody reads anyway, but it is all-but-impossible to ban the sounds that form the words that spill from people’s mouths.

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Mirror/Mirror

It dawned on me recently how ubiquitous mirrors are in my world. There are no fewer than eight different mirrors hanging in my house, which doesn’t count the television, computer, and cell phone screens; microwave oven doors; and interior windows that act like mirrors and cause me often to pause and check myself in them. Is their presence a reflection of my personal vanity? Or could they be something much deeper than that, meaning the outward expression of my need to regularly confirm that I’m actually still here, alive and vital, and not a figure in a dream of mine or someone else’s, or even worse, a ghost no longer among the living?

Whoa! Slow down there, Plato. In the words of Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, “Choke me in the shallow waters before I get too deep.”

My grandbabies, who are all between the ages of one and three, love mirrors, and I love watching as they stand, square and tall, in front of one gazing in wonder at themselves and smiling with joy. It’s fascinating to watch them trying to figure out exactly who is this two-dimensional twin staring back at them and mimicking their movements. I especially enjoy when they press their fingerprints or lips against those of their mirrored self.

Me, Charlee, and Charlee

It all makes me ponder when and why so many of us stop smiling at (much less kissing) ourselves in the mirror and stop appreciating the miracle of our existence, the odds of which ever coming to being were infinitesimally small when all of the factors that had to come together to bring us forth into the world in the first place are considered. I wish we could all be more like The Fonz from the 70s sitcom Happy Days, who gave himself two thumbs up when he looked at himself in the mirror. “Eeeeeyyyyyy!”

It’s funny how mirrors are a bit like people. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are more friendly than others. Some we can’t get enough of; others we avoid as much as possible. For example, I’m on fairly good terms with the master bathroom mirror. For the most part, I’m content with the image of myself that greets me there each morning and bids me good night at the day’s close. However, this is probably due to the facts that I only ever turn on the ambient lighting, I’m only half-awake at both times, and I’m usually not wearing my glasses. On the other hand, there’s a mirror near the front door that seems to mock every wrinkle on my face and grey hair on my head. I hate that mirror.

Mirrors are also like people in the way Charles Horton Cooley, the great American sociologist, described them in his Looking Glass Self Theory, which asserts that a person’s self-image is largely determined by observing the others they encounter throughout their day and interpreting the reactions of these others to themselves. In other words, these others act as mirrors in which a person is reflected. If a person concludes that they like what they see in observing others observing them, then they, in turn, are happy with themselves. If, however, they interpret others’ responses as negative, they develop a self image that mirrors the negativity of others. Trust me, that’s must easier to understand than to explain.

I think Cooley was onto something. His theory makes me aware that I have a responsibility when serving as other people’s mirror. I need to be more conscious of how my response to their looking at me will impact their own sense of self. Actually, I need to be aware that they are not so much looking at me as looking for an assessment of themselves and, in turn, I should be kind without diminishing the importance of providing an honest reflection of their current state. As Shakespeare once wrote and Nick Lowe once sang, sometimes we must be “cruel to be kind.” Sometimes, the emperor needs to be made aware that he’s wearing no clothes.

In the song “Mirrors” by Justin Timberlake, he uses a mirror as a metaphor for his beloved, whom he sees as “staring back at me,” as his “parallel on the other side,” and as the “other half of me.” The metaphor is a bit schmaltzy and not exactly original, but I appreciate the romantic notion and paradox of two lovers existing as one and becoming less whenever separated from the other.

Unlike my grandbabies, who can’t seem to peer at themselves enough in the mirror, these days I find myself searching less and less for my reflection if not avoiding it outright. Sometimes I don’t even recognize me as me. Instead, I think, “Who is that old dude?” The reason for avoidance is obvious. At my age, one cannot look into a mirror without facing their own mortality and imagining the day when they will no longer appear in anyone’s mirror or as a reflection in anyone’s eyes. (I’m assuming there are no mirrors in heaven, which, by the way, also assumes that there is an afterlife and that I have any reason to believe that I would be welcome in heaven.).

I’m trying hard to accept that the man in the mirror today is, in fact, a version of me different from the me of years gone by and to be okay with what I see. There really are not other worthwhile options, for Ty, the Younger, isn’t coming back, and Ty, the Older, waits for me in tomorrow’s mirrors, and to once again quote Shakespeare, “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” after that until I run out of tomorrows.

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Christmas Fantasies, Wishes, & Wants

It’s Christmas. It’s supposed to be the season of giving, and it certainly is that. But if we’re being honest, that coin is two-sided. It’s also the season of wanting. Heck, some of the most popular Xmas songs of all time are all about wanting. Gayla Peevey, strangely enough, wanted a “hippopotamus for Christmas.” Both Alvin and the Chipmunks and Mariah Carey sing “All I Want for Christmas” songs. In the Chipmunks’ case it’s two front teeth for which they yearn, and for Mariah, it’s “You.” Amy Grant chimes in with her “Grown Up Christmas List.” And what is a list but a naming of wants? Then, immediately after Xmas, we turn our attention to the New Year with a set of resolutions outlining what we want to achieve or change about ourselves in the coming year.

I’m at an age and position in life where if I want something – unless it’s an unusually expensive item – I just go ahead and buy it. Thankfully, my material wants are relatively few. This reality tends to make compiling a Christmas list a bit difficult. I suppose I could turn my attention to altruistic wishes like peace on Earth and good will toward men, but blah, blah, blah. That’s like wishing for the Detroit Lions to win a playoff game (much less a Super Bowl), and I’ve all but given up on both of those.

This year, as I often am wont to do whenever I need wisdom, I turned to pop music to help me compile a list of my Christmas wants and New Year’s wishes. My go to rock-and-roll philosopher Bruce Springsteen, wants to “die on the streets tonight in an everlasting kiss.” I love the passion and romance of this, but it’s a young, love-besotted man’s wish, not mine. Unlike Barrett Strong, money is not “What I Want” nor do “I, [like Queen] Want It All.” Rather, like Third Eye Blind, “I want something else to get me through this semi-charmed kind of life.” Huey Lewis longed for a “new drug,” but I’ve never been the sort to do any drug stronger than an Advil; therefore, Huey was no help. Likewise, Peter Gabriel’s desire to be someone’s “Sledgehammer” has no appeal to me. (Maybe I just don’t get his metaphor.) Like Bow Wow Wow, however, “I [do] Want Candy.” I always want candy, and I’m pretty sure I actually do get that metaphor.

Expanding on Bow Wow Wow’s theme, if I move beyond the materialistic realm into lived, sensual experiences, I find a few, helpful suggestions in the pop music realm. Whitney Houston wants to “dance with somebody.” Alanis Morissette recommends that I “walk around naked in [my] living room.” Marvin Gaye wants “sexual healing.” Foghat desperately pleads, “I just wanna make love to you,” and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails’ identifies the same desire but a bit more bluntly in their song “Animal.” I’m going to leave it at that. If you know, you know.

My most sincere wish is best expressed by Bono of U2 when he sings in “Where the Streets Have No Name” that “I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside” or by Freddie Mercury of Queen when he declares, “I want to break free.” Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.” I feel like, every day, I’m merely playing roles, not being myself, and I’m mouthing lines not written by me. Therefore, my never-to-come-true want/wish is to live completely uninhibited. As Emerson encouraged, “To speak the rude truth in all ways.” I’d like to be the life of just one party. I’d like to dance like no one’s watching just once. I’d like, just once, to “throw caution to the wind.” Just once, I’d like to speak my truths without fear of judgment, retribution, or disappointing or hurting someone else.

As the Backstreet Boys sang, “I want it that way;” however, I know I’ll never actually have it that way. A want/wish is more akin to a fantasy than a realistic expectation. And that’s the realm in which they should all probably remain. For as Keats wrote, “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.” Even if we don’t expect them to happen in the real world, fantasies, wishes, and wants are still nice to imagine coming true.

Alas, I’m afraid it’s too late for me. Had I been of a different nature and nurture, maybe I could have been less self-conscious, pensive, and serious minded. Maybe, I could have been more fun and uninhibited. But as Popeye liked to say and Gloria Gaynor once sang, “I Am What I Am.” Unlike George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, life rarely affords us the opportunity to start over or to completely redefine ourselves. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “There are no second acts in American lives.”

In the end, however, whatever fantasies, wishes, and wants I possess that will remain unfulfilled this Christmas and in the new year, my reality is just fine. In fact, it’s better than fine. I’m sincerely full of appreciation and wonder as to how I’ve been so fortunate to live the life I have and to be able to look forward to whatever time lies ahead.

On that happy note, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Much thanks to anyone who has read this or any of my other “letters to the world” throughout the year.

Always with Gratitude and Love, Ty.

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“Radio, Radio!”

“I read the news today, oh boy.” – from “A Day in the Life” by Lennon and McCartney

In an article for the New York Times, Michael Levenson forecasts what may be the end of AM radio due to “carmakers reporting that electromagnetic interference causes static and noise on AM transmissions, annoying customers.”

Upon reading the preceding sentence, the lyrics to Elvis Costello’s song “Radio, Radio” sprang forth in my mind:

Radio is a sound salvation

Radio is cleaning up the nation

They say you better listen to the voice of reason

But they don’t give you any choice ’cause they think that it’s treason

So you had better do as you are told

You better listen to the radio

Although I’m rarely given to nostalgia and I had toggled the switch over to FM by my teenage years and I rarely turn on the radio anymore at all, reading of the potential death of AM radio left me trying to imagine a world without it and fondly reminiscing about how it had provided the soundtrack to my childhood. My next thought was that I needed to blog about how this tragic demise of radio is yet another indicator of the continual decaying of the fabric that once bound us together as a community who listened to, sung, hummed, and whistled the same songs we’d all heard on AM radio stations. I wanted to extol the patience and perseverance we showed back then while waiting for our favorite song to be played. Whereas, today we, like a child or Pavlov’s dog, demand immediate gratification. Perhaps, we’re the ones “being played” by the inhuman algorithms and the targeted ads the streaming services send our way.

My second blog idea was to respond with whimsical memories of falling to sleep in the top bunk, next to the southward facing window, in the second floor bedroom, of my childhood home while gazing at the beacon on top of the WLEC radio tower blinking red. I wanted to support Costello’s exclamation of the “Wonderful radio. // Marvelous radio. // Radio, radio.”

If we kept the volume low enough so that our parents didn’t hear it, my brothers and I might listen to WWWE 1100, where Pete Franklin was trailblazing sports talk radio, or to WLEC 1450, where DJ Dickie Schock would play a song we actually requested (We’d almost always request “Running Bear” and giggle uncontrollably over the double entendre of the word “bear”/bare.). We’d be giddy with joy over the power we had to influence what would be transmitted through the radios of whoever happened to be tuned in at that moment. If we were in the mood for pop music, we’d turn the dial to 800 and listen to top-40 radio on CKLW all the way from Detroit. Or, if the Tigers were playing on the West Coast, we’d nudge the dial down just a bit to 760 and listen to Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey calling the ballgame on WJR, and it felt like the day wasn’t ending but just beginning. I don’t remember who ever turned the radio off in the middle of the night after we’d all been lulled to sleep, but I imagine it was my mother, who knew all along what we were thought we were getting away with.

Like Bara-dur, Sauron’s tower in *The Lord of the Rings*, the WLEC radio tower kept watch over my nights as a boy.

Anyway, social commentary was my first intention; nostalgia was my second. But as I am wont or cursed to do, I soon found my thoughts turning deeper and beyond a relatively benign discussion of the “good old days” to philosophical rumination. I began to associate the demise of radio with the explosion of choices we have today in a wide variety of areas compared to those simpler days when AM radio ruled the airwaves and much of the zeitgeist. Back then, our choices in most areas were few or made for us.

This proliferation of choices the modern world offers us often results in a “paralysis by analysis.” In other words, there are so many options to choose from, we feel overwhelmed and incapable of choosing any of them. For example, how much time do we spend scrolling through our preferred streaming option for a movie or show to watch and end up not choosing any? How long does it take us to choose an artist from our Spotify or Apple Music library? Have you ever seen the menu at The Cheesesteak Factory?! It’s voluminous and intimidating even for an English major, like myself, who has pored through War and Peace, Infinite Jest, and Moby Dick . . . Twice! After a half hour of perusing the menu, I always end up just ordering the same thing I always order: turkey club. And don’t get me started on blue jeans.

Another and I’d argue healthier way to look at the abundance of choices we have at our disposal is to embrace the choosing as an act of existential definition, not as a cause of existential angst. What an opportunity it is not to be a slave to some DJ’s taste in music or to three network channels or a chef’s lack of imagination: “Cheeseburger. No Coke!” We should appreciate and feel empowered by the freedom to choose and the notion that the choices we make define us better than any demographic, church, political party, or organization to which we may belong. I love the idea that we can find meaning, define our own purpose in life, and pursue happiness by and for ourselves beyond what any parent, teacher, peer group, online influencer, or holy or “how to” book may advise. The caveat, of course, is that eventually we do have to accept the burden of making choices. And, once made, we can’t blame anyone but ourselves for the outcome.

The way I see it is that, in the end, if I’ve made poor choices, in the words of Frank Sinatra, at least I will have done it “my way.” I can live (and die) with that.

In his song “Radio Nowhere,” Springsteen sings, “Radio nowhere // Is there anybody alive out there?” Of course, the question asks the listener to differentiate between simply existing and truly living. Those among us who belong in the latter category are those who refuse to live on auto-pilot or to allow Jesus or anyone else to “take the wheel.” Instead, they take control of their own lives by bravely making the choices they need to make in order to live a life of their own imagining rather than one that was planned out for them or shoved down their throats. Those choices may not be the safe ones or the popular ones; in fact, they rarely are either of those. They’re the choices that bring a unique and special meaning and purpose to the life they are living, a life that has never been lived before and will not be lived again.

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What a Drag!

*Happy Birthday Harry Styles – The King Of Wild Fashion (Photo Credit – Getty Image/Instagram)*

A bumbling terrorist or terrorist group in North Carolina went to the trouble last weekend of sabotaging a power station that knocked tens of thousands of their fellow citizens off of the power grid for days. Should they be caught and convicted, they will most likely spend some serious time behind bars. Although it has yet to be verified by law enforcement, there is much to suggest it was the work of some anti-LGBTQ+ group that went to all of this trouble, took this enormous risk, and inconvenienced their neighbors in order to prevent some men from donning women’s clothing as part of a drag show called Downtown Divas. The Boston Tea Party it was not. No modern Patrick Henry has yet to stand up to proclaim, “Give me heteronormativity or give me death!”

Closer to home in Columbus on Saturday, a group of weekend warriors armed with weapons of war and dressed in full combat gear, including mostly-masked members of the Ohio Proud Boys, prevented a “Holi-Drag Storytime” event from taking place at the Red Oak Community School. There’s something ironic, hilarious, but ultimately sad about a mob of mostly white “men” feeling the need to arm themselves to the teeth to “protect” their community against a bunch of storytelling queens, a word I use with the utmost respect.

Both of these somewhat comical acts of intolerance occurred in the wake of the mass shooting inside an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs in which five people were killed and many more wounded, both physically and psychologically. There’s nothing “comical” about that.

I can only imagine the horror these groups in North Carolina and Columbus would have experienced had they been alive to attend the 4th century BCE play Lysistrata, written by the great Greek playwright Aristophanes, in which the actors, playing sexually-frustrated warriors of Sparta due to an anti-war sex strike by their wives, walk around wearing giant erect penises. On second thought, such puritanical-minded folk may just be okay with it since it would be heteronormative behavior. But on third thought, ancient Greece is no place to go to promote or defend heteronormativity. And don’t even get me started on the amount of cross-dressing and gender bending in Shakespeare’s plays.

Pop culture also has a long tradition of drag. I wonder when these anti-drag folks will start calling for the banning of reruns of Milton Berle dressed as Auntie Mildred in the fifties or Flip Wilson dressed as Geraldine in the seventies? What about Tom Hanks’ television show Bosom Buddies from the eighties? Or movies like Some Like it Hot with Tony Curtis or Yentyl with Barbara Streisand or Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire? Will they also demand that the Kinks “Lola “and Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like a Lady” and Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” be banned from the airwaves? Bowie, for God’s sake?!

People, it’s just clothes and boas and a bit of makeup, not the end of civilization for God’s sake.

I once dressed as a cheerleader for a Catholic high school pep rally: wig, balloon boobs, and short skirt. (see embarrassing photos below). I’ve also been to a drag show or two, and for the life of me, I can’t understand how anyone would be offended or consider such entertainment to be a sign of the ruination of the Western World, which was more or less invented by those freaky ancient Greeks. The drag shows I’ve attended possessed a spirit of fun, positivity, and inclusiveness. In fact, by the end of the first one I attended unwittingly as part of a bachelor party, I was beginning to find several of the performers quite attractive. Despite my dressing in drag as a cheerleader and attending these drag shows, I can assure you that my heterosexuality never wavered.

No one is being forced to dress in drag or to attend a drag event. Personally, and call me what you want, I would have rather had my children attend a story time led by a drag queen than a blood-soaked MMA fight or a professional wrestling match, where violence and the objectification of women are not just part of the show but the actual point of the show. I’d suggest that if you find a drag show distasteful, there’s a simple solution: don’t go or take your children.

Heck, if I were of the mind to control other folks’ entertainment options (FYI: I’m not.), I’d ban drag races, not drag shows, for the noise pollution they produce, the gasoline they waste, and the high levels of CO2 and toxic masculinity they emit. However, I have no plans to protest their existence in any way, much less to cut off the power to their racetrack and half of the county. If the spectacle of two vehicles racing side-by-side in a straight line with flames spewing out the back for a quarter mile brings you joy, I say, Good on, ya!” I don’t understand the attraction, but who am I to tell you where to find your entertainment.

“Live and let live.”

If you’re genuinely concerned with moral depravity, there are plenty of other more deserving targets than drag shows, including an American culture rife with corporate greed, conspicuous consumption, food waste, homelessness, chauvinism/misogyny, homophobia, racism, the spurning of refugees, an inhumane incarceration system, etc., etc., etc. In other words, a culture lacking in adherence to the most basic preaching of that Jesus fella.

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Springsteen and I*

Like many folks of my generation, the music of Bruce Springsteen has occupied a significant place in my life. Although I’m not one of those ultra-diehard fans who have attended a ridiculous number of Springsteen concerts (The number for me is three arena concerts and his Broadway show.), I have been a devotee of his music ever since my older brother brought home the Greetings from Asbury Park 8-track tape when I was only eleven or twelve years old. Since that age, through his lyrics and music, Springsteen has been a sort of spiritual guru for me as influential as any teacher, priest, or even parent.

Springsteen recently granted Howard Stern a lengthy interview for Stern’s Sirius Radio program and HBO that not only furthered my admiration for Springsteen but also revealed several common threads in our lives of which I was previously unaware. The nearly two hours of conversation also proved that, despite their fame and fortune, celebrities must face many of the same life challenges as the rest of us. By the way, despite his often sophomoric antics on his radio show, Stern is an outstanding interviewer.

Like Springsteen’s, but to a lesser extent, my father was an emotionally-distant man who could be difficult to please. As a boy, I distinctly remember longing for praise from my dad, even a simple acknowledgement that he was proud of something I’d accomplished, but it rarely came. Unlike my brothers, who were exceptionally accomplished in either athletics or academics, I was average in both endeavors, so maybe I didn’t earn his kudos. On the other hand, he could communicate his disappointment in my choices or performances quite clearly. For a long time, I resented his emotional aloofness, but I gradually came to accept that he was mostly the product of a time when the majority of fathers were primarily authority figures rather than fonts of warm affection. By his own nature and nurture, he was incapable of such openness and positive reinforcement, and I needed to recognize and accept that reality. Unlike Springsteen, I never openly rebelled against my father. I simply distanced myself from him both physically and emotionally and sought out affirmation from other sources.

Another segment of the Stern interview that resonated with one of my own life experiences occurs when Springsteen recounts spending time with Clarence Clemons, the E Street Band’s saxophonist and one of Springsteen’s closest friends, as Clemons was in the final stage of dying from the complications of a stroke. Springsteen tells how he sang his song “Land of Hope and Dreams” at his friend’s bedside. Like Clarence, one of my best friends, Bob Rainey, was African American. He too died at too early of an age. In Bob’s case, it was cancer. Unlike Springsteen, I didn’t serenade my friend on his deathbed. If I had, trust me, Bob would have welcomed “the dying of the light,” but I did hold his skeletal hand and whisper that I loved him and it was okay for him to let go. He had suffered enough.

I don’t know if there is a heaven or not, but if there is, I can’t imagine a better place than one filled with “hope and dreams.”

At one point, Stern asks Springsteen about his writing process. Considering the massive size of Springsteen’s catalog, Stern assumes that he must be writing music nearly all the time, and he is surprised when Bruce shares that he is not and that he more-or-less only writes when the spirit hits him or when he “has something to say.” In my own measly experience as a writer, I can identify with Springsteen. I’m not writing all the time. Rather, whether it’s for this blog or for a novel project, I don’t compose on a schedule or with any pattern of regularity. I only write when and if I have something of value to say or a story to tell. As to the latter, having published my most recent novel, Belfast, Ohio, this past August, I currently do not have a story that I’m itching to write. Should I come up with one, I’ll start carving out time to tell it.

An additional point on which Springsteen and I seem to be like minded is in our understanding of love. In the interview, Bruce confesses that, as a young man, he struggled to give entirely of himself to another in a love relationship. He admits that it took him some time and a failed marriage to arrive at a mature understanding of what love requires. What he ultimately learned is that love is mostly about “being there.” I’m far from an expert on love or much of anything at all, but the promise I made to both my wife and also to my sons, when the boys were young and living at home, was that I would “be there” in the morning when they woke and in the evening when they went to bed, and in the in-between hours, I would do my best to be a good husband and father. Come to think of it, maybe that was my father’s understanding as well.

It’s probably a bit ironic coming from a school teacher, but one of my favorite Springsteen lyrics is in his song “No Surrender” in which he sings, “We learned more from a three-minute record than we ever did in school.” To a lesser degree, I can claim that I learned more about the life and mind of one of my personal heroes in a two-hour interview than I’d learned in nearly a lifetime of listening to his music and a little bit more about myself.

“No retreat, baby, no surrender.”

*Springsteen & I is also the title of a 2013 film directed by Baillie Walsh that documents the life and career of Bruce Springsteen and his influence on the lives of fans from around the world. If, like me, you’re a Springsteen fan, I highly recommend. FYI: titles cannot be copyrighted.

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On Hair

Hair. Is there any feature of our appearance over which we agonize more than our hair? I can’t think of another feature to which we can attribute an entire “bad day?” Think of the time and money we spend on it and of the intimate relationship many folks establish with their stylist. People will go to any old manicurist, but to visit another hairdresser borders on adultery.

Hair is so central to our existence that, according to the gospel of Matthew, God has numbered “even the hairs of your head.” I suppose, God’s concern with humans’ hair is due to the angle from which he looks down on humanity. Our hair is the first thing he sees. So, do something with your hair for God’s sake. No less than Thomas Pynchon, the postmodern American novelist, said, “Change your hair, change your life.”

How we wear our hair communicates so much information regarding our moods and intentions for the day, even our personalities. Do we fuss over it? or Do we wear the “whatever” look of bed head? Do we pull it back or up or let it fall down? Do we hide it under a hat? Do we shave it off? Do we fashion it according to the latest trends or wear it the same way day after day and year after year? And what do any of these choices say about us? They must say something because they are all choices.

(A quick note of sympathy to those who have lost their hair and for whom the preceding paragraph may be no longer relevant or even hurtful. On the other hand, they may be the luckiest of all because they never have to devote another second of their lives to such thoughts about hair.)

Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve had a complicated relationship with my hair. To this day, I tug at curls and rake through my hair with my fingers whenever I’m lost in deep thought or in moments of high anxiety. It was the sixties when I was a kid. Long hair was all the rage, and I wanted to look like the guys in The Monkees, any of the the Osmond Brothers, and definitely like my favorite singer Bobby Sherman, whose song “Julie, Do Ya Love Me” began a lifelong attraction for me to any girl named Julie. (I mean who falls in love with a name when “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”?)

My dad, however, had a different opinion regarding boys with long hair, so the standard hair “style” for the Roth brothers was a “butch” cut. I hated it. I mean I really hated it. For me, a trip to the barber shop was tantamount to most kids’ petrified feelings regarding a trip to the dentist, and this was in the pre-flouride era when the drilling and pulling of childrens’ teeth was much more common than today. I remember, on more than one occasion, crying on the way to the barber, bawling through the entire haircut, and wailing even harder when I got home and studied my shorn scalp in the mirror. With my ears on prominent display, I looked like a monkey rather than a Monkee. To make matters worse, St. Mary’s Schools required boys to keep their hair above their eyebrows, ears, and collars. The whole world seemed in on an unjust conspiracy against me and my desire to let my hair down.

In the mid-70’s, my dad relented a bit, school seemed less intent on enforcing outmoded hair restrictions, and the old proverb to be careful what you wish for suddenly made sense to me as I let my hair grow out, thus beginning my lifelong love/hate relationship with my incorrigible hair. For the longest time, I hated my curls that seemed to resist my desire to let my freak flag fly because, no matter how long my locks would get, the curls would stubbornly defy gravity and send those locks retreating obediently back in on themselves above collar, brows, and ears. I tried everything to tame them, including blow dryers, brushes, hair spray, and gels but all to no avail.

In my teens, having abandoned barbaric barbers forever, I learned from ladies “styling” my hair and those sitting next to me in salons and from girls in school that there are women who are especially attracted to guys with curly hair. So, at a time when many of my classmates were spending good money for a 70’s-style afro, I let mine grow out like a Chia Pet fertilized with Miracle-Gro, and it didn’t cost me a thing other than future years of photographic embarrassment (see photos above and below). I happily traded the fine-toothed comb in my back pocket for a pick proudly planted in my fro, and I dreamed of being a Soul Train dancer. For the first time in my life, my natural hair was groovy, and I felt cool.

In my adult years, I’ve gone back and forth as if my hair is a scoreboard for periods of manic depression. I swing from periods of letting my hair grow long and unruly followed by a return to a more “respectable” length. The short hair eras have almost always been the result of my own questioning of the appropriateness of a man at my age or in my profession sporting such long locks. Only recently have I realized that in either case I was cutting or not cutting my hair to meet the desires/expectations of other people, not to satisfy my own preference. It has led me to consider and to regret many other life choices I’ve made in a similar fashion.

I recently turned 60, and I’m determined to let my hair grow out until I decide to cut it. Like anything we do or don’t do in the public sphere, I suppose it is some kind of statement. One that has nothing to do with a mid-life crisis. Sadly, it’s too late for that. Instead, I think I’m inching toward that sort of boldness of behavior that comes with advanced age when one just stops caring so much about what other people think and decides to satisfy their own whims and finally live their truth because the road that remains ahead is far shorter than that which lies forever unwinding in the rearview mirror.

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Some Suggestions for Alternative Christmas Songs

In general, I’m not a big Christmas guy. My dad’s favorite expression during the holidays was to quote Ebeneezer Scrooge: “Bah, humbug!” But I’m fairly sure he was being facetious. I’m definitely not one of those folks who put up lights and decorations before Thanksgiving, but I, in no way, condemn those who do, at least not publicly. If it brings them joy, who am I to judge. If nothing else, I’d rather see Christmas lights and wreaths than “F#CK Biden” flags.

The one contemporary practice I do slightly wish would go away is the early onset of Christmas songs being piped into many public places so prematurely that the songs lose their poignancy and power for being ubiquitous and overplayed. The one benefit of this trend is that, over the years, it has sent me searching for less obvious, alternative musical selections to help put me in an appropriate mood for the concurrent seasons of winter and Christmas.

The winter/Christmas songs I’ve come to prefer are not the typical carols, pop-rock, and kitschy tunes that tend to dominate the air waves and playlists. I like tunes that remind me of how fortunate I am and have been and that remind me of the numerous gifts I’ve already received, especially in comparison to so many unfortunate others. I also like those that present a unique or ironic take on the season.

What follows are a few of my favorites:

“Wintering” by The 1975 captures the strange mixture of joy and dread that accompanies any obligatory visit with the family over the holidays.

“The Winter Song” by Sam Fender is a cover of an Alan Hull song that’s worth giving a listen to as well. The song recalls the saying the “real reason for the season” with lyrics that ask “Do you spare one thought for Jesus // Who had nothing but his thoughts // Who got busted just for talking // And befriending the wrong sorts.”

Joni Mitchell’s “River” covered by James Taylor. “River” is actually a break-up song and only obliquely about Christmas, but the image of having a river “I could skate away on” speaks to my soul.

I love the Gaelic chorus and the sea shanty sound of “Christmas at Sea” by Sting. It makes me feel for those away from home, such as service men and women, and those who must work on Christmas Day, such as my son the firefighter, and their longing to be home.

Leslie Odom Jr. singing “Winter Song” is simply a sublime love song. “This is my winter song // December never felt so wrong // Cause you’re not where you belong // Inside my arms. It reminds me of how fortunate I am to have my love, my wife at my side every day and every night. Every morning I wake up next to her is Christmas morning.

“Christmas Biscuits” by Glen Hansard and Mark Geary is similar to Fender’s “Winter Song” in that it pleads with us to be mindful of those who spend Christmas alone and lonely, maybe cold and homeless. The song was actually written to support the St. Vincent de Paul Society.

“How to Make Gravy” is a song by the Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly. The song is from the point of view of a man in prison as he remembers Christmases past with his now-broken family and the Christmas holiday that looms ahead when he will be separtated from them once again. Not sure I’ve ever heard more heartbreaking lyrics as “If I get good behavior // I’ll be out of here by July // Won’t you kiss my kids on Christmas Day? // Please don’t let them cry.”

“It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way” is a song from Jim Croce that captures his signature sound and provides hope at the end of one year and the beginning of a new one that past mistakes can be remedied, and there’s no better time to do so than Christmas.

Other favorites of mine include “Gabriel’s Message” by Sting, “This Christmas” by Donnie Hathaway (This one is pretty mainstream, but Hathaway is so smooth.), “Yule Shoot Your Eye Out” by Fall Out Boy, “A Long December” by The Counting Crows, “The Last Christmas” by The Arkells, “The Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues, “The Season’s Upon Us” by The Dropkick Murphys, and “25th December” by Everything but the Girl.

If you’re looking for something a little different by the way of Christmas music this year, give some of these a listen.

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Election Day 2022

The following one-act play is based on an actual exchange of text messages that occurred between three politically like-minded brothers on election night of 2022.

Dramatis Personae:

Kevin (65): The Pathologist-in-Chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Professor and Chair of the Columbia University Department of Pathology and Cell Biology. On the verge of retirement, he is the oldest, most cosmopolitan, and wisest of the Roth siblings. He fought on the frontline of NYC’s battle with Covid-19.

J (57): A longtime elementary school administrator, author, professor of education, and educational consultant. He is the youngest of the trio and the most kind and gentle-hearted.

Ty (60): A literature and composition teacher. He’s a contrarian, highly self-critical, and an inveterate over-thinker.

ACT ONE

Three separate sets are arranged on the stage and separated by dividers.

Stage left: Kevin sits on a couch in the living room of an Upper-East Side apartment with a glass of red wine nearby, a sporting event plays on his massive television screen, but it is muted as a Warren Zevon playlist emanates from Bose speakers. With his cell phone in hand, he texts a message and initiates the “conversation.” He has always been an instigator, who loves to “stir the pot.“

Stage right: J sits on the balcony of his downtown Tampa, Florida, apartment overlooking the city and nestling a bottle of some local brewery’s IPA with some “clever-by-half” name. The sound of election night coverage emanates from inside. His phone rests on his lap from which he has been watching a hockey game.

Center stage:Ty lies on his back reading, but apparently not-so-much enjoying, the latest “must read” literary novel. His cell phone is on an end table behind his head. Every few sentences, its siren voice calls to him. He happily sets aside his novel, surrenders to the temptation, and reaches to check Twitter for another blast of affirmation for his left-leaning world view. A bag of chips and a diet pop, not “soda” (He is in Ohio.) rest on a coffee table between him and his large, but not too large, television. He clearly, but insincerely, takes pride in his television’s relatively small proportion as a sign that he is a man of more refined tastes and activities than those found on the boob tube.

It’s late on an autumn election night. Simultaneously, Ty’s and J’s cell phones ding. Like well-conditioned Pavlov’s dogs, they immediately reach for their respective phones and read the message.

So begins a text exchange that scrolls on a large screen over the characters’ heads and is fully visible to the audience.

Kevin: A random thought. The more I learn, the less I know.

J: So true.

Ty: “True knowledge exists knowing you know nothing” – Socrates

Moments pass as Kevin rolls his eyes over Ty’s pedantic reply, while J pensively contemplates the quotation from Socrates, and Ty desperately tries to remain focused on the book he holds and avoid reaching for the remote and turning on MSNBC for the latest election results.

Kevin: The corollary is the less I learn, the more I think I know.

Ty: Your “random thought,” Kevin, led me to think about the following lyric from Don Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter”: “The more I know, the less I understand. All the things I though I knew, I’m learning again. I’ve been trying to get down to the heart of the matter, but my will gets weak and my thoughts seem to scatter, but I think it’s about forgiveness.”

Kevin: Thanks for sharing the lyrics. I think the “order” is learn<understand<know<believe (as in faith)> I guess I’m mostly in the learning phase of my life, perhaps sometimes in the understand, rarely in the know, and almost never in believe territory.

J: Even getting to the “learn” stage was a long path for me. It was about twenty-seven years until I realized the importance of learning and trying to understand. Understanding is the most difficult and complex part for me. Just trying to understand is perplexing many times. Go Blue! [They are all Michigan fans.]

Ty: Not sure anyone who is honest and thinks for themselves ever graduates from the learning stage. The most life-changing realization for me occurred when I heard Henley’s line about forgiveness. I think I’d already unconsciously internalized it from observing Mom, but I didn’t fully realize its importance until I heard Henley sing it. Oftentimes, it’s just being willing to forgive myself for my own stupidity or poor choices. I have to say, for better or worse, I’ve become quite nihilistic but not pessimistic regarding belief. As Adam Duritz sings in “Mr. Jones,” “I don’t believe in anything. And I want to be someone to believe.” Too many people and too many of the so called “public servants,” elected officials, and religious institutions I was taught to believe in have disappointed me and/or proven themselves unworthy of my belief in them. Anyway, these days I’m trying to find meaning, purpose, and validation in the existential choices I get to make rather than those made for me from top down, prescriptive sources.

J: I am finally learning that forgiving is a 2-way street and that I often wanted to be forgiven but was not willing to forgive others or myself. I have to stop being so stubborn on that one.

Ty succumbs to temptation and turns on the election coverage.

J: So, which state is more ass backwards? Ohio or or Florida?

Ty: Ohio is the Mississippi of the North.

Kevin: In contrast, I will soon be moving from royal blue NY State to navy blue California. I’m just thankful that the “red wave” became a little ripple. I’m headed to bed! Good night.

Kevin exits stage left.

J: Me too. Good night, brother.

J exits stage right.

Alone on the stage, Ty rises from the couch and walks to the center front of the stage and speaks directly to the audience.

Ty: I need to apologize for that stupid “Ohio is Mississippi” comment I texted a few moments ago. That came from a place of anger, judgment, and arrogance. Sadly, I’m often guilty of all three. If we are ever to, once again, strive to be a “more perfect union,” it will only happen if we, as a currently widely-divided people, consciously choose to follow Kevin’s chain of learning about<knowing<understanding<and believing in one another and only if we choose to accept that, unless we forgive and move past our mutual disdain for one another that we’ve allowed to fester over the past few years, we will forever be engaged in a cold civil war between red and blue. Somewhere along the way, we allowed ourselves to be convinced that we were our own worst enemies, and we turned on ourselves. Somewhere along the way, we removed civility from public discourse. Somewhere along the way, we learned to enjoy gloating over our political rivals’ failures more than basking in our shared victories as Americans.

As I mentioned earlier in a text, I want to be “someone who believes” in America and the principles of a liberal democracy for which it once stood, when “liberal” was not considered a pejorative term by those on the right. It’s the system of governance we once exported to the rest of the world that we have turned our own backs to.

Anyway, I’m convinced that Don Henley and J were correct: healing begins with forgiveness.

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This AND That

When did the world become so binary? Perhaps, it has always been that way, and I just refused to play along. I’m not sure, but I am sure I do not like it. In fact, I “buy nary” a shred of it (Apologies for the sophomoric pun.). I still impart to my students that the world is NOT black and white but gray and understanding that concept is a major prerequisite for becoming a functional student and a compassionate adult. What I do know and find profoundly disturbing is that this insistence on binaries is growing worse and expanding the social, religious, and political divides that threaten to render any sense of community impossible.

I’d like to think that life isn’t a children’s game of Red Rover in which one has to be entirely on one side or another, “against us or for us,” “love it or leave it” without being considered an enemy or traitor. I’d like to believe that adults are capable of more nuanced thinking than that, even to the point of grasping cognitive dissonance, which allows for the notion of two opposite ideas both being valid and true. Not to be too flippant about it, but why can’t I be, like Donny and Marie, both “a little bit country and a little bit rock-and-roll”? The current state of affairs, however, suggests that I’m a bit of a romantic in my way of wishful thinking, maybe even, God forbid, a pollyanna.

Allow me to share a few examples of contemporary binaries that I wish we could move beyond:

Buckeye or Wolverine fan. I happen to be a Michigan fan, but I actually root for Ohio State every week but one. Apply your own sports rivalry.
David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar. I’ll always be a David Lee guy, but I can still appreciate the more top-40 sound of the Hagar era.
Red or Black licorice. I prefer red but still enjoy black.
Boxers or Briefs. On second thought, let’s skip this one (TMI)
Liberal or Conservative. Although I’m a proud liberal, I’ve voted for conservative candidates when I believed that candidate to be a more qualified potential legislator and/or simply a better person. There was once a day when one could be a conservative democrat or a liberal republican and cross party lines without being labeled a RINO (Republican In Name Only) or be a so called Pro-Life Democrat without also becoming a pariah in one’s political party.
God fearing or God dubious. Remember that it was Saint John of the Cross who wrote the poem “Dark Night of the Soul” in which he ruminates on the fundamental unknowability of God. Also, consider this quotation from no less than Mother Teresa: “So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them–because of the blasphemy–If there be God –please forgive me–When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven–there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul.” If two literal saints are allowed to express doubt considering the existence of God, who isn’t?
Pro-Life or Pro-Choice. I hate the simplistic binary with which this issue is presented. It’s far more complicated issue with a number of extenuating circumstances that need to be considered in any discussion of it; however, we insist on this oversimple either/or argument. Does this notion of pro-life extend beyond the birth? Does pro-life also mean anti-capital punishment? Does pro-life also mean anti-assisted suicide? On the other hand, does pro-choice have any limitations?
Male or Female. One may argue that, biologically, a person’s “sex” is indisputable at birth as being either a male or female; however, I firmly believe that “gender” is a matter of training and, ultimately, choice. Now, this requires the reader to accept a semantic splitting-of-hairs between the terms “sex” and “gender.” I, for example, was born and raised to be male, and I’ve never had a compulsion to be anything but. Still, I’ve always accepted as true the great Carl Jung’s, the noted Swiss pychiatrist, assertion that all men have an unconscious “feminine side,” and all women an unconscious “male side.” I believe we all possess traits that are typically associated with our opposite sex. No one understood this or played upon that idea than Shakespeare, who bent genders half-of-a millenium before anyone thought it was cool. Perhaps, in some of us who choose transgendering, the need to manifest, express, and live our opposite gender is stronger than in most of us — as is the courage to do so. I’m totally cool with and respect that and proudly admit to possessing characteristics more commonly associated with females myself, including an affinity for reading fiction, adoring Oprah Winfrey, and enjoying shopping, for women’s clothing among others. Just a note of clarification: I enjoy shopping for women’s clothing with and for my wife to wear. There is just such better variety and forward fashion in women’s clothing.
Heterosexual or Homosexual. I’ve never understood the need to classify people based on which gender they preferred to have sexual relations with. Believe it or not, these terms didn’t even exist until about 150 years ago. I believe that people then, as now, were simply “sexual” with the caveat that it’s perfectly acceptable to be asexual. Does it make me gay to recognize and admit that there exist handsome men or to appreciate a man’s body? If so, feel free to call me such. In my lifetime, I’ve witnessed so-called “straight” males, especially athletes, engage in all sorts of homoerotic behaviors while calling it “hazing” or “horseplay,” and though many will not admit to it, most people have the occasional homoerotic dream. I’m a huge fan of celebrities who blur these ridiculous lines of gender and sexuality: Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Bowie, Prince, GaGa, Harry Styles, just to name a few.

For me, the most off-putting of persons is the zealot, defined as a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals. Sadly, I’m afraid, we have entered an age of zealotry. Such periods typically result in heinous acts of persecution and only end with many lives ruined or ended.

I suppose I will receive backlash from a few readers for the ideas expressed in this post. Instead, and I know I’m being naive, but why don’t you take the advice of Maren Morris and Zedd and “meet me in the middle”?

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The Things Football People Say

I’m two-thirds of the way through another fall football weekend, having watched a high school contest on Friday, several college games on Saturday, and preparing to watch at least one NFL game on this Sunday afternoon. I’ve listened and observed fans yelling at coaches, coaches yelling at players and officials, and announcers bloviating one inane cliche after another. As a former high school football player and coach, a former radio and tv color commentator for high school football, a lifetime fan of the sport, and as a lover of language, this weekend I’ve concluded that there are a number of tired and boorish behaviors and expressions pertaining to the game that I wish my fellow fans, players, coaches, and announcers would put to rest, including the following:

It is/was a heavyweight fight out there. First off, why “heavyweight?” Do fighters in lighter weight classes NOT fight with the same amount of intensity? In truth, heavyweight bouts are often the most lackuster and boring as they lean on one another and throw a minimum number of punches. I’ll admit that I’m no expert on combat sports, but at the end of the day, the strategy involved is pretty simple: beat the crap out of the opponent while managing to hold onto your own crap.
It is/was a true chess match between these coaches. No, it wasn’t. I’ve played chess and I’ve coached football. In chess, the players have the same type and size of pieces and, although they may move in unique directions, they are all moved at the same speed. Trust me, if my players are bigger and faster than the other team’s players, I’m going to kick their ass ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Let’s put the brakes on referring to football coaches as chessmasters. Coaching football isn’t exactly equivalent to contemplating quantum physics.
The praising of coaches for “halftime adjustments.” Yes, occasionally, a minor adjustment or two may make a difference, but the majority of the people making this statement could never tell you exactly what that “adjustment” was. For example, moving a d-lineman from a “2” to a “3” technique or “feathering” an option quarterback, or playing “man under.” Most of the “halftime adjustments” I remember weren’t “adjustments” at all but merely reminding the players of what that’d been coached to do all week that they had failed to do in the first half.
It is/was a war out there. No! It’s NOT! In war, people get shot at and sometimes die ingloriously without fanfare. You’re playing, coaching, or announcing a GAME in which injuries are relatively minor and rare in comparison to the permanence of war wounds and deaths. You’ll play, coach, or announce another game next week. There is no “next week” for those dead soldiers. Not only is this metaphor trite, it is insensitive and borderline insulting. Just stop it.
“No one believed in us! It was us against the world!” Once again, no. The fact is no one had actually thought much about you and your game or season except a relatively small handful of supporters and media types. Quite frankly, the “world” doesn’t give a shit that you won or lost or that you are conference champions or playoff qualifiers. Your games are an opportunity for fans to escape the problems of real life for a couple of hours, but prior to those hours and not long after, we have mouths to feed and bills to pay. We’re not obsessing over you and your team or season. Those who are could probably use a reality check.
“We just have to take it one game at a time” is just a silly thing to say. What other choice is there? Once again, it is not a chess match in which it is possible to play multiple opponents simultaneously.
I hear fans yell, “Get ’em fired up, Coach. The boys aren’t fired up!” Let me tell you something about being “fired up.” For a player, the “fire” goes out after about five seconds once the game begins or about up until the first time he gets “punched in the mouth” or “slobbberknockered” by the opponent. Other than the so-called “halftime adjustments,” there’s nothing more overrated regarding locker room coaching practices than the pep talk. I’ve watched and coached a number of truly “fired up” teams lose by fifty points.
Giving 110%. There’s no such thing. In languge, an absolute word or phrase is one that is complete and total. Words that are inclusive, all-encompassing, an end in themselves, and cannot be modified in any way. For example, there’s no such thing as “more than perfect.” Perfect is perfect, and you literally cannot give more than you have to give or one hundred percent.
Troy Aikman recently commented and later apologized for a version of the commonly-heard, quite chauvinistic complaint that we may as well “put a dress on the quarterback.” Yikes. This reminds me of when my boys were children, and my wife overheard me stupidly admonishing one of them to not be “such a girl.” Again, yikes! Trust me, I never made that mistake again. What was I teaching them about females? I mean, their mom was/is a girl, yet my suggestion was that females were/are somehow inherently inferior to males and that it is somehow shameful to be one. Idiot.
“Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!” in response to an official’s call that doesn’t go one’s team’s way. Have we really sunk so low as a society that this is acceptable to chant in the presence of children? Regrettably, God and every one of us knows there are much worse things yelled at referees. It’s no wonder that youth sports are suffering from a dearth of folks willing to serve as officials.
My last one is not a specific term or phrase, but please remember that if you feel the need to express your dissatisfaction with a player’s or coach’s performance in a public and loud manner, that player’s or coach’s parents or spouses are most likely in earshot. When I was still coaching, for a number of good reasons, my wife stopped attending my games, partially because it pained her to watch me suffer defeat after defeat but also in fear of what she may hear voiced about her husband’s job performance after he had sacrificed the majority of his family time that week to spend it working with the children of those very “fans” berating him.

I’m not trying to be the “get off my lawn” guy or to suggest that I have been guilt-free of committing some of the very behaviors I’ve condemned. I just think in all situations, we could do a better job of thinking about what we’re saying/doing before we say/do it, especially when the people we’re saying it about are kids or coaches or officials who are just doing the best they can with what they have.

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“Seventeen Going Under”

One of my favorite contemporary sinnger/songwriters is Sam Fender, a Geordie kid from the northeast of England. Although I refer to him as a “kid” (He’s 28.), Fender possesses worldly wisdom and insight that belie his tender years. He is often compared with a young Springsteen regarding his working class youth and anthemic songs that capture the angst of youth and the cognitively dissonant juxtaposition of the love of home and hometown with the burning need to get the hell out that same home/hometown. Every teenager’s dilemma.

His most recent album, Seventeen Going Under, is a masterwork in what’s often described as “roots-oriented rock,” which, to me, means hard-driving guitars, keyboards, and a saxophone. Although there isn’t a sub-par song on the album, it’s the title song that rocked my world when I heard it and that remains in constant play on my devices. I believe the song speaks to me for a couple reasons. One is my belief, often shared, that for many of us, in one way or another, there’s a piece of us that stays seventeen for our entire lives. The first time experiences and emotions from that period are so new and raw that they burn themselves deeply into our psyches. Secondly, I’ve spent the majority of my life in the company of seventeen-year-olds, reliving my own highs and lows vicariously; therefore, I’m a sucker for any song that accurately taps into the messy-wonderfrul world of adolescence.

This live version captures the intensity of Fender’s song and lived experience.

The song captures the angst, anger, adventures, first forays into sex and love, heartbreaks, inter and intra-personal conflicts, struggles with self-definition, and the recognition of one’s parents, not as superhuman but as being buffeted and often defeated by all-too-human struggles with family, health issues, and financial stability. According to Ethan Shanfield, writing for Pitchfork, “[Fender’s] words conjure both angst and beauty, holding your attention from start to finish.” I couldn’t agree more.

Some of the lyrics can be difficult to make out for an American listener, but it’s well worth the effort.

As an English teacher, I am often granted the privilege of peering into my students’ lives outside of school through the various personal essays they write. Trust me, I often regret having that privilege. At “seventeen,” many of them are truly “going under,” exposed to and drowning in situations no one should be made to face at that age. Stories of abuse, neglect, poverty, hopelessness, depression, suicidal aspirations, and recklessness with sexuality, drugs, and alcohol are not uncommon. It’s understandable, but I think many adults who do not come into frequent contact with seventeen-year-old young adults and especially those who were fortunate to experience a more idyllic adolescence of their own, perhaps, during less complicated eras, are fairly clueless regarding the challenges faced by today’s seventeen-year olds. I often marvel at these kids’ ability to even show up to school when their personal lives are in such disarray. On any given day, the shit some of them are dealing with renders ridiculous any lesson in literature or composition I might be teaching, for those are the luxuries of stability, safety, and a promising tomorrow.

My ability to do much of anything to ameliorate their suffering and sadness is limited, but I try — I really try — to keep them from “going under” in the only way I know how: by sharing stories from literature and life that show them that they are not the first to experience whatever hardship they are facing and they are not alone. They too, like the heroes in the stories I teach, can — if nothing else — keep their heads above the waters of despair and defeat.

However, don’t let the somber tenor of this essay fool you. The vast majority of these seventeen-year-olds whom I teach are driven, resilient, and beautiful, and like Fender sings in my favorite song of his “Getting Started”: “I’m only getting started // Don’t mean to be disheartened // Felt like giving up so many times before // But I’m still here grinding.”

These kids are better than alright. They’re only “getting started” and they’re “still here grinding.”

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Hazing or Horseplay?

Few experiences can deflate a young person like cruel hazing rituals.

In the past week, two different high school hazing incidents have been prominently reported in the news, one locally and one in Pennsylvania. Both incidents involved members of the respective schools’ football teams and are remarkably similar. The school district in Pennsylvania went so far as to cancel their entire season. I can’t say, however, that I was surprised by the stories. Despite the negative attention fraternities and various athletic teams have received in recent years, including reports of deaths and criminal charges as the result of extreme hazing rituals, the practice has simply gone underground and typically unreported. The unfortunate truth is that it is far from being eliminated.

One of the more controversial scenes in my new novel, Belfast, Ohio, involves a hazing incident perpetrated against the main character and his fellow freshmen by members of his high school crew team. Like many hazing practices, the ritual involves humiliation, violence, and strong sexual undertones. As a side note, it’s both interesting and sad how often and how much those three qualities are conflated in hazing practices, mostly by males, nor is it coincidental that the majority of brutalistic hazing rituals are the products of the hypersexualized minds of high school and college-aged boys.

I have to admit that I’ve been a bit caught off guard by the surprised reactions that have been shared with me by readers as if hazing were a past practice of more brutalistic, bygone days. The scene I share in the novel is not wholly a product of my own twisted imagination. In fact, it is closely based on an incident found in the autobiography of Lance Rentzel, the one time NFL wide receiver. In his autobiography, When All the Laughter Died in Sorrow, Rentzel describes an initiation ritual he endured while a football player at Oklahoma University in the sixties. (You’ll have to read my or his book to find out more.) Interestingly and perhaps not coincidentally, as an adult Rentzel would be arrested on indecent exposure charges. Who can say how much his suffering of sexual trauma as a teenager warped his adult sexuality?

Although I was never victimized myself, I vividly remember watching terrified as several fellow sophomores on my high school football team were brutalized by upperclassmen. Most likely, I was spared the abuse due to having a sister in the senior class who was friends with my older teammates. Piling on a kid and “dry humping” him from behind was not an uncommon occurrence nor was the infliction of extreme “wedgies,” the wrapping of genitals with athletic tape, and being pissed on in the showers. There may have been worse; these are just the ones I witnessed and remember. At the time, I’d been somehow brainwashed into classifying all of it as normal “horseplay.” It was only in retrospect that I realized the abusive, sexual, and even homoerotic nature of these hazing incidents. We all just accepted the practice as normal and took it. The thought never crossed our minds to report these assaults to coaches, school officials, or especially our parents. Of course and sadly, anyone familiar with the psychology of sexual assault victims knows that not reporting one’s violation is the norm for fear of public exposure and the additional accompanying humiliation.

What’s not surprising at all is that the guys in my class who suffered the most from these sadistic acts became the most avid practitioners of those very same behaviors when we became upperclassmen. Such is the cycle of abuse.

I know some will argue that such behavior amounts to no more than “boys being boys,” and there are those who will insist that hazing rituals are an effective means of team building. And there are still those who will insist that the punishment of those who inflict the hazing is an overreach by those in authority and that those who call for such accountability are contributing to the “wussification” of our kids, especially our young males.

I beg to differ.

There are few things I find more repulsive than deliberate cruelty. I don’t claim to have been or to be a saint. I’m sure I’ve behaved in a manner that came off as cruel to others at various points in my life. However, if I have, those incidents were the results of immaturity, ignorance, or misunderstanding, not deliberate cruelty, which is exactly and only what hazing amounts to.

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What’s It About?

“What’s it about?” is the question I typically receive — often in a whiny voice — from my literature students when introducing them to a new story. Although they phrase the question in this way, what they are actually enquiring to know is “What happens?” In other words, their focus is primarily on plot rather than theme. To an English teacher, however, stories are not so much about what happens but about what “what happens” means. What universal truths and themes does it reveal and confirm?

This is also the question posed in a slightly different way in one of the most underrated songs from any film score: Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s song “What’s It All About, Alfie?”, written for the 1966 movie Alfie.

Although the Dionne Warwick-sung version had the most chart success, for my money the Cilia Black rendition, which was featured in the film, remains the seminal performance. Perhaps, it is the somewhat unusual and childish-sounding name of “Alfie” that has caused many people to undervalue the song; however, it is actually quite complex musically and profound lyrically. After all, there is no more important or meaningful question to ask regarding one’s plac in the world than “What’s it all about?”

“What’s it about?” is also the most common question asked of me and the most difficult for me to answer after a novel’s release. It’s a common sense question, and I really should have an “elevator pitch” ready at all times, a thirty to sixty second summary to answer the dreaded question. However, it’s so difficult to condense a 75,000-word novel into such a limited reply that I tend to deflect the question rather than answer it. Like trying to explain what the meaning to one’s life is, it’s too expansive of an answer for a brief synopsis.

However, another question, posed by David’s lyrics to the Alfie character, nicely applies to the main character, eighteen-year old Gal Lafferty, in Belfast, Ohio, my latest novel. The lines begin, “Is it just for the moment we live? // What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie? // Are we meant to take more than we give?” My answer and my novel’s reply to the final question in that series is, “No, we are challenged to give more than we take.”

As Belfast, Ohio, opens, a bright future awaits Gal, a good student in the bliss-filled throes of his first love relationship. However, the events of the novel will ask him to sacrifice everything he has going for himself in order to serve a greater good than his own happiness. It’s not sexy, but sacrifice as a path that leads to redemption is a theme that runs throughout the novel. It’s a path that a number of major characters in the novel must choose either to walk or to take the easier route that provides less resistance but no redemption.

“What’s It All About, Alfie” also challenges the eponymous character’s budding nihilism when it asserts, “I know there’s something much more // Something even non-believers can believe in.” As a young adult trying to figure out his place in the world and trying to make sense of his existence beyond what others have told him to accept as right, true, and good, Gal is experiencing what the sixteenth century poet St. John of the Cross described as the “Dark Night of the Soul.” Despite his attendance in Catholic schools or maybe because of it, he has been growing increasingly agnostic and skeptical of his religious training, but he will be forced to pause and reconsider his spiritual backsliding when he witnesses a string of potentially supernatural occurrences, which seem to confirm for Gal that he — like the Blues Brothers — may actually be on a “mission from God.”

Perhaps, we all are.

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OhGo and Help Somebody

I’ve been wanting to write and share this post for some time; however, I have sat on it for fear of it coming off as self-promoting, which diminishes whatever grace I might earn in volunteering in the first place. Actually, it is the last thing I want anyone to take from it. My measly six hours a month of volunteerism with OhGo is an embarrassingly small act of community service. There are sooooooo many others who do sooooooo much more and who are deserving of effusive praise and appreciation for their extensive efforts to serve our community, both through OhGo and other organizations. Besides, the old adage that the far greater reward is in the giving rather than in the receiving has been proven true to me tenfold in my experiences with OhGo.

What has prompted me to finally write this post was a conversation (Okay. Lecture.) I had/gave in my composition classes, during which I shared the characteristics of a well-told story. I pointed to the importance of inspiring empathy in the reader, which led to a discussion of the difference between sympathy and empathy. I pointed out that empathy — the ability to understand and share the feelings of another — is far superior to sympathy, which merely involves feeling bad (Yes, “bad” is correct, not badly.) for others.

I proceeded to climb into my imaginary pulpit and all but preach on the relatively worthless nature of sympathy in general, especially self-pity. Having had to learn to fight my own lifelong proclivity to feel sorry for myself, I spoke from experience on the self-defeating and unattractive nature of that tendency. I shared with them the famous lines from the Ella Wheeler Wilcox poem “Solitude,” which rightly professes, “Laugh and the world laughs with you; // Weep and you weep alone.” For it is true that most people’s pity for others comes with a soon-to-be-reached expiration date. Contrarily, empathy never goes away.

Growing increasingly dramatic, I encouraged my students — rather than feeling sympathy for others who are in sad or desperate straits — to do something to mitigate those folks’ suffering. For sympathy has never fed an empty belly, clothed the naked, or provided shelter for the homeless. All of which leads me back to OhGo and the title of this post.

For years, my wife had been encouraging me to join her in volunteering for a local service organization. However, I continuously balked, claiming to have enough on my plate already and dragging out that old, tired saw that “charity begins at home.” Eventually, she began volunteering on her own for OhGo, a multi-faceted, Sandusky area community organization.

Evntually, after employing my own sense of empathy while reflecting on a brief period during my college years when I was homeless and often hungry (a situation that resulted from my own choices and which I’ve shared here before,) for the past year or so, I have joined my wife in aiding OhGo with its bi-monthly, mobile food pantry, which travels to and sets up shop in three different locations in Sandusky. It has proven to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my lifetime. I’m positive that my wife would echo that statemnt. The volunteers we “work” with are some of the most humble, kind, and generous people I have ever known, and even though I don’t even know most of their last names, I count them among my dearest friends and favorite people in the world. And the clients we serve are genuinely thankful and gracious.

I’d encourage anyone who reads this who isn’t already volunteering their time to community outreach programs to consider doing so. Without question, financial contributions are great and needed, but unless you are like the poor woman in the Gospel who offered up her last two coins to God, such generosity is of limited reward to the giver’s own sense of contribution to the greater good.

At the end of the day, I hate telling anyone how they should spend their time or live, but if you should be so inclined as to support my personal favorite community organization, OhGo is sponsoring a fundraiser in early October. Trust me. Your contribution will go to a deserving cause and be wisely spent. My wife has attended several of these Empty Bowls with her girlfriends and had a marvelous time every time.

For a complete description of the outreach provided by OhGo, click on the link below.

https://www.ohgoreach.org/

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What You Wear

I spent the Labor Day weekend on Kelleys Island with my family celebrating my birthday. Saturday also happened to be week one of the college football season. As has become a bit of a trend, a whole host of Ohio State Buckeye fans descended on the island in full Buckeye regalia to watch their game versus Notre Dame.

As it would happen, I’m not a Buckeye fan. I was raised in a Catholic family rooting for Notre Dame. I vividly remember watching the Notre Dame replay show with Lindsey Nelson on Sunday mornings in the fall after church with my dad and brothers. I don’t remember the Ohio State vs. Michigan rivalry being that important in our house. We were expected to be Notre Dame fans. When my oldest brother enrolled at Michigan, however, the rest of us siblings became quasi-Wolverine fans mostly because he would occasionally bring home UM swag (stickers, pencils, t-shirts, etc.) and because some of us were able to actually visit the campus in Ann Arbor. In those less-tribal days, our Michigan fandom really didn’t seem like that big of a deal, and whenever I was called out for being a supporter of “that team up North,” it was a lighthearted sort of teasing.

As you might suspect, I took my “traitorous” fandom with me into adulthood, and just as I rooted for Notre Dame as a child mostly because my dad did, two of my three boys chose to be Wolverine fans like their dad. My cheering for Michigan never rose to a hatred for Ohio State. Actually, as an Ohio high school football coach, I was happy to see the team with a large number of Ohio high school football players excel, and despite good-natured ribbing with many Buckeye fans, I still root for them with the exception of one game each fall.

Somewhere and sadly, however, the rivalry turned ugly.

This was never made so clear to me as this past Saturday on the island. As he is wont to do on days that Michigan is playing, my oldest son wore a Michigan football t-shirt while we were gathered in our condo to watch the Michigan vs. Colorado State game at noon. At one point, my wife needed lime juice from the store in order to finish her salsa. Without putting much mind to what he was wearing, my son volunteered to make the short walk to the general store. During his journey, two Buckeye fans threatened to “kick his ass” and two others menacingly informed him that he was a “brave man for wearing that shirt.”

Let me emphasize that: FOR WEARING A T-SHIRT.

No big deal. My son is and behaves as an adult. He ignored their comments and returned home no worse for the wear. Later that afternoon, however, when he, his wife, his brothers, and sisters-in-law decided to venture out for a beer, I, fearing for his/their safety, advised him that it would be better if he would change out of his Michigan shirt that seemed to so offend those men earlier. Not to worry. He was way ahead of me.

As most things tend to do for my constantly-whirring brain, the entire situation got me to thinking about mothers and fathers whose children can’t so easily remove the attribute for which others seem to hate them for no defensible reason. I thought of the parents of Muslim children, who in simply adhering to their faith, send their daughters out into the world wearing hijabs. Similarly, I thought of the parents of Jewish boys, who send their sons out into the world wearing yamulkes. I thought of the parents of LGBTQ children who send their sons and daughters out into the world knowing their orientations may lead to violent reactions from insecure homophobes. Most poignantly of all, I thought of Asian and African-American parents, whose children cannot simply remove an item of clothing or adjust their behavior to avoid the predictable prejudices and discriminatory practices inherent in a systemically-racist society.

Photo by Leandro Valentino on Pexels.com

Obviously, the fear I felt for my son wasn’t one-millionth of that which the parents I mentioned in the previous paragraph must experience daily. However, that one-millionth shook me to my core. It was MY son being threatened for simply adopting MY favorite team as his own when he was a daddy-pleasing little boy.

Whether it pertains to rivalries between sports teams or the acceptance of one another for our diversity, I’d like to think that we can do and we can be better by adopting a more appropriate perspective toward what ultimately remain games and by celebrating our differences rather than villainizing them.

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The Fourth Quarter

It’s a fairly common practice among players and coaches on many high school football teams to hold up four fingers prior to the onset of the fourth quarter. The gesture is meant to be a simple reminder to themselves and one another that they are about to begin what is often the time period when the outcome of the game will be decided, so they’d better knuckle down and give their all because there is no fifth quarter.

If you see me walking around this weekend holding four fingers in the air, it is because this Sunday will be my 60th birthday. Therefore, if I’m fortunate enough to match my father’s eighty years lived, I’m about to begin my personal fourth quarter, and I want to make sure that my final minutes do not tick away without my knuckling down and making the most of every second. And with so little time to spend with them, I especially want to make sure I make the most of my limited years with my three current grandbabies and hopefully more. There are so many experiences I want to share with them and memories I want to make with them before my scoreboard clock reaches 00:00.

I can say with certainty that I’m not having some sort of three-fourths life crisis. I have no inclination to purchase a sports car, climb a mountain, or join a gym. And although I regret the times I may have behaved inappropriately or hurt the feelings of others, I do not feel the need to go on some Twelve-Step apology tour. Nor am I sad or morose about death in general or the sapping of energy, the reduced functioning of body, or the clouding of the mind that will progressively occur prior to it. I just want to be as fully engaged in and appreciative of as many of the moments that remain as possible.

One of my best friends died of colon cancer at the age of 46. During his last months, as it became increasingly obvious that his demise was inevitable, I ignored the advice of Howard Jones, who once sang, “Don’t try to live your life in one day.” As you would expect at such a relatively young age, my friend Bob was nowhere near ready to die. I reminded him that time is relative and suggested he try to imagine each day as a lifetime itself. As much as it were possible through the pain and the meds that dulled his senses, I encouraged him to live in every breath with an acute awareness of the people, the art, the dreams that filled his sleep, and whatever pleasures were still possible for him to experience. Looking back, I realize how pedantic I must have sounded, and of course, such advice is much easier to give than to follow. However, I still feel my advice was sound. At that time, Bob’s death was closer to twenty weeks away than the twenty years I optimistically hope remain for me, but even though I know that the trappings and mundanities of daily life will often swallow my best intentions, I want to live the 7,300 days in what remains of those fourscore years with such a laser-focused awareness of how good it really is to be alive that it will make each day feel as if it were a lifetime.

In recent years, I’ve begun to sign my books and to close much of my correspondence with the phrase “Always Love.” The two-word phrase is a reminder to myself and wishful advice to the receiver to consciously choose to love. In this context, I’m not defining “love” in some hippy-dippy, Beatlesesque “All You Need Is Love” manner but love as it manifests through displays of kindness, empathy, and forgiveness. Rather than hate, love. Rather than anger, love. Rather than vengeance, love. Rather than indifference, love. Rather than envy, love. The former in each of these pairs is by far the easier option, but it’s the choice to love that reveals our better angels as members of the human species, which far too often of late seems to be sinking to its basest nature. I’m far from a holy roller or a Bible thumper, but I’ve always held dear the second of the only two commandments it is reported that Jesus ever delineated: “Love thy neighbor.”

So if you see my four fingers flying, know that one represents my desire to be engaged, a second to be appreciative of the blessings in my life, a third to stay in the moments, and the last to choose love during this fourth quarter of my life.

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Printer’s Ink

The first essay I assign in my composition classes is to write a personal literary narrative. The purpose of which is for my students to explore and to share their unique history/relationship with the written word. In other words, I want them to share whatever it was that sparked or, sadly too often, squelched their interest in reading and/or writing. Although I’ve assigned this essay several times, I, ironically, had never deeply considered from where my love for reading and writing emanates. Only recently, however, have I climbed into the “Wayback Machine” to pinpoint its genesis.

Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine. You’d have to be of a certain age to recognize this allusion.

For many, such a love begins in early childhood listening to books being read at bedtime or while sitting on the laps of their parents, or it was the mere presence of plentiful books in the household that ignited their interest. However, none of these scenarios explain my relationship with the written word. With eight children, my folks had little time beyond that required to complete the necessities of maintaining a household, much less for storytime. And even though my mom subscribed to Highlights, the children’s magazine, more than it was ever read, that magazine was re-purposed to be the bases for our games of pickle in the front room, just as wax apples and oranges became wiffle balls, metal hangers became basketball hoops, and couches became end zones. My poor mother.

In my recent reflections, I’ve decided it was at Roth Printing, my extended family’s business that spanned three generations, where my love of the written word began by it literally soaking into my senses. It was seeing pallets stacked with paper that reeked of possibility with their blankness waiting to be filled in. It was the crystal cave that was the dark room, where the appropriate mixture of agitated chemicals converted nothing into something. It was the ink of rubber stamp pads being absorbed into my fingertips, the sound of the whistled melodies of my Uncle Ronnie over the ka-chunk, ka-chunk of the presses, the sight of my aunts and uncles at their various work stations, and most impressively, the smell of the ink — the singular smell of my childhood — wafting into my nostrils that instigated my lifelong obsession with the process of ink becoming letters that become words that become sentences that become paragraphs that become chapters that become entire books.

My Roth aunts and uncles all worked in some capacity, full or part-time, at Roth Printing. From Lt. to Rt. Ted, Bea (Powell). Mary Ellen (Link), Butch, Ronnie, and Tom (my father).

It’s fair to say that Johan Gutenberg’s invention of the modern printing press in the fifteenth century was the single most world-changing invention of the second millenium, not rivaled in significance until the introduction and proliferation of the Internet. I wouldn’t suggest that, as a child, I understood the role that the ancestors of those printing presses in the Roth Printing building on the corner of Scott and Perry Streets (always referred to as “The Shop”) played in changing the world by advancing the democratization of knowledge, but I think I did intuit the power inherent in those inked figures on paper and I wanted access to that power.

I don’t believe in magic, at least not in the kind featured on television and stage. I admit that there are certainly impressive, even awe-inspiring, sleight-of-hand feats performed, illusions created, and tricks played by skilled magicians, but that is exactly what they are, meaning tricks. To my mind, the greatest magic that has ever been done is the act of converting synapses of thought into the sounds represented by letters into typically black symbols on a white sheet of paper that recreate those synapses of thought or imagination in the mind of a reader who will most likely never meet the author in whose mind those synapses of thought originally fired.

That, my friends, is truly magic.

So you can keep your Merlin, your Gandalf, your Harry Potter. You will never conince me that the greatest white magic wielding wizards the world’s ever seen weren’t my grandfather, aunts and uncles, and father, or that the most powerful magic wand in the world is not a pen.

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Belfast, Ohio: The Story Behind the Story

After nearly fourteen years and several iterations, Belfast, Ohio, my fourth novel, is now available for online purchase. The original version was actually my second attempt at novel writing. At the time, the process of securing publication was a bit more onerous and a bit less saturated with aspiring authors than today. Nearly all agent queries and manuscript submissions were completed through the postal service, meaning actual printed letters and manuscripts. The process was time consuming and required large up front investments in copies and postage.

My agent queries for that initial version inspired several requests for full manuscripts but ultimately no offers of representation. One literary agent, however, saw promise in my writing and encouraged me to try again. My next effort resulted in So Shelly, which was purchased by Random House. Carelessly, I lost my only printed copy of that second novel, and the computer on which it was composed crashed like Humpty Dumpty beyond repair.

Approximately a year into the Covid-19 pandemic and a year after the release of my novel Island No. 6, I grew restless to begin another project. Even though a dozen years had passed since the original version of Belfast, Ohio — then with a different title — had been written, I never stopped thinking about the story and believing that there was a seed of something worth returning to and nurturing back to life but with the benefit of over a decade of lived wisdom and writing experience to add to the novel’s reconstitution.

As the synopsis on the back of the book’s cover promises, Belfast, Ohio is set in the heavily-Irish West Side of Cleveland, and its plot mixes elements of magic realism, Irish mysticism and history, Catholicism, and Arthurian Romance to weave an intricate and, I hope, compelling plot that highlights the themes of sacrifice and redemption, which I’d suggest are the requisites of true heroism. This is my first novel that travels beyond the confines of my hometown and its immediate vicinity, but it doesn’t wander far. I love Cleveland and frequently spend time there, especially on the West Side, which one of the characters in the novel refers to as “Belfast, Ohio,” ergo, the title.

As I mentioned above, there are four central motifs that run throughout the novel: magic realism, Irish mysticism and history, Catholicism, and Arthurian Romance.

Magic realism is a literary style that demands the reader’s exercise of cognitive dissonance (the ability to hold in one’s mind as true two opposite contentions) by combining a realistic narrative with surreal elements of dream or fantasy. This technique is reflective of my own admittedly paradoxical worldview that is primarily marked by pragmatism, rationalism, and skepticism but leaves the door open just a crack for the possiblility of the metaphysical/supernatural. As I said: cognitive dissonance. Galahad (Gal) Lafferty, the novel’s protagonist, is forced to wrestle with his own demons of doubt and disbelief and, perhaps, even a real one, demon that is.

My interest in Irish mysticism is derived from my love of the poems of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats and from my own genetic and cultural link to Ireland. Yeats once said, “The mystical life is at the center of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.” I incorporate several lines of Yeats’ poetry as epigraphs in the novel. As for Irish history, a few years back, I learned of the extent of my own Irishness from two sources: genetic data from an ancestry service and a conversation with my mother, who shared that her paternal grandmother was named Lafferty and an immigrant from Ireland, most likely the North. I was previously unaware of both of these connections, but I’d long been drawn to Irish culture, especially its music, poetry, and fiction. My Irishness had long lived in my collective unconscious, that part of the mind that is derived from ancestral memory and experience. It was as if I always knew I was part Irish, but I didn’t have the evidence of it. Although I find all of Ireland’s history fascinating, it is the recent period known as “The Troubles” that has most intrigued me. In Belfast Ohio, “The Troubles,” the three-decade civil war between nationalists (mainly self-identified as Irish or Roman Catholic) and unionists (mainly self-identified as British or Protestant) and primarily waged on the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland, is reignited and exported to modern day Cleveland.

Having been baptized Catholic and then attending or teaching in a Catholic school for twenty-six years, Catholicism has probably done more to define me than anything outside of my family. Like many Catholics, my association with the Church has become a complicated one in light of its many scandals and abuses and its clinging to arcane rules and practices that I feel are out of step with the modern world. The truth is that today I consider myself more of a cultural Catholic than a theological one, but there is no denying that it has informed my personality and psyche profoundly. What I continue to value from my Catholic upbringing and education is its emphasis on sacrifice and redemption, which are best revealed through the stories of the crucifixion and ressurrection. Gal, who is a senior at St. John of Bath’s Jesuit High School, is experiencing his own crisis of faith, but the events of the novel cause him to embrace both of these Catholic tenets despite his emerging agnosticism.

Catholicism and its themes of Sacrifice and Redemption play a significant role in *Belfast, Ohio*. Photo by Em Hopper on Pexels.com

My interest in Arthurian Romance is mostly the byproduct of my many years of teaching Anglo-Irish Literature. Its tenets of service, chivalry, and courtly love play a central motivational role for the two main characters of the novel: Gal and his “lady love” Maeve Donnelly. Perhaps the most loved tale of Arthurian Romance is that of the search for The Holy Grail and its supposed powers. In the story, Gal and Maeve are unexpectedly drawn into The Grail quest when they learn it is hidden — of all places — in a salt mine two thousand feet below Lake Erie.

The inclusion of The Grail Quest serves to tie these four major motifs together: magic realism, Irish Mysticism (many scholars believe the story’s roots are in pre-Christian Celtic folklore), Catholicism, and Arthurian Romance and to tell what I hope is a fast-paced story that illuminates its major themes of sacrifice and redemption.

I really don’t consider myself a novelist as much as a storyteller. The goal for every story I write is to provide readers with an engaging plot that primarily entertains but that might also teach a few things and reinforce what William Faulkner called “the old universal truths – love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.”

If you have found any of this description appealing, I hope you’ll give Belfast, Ohio a read, and I especially hope I don’t disappoint.

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To New Teachers

When I began my career as a high school teacher, I don’t remember being showered with much learned wisdom from veteran teachers other than the proverbial “Don’t smile until after Christmas break”: a bit of advice not without some merit.

When it comes to collegiality, most teachers, especially on the high school level, tend to be of the “teach and let teach” mindset. Like infants tossed into deep water with the expectation that they will either sink or quickly figure out how to swim, first-year teachers are still more-or-less thrown into their classrooms with the hope that they’ll keep their heads above the water and the belief that, if they drown in the expectations and demands of the classroom, they probably weren’t cut out for it in the first place. I think some of us veterans even gain a small bit of perverse pleasure in watching those first-years thrashing about while remembering our own struggles as nascent teachers. At the same time, however, I’ve never been turned away by a colleague or administrator from whom I sought help or advice. You just need to ask, or we’ll assume you’re doing just fine. Believe it or not, we veterans are often like those ducks that seem so calm and relaxed on the surface, but underneath, we’re paddling like crazy to make it look so. Just keep paddling.

The look of veteran teachers. Photo by Petr Ganaj on Pexels.com

Although there are certainly improvements that could be made in preparing future teachers for the exigencies of the classroom, teaching remains, like most, a profession best learned by doing. One’s first classroom is the crucible that either confirms one’s choice in entering the profession or sends a rookie scurrying into a career more amenable to their personality and less populated by often needy, rambunctious, and worst-of-all indifferent to whatever it is you’re trying to teach children and young adults.

I, however, believe a teacher’s approach to their career should mirror that of a wise investor. Just as investment portfolios rise and fall, there are good years in teaching and not-so-good years. (Notice I didn’t say “bad” years.). In recent years, I’ve witnessed too many gifted teachers give up on what was their well-chosen career path too soon. Wise investors stay the course, and when the time is right, they are rewarded. Wise teachers don’t overreact to a not-so-good year; instead, they ride it out with stubborn determination to make whatever positive difference in the lives of their students they can, and in the end, they typically find their investment paying off to an inestimable degree of student improvement and personal job satisfaction.

The offshoot of all of this is I thought I’d share just a nugget or two of the most important survival tips I’ve learned in my career.

The typical school year in Ohio includes 180 days of classroom instruction. Allowing for the few days I’ve missed for sick or personal days, that means in my thirty-seven years as a classroom teacher I’ve been in front of students responsible for their behavior and learning approximately 6,600 times. How many individual class periods that amounts to is anyone’s guess as I’ve taught on master schedules ranging anywhere from three instructional periods a day to eight. It’s important to remember that, if you let it, one crappy period will utterly destroy an otherwise wonderful day, but sadly, the reverse is rarely the case. Anyway, I can assure you that not on a single morning of those 6,600 days did I wake up without butterflies in my belly in nervous anticipation of facing those students, but, brother, when that first bell sounds, I somehow transform into Mike Tyson entering the ring (at least on most days).

Bring on the day! Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

In his song, “It Gets Easier,” Jason Isbell advises that “It gets easier, but it never gets easy.” Isbell’s admonition is directed toward recovering alcoholics; however, I think his words also reveal a truism that every teacher, especially those new to the profession, should embrace. If the preparation, instruction, and asssessment required of an effective teacher does get easy, let me suggest that either you’ve gotten a bit lazy or you may be in the wrong profession. The job is what the job is. Either do it to the best of your abilities or go sell insurance or something. As Isbell sings, it will get easier but it will never get easy.

One of the most frustrating yet simultneously exciting aspects of being a classroom teacher is its unpredictability. Go ahead and plan meticulously. In fact, the best teachers I know actually overplan, knowing that the most disruptive, even dangerous, thing to allow students to possess in the classroom isn’t a cell phone but free time. However, I can count on two hands the number of class sessions that went exactly the way I pictured or planned they would. My best class sessions are often the ones in which I never even get to my actual lesson plan, or they’re the ones that went spiraling away from my original plan when my and/or my students’ imagination(s) were piqued by something only indirectly related to the lesson but of high interest to us and relevant to life outside of the classroom.

One of the lessons it took me the longest to learn was that of humility. I had to learn that it wasn’t my but our classroom. I had to learn to deescalate potential discipline issues, knowing that my next response would have repercussions, for the better or worse, that would impact the remainder of not only my relationship with that misbehaving student but with the entire class for the rest of the school year and even beyond. I had to learn to enforce the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. Most importantly, I’ve had to learn that whatever is causing a student to act out or to be disengaged, it probably has nothing to do with me. I don’t need to feel insulted or disrespected.

With that said, it’s important that as a classroom instructor you have that one thing on which you never compromise. For me, that one thing is I never allow or tolerate a student putting their head down while I’m providing instruction. I establish that line in the sand early, and I never compromise. I think that, by extension, my students know not to push me on other minor violations of classroom etiquette as well.

Finally, it’s vital that teachers are demonstrably passionate about what/who they teaching. I’ve never taught elementary school, but I have mad appreciation for the job they do. I know I could not do their job. From my inexpert viewpoint, I feel that elementary teachers must love two things the most and model that love to the children in their charge: the love for the children themselves and a love for learning in general. Meanwhile high school teachers must be enthusiastic lovers and promoters of the material they teach. In my case, I don’t read and write because I’m a teacher; I teach because I love to read and write. I think my students sense my intense interest in my subject matter, which, at least for some, sparks their interest in discovering the reason for my interest. Middle school teachers may have the most difficult job of all as they must be the best of both school worlds between which they are sandwiched.

Feel free to file all of this away in the “For What It’s Worth” drawer. I wish good luck and good teaching to all of my fellow teachers. We are members of a truly honorable and vital profession. At the start of each day, chase away those butterlies and dive into your classroom loving who and what you teach.

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Confessions of an Independent Author

Since I began writing novels over fifteen years ago, much has changed regarding the options available for artists’ to share their work with the world. This is not only true for writers but also for musicians, comedians, photographers, painters, film makers, etc. No longer do artists require the representation of a connected agent or manager nor is a golden ticket from an a editor or an A and R man necessary to share one’s work in the public domain. This newfound freedom is, however, a double-edged sword for both the artist and the public. The good and bad news is that the amount of available artistic content has exploded. Some of this content is very good; much is not. All of which makes it difficult for the consumer to locate that which is worth their time to read, view, listen to, etc.

The greatest benefit for the independent artist is the near total control they possess over their project. For example, when my first novel, So Shelly, was published in the traditional manner with Random House, it became their property and within their rights to ask for numerous edits, including cutting nearly forty pages from the original manuscript, that, as the writer, I wish would have remained in the story. Random’s purpose was completely understandable and honorable: to create the highest quality and marketable finished product possible. As an independent author, such drastic edits can be avoided and the manuscript remains true to the author’s vision rather than the editor’s.

Contrarily, a major drawback faced by an independent author– but one that is rapidly diminishing in significance — is the loss of prestige that accommpanies being signed to a major publishing house. Independent authors’ books are often pejoratively referred to as “vanity” projects, an assigntion that, I must admit, does possess some ring of truth. After Shelly’s release I was invited to a number of prestigious national and regional book fairs, and I’ll never forget the “cool kids” clique of traditionally-published authors in which I was included due to my affiliation with Random House, nor will I forget the overt, meanspirited attitude the members of that clique displayed toward the independent writers in attendance. Their hardheld belief was that independent authors didn’t deserve to be there or to be published at all. Their disdain was palpable. I probably acted and felt just as resentful and arrogant as my fellow “mean girl” authors. Middle school had nothing on that experience. It may be a simple matter of semantics or maybe even hypocrisy, but I now like to think that what some call “vanity” may just as easily be considered conviction and belief in oneself and one’s art.

For what it’s worth, however, I have to admit that I still get a charge out of receiving emails and royalty statements from what is now Penguin-Random House. I’m beyond flattered that they still include me in their stable of authors, and if my current circumstances were different, I would prefer to pursue the traditional route to publication. My affiliation with Penguin-Random House remains the greatest professional honor of my life.

Home of Penguin-Random House on Broadway in Manhattan.

Perhaps, an even greater and more practical negative of publishing independently is the loss of a large publisher’s deep pocketbooks for upfront advances, pre and post publication promotion, and their ability to place their books in brick-and-mortar bookstores and libraries on a national, even international, scale. For example, the rights to So Shelly were sold to publishers in both Mexico and Brazil, and it appeared in the libraries of several English-speaking countries. Such expansive reach is lost by the independent author.

*So Shelly* in the Spanish language version re-titled *letras de amor y muerte* (translated as *love and death lyrics*)

It is true that some originally independent titles have been picked up by mainstream publishers and met with tremendous success: Andy Weir’s The Martian, James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy, and E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey to name a few. Even a number of classic texts by such canonical authors as Stephen Crane, E.E. Cummings, and Marcel Proust were originally independently published. The dream of being embraced and legitimized by the publishing establishment is cherished by most independent authors. The fact remains, however, that such authors/books are the rare exceptions to the general rule of relative obscurity faced by independent authors, and I have no delusions of adoption by a mainstream publisher, achievement of bestseller status, or of reaping a financial boon.

So, with the understanding that, in a perfect world, I’d have never left the realm of traditional publishing, why did I bypass that route and choose independent publishing for my soon-to-be-available novel Belfast, Ohio? Let me list the reasons:

As already explained, I have complete artistic control. Whether the novel is positively or negatively received, I have no one to credit or blame but myself.
I own complete rights to my work.
Acceleration to the market. The majority of works of fiction take anywhere from eighteen to twenty four months to make it to publication and/or a bookstore shelf. And that is after spending God-only-knows how much time an author devotes to querying agents in pursuit of representation. At my current stage of life and career, that’s too much time.
I am not pressured to squeeze my novel into a partiular genre for marketing purposes. In my experience, the best works of art are often those that defy such easy categorization, and I prefer to cast as wide of a net as possible for readership.
Sixty-year old, white, male authors are not exactly a hot commodity in contemporary publishing trends. Trust me, I’m not complaining. Writers of my demographics have had more than their fair share of opportunities. If the pendulum for signing and publishing authors has swung in the direction of those from underrepresented groups, I’m all for it.
Another strike against me with agents and publishers is that, with So Shelly, I already had my chance, my cup of coffee in the big leagues. The novel earned some critical praise and award nominations, but it didn’t come close to being profitable for Random House. Therefore, my sales record does not inspire much faith in me from publishers. All things being equal, they would prefer to take a chance on a debut author. Again, I understand their thinking. I like to console myself by comparing myself to Bill Abernathie, a player for the Cleveland Indians who on September 27th, 1959, played in one major league game. Although it was just one day in the big leagues, it is one day more than most authors/ballplayers ever experience, and it was magnificent.
Just as I’ve come to accept that I’ll never be a bestselling author, I’ve also accepted the liklihood that my audience will most likely remain regional and relatively small. My stories are all set in northern Ohio and appeal especially to that unique audience of fellow Buckeyes. It’s a niche I’m comfortable in and proud to represent.

Since so few readers are aware of the “inside baseball” of the publishing industry, I thought it might be of interest and helpful for me to share my knowledge and experiences with that world and important that I be as up front as possible regarding the publication of Belfast, Ohio. If you feel its independent origins disqualify it from being worthy of your time, effort, and twenty bucks, I understand. For my part, I believe it represents my best work, and I am extremely proud of the finished product.

*Belfast, Ohio* will soom be available for purchase from your preferred online bookstore.

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Teachers Who Do

The saying that “Those who can do. Those who can’t teach,” used to grind my gears like nothing else. I would think of the job demands placed on teachers’ time outside of school –coaching, advising, committees, preparing lessons and assessing student work — all while working toward mandatory advanced degrees and/or re-licensing and most of us were also trying to raise a family, and while many of us were holding down second and third jobs just to make ends meet. There was precious little time to “do” anything but the teaching job and much less to contribute anything original to our fields of expertise.

The now-deceased Frank McCourt authored the bestselling memoirs Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis. Prior to his literary accomplishments, McCourt taught public school in New York City. for thirty years. Angela’s Ashes was published when McCourt was 69 years old and recently retired. When a journalist, who was either ignorant or dismissive of the demands placed on a teacher’s time and energy, asked what took him so long to publish his first book, McCourt replied, “I was teaching, that’s what took me so long . . . When you teach five high school classes a day, five days a week, you’re not inclined to go home to clear your head and fashion deathless prose. After a day of five classes your head is filled with the clamor of the classroom.”

Brilliant!

I can relate to McCourt’s late entry into the world of professional letters. When I began writing novels, I was in my mid-forties and had already been teaching for over twenty years. The writing required me to give up coaching and to devote as much of my “spare” time that wasn’t already being spent preparing for class, grading essays, and being present as a husband and father at home. Most of my writing time was carved out late at night after everyone else went to bed, on weekends, during school vacations, and throughout the summer months. To find writing time, I had to eschew other diversions, mainly television. I ain’t whining; I’m just saying. For most teachers, especially those with children of their own, it’s all we can do just to stay ahead of the next class period.

Anyway, in addition to my teaching, I’ve been able to “do” to the tune of three novels with a fourth (Belfast, Ohio) being released this month. I’ve also written for Lake Erie Living Magazine, and I regularly publish personal essays here on my blog.

I’m not alone, however. In fact, there are a number of teachers in the Port Clinton City Schools who not only teach but do in their chosen field.

From our physical education and health department, Del Culver and Seth Benner do not just preach the importance of fitness and maintaining a healthy diet, they model it. Over the years, they have both been active in a variety of exercise, including running, swimming, cycling, volleyball, softball, hiking, endurance races, and any number of water sports. In addition, they both remain remarkably fit with BMIs still in line with their days as high school athletes.

Adam Murray and Bruno Bush from the music department are actively involved in the arts outside of their excessively-demanding, school-year schedule of concerts, musicals, and various performances throughout the school year. This summer, Adam performed with the Kaboom Collective, an orchestra comprised of some of the Cleveland area’s finest young musicians. The Collective recorded a brilliant album with the critically-acclaimed trio The Accidentals.

Adam is one of the violinists. You get a good view of him around the 3:19 mark. He’s to the far left.

Meanwhile, Bruno served as the musical director for The Wizard of Oz and Cabaret for the Sandstone Summer Theater in Lorain County, northeast Ohio’s premier community theater and nonprofit teaching theater. In addition, Bruno composes orginal music and performs with Zero to Sixty, an a cappella group who perform in northeast Ohio.

Bruno dedicated this beautiful performance to his late stepfather.

Good on ya, boys!

Matthew from the New Testament is often given credit for coining the phrase to “practice what you preach.” In fact, the Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus composed the line, “Practice yourself what you preach” two centuries prior to the writing of Matthew’s gospel. Anyway, I say, “Hats off!” to all teachers who find the time and energy to put into practice in their lives, what they “preach” in their classrooms.

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Where’d That Name Come From?

As large families, both extended and nuclear, have become increasingly rare, my Gen Z students marvel at the fact that I am one of 50+ blood-related, first cousins. Included in that number are myself and my seven siblings. As unusual as those numbers seem today, when I was a kid attending Catholic schools, they were not such anomalies. In addition to the Roths, there were many such families: the Smiths, Guendelsbergers, Kromers, Seilers, Opfers, just to name a few.

While my dad spent most of his days at work and despite already having eight children of her own in a three bedroom, one bath house, my mom had a knack for taking in “strays,” people, not pets, including neighborhood kids; Eli, the Amish house painter; the autistic child of the African American crossing guard who was stationed on the corner outside our house; my brother Aaron’s imaginary friend; any of our actual childhood friends, who’d appear quite frequently, usually uninvited but always welcome; cousins, some of whom I thought were siblings for a number of years until I realized they didn’t actually live with us; college roommates; teammates from our many sports teams; her ex-son-in-law’s child from a previous relationship; pretty much anyone who showed up and wanted to stay. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few.

The Eight of us, oldest to youngest from left to right. Photo is circa 1981.

In addition to our house on the corner of Fifth and Marlboro Streets serving as a quasi-Boys and Girls Club/YMCA, what else is unusual about my immediate family and often of great interest to others when they learn of it is the manner by which my siblings and I were named. I, for example, am regularly asked where the name “Ty” came from. Most assume that it is a diminuitive of Tyler or Tyson or Tyrone, but it is not. I’m just Ty. The name was chosen for its ability to continue a pattern that required my name to consist of only two letters.

It’ll be easier to show you than to explain it, so what follows is a listing of my parents’ names followed by their children from oldest to youngest:

Barbara
Thomas
Kevin
Lori
Amy
Ty
J

That would have been the logical ending to my parents’ family building; however, because they were practicing Catholics, the list continues with a return to the top:

Aaron
Troy
Yon

My sister Lori jokes that it is a tribute to my parents and a minor miracle that none of us children ended up in jail with the caveat of the youngest (see below), and, in fact, that we’ve all managed to be relatively-productive, even accomplished, members of our communities. I think all of us siblings would say that our most important contributions to the world have been our children. With that said, however, I’ve provided a very brief bio of each of our professional lives below:

Kevin is the typical, high-achieving, impossible-for-the-rest-of-us-to-live-up-to firstborn. He is a Stanford Medical School graduate with an MD & PhD. After stints a Wash U. in St. Louis and UAB in Birmingham, AL, he is currently the Chief Pathologist at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Professor and Chair of the Columbia University Department of Pathology and Cell Biology. Would it have killed him to set the bar just a bit lower?

Lori is retired. While still in her twenties she became the owner and president of the Roth Printing Company, a business begun by our grandfather that served Sandusky proudly for over 75 years. At that time, Lori was a groundbreaker as a rare female serving in those capacities.

Amy only recently retired after working for over forty years as a registered nurse in the Sandusky community, including many as an oncology nurse. If I had a dime for every time someone shared with me how wonderful Amy had been as their nurse or for one of their loved ones during one of the most trying periods of their lives, I’d have a lot of dimes.

Ty – Enough about me.

J has been an educator in Florida for over thirty years: first as an elementary classroom teacher; then as a much-honored and beloved building principal mostly in underserved communities with large, migrant populations; and most recently as a supervisor/consultant for other principals. J also authored the book Classroom Management for Successful Instruction. Poor J has suffered the most for my parent’s (mostly Dad’s) naming formula. Many bureaucracies that demand identification refuse to believe that his name is “just” J and give him the most difficult of times.

Aaron has taught high school business courses for thirty years, and he was a highly-successful basketball coach for many of those years. If you ask anyone who saw him play in high school, they’d probably tell you that he was one of the most electrfying point guards they’d ever seen on that level. His talents took him to the University of Findlay, where he earned All-American honors and where he is a member of the athletic hall of fame.

Troy is another (1 of 5) who pursued a career in education. After a few years in various teaching and coaching roles, he became a high school principal. Eventually, he rose to the position of assistant superintendent for Findlay Schools before becoming that district’s superintendent. Currently, he serves as the superintendent for Bellevue Schools.

Yon is the only OSU grad and fan among the bunch of us. In high school, he earned first-team All-Ohio recognition in football. Since graduation from college, he has been a corrections officer at the Erie County Jail, where he is a legend.

This is a recent photo of from left-to-right: Kevin, Yon, J, Troy, Amy, Me, Mom, and Aaron, minus Dad and Lori.

From our dad, I think we all learned the necessity and value of hard work and being devoted to our jobs. Among many other things, from our mom, we learned not to be so judgmental of others and to accept them for who and where they are in their lives with an open mind and heart.

Being one of eight children certainly had its drawbacks. As a child, I was sometimes envious of my friends with few or no siblings, especially of all the space and time to themselves they had, but today, I realize how fortunate I was, and it makes me a little sad to think that the manner in which I grew up is all but a thing of the past. There’s no doubt in my mind that the benefits I reaped of being one of eight far outweigh any of those drawbacks, even if the “Did you tie your own tie, Ty” jokes did get a little old in high school.

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“Did You Really Need to Cry?”

The band Dawes recently released a very cool song, titled “Everything is Permanent.” I love everything about the song’s melody and lyrics, but the last line of the song is a refrain that has been stuck in my head for days now. In that line, the lead singer, Taylor Goldsmith, who happens to be married to Mandy Moore of This is Us fame, repeatedly asks, “Did you really need to cry or [to] be seen crying?” (at 7:45 of the video below).

At its root, the question drills down into one’s true motivations for crying, and I think the answer to the question “Did you really need to cry?” is a simple “Yes.” In other words, sometimes we cry for the emotional catharsis that crying provides (the “need to cry”), and at other times, we cry because we need to share with others whatever has been the cause for our crying (the need to “be seen crying”) because they have been too blind, self-absorbed, or just plain stupid to see the cause for themselves. I know I’ve been guilty of all three of those catalysts for another’s tears.

The question also forces us to consider the role of the observer of another’s crying. I would suggest that it is a supreme honor to be welcomed to witness the emotional nakedness of another, similar to the honor of witnessing another’s physical nakedness. The trust that either situation of extreme vulnerability places in the observer’s eyes is enormous and should be considered both flattering and sacred. However, it is true that there are those who need “to be seen crying” in order to garner favors, forgiveness, or sympathy from a gullable audience.

The mistake we typically make in relation to the tears of another who “really needs to cry” is to insist that the crier “Don’t cry.” This response, however, is actually a selfish one inspired by the observer’s own discomfort rather than by compassion or consideration for what is best for the one crying. Tears are one of the body’s autonomic responses, meaning they occur involuntarily. Rarely does somebody cry because they want to but because their body, heart, and/or soul require it. The attempt to disallow tears from oneself or others is unnatural and unhealthy. Perhaps, Hootie and the Blowfish expressed this phenomenon best in their song “Let Her Cry.”

As is common for an overthinker like myself, the question the Dawes’ song poses has also led me down another avenue of thought, which is to question my motivations for and the sincerity of many of the things I do or do not do and to ask if my behaviors are genuine or have they merely been poses I’ve taken to gain attention and/or to gain the approval of others.

To that end, I’ve been substituting various verbs in the place of “cry”:

Did you really need to shout or be seen shouting?
Did you really need to laugh or be seen laughing?
Did you really need to pray or be seen praying?
Did you really need to hate or be seen hating?
Did you really need to believe or be seen believing?

You get the idea. Feel free to substitute your own verbs.

The French poet, Charles Baudelaire utilized the phrase to “play to the grandstand” in his poem “To The Reader,” published in his collection of poems Flowers of Evil (1857). His point was to emphasize the importance of living genuinely rather than “perform” for those who may be watching and judging our choices and behaviors. Similarly, Henry David Thoreau advised us to live a life of one’s own imagining. Theirs are both wise admonitions but also much easier said than done. I, admittedly, have always been far too concerned with what other’s expect from me and how they might judge me and far too chickenshit not to care.

In the end, the world would be a better place if we could all cry without embarrassment or reservation and experience another’s tears without discomfort or judgement.

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Sandusky: Embrace Our Diversity

My sixteen-month-old granddaughter Charlee is a slow-to-get-to-know-ya kind of person. She’s suspicious and slow-to-trust anyone with whom she has no previous experiences. This discomfort with strangers is quite natural and common even in adults. It is the byproduct of our social evolution as a species, but it is learning to get past this distrust of others who do not look, act, think, or believe like us that speaks to our better angels and reveals our best selves.

I was thinking about this recently after a conversation with an acquaintance of mine who, like my wife and I, has been taking regular advantage of the various concerts occuring weekly in downtown Sandusky, on the Jackson Street Pier, featuring an eclectic selection of musical genres. While discussing the various performers we had witnessed this summer, I mentioned how much we enjoyed the hip-hop concert headlined by The Sugar Hill Gang and Grandmaster Flash, especially because the audience was a true representation of the city’s population. He shared that he briefly attended that particular show as well, but it got “too dark” for him. I’m pretty sure you understand that by “dark” he was referring to our fellow concertgoers, not nightfall.

I was so disappointed and saddened by his response. I wanted him to be better than that.

I have not lived within the city limits for over twenty-five years now, but growing up on Sandusky’s east side in the sixties and seventies, my experience was of a very segregated city. Even as a child, I knew which were “white” neighborhoods and which were “black” neighborhoods. Because I attended Catholic school, sports provided my only exposure to African American kids. After getting married, my wife and I started our family in a house also on the east side of town and lived there for ten years; however, when we were selling our home and moving out of town due to a job change, I had a couple neighbors all-but-plead with me not to sell our home to a black family.

I was so disappointed and saddened by their response. I wanted Sandusky to be better than that.

In my life, it has been my experience that my moments of greatest growth as an individual and moments of real connection with my community as a whole have occurred when I stepped outside of my comfort zone — even to the point of actively seeking out groups of people and environments that make me uncomfortable. In college, I regularly attended dances sponsored by the African American Student Association. A friend and I were often the only white boys in the room. Also in college, I befriended a professor who happened to be the pastor at local African Methodist Episcopal church, and I attended several of his charismatic services much unlike the staid Catholic mass I knew. Although I’m a straight man, I’ve gone to gay bars, drag shows, gay parades, and LGBTQ Pride events.

Currently, my wife and I volunteer with OhGo, serving some of the needy of the Sandusky community every other Thursday by helping with OhGo’s mobile food pantry. Although, as I already mentioned, I grew up in Sandusky, the food pantry has taken me into neighborhoods I had never and would never have visited were it not for volunteering.

Each of these situations began awkwardly. I was a stranger to the folks whose comfort zones I was invading. Like Charlee, they were not sure if they could trust me, and I was leery of how they might respond to my presence. The reality with Charlee, however, is if you give her a little bit of time to get used to you, and especially if you keep coming back, she starts to feel comfortable with you and to enjoy your company. The same has been the case for me in each of my taking of social risks.

The still-to-be-fully-tapped-into beauty and strength of the Sandusky community should be its diversity (racial, ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, etc.), but to fully realize that beauty and strength will require the majority of us to be willing to visit places, attend events, and seek out and to welcome folks unlike ourselves with open minds and open hearts. To their great credit, our civic leaders clearly understand and promote this philosophy of inclusiveness, and it has been a primary driver of the renaissance Sandusky is currently experiencing. I only hope that the citizens of the greater Sandusky area will do their part to embrace and be part of the diversity that makes us special.

This very cool video by Kevin Lee Visuals makes my point in pictures better than I can with words.

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You Got To Have a Code!

A mentor of mine once advised me that “You got to have a plan. It doesn’t have to be a good plan,” he said, “but you got to have a plan.” In general, I’m a “live and let live” sort of person, but I have a similar philosophy regarding the necessity of having a code to guide one’s life choices. For me that code is a list of behaviors I try to adhere to in matters ranging from the trivial to the vital.

For more serious matters, I tend to turn to my own conscience, my mother’s examples, and the big thinkers of history, including philosphers, poets, playwrights, novelists, and songwriters. What follows here is a list of a few of the more trivial precepts found in my personal code for living. Most of them are arbitrary and some a bit silly, and most I do or don’t do without a whole lot of thought required. Also, I am certainly NOT giving life advice to anyone, but the behaviors found in my code for living might provide a little insight into what makes me me.

My mom and me a few Xmas’s ago. It is her code for living I try my best to emulate in serious matters.

The ordering of the precepts is completely random, not in any order of importance or categorized:

I never leave mass until the final note of the final song has been played.
I finish every beer that I open. I come from a long line of beer drinkers, BUT I never drink irresponsibly.
I’ll give a book 100 pages to engage me. If it hasn’t hooked me by then, either it’s poorly written or I’m just not the right audience for it. However, I often come back to books I’ve set aside based on this rule and find them enjoyable.
I never hit skip on a Springsteen song. Never. Ever.

“She’s the One” is my all-time favorite Springsteen song.

I always dance to Kool and the Gang’s “Get Down on It.”
I don’t line dance, Chicken Dance, Cha-Cha Slide or Electric Slide. No judgement on those who do; I just don’t.
I don’t do the wave in arenas/stadiums.
I insist on the proper usage of “fewer” to refer to anything countable over the increasingly-common use of “less.” It infuriates me. Strangely enough, other than this, I’m not much of a grammar Nazi.

I always hold doors for ladies. I know this is a bit archaic, but I can’t help it. It’s meant to be chivalric, not anti-feminist.
I respect other people’s right to be referred to by the name, title, or pronoun of their choosing. I’m not being political, just nice.
I (almost) never use the air conditioner or radio in the car if I’m alone.
I never wear gear from a sports team that I don’t actually cheer for.

I never swear in front of my mother.
I never put ketchup on a hot dog.
I always slip dollar bills to homeless people when I’m in a city.
I always watch the movies Jaws, A Few Good Men, and Tombstone if I come across them while channel surfing.
I never wear sandals or flip-flops. It’s real shoes or barefoot.
I always tip at least 20%.
“I always wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it.” Daisy Buchanan speaks this line in The Great Gatsby. It’s my favorite quotation from the greatest American novel. I couldn’t resist including it.
I always choose heads.
I always give a firm handshake.
I apologize when I make a mistake.
I forgive.
I occasionally break most of the rules found in my code.

I’d love to know some of the rules that make up the code you live by. Please share in the “comments.”

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An Ohio Yankee in King George’s (Strait) Court

Full disclosure: Although I am an occasional listener of the genre, I’m not what anyone would consider a rabid country music fan. In addition, the “feels like” temperature each day was over one hundred degrees. These facts may color my takeaways from my visit to the Capitol of Country Music.

I, however, have nothing but respect for the country music genre. Although it is closely associated with the South, I believe country music appeals to a state of mind rather than any particular state of the Union.

As a final introductory note and caveat, the fact that I visited mid-week rather than over a weekend may have impacted my experience.

Nashville, Tennessee, is a sacred place to country musicians and their fans. It is a common pilgrimage destination for those fans nearly on par with completing a Hajj to Mecca for Muslims. To speak ill of it is a form of apostasy that may bring down the thunder on my head from its devotees; therefore, I fully understand my need to tread carefully with this essay.

Nashville at night looking down 3rd street toward downtown and the Batman Building.

I recently spent three days and nights in Nashville. The changes in the city since my previous visit some twenty-six years ago were stunning. At that time, Bridgestone Arena, the current home of the Predators of the NHL, was still under construction; the Country Music Hall of Fame was yet to open in its current location, and Broadway Street had yet to become the tourist magnet it is today. Although I feel like a bit of an outlier in my impressions of the city and expect many of those who read this to disagree wholeheartedly, I returned home equivocal, at best, regarding my experience with the negatives more or less equaling the positives.

Because I’d like to finish my review of the city on a high note, I’ll begin with what I consider the Negatives:

The commercialization of Broadway Street. Populated by a large number of bar/restaurants named for country music artists – the vast majority of whom have merely licensed their names and rarely, if ever, set a boot in the bar bearing their name – this locus of tourist activities is as authentic as a Dolly Parton impersonator’s boobs. As most New Yorkers avoid Times Square at all costs, you’d be hard pressed to find a native of Nashville on or near Broadway, except for the homeless of which there are many and who seemed a bit more threatening than those I’ve encountered in other large cities across the country.
Although the talents of the musicians were obvious and impressive, the lack of original material played in Broadway Street bars was disappointing to me, and although it’s a brilliant song, if I had to hear Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” covered one more time, I may have gone all Oedipal on my ears.
The only thing more disappointing regarding Broadway Street than it’s inauthenticity was it’s rancid smell, especially at night, some combination of sweat, spilled alcohol, and garbage that takes your breath away.
The constant contrived “Wooooos!” from the incessantly circling pedal bars and party busses. I know. This is a petty complaint.
I never complain about paying the various taxes I owe as I consider them my duty as a citizen; however, I found the 7% prepared food tax to be somewhat onerous in restaurants, especially when added to the appropriate 20% server’s tip.
This is a personal bugaboo that’s not meant to offend, but I find country and western fashion choices to be so boring and unimaginative for both men and women.
A lack of diversity. The several blocks that comprise Broadway Street may comprise the whitest and straightest few blocks among popular tourist hotspots in America. I realize that some may find this quality comforting. I found it disheartening.

My buddy Roy and I at “Blake Shelton’s” bar.

Positives:

The trolley tour of major attractions was both entertaining and educational, but most importantly, it served to help us scout out and to choose the locations we hoped to visit during our stay.
The willingness of the few locals we encountered to offer suggestions for the best off-Broadway attractions.
The Basement, one such off-Broadway venue – literally in a basement – where musicians play original material for small, standing room only crowds. We had the great pleasure of seeing Matt Fowler perform.
The moonshine tasting at the Marathon Motor Works. I’m really not much of a drinker, but I’ve long been curious to try moonshine. It wasn’t quite the same as “the sort your cousin Jethro might make in his bathtub,” as our bartender apologized, but it was 120 proof and as strong as the government would allow the distillery to make.
The many rooftop bars are cool places to hang out.
The availability of eclectic musical genres. If you’re not a fan of country music, there are plentiful options for whatever style of music waves your baton.
Hot chicken and waffles!

Surprises:

The lack of prominently-displayed Confederate-pride paraphernalia.
The number of baseball caps far outnumbered the cowboy hats.
The lack of people — among both workers and visitors —with Southern accents.
For better or worse, I didn’t see a single police officer or car in the Broadway area over the three days.
Although the youngest in my group was 58 years old, we were regularly carded at the entrance to bars.
The surprising number of children who were accompanying their parents in the various bars. At one very popular saloon/dance hall/concert venue, the dance floor was populated almost entirely by line dancing, middle school-aged girls, dressed like the Bradley sisters of Petticoat Junction (I seriously dated myself with that pop culture allusion.).
The iconic Bluebird Cafe, a launching pad and frequent stop for a number of country music stars, is located inside a shopping plaza away from downtown and quite small and unimpressive from the outside.

In my final analysis, I would return to Nashville but only if I knew a local resident who could guide me to the best music venues and food stops frequented by the city’s full-time denizens. The carnival that is Broadway Street is worth experiencing once in the way of most popular tourist destinations, but once was more than enough for this Ohio Yankee.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on Nashville or on my thoughts on Nashville. If so inclined, leave them below in the comments section.

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“Beyond Reason & and Reach”

I’ve struggled with deciding whether or not to blog in response to the seemingly endless string of mass shootings that are plaguing our country. I’ve been reluctant to do so because pretty much everything has already been said, and I see no point in piling on. Should I have responded immediately, my essay would have been a futile expression of despair and resignation. Futile because those who feel and argue passionately for unfettered access to guns – even those of military grade – are beyond reason and reach. As Kirk Douglass’ character, Spur, says in the movie The Man from Snowy River, “Don’t throw effort after foolishness.”

After mulling it over, I decided that instead of composing an essay, I would let an excerpt from my forthcoming novel Belfast, Ohio, express some of my thoughts, not just on the issue of school and mass shootings but also my general frustration with mankind’s perpetual and inane choice to turn to violence in the attempt to address its problems, ranging from the smallest of scales to the largest. The excerpt amounts to about three pages approximately two-thirds of the way through the novel.

Surreal is not the right word to describe the scene on Public Square in the minutes following the explosion. What I experienced was all too real and, sadly, kind of expected.

As a child of the eighties and the Cold War, my dad had told me that he and kids of his American generation had grown up with a nuclear cloud over their head. He said they didn’t wonder if a nuclear war would occur, they just wondered when and hoped it wouldn’t happen before they had a chance to be grown-ups and to do grown-up things. He never specified exactly what those “grown-up” things were nor did he stop to think that if their hope came true, they’d be, most likely, leaving the next generation, my generation, in the exact predicament of living with the potential for being denied an adult future.

My mother, on the other hand, was another one of those Irish who overstayed their visas working the bars and restaurants of urban America, a character type quite common on Cleveland’s West Side. In those days, there wasn’t so much trumped up animosity toward illegal immigrants – at least not towards the white ones. To the contrary, there was no shortage of folks willing to help her stay clear of the government’s radar, which, at the time, they weren’t monitoring that closely anyway. Although she denied vehemently that it had anything to do with her and my dad’s relationship, there was even a sort of underground matchmaking organization that fixed up American Irish with home country Irish who were hoping to get married, to obtain their green card, and to stay in America permanently.

The day after she graduated from secondary school and after having practiced her American accent for years by watching American movies on VHS tapes, my mother left for America. Until that day, she had lived her entire eighteen years near the Falls Road in West Belfast during some of the peak years of The Troubles. She was born to staunchly Catholic parents who harbored no hatred toward Protestants and felt the sectarian civil war to be an affront to the teachings of Jesus. Her parents’ neutrality earned the family few friends but much suspicion from republican neighbors, who would hurl the accusation of being “Brit Lovers” in their direction as they walked the streets lined with red-bricked terrace houses. Stones sometimes accompanied the insults.

Unlike my father, she said she had little fear of nuclear annihilation. “That would have been a bloody luxury,” she’d say half seriously. The use of the adjective “bloody” was the one ineradicable colloquialism from her Belfast youth. “A nuclear bomb dropping out of the sky and incinerating everyone in a flash would have been a godsend compared to the slaughter caused by car bombs.” However, as a child and in a similar fashion to my father, she was dubious that she would ever see adulthood.

She was born in 1972, one of the bloodiest years of the internecine war. Shootings and bombings were quite common and real in her world, not hypothetical as in my father’s, and they came from both sides of the dirty guerilla warfare that Catholic republicans and Protestant unionists waged against one another and in which the innocent or those just minding their own business were often collateral damage, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time or victims of mistaken identity.

My mother would scoff at native-born Americans and their various wars on terror as if they believed there had been no such thing as terrorism prior to 9/11, as if Americans were its first “bloody victims,” and as if it were a war they could actually win. “You want terrorism?” she’d ask rhetorically. “It was the Irish who taught the modern world terrorism. Your so-called Muslim extremists are copycats when they’re at their best and bloody amateurs when they’re at their worst. To hell with both of them.”

As for me and kids of my generation, we went to school almost every day half-expecting to be killed or blown up. Many of the parents at St. Brigid’s actually bought their girls book bags with Kevlar shields stitched inside. We regularly completed “live shooter” drills with pretend bad guys from the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department firing blanks in the halls and chasing us from the building. On one occasion, Sister Mary Higgins played the shooter role. Imagine that.

We didn’t just practice “ducking and covering” under desks like my dad and his classmates. And as for my mom’s living through The Troubles, at least the terrorists she feared had a cause, a side, and even a conscience: so much so that it was not unusual for the bomber to phone in a warning to the police a short time before the detonation in order to give those nearby a heads up. But the school shooters of the nightmares of schoolchildren of my generation were random actors. Half of the time, they didn’t even have a reason for the killing they did other than some petty grievance against those they felt slighted by in some way or another, or they were simply taking out on the world their dissatisfaction with their own shitty lives before ending them entirely.

To the next generation, we leave a planet fast tracking towards inhabitability due to climate change.

As my dad used to say, quoting some pop song from his childhood, “And the beat goes on.”

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The Thrill of the Chase (Will)

What follows below is an email interview I conducted with horror-fiction writer Chase Will inspired by the recent release of his novel Moving Through. I was interested in corresponding with Chase because I thought our genres were so different, and because I am, in general, averse to the horror genre be it in fiction or film. I hoped to gain insight into what exactly it was about that genre that so attracted and inspired him to use his storytelling talents writing horror. I was not disappointed in the result. By the end of our “conversation,” Chase had politely educated me on how wrong I was and on the personal and societal value of the horror genre.

Author Chase Will

Whether you’re a fan of the horror genre or not, I promise that if you read the entire interview, you will become a fan of Chase Will. He is truly both a gifted writer and a brilliant critic. I encourage you to follow him on social media and to read anything of his you can get your hands on.

Who is Chase Will both personally and professionally?

First and foremost, I strive to be empathetic. Whether I’m meeting someone for the first time in real life or doing a brief character sketch on paper, empathy is something I treasure. It seems to be in short supply in today’s political climate. The world is far more interesting when you try understand what makes others who they currently are, and empathy comes with the understanding that we’re always evolving as individuals and doing the best we know how. I travel the country for work, and the people I meet on the road have been very influential on how I tell character-driven stories. I’ve come to appreciate there’s no such thing as “purely bad” or even “purely good,” and one of the easiest ways to fail as a writer is to assume anyone you’re writing about falls into either box.

What/who sparked your love for reading and writing?

My parents. When I was a kid I’d always see my mom with a book in her hand, and my dad always had a Stephen King in front of him before falling asleep at night. They told me I couldn’t read these books because they’re “too scary for little kids,” which made me just want to read them more. I would sneak into my parents’ room when I was four or five, flip to a random page in one of these books expecting monsters to pop out at me, and I was underwhelmed by them. With the sort of arrogance only a five-year-old can master, I thought, “I can do this way better than that Stephen King guy! He’s not scary. I’ll show them ‘scary’!” So, at school, I’d practice telling stories to my classmates during recess, reveling in the attention I garnered and the way I could have my classmates asking, “What comes next? Do you know the next part of the story yet?” Of course, I got into trouble over a story that was particularly gross, and my parents were shocked to hear about the stories I was telling when my teacher showed them handwritten copies at a parent-teacher conference. Totally worth it.

Talk about your writing process.

My writing process has pretty much never changes. Since I was fourteen or so, my process has involved writing at least two handwritten pages every day, and my handwriting is very small and neat. After finishing a handwritten draft, which almost always reads like an outline, I type everything out, print it, and re-read the printed pages. Then I go through what I’ve written and start making a mess with a red pen, circling and starring problematic areas and writing in the margins how I’d like to change sentences and sometimes full chapters. I rearrange things. I write from a different character’s viewpoint. Sometimes I trash the whole draft and start completely over. I learned this method from a writer named Darren Shan, who lives overseas in London and who I’d correspond with sometimes via air mail. He told me the most important thing is to just get the first draft done quickly and worry about correcting mistakes later, and that writing with momentum prevents you from losing interest in your own work or getting distracted from other story ideas. He also inspired the way I look at subsequent drafts, since he does eight or nine drafts per book, something I’ve heard others call “overkill.” It’s a slow way of finishing a book but, as Shan taught me, it’s better to put each draft aside for a month or so and work on it with fresh eyes each time. I know people who only write two drafts of their books in quick succession, and their work is almost always lousy with errors and bad writing.

What is it about the horror genre that so appeals to your reading and writing tastes?

One thing I appreciate about horror is its ability to show you something meaningful in an abstract way involving all manner of strange things. Nothing is every black and white in horror, at least not in good horror. Monsters are typically victims of circumstance and never really “evil.” Take the film adaptation of Frankenstein and its sequel Bride of Frankenstein, two of my all-time favorite films: the monster struggles to fit in with society after being given life by a mad scientist, but no matter what he does or how inherently innocent he is, he’s outcast from society and hunted just for being different. In Stephen King’s novel Cujo, the beloved neighborhood dog isn’t “evil,” he’s just a confused animal who got bitten by a rabid bat, another victim of circumstance. I would even go as far as to say that the creatures in Japanese horror films like Ju-on: The Grudge aren’t truly evil; most of the time they’re victims of a curse that’s supposed to represent societal expectations and the true evils of the world. It goes back to empathy.

More often than not, in both films and in literature, mankind is objectively more “evil” than the monsters they create, and although we deny the beasts within ourselves, horror has a way of spotlighting them and showing us where our darkest desires and rage-filled thoughts can take us if left unchecked once too often.

Other than “Don’t read it,” how might you respond to someone, like myself, who is put off by the misogyny, sadism, and excessive violence found in many works of horror?

I’d argue that horror doesn’t inherently include these elements, at least not the horror I’m typically drawn to. Sure, there are always movies like “Saw” and “Hostel,” where the violence is front-and-center and oftentimes overtakes the plot and character development. But, more often than not, horror is more about atmosphere and pacing. Horror is about making the reader/viewer “horrified,” and that’s a very subjective feeling. What’s disgusting to one person is another person’s nightmare. For instance, I’m deathly afraid of spiders. Some people might call me a bit of a wuss…but those people might also be afraid of clowns, which I think is downright soft of them and hilarious.

When you pick up a horror book or movie, you’re agreeing to be offended to some degree, and that’s just part and parcel to feeling horrified. The only “innocent” horror movies I can think of are those lame “found footage” films that people seem to be pretty fond of, and these movies almost always include demonic possession or ghosts, which I would call “vanilla horror.” It’s just lame. These works are rarely challenging to the reader/viewer, especially in film format. However, there’s a book by author Paul Tremblay called “Head Full of Ghosts” that turns the demonic possession and found footage tropes on their heads by focusing more on the characters and their own secrets. I won’t spoil anything about the book, but mental illness and broken family dynamics are the true horrors here. I highly recommend it.

Going back to movies like “Saw” and “Hostel,” works that I’d say fall under the “splatterpunk” umbrella, I’d argue the violence serves a purpose in these works. In the “Saw” franchise, for instance, much like in the movie “Seven,” the killer is making a statement about societal evils and the monsters we’ve allowed ourselves to become in terms of how we view people who are different from us or who don’t fall perfectly into the boxes we’ve created for them.

Splatterpunk, as a subgenre of horror, is all about using elements of disgust and violence as metaphors for larger issues and presenting an author’s thesis in an unexpected way. David Cronenberg is a master at this. Cronenberg’s works are heavy with sexuality, and some might call movies like “Videodrome” misogynistic at times, but you have to look past the surface level and ask yourself why the artist chose to include these elements and how they aid the story. Quite simply, there’s more to it than just overt violence, nihilism, and misogyny. The only movies I write off completely are in the same vein as “I Spit on Your Grave,” where rape and violence against women is what drives whatever passes as “story.” These movies are garbage. If a writer spends more time describing a rape than they do describing the emotional fallout and societal repercussions of the assault, the writer has failed, and they’re a total hack.

We have the internet nowadays, so finding a horror book or movie that challenges you to a comfortable degree while not overtly disgusting you is pretty easy. I’d recommend giving horror a chance and avoiding the urge to write off the entire genre because of a few bad experiences. I’ve seen absolutely terrible romantic comedies…but I can’t write off that entire genre, can I? Don’t shy away from being offended. In complacency lies boredom and jadedness.

What, if anything, do you bring to the genre that separates your contributions to the horror genre from other authors?

Again, I’ll go back to empathy. I love my characters far more than I love my stories, and whenever terrible things are happening to them, I’m not rooting for a bloodbath. Just the opposite. I want to see these characters fight tooth and nail to survive and thrive, and I want to see them win. They’re all going through different struggles, and I try to refrain from making any two of my characters completely similar, so as I’m doing my research and going through various drafts, I’m becoming more aware of societal issues and the impact they’ve had on these characters. Sure, I’m the guy holding the pen or sitting at the keyboard, but the characters really drive what happens to them and how they handle the scenarios I throw them in.

Take, for instance, my latest effort Moving Through. This isn’t strictly a horror book, and I would be reaching to say it even falls into any one subgenre. It’s a coming-of-age novel about a group of teens mourning the death of a mentor they wholeheartedly loved and understood. This mentor was one of the only people who truly worked to understand them and accept them for what they were, so with him gone, emotional horror and existential dread comes into play. There’s a scene midway through the book that I would call “horrifying,” in that the main character is struggling to accept his friend’s death. As someone who recently lost a beloved family member, there was an intense feeling of intimacy with what this character was going through, and all the emotional monsters came out to play with both of us. Part of me was afraid to even delve into these things because they can be very painful to dredge up…but horror author Jack Ketchum taught us all “Don’t look away.” Looking away from that sort of emotional intimacy makes dishonest writing and flat characters. I wanted my characters to be real as possible, so I went there with them with, embraced empathy, and wrote everything they were feeling after their devastating loss.

I’m not saying this is a new thing, and I’m certainly not the only writer to “go there” with his characters, but I think this trait separates me from a large number of authors who seem to say “yeah, whatever, let’s get back to describing the blood spatter and the monster’s ‘impossibly sharp’ teeth!” Some of their stuff is ‘impossibly bad’ writing, which is something I personally dread.

I know that you are a horror film buff as well. What influence, if any, do you think horror cinema has on your fiction?

I think horror cinema has helped me appreciate the intimacy prose offers. When you’re watching a film, you’re typically watching events unfold from the perspective of a fly on the wall, and you often only know what a character’s emotions from what they say, how they say it, and how they move. There are limits here that simply aren’t present in prose. In prose, you have a much larger toolbox to craft your story with, and you can typically do so without as much clumsiness as in film. We’ve all seen movies that have on-the-nose dialogue and corny moments that are inserted simply for exposition. A benefit of writing prose is having many, many paths to chose from in showing your characters’ struggles rather than telling about them. Some might say I’m off the mark here, or even that I’ve got it backward, and maybe that’s been their experience.

I’ve also been told by readers that my books tend to read like movies in the reader’s mind. Descriptions are usually vivid, the action is fast-paced, and the readers are working in tandem with my writing to see what I see. That’s one of the greatest compliments, knowing that readers are working with me rather than just passively reading description after description and just passively taking the journey, page after page.

Who are your favorite authors and works of horror fiction that you would recommend?

Cormac McCarthy’s epic novel Suttree is one I would recommend to anyone who wants to see what good writing can really do. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski is another. And then there are books like Off Season by Jack Ketchum that are more visceral and rawer, sometimes hard to read due to the violence being depicted but never boring or repetitive. Anything by Jeff Strand is good, and he’s able to blend humor into his horror without ever taking away from either of these elements, something I wish I could do even half as well. Kristopher Triana is a writer I found out about recently, and he hasn’t let me down yet; he has a way with words that any aspiring writer should envy, and while his horror is of the “bloody and disgusting” variety, he makes me care about the characters to a surprising degree, which I think separates him from many of his splatterpunk peers.

When you’re not reading in the horror genre, what others do you enjoy?

I really enjoy classic literature. One of my reading goals this year is to finish Moby Dick and Don Quixote. I’m also reading David Foster Wallace’s epic and sometimes-controversial novel Infinite Jest, which has been a delightful experience so far…though it’s over a thousand pages and sometimes drags to the point where I set it down and read something else for a few days. I average somewhere around a book every two days, and I spend most nights reading, so I try to mix in a little bit of everything. I’ve even tried reading books I’ve been instructed to hate, like Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey. I didn’t enjoy these books, mostly due to the poor writing quality, but I can see merit in them and their contribution to enticing audiences to give reading a chance. Plenty of objectively “bad” fiction has been a launching point for lifetime readers.

Give a one or two sentence synopsis of Moving Through and your best pitch to a prospective buyer/reader.

A group of high school Seniors mourn the death of their mentor while inciting a school-wide rebellion.

What’s next in the writing que or Chase Will?

I’m currently polishing up my next novel, Parasitic Host, which is about a post-college identity crisis and includes a monster trying its hardest to be human. This was loosely inspired by Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein and also by Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it has a comedic tone in the first half that I’m embracing after the emotional toll of working on Moving Through for several years. I think people will really enjoy this one and embrace the change.

I’m also signed on as a vendor at Scares That Care in Williamsburg, VA at the end of July, which I’m over the moon about. There are so many great people in the horror industry, and the time they spend finding ways to raise money for charity is often overlooked in favor of the “sexy” side of the horror industry. What are the best ways for someone who’s interested in your work to get their hands on it?

My books are all available on Amazon. However; if you’re averse to making Jeff Bezos richer and would like to purchase these books directly from me, you can find them at www.ChaseWill.com

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Reluctance and High School Reunions: Why Am I Such an Ass?

In case you’re playing “Where’s Waldo?” I’m in the 5th row, 3rd from the right with the afro.

I do not believe that anyone does anything without a reason. We may not want to admit to the reason out of shame or embarrassment, or the reason for our behavior may be so buried in our subconscious that we are not even aware of our motivation and therefore unable to give voice to it. But trust me, there is always a reason for the things we do or do not do.

It is possible that the reason may be absurd and completely unjustifiable to even ourselves as in the case of Brenda Ann Spencer, the rare female school shooter, who when asked why she carried out her assault, which killed two adults and wounded eight children, flippantly replied, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.”

That shooting occurred in January of 1979 on an elementary school playground in San Diego. In the summer that followed, which was the summer before my senior year — perhaps the greatest summer of my life — the Irish new wave band The Boomtown Rats released the chilling song “I Don’t Like Mondays.” It reached number #1 on the UK charts but topped out at #73 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. For some odd reason, however, it was hugely popular with me and a number of my friends. Remember: this was in 1979! Long before school shootings became endemic in America.

Bob Geldof and The Boomtown Rats

It is also the case that when asked why they performed some mischievous deed, a child will sometimes say, “Because I felt like it,” but that is hardly evidence to the contrary of my claim. It is more of an admonition from the child to mind your own business than an attempt to explain or justify their actions.

Although I’m no expert in psychology, I do know a bit about storytelling, and I’m absolutely positive and I insist to my students that in that realm “Because I felt like it” is an unacceptable explanation for a character’s behavior. Unless, of course, the character is a complete sociopath. Astute readers demand that a character’s actions, thoughts, and feelings are clear, consistent, and credible. In fact, it is often the case that, when any of these three conditions are not met, a reader quits on a story, finding it beyond their ability to suspend their disbelief in order to continue.

All of which brings me, of course, to my Hamlet-like indecisiveness regarding whether or not to attend an upcoming high school reunion. Ever since receiving the informal invitation, I have been debating the prospect, bouncing back and forth between confirming my intention to attend and ignoring the invite entirely. As is, I do not feel inspired to go, and be assured that I have no delusion that my presence or absence would have any impact whatsoever on anyone else’s enjoyment of the day. I just wish I could identify and clearly explain to myself for self-actualization purposes the reason(s) for my reluctance to attend.

My 40th reunion should have occurred during the Covid-19 summer of 2020. For obvious reasons, it did not take place. Currently, however, several of my former classmates are attempting to rectify the omission by offering to host a sort of makeup occasion this summer, which is wonderfully magnanimous of them. Despite my appreciation for their efforts, however, I can’t quite convince myself to commit to attending, and despite the assertion with which I began this essay that there is always a reason for the things we do or do not do, I cannot put my finger on exactly what the reason(s) is for my hesitation.

I’ve long held that no one ever really graduates from high school. I mean, obviously, we receive a diploma and move on with our lives, but psychologically and emotionally we walk those locker-lined hallways inside our psyches for the rest of our lives. Some do so nostalgically, believing those were their best days. Others do so wistfully as if in a nightmare from which they cannot awake. Still others, among them myself, walk those fancied halls in a perpetual state of ambivalence, neither wallowing in those glory days nor desperate to escape them.

I also have a much-less-than-indisputable theory on the type of person who enthusiastically organizes and/or attends high school reunions. I believe they are typically the type of person who was consistently kind to and respectful of all of their classmates, and I love them for that. I am especially impressed by those who were the victims of bullying or social marginalization while in high school but have chosen forgiveness over continued hurtfulness. In either case and regardless of their high school status, THEY ARE THE COOL KIDS even if, in their classmates’ immaturity, it went unappreciated at the time or still goes unappreciated today. I truly admire them.

My best attempt at self-psychoanalysis has conjured the following as the most likely explanations (mostly petty) for my aversion to reunions.

My academic and athletic mediocrity left little impression on the school, my classmates, or myself. Therefore there seems little reason to revisit those days or the people I shared them with.
I was never particularly popular nor unpopular in high school. I have no close friends from that era who have remained present in my life, nor did I have to contend with any bullies or tormentors to whom I’d like to say, “Look at me now!”
Regret, knowing I could have and should have been such a better person/student/athlete/friend/boyfriend then than I was.
Disappointment regarding my lack of a wildly interesting or impressive life story post-graduation to dazzle my classmates with.
The stark realization of just how much time has passed since we were in high school and how little remains ahead of us.
Knowing there is nothing I can do to change the past, I’ve long tried to live my life without a rearview mirror, preferring to keep my eyes focused on what’s next rather than on what lies in my wake.
Because of the lack of significant time spent with my classmates over the years, I cannot imagine any interaction beyond surface-level niceties, which will be awkward and of little substantive value.
Similar to New Years Eve parties, the inorganic nature of a reunion renders it difficult to have a sincerely-good time.
I may just be an ass.

I’m currently leaning towards that final reason.

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Postpartum Thoughts on Another School Year Delivered

What follows is a reflection on issues facing teachers on a national scale, not so much a response to my local district, which (cross my fingers) has been remarkably-supportive of teachers and levelheaded regarding the aforementioned “issues.”

I recently completed my thirty-seventh year in the classroom. As has always been the case for me and with my apologies to actual mothers, I’ve been left with a feeling metaphorically-akin to postpartum. I know I should be happy to have put another year behind me and excited for the summer months that lie ahead, but I’m not, and this year I’m feeling particularly concerned regarding the job expectations for the remaining years of my career and my willingness to abide by them.

This is my most recent school photo. Trust me and as you can see they don’t get much better than when you were a student.

Partially due to the disruption of the traditional school day model during the two years of responding to the Covid-19 pandemic; a sudden parental, politically-motivated interest in school curriculum (Where have you been for the past thirty-seven years of parent-teacher conferences and school board meetings?); the continued proliferation of school shootings; and the desire of some to gloss over actual American history; for the first time, I’m questioning my continued devotion to the only profession I’ve ever seriously pursued or loved.

It could be that I’ve become a relic of the past, one schooled during the more liberal-minded decades of the 60s, 70s, and early 80s. In fact, most teachers my age have already retired. I entered the profession when teachers were trusted, if not always revered. We were similar to independent contractors, experts in our chosen fields of study and instruction and free from the burden of teaching to tests and onerous evaluations of competence that do more to disillusion teachers and to stifle the art of teaching than to effectively measure it.

My point being that the remainder of this essay may be the ramblings of an out-of-touch-with-reality, late stage baby boomer, who simply needs to ride off into whatever utopian-mirage of a sunset that remains. With that admission behind me, however, I’d like to make a few things clear regarding my future days in the classroom. If you choose to read on, please read to the very end.

Should any student of mine choose to remain seated during the recitation of the “Pledge of Allegiance” or during the playing of the National Anthem, I will respect their First Amendment rights but only with the caveat that they explain to me their motivation for doing so and that their refusal to participate is not merely an act of laziness rather than subversion.
I will continue to respect my students’ right to identify as any gender they choose, and I will refer to them by the pronoun which best suits their gender identification. This is not a concession to political correctness. Rather, it is simply being what my mother taught me to be: nice and respectful of the feelings of others.
I will say “gay” in the identification of the not small number of canonical gay authors from whose catalogs I teach and with respect for and total acceptance of my brothers and sisters of the LGBTQ community.
I will continue to teach from as many banned books as I can slip into my syllabus, ranging from the Bible to Beloved. My primary responsibilities as a teacher of literature include to inspire students to become readers for the joy and personal edification found in reading, to inspire them to think for themselves, to encourage them to grapple with what it means to be human in a grossly imperfect world, to help them find meaning and purpose for their existence, and to convince them to question the status quo so as to retain the good and wash out the bad. The books that regularly appear on lists of banned books are the ones that most effectively achieve those goals.

I’m sitting next to Ellen Hopkins, a brilliant YA novelist whose books are commonly targeted for banning.

I will never whitewash or bowdlerize American or World History in order to protect anyone’s feelings. This is especially true regarding America’s shameful treatment of Native Peoples; Africans kidnapped from their homes and enslaved here; the descendants of those Africans, subjected to heinous and often insurmountable levels of systemic racism; Japanese-Americans interred by their own government during WWII, the long line of immigrants from which every one of us is descended, and the list goes on. None of this is political. It is factual.
I will NEVER carry a gun into my classroom (or anywhere else for that matter). I can’t even believe I need to declare this.

One of my proudest moments as an American citizen occurred when my son, Taylor, my wife, and I participated in the original March for Our Lives in NYC. Sadly, little good has come from it thus far, but I’m hoping after Uvalde, “This time it’s different.”

With all of this said, be assured that I respect and encourage students of differing opinions to express their views freely in both discussion and compositions. I do not “indoctrinate” students in any purposeful way, shape, or form. In fact, I often stray far from my personal opinions to give voice to authors and thinkers of opposite worldviews, and some of my favorite students over the many years have been those with whom I most ardently disagree and with whom I’ve had the most interesting and personal position challenging conversations.

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The Braver Choice

Every once in a while, I come across an author whose work speaks to me in ways that few others have or do. It’s as if they have read my mind and are sharing my thoughts but with an eloquence I do not possess. I’m sure you’ve had a similar experience, if not with literature, perhaps with a song.

Recently, while I was researching the decline of the postmodernism age for my American Literature course, I came across an article titled “Postmodernism is Dead,” by Edward Docx, an English essayist, novelist, and journalist, whose earlier novel Pravda was longlisted for the prestigious Man-Booker Prize. Docx’s insight, erudition, and intellectualism blew me away along with his ability to render complex notions comprehensible.

I was so impressed and inspired by the essay that I immediately ordered his most recent novel, Let Go My Hand. The subsequent binge reading of which has been one of the most rewarding and personal ethos-affirming experiences in my lifetime. One reviewer, Ian Kelly, described the novel in this way: “If art is the holding in balance of the powers of love, sex and death, then this is a truly supreme work of art.” I think that is an accurate encapsulation of what all great art does.

Reduced to its simplest summation, Let Go My Hand is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Instead of three daughters, however, the father, who, like Lear, is not long for this world, has three sons, who are accompanying him to Switzerland, where assisted death is legal.

Rather than provide my own inadequate summary, I’ve included a link below to Docx’s web page for a brief summary of the novel.

Let Go My Hand

The most simple explanation for my newfound affinity for Docx’s prose is that he “gets me” as an individual in the same way Shakespeare understood humanity as a whole. In the novel, Docx also identifies John Steinbeck – another of my favorite authors – as perhaps the only other author with a similar comprehension of the experience of being human.

I originally intended to include a bulleted list of passages from the novel that I found to be true, meaningful, and affirming to my own life’s journey and to share a few of the conclusions/lessons I’ve arrived at along the way that are mirrored in Let Go My Hand but better expressed than I could ever paraphrase. However, that list grew far too long.

Instead, I’ve chosen a single excerpt taken from the father’s final words of advice to his sons, delivered much in a similar manner as Polonius delivered his famous words of wisdom to his son, Laertes, in Hamlet:

A reliable gauge of a person is how much soul they put into their lives – their capacity for offering and responding to deeper feelings and thoughts and desires. There’s a world of difference between the people who think and feel and enquire; and the people who set themselves against enquiry and thought. The people whose hearts are open and generous and the people whose hearts are closed and calloused . . . Apart from that, be sure to feast on nature’s great beauty and humanity’s great genius. Treasure your friends, read as much as you can and take the braver choice when there is one.

Far be it from me to tell anyone how to live their life, but sage advice is to be found in these words. There’s a George Strait song in which he sings, “There’s a difference between living and living well.” I think the preceding quotation from Let Go My Hand, lucidly distinguishes that difference.

I want more than anything to “put soul into [my] life.” I want to share “my deeper feelings, thoughts, and desires” and be privy to those of others. I want to “feel and enquire.” I want to be aware of “nature’s great beauty and humanity’s great genius.” I want to “treasure [my] friends,” “read as much as [I] can,” and make “the braver choice.”

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Fairness vs. Forgiveness

I hate to hear the four-letter F-word used, especially by young people. The F-word I’m referring to, however, is probably not the one you’re most likely thinking of. The F-word that rankles me is “fair,” as in the commonly uttered, “That’s not fair!” It’s such a childish complaint, voiced only by children or fools. The former I can excuse, the latter not so much.

I’ve been thinking about fairness a lot lately, especially in connection with the conversation surrounding the student loan debt crisis, which brings me to another F-word I’d like to discuss in conjunction with the first one: forgiveness. I completely understand those who insist on their “pound of flesh” and who wholeheartedly disagree with the different proposals being offered to forgive various amounts of college loan debt. I too was steeped in debt when I graduated from college as were two of my children, yet we all managed to pay them off, so why shouldn’t those currently in debt be expected to do the same? And if these “freeloaders” are to be forgiven, what precedent does it set? And shouldn’t those of us who honored our debts be given some sort of refund? I mean, it’s only (gulp) fair.”

Well, maybe.

Respectfully, I have questions for those who are insistent on these borrowers repaying their loans:

What is the true motivation for your insistence? Is it a genuine devotion to the virtues of fairness and accountability that is driving your insistence, or is it envy or possibly schadenfreude (the joy derived from another’s suffering)?
How are you, in any way, hurt by these folks’ good fortune if they do, in fact, have their debt reduced or forgiven entirely?
Why can’t you just be happy for them?
Are you unaware of how reducing these folks’ debt will benefit the wider economy and, therefore, you individually?

A friend and mentor of mine, Carey Clum, is a possessor of an encyclopedic collection of homespun, practical wisdom. Many years ago, Coach Clum enlightened me with the knowledge that treating everyone fairly does not necessarily mean treating everyone the same. Individual life stories and extenuating circumstances must always be taken into consideration when determining what is fair. In that spirit, I would not argue for a blanket forgiveness but a selective one that takes into account those extenuating circumstances.

A certain amount of cognitive dissonance (the cognitive ability to recognize and accept that two polar opposite claims can both be true) is necessary in this conundrum that sets fairness and forgiveness in opposition to one another. However, one must set aside their “either/or” thinking and recognize that demanding full payment of student loan debt is a good, but so is the forgiveness of said debt.The scales of justice appear to be balanced and noncommital on the point. For me, however, what tips the scale toward the side of forgiveness is the general concept of forgiveness itself.

I’m in no way a Bible thumper; however, for those steeped in the teachings of Jesus, forgiveness is an expectation, not an option. In the Gospel, when Peter asks how many times a man must forgive one who has sinned against him, Jesus replies “70 x 7,” which was his figurative way of saying “always.” In this case, these mostly young folks drowning in college debt are not “sinners”; rather, I’d argue that many of them are the sinned-against victims. Many of them were first-generation college students, who, despite guidance counselors’ best efforts, had little understanding of the college financial aid racket and lacked the parental guidance to help them make sound financial choices. Even more pernicious is the fact that many of these students who were provided these loans were borderline college-qualified students in the first place. But universities have freshmen dorm rooms and stadiums to fill, so these students are accepted in order to become the fodder to feed the beast only to be shat out later with exorbitant debt and little else to show for it when they are incapable of handling the academic rigors of college.

The poorly-kept secret is that, according to Forbes.com, “[E]ven after six years, less than 60% of students at four-year colleges have earned a Bachelor’s degree.” My point is that even as universities concoct “too-good-to-be-true” financial aid packages for prospective students, which are typically loaded with an array of student loans, they know – Iet me reiterate – they know that the majority of the students who take out those loans will never receive a diploma or obtain employment with a salary that will allow them to repay their loans in a reasonable manner and time frame. If you ask me, these universities and the government and lending institutions that offer these loans are the sinners and the ones who should be seeking forgiveness.

Surely, as a society, it’s reasonable to offer some degree of forgiveness to those who, many of whom were teenagers at the time, were poorly or completely unadvised or, even worse, duped into unwisely borrowing what they could never afford to pay back and for which, in reality, they should never have been considered qualified. If we are willing to bailout financial institutions, the auto industry, and farmers, we can find a way to alleviate at least some of the financial burden of ordinary, good-intentioned people.

A concept similar to forgiveness is mercy. For those readers more given to secular reasoning, in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, he tells us that mercy is “twice blessed // It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” Both Jesus and Shakespeare assert that the one who forgives is – at the least – an equal beneficiary of the act. Therefore, you’d think we would be quick to forgive others’ debts, financial or otherwise, as to be obedient to the teaching of two of the world’s greatest teachers and to be made better ourselves by doing so.

Forgiveness cannot be mandated; it is always a choice. It is a practice that appeals to and reveals the “better angels” of humanity, for it is highly unnatural. That is the beauty of it. Magnanimity is a trait revealed by being great of mind and heart. In recent years and especially within our body politic, both forgiveness and magnanimity have been devalued in preference for retaliation and small-minded pettiness. Perhaps, it’s time to restore them both through an act of communal forgiveness by the easing of the student debt burden that is crippling so many in our society.

As I’ve said, I understand the accountability side of the issue. I really do. And my intention is not to ignite a debate here. Rather, I’m just asking for consideration of this side, my side, of the argument.

For the second blog post in a row, I’ll finish with words of wisdom from Don Henley. This time from his song “Heart of the Matter”:

These times are so uncertain

There’s a yearning undefined

People filled with rage

We all need a little tenderness

How can love survive in such a graceless age?

Ah, the trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness

They’re the very things we kill, I guess . . .

But I think it’s about forgiveness

Forgiveness.

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Suspension of Disbelief

The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase “suspension of disbelief,” which is generally defined as the intentional avoidance of critical thinking or logic. Many works of fiction – be it in drama, television, cinema, or text – demand that the partaker of such fiction be willing to exercise this practice or else the entertainment at hand would seem silly and too unrealistic to be taken seriously.

Last Saturday in the juxtaposition of a theatrical performance of To Kill a Mockingbird five hours after a mass shooting in a Buffalo supermarket, I learned that, whereas such suspension of disbelief is absolutely necessary in the theater, in real life, it may get you killed.

This lesson was driven home when, shortly after the play resumed following intermission, the imaginary fourth wall came crashing to the stage, landing between a cast of terrified actors subsumed by their roles and a confused audience in the thrall of their suspension of disbelief. I’ll never forget the transformation on the face of the actor Richard Thomas, playing the lead role of Atticus Finch, as he broke character and feared for his actual life.

The theatrical version of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, adapted for the stage by Aaron Sorkin, has been met with rave reviews and enthusiastic audiences since it debuted on Broadway in 2018. Although the novel was published in 1960 and set in the thirties, the play’s themes of prejudice, racism, and bigotry have resonated loudly with modern playgoers as America continues to struggle with how to expiate itself for its original sin, a sin that many on the extreme right – unlike the play itself – would simply prefer to sweep under the rug by denying its lingering infection of our culture rather than face atonement.

On Saturday night, in the Connor Palace Theater in Cleveland, in the midst of a highly-charged courtroom scene, the play screeched to a halt, and the actors became the audience as something out-of-the-ordinary occurred in the orchestra seating section. A patron called out something that sounded like “fight” or “knife.” I’m not sure. As my seat was in the balcony and my view of whatever was occurring below was obstructed, it was unclear for a moment if the commotion was a part of the play or something menacing. I could only interpret the actors’ facial reactions to what they were witnessing and then watch as they dropped character and fled in a panic offstage in all directions.

Remember, this was all occurring during an epidemic of mass shootings in this country and only five hours after the racially-motivated gunning down of unarmed and innocent grocery shoppers in Buffalo, New York, a mere three hours’ drive from where I sat, during the performance of a drama that calls America onto the carpet for its systemic racism. Maybe it was my own prejudice towards right wing extremists coming to the fore, but I turned to my wife and mouthed, “MAGA.” I had immediately assumed that someone sympathetic to white supremacist ideologies had taken offense at the play’s anti-racist theme and was, at the least, going to protest the play’s message, or, at the worst, they were intent on causing a mass casualty event.

After an agonizing ten minutes or so, a bodiless voice announced that what had occurred was just some sort of medical emergency and the play would resume once the actors and audience had the opportunity to compose themselves and return to the fantasy world of theater.

In retrospect, it strikes me as both telling and sad that such massacres have become so common that my first thought went there, yet in real time, my reaction was to sit where I was. Neither I nor many of those in the balcony thought to flee for their lives. A mass shooting of theatergoers seemed to make no sense; however, neither does the mass shooting of first graders, high school students, country concertgoers, churchgoers, or shoppers make any fucking sense.

One reason for this hesitancy to run is that we had no idea what we may have been running into and, unlike those unfortunate ones below, we were relatively safe from attack. It’s only as I write this, however, that I’ve remembered the 2015 massacre inside a Parisian theater during a rock concert in which 130 attendees were killed. With the exit doors chained shut by the terrorists, no one in the Bataclan Theater that night was safe regardless of their seating assignment.

My other takeaway from that night’s false alarm is that my “suspension of disbelief” could have got me killed. Lost in its throes while watching a play and despite all of the atrocities and senseless mass killings that seem to take place constantly in the “real world” outside of the theater, such events still naively strike me as illogical. Therefore, I don’t run when a character appears on stage with a weapon, but nor did I think to run or to even accept the notion that someone in the audience, in the school, in the church, or in the grocery store could be weaponized and my life in danger.

It’s a frightening America we’ve created. An America in which one’s suspension of disbelief may just cost you your life. In the words of Don Henley, “Offer up your best defense // But this is the end of the innocence.”

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Then They Came for Teachers

“Don’t mistake dissent for disloyalty.”

from the song “The American in Me” by Michael McDermott

Early in the first semester of my upper-level literature courses, I warn my students that my job is to challenge them to question everything they’ve ever held as “right, true, or good.” I go on to say that if I do not offend them at some point during the course, I will have failed as their teacher.

My purpose is NOT and I DO NOT attempt to tell them what they should believe or where they should put their faith, and I certainly DO NOT try to foist any of my personal beliefs upon them. That is what demagogues and pedagogue’s do, not teachers – at least not the good ones. Rather, my purpose is for my students to try their beliefs in the crucibles of reason, common sense, and historicity. More often than not, the result is that their belief systems are actually strengthened as – for what is for many of them the first time – they are being asked to consider earnestly and to defend the legitimacy of what they’ve been more-or-less programmed to accept as fact.

In today’s political climate, teachers like me, who subscribe to independent thinking and thrive on thought-provoking dialogue with students, are being threatened by politicians looking to score quick points in their own “Wag-the-Dog” culture wars. These same politicians are recruiting well-intentioned but illiberal-minded parents and school board members across the country to join in their crusade against anything that runs counter to their typically ultra-conservative worldview or that may force our young children to confront notions and historical truths that may make them uncomfortable. God forbid.

George Orwell’s novel 1984 is far too often invoked as a knee-jerk accusation aimed at those who make even the slightest attempt at governmental oversight. Today, however, I feel justified in alluding to Orwell and his seminal work in response to the establishment of an online “tip-sheet” by the newly-inaugurated Republican governor of Virginia, Ralph Youngkin.The tip sheet is designed not only to allow but to encourage students and parents to inform on any teacher who engages in what he calls “divisive” teaching. I can’t help but point out that the teachings of Jesus were considered “divisive” by both Roman and Jewish authorities of his day. Had such a tip-sheet existed in his time, Judas may have been a user.

Of course, Youngkin’s stated purpose is in line with the political Right’s ongoing manipulation of its base by ginning up its moral indignation and leading a crusade against a straw man named Critical Race Theory, which is an approach to teaching history and contemporary reality with a sensitivity to the historical truth of the damage done by systemic racism in this country. The rub of it is, however, that the number of teachers utilizing CRT in the classroom is statistically nearly nil and the number of people who actually understand CRT – teachers and politicians included – is nearly just as low. Even more frightening is the Republican governor’s goal of rooting out “divisive practices” within his state’s schools. If that doesn’t chill you to your American soul, you might want to brush up on your Constitution.

What type of America are we living in when students and their parents are being asked to inform on their teachers through an anonymous tip-sheet? If horrific images of one of communist Russia, China, and Cuba’s worst practices do not flash through your mind, you’re either ignorant of those dystopian worlds, you’re not paying attention, or you have swallowed so much of your own ideologically-poisoned Kool-Aid that common sense and indignation at the proper threats to our democracy and children are beyond your ability to perceive. In fact, such an insidious practice of anonymous naming has already occurred in America in the time of the Red Scare and the formation of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the era of McCarthyism in the 1950’s.

America is without question the longest-sustained, large-scale liberal democracy the world has ever seen, and it is arguably the greatest country to have ever existed, but that greatness was built on the diversity of its citizenship, its allowance of a diversity of thought and beliefs, and a willingness to acknowledge and learn from its mistakes and self-inflicted atrocities. The greatest threat to America’s continuation is any group’s insistence (Right or Left leaning) on unanimous adherence to a monolithic worldview, a teaching of a jingoistic version of its history, and the denial of its national sins. Just as it is appropriate and necessary to teach of the glories of America, it is equally imperative to teach of its shame.

In the movie Wall Street in his defense of capitalism, Gordon Gecko, somewhat surprisingly and certainly against the most basic of Christian values, asserts that “Greed is good.” I’d invoke the spirit of his ironic claim by suggesting that “Guilt is good.” As a lifelong Catholic, the notion has certainly been deeply ingrained in my psyche, and I can attest to its role in helping me to avoid repeating past sins.

We should not be sheltering our children from the inherited guilt of our American sins, namely the abduction and enslavement of millions of Africans, the once explicitly-stated and implemented policy of the extermination of indiginous peoples, the internment of our fellow Americans of Japanese descent, the subjugation of women to second class status, the abuse of our labor class, the demonization of the LGBTQ+ community, the aforementioned Red Scare, and our occasional war of specious justification. Just as my guilt and shame over my own sins help me to avoid repeating them, as a nation, we need to own our sins in order to become even better as a people and to be a true and worthwhile exemplar of liberal democracy on the international stage.

Trigger Warning for the “snowflakes” like Youngkin and his ilk: In the past, I have taught; in the present, I do teach; and in the future, I will teach such texts as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Huckleberry Finn,The Jungle, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Awakening, It Can’t Happen Here, MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” The Things They Carried, Beloved, and “woke” (That ought to piss off a few folks.) short stories too many to count.

I will continue to teach these seminal texts until shortsighted alarmists (notice my avoidance of referring to them as fascists) like Youngkin and their “thought police” break down my classroom door. At which point, America will have been reduced to a failed experiment and teachers to propagandists. In the words of Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener, that fictional American subversive, “I’d prefer not to” teach at all.

Whoever believes, as the character played by Ali McGraw says in the movie Love Story, that “Love [or Patriotism] means never having to say ‘you’re sorry,’” has either never been in love or they are a complete narcissistic moron.

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Thanks(giving) for Nothing!

This is a re-posting, with some updating and minor edits, of an essay I shared a few months back. It seems fitting for the Thanksgiving holiday, so I thought I’d resurrect it for those who may have missed it the first time. I hope you enjoy and that it provides some “food for thought” to go along with the “food for food’s sake” we all plan to enjoy this holiday.

While out for a run today, the song “Celebrate,” by Grady Spencer and the Work played on my ear buds and reminded me that I need to be mindfully thankful for all of the nothing that happened to me and mine on this oh-so-ordinary day:

"People ain't got it this good,
So let's get down and give thanks.
Baby, don't worry let's celebrate . . .
Time is gettin' shorter don't make me wait."

Spencer’s lyrics certainly remind us to count our blessings while we have them and to be conscious of just how good we already got it rather than living for some theoretical day in the future when we claim we’ll finally be truly happy. But how often are we reminded to count and be thankful for all of the negative things that didn’t happen? I would think not very often. So, I’m going to make a brief list of some of the crappy things that didn’t happen to me today for which I am endlessly thankful.

I didn’t not wake up this morning, and when I did, it was without a single spot of bother that might portend the onset of a serious illness. Today, at least, I didn’t suffer any painful accidents and I’m as healthy as I’ve ever been. Ditto for my children and grandbabies.
I didn’t wake up hungover or a victim to an addiction of any kind unless you count those new Nerd candies that are crunchy and sweet on the outside but soft and sour on the inside. I can’t control myself.
I’m beyond grateful that they exist, and I applaud those who provide them, but I will not have my Thanksgiving meal in some church or school cafeteria because I’m not homeless and I’m able to provide one for myself and loved ones.
I didn’t have a panic attack, stress headache, or nervous breakdown, and I remain free of the need for any meds for physical, mental, or emotional issues; although, I am in no way judgmental or critical of their place in anyone’s health management.
My wife of thirty-four years didn’t leave me, and I’m pretty sure at this point that the whole marriage thing is going to work out.
My mother, who is 87 years old, didn’t suffer a life-threatening event of any sort. This is a woman who, prior to knee replacement surgery in her early eighties, was asked by the surgeon if she’d had any recent major medical issues. She answered, “None that I can think of.” The doctor, while reading her chart, reminded her of the obstructed bowel, aortic heart valve replacement surgery, and breast cancer she had endured in the near past. “Well, if you’re going to count those as ‘major,'” she responded.
My grown children did not complain to me of jobs or relationships they would rather not be in, for each has been blessed with careers and significant others they love.
Not a single major appliance broke down today, and my automobiles are not in need of any major repair.
Unlike many in our country and world, I was not made a victim of a catastrophic natural disaster; although, the “natural” part of that statement is in question and might be more accurately described as a “manmade disaster.”
I don’t have a single boss whom I don’t respect or who treats me unfairly; in fact, I have the upmost respect for all of my bosses.
I didn’t have to report to a job I hate this morning; in fact, because it’s Thanksgiving and I’m a school teacher, I didn’t have to report to a job at all. But when I do return to the classroom in a few days, it will be with love and enthusiasm for a job, students, and co-workers whom I truly love.
My Facebook wasn’t hacked. I know there are a lot of FB haters, but for me, it has been an incredibly-effective and rewarding method of staying in touch with friends and family and even re-connecting with some from whom I’d drifted. Just last week, FB led to an email reunion with my best friend from high school, whom I hadn’t spoken to in forty years. It reminded me of what a special place he had in my heart and formation as a person. I hope we will soon be able to arrange an in-person reunion.
I didn’t accidentally delete the 86,000 words of my novel-in-progress.
No bill collectors called me because all of my bills are paid thanks to my wife’s skillful handling of all family accounting.
I wasn’t bored for one second. I tell my students, “Shame on you if you’re ever bored. The world in which we are fortunate to live and life, in general, is far too interesting to be bored by it.”

These are just a few of the many potentially-awful things that didn’t happen to me today, and I want to tell the universe, “Thanks for nothing!”

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Your Least Happy Child

Stay with me.

Solipsism is a word one doesn’t use every day unless you happen to be a professor of epistemological philosophy. The word, which refers to the belief that the self is all that can be known to exist, often receives a bad rap in modern parlance as its fundamental meaning gets connotatively twisted to be synonymous with such words as narcissism, self-absorption, and egocentricity.

I suggest to my students that, despite these negative connotations, solipsism is a worthy life strategy while they are young and single. During that post-childhood, pre-full-blown adulthood period prior to the eventual partnering which most will choose, it’s appropriate to live with a degree of selfish self-absorption. We should all chase dreams, chase skirts, chase wild geese, whatever it is we feel the need to chase during that largely-unencumbered time; however, once we choose to marry into a committed relationship, we must leave our solipsism behind and no longer place ourselves at the center of our own lives.

Me in my solipsistic youth. Nice afro (all natural)and tux.

Notice my phraseology in the previous sentence: “once we choose to marry.” Most people tend to associate marriage not with “choosing” but with “falling,” as in “I fell in love,” with the expected end being marriage. My problem with this notion is that one should never “fall” into a marriage. Fall in love by all means! Love is, ultimately, what makes life worth living. I encourage everyone to fall in love early and often, but marriage should be a choice based largely on reason and entered into with deliberation. And, loving someone is NOT a good enough reason to marry them. We have all loved a few people in our lifetimes whom we could never have actually lived with — nor them us.

Think about it. How often does the act of falling end well? We fall and hurt ourselves. The stock market falls, and the Great Depression ensues. Rome falls and Europe is thrown into the Dark Ages. Even when used as a noun to indicate the autumn of the year, the fall season literally and symbolically marks the ending of things and the onset of winter and death. So why would anyone want to “fall” into a marriage. They shouldn’t. It should, in fact, be a choice.

The tree outside my classroom that each fall reminds me of the beauty but also of the brevity of life.

Some couples are fortunate. They mutually choose to marry the same person they fell in love with. I feel I’m one such lucky guy. Admittedly, rationally choosing to marry someone is not sexy. Hollywood will never make a rom-com based on someone’s choosing to love and/or marry. No love song will ever be written or played on one’s wedding day that extols the virtues of choosing to love and/or marry. Still, if sustained happiness and longevity of the relationship is the goal, choosing to love/marry is much more likely to bring about the desired long term and healthy relationship than falling “Accidentally in Love,” as my favorite band of all-time, The Counting Crows, extol in a song of that exact title.

Are you still there?

All of this, finally, brings me to the title of this post. Once we choose to marry, we also must choose to set aside our solipsistic youth and to place ourselves second in importance to our partner. Our own happiness should become entirely dependent on that of our partner’s. That’s what love is. If children should follow, our own happiness becomes even less of our own making and even more out of our control. Therefore, the title. A truism, which my wife and I have come to accept, is that, as parents, we are only capable of being “as happy as our least happy child.” It’s a truism that applies no matter how young or old your children are, and for us, it has been extended to include daughter-in-laws and grandchildren.

With that understanding, for a few precious days recently, Julie and I have been very happy. A month ago, our son Travis and our daughter-in-law Mallory had their second healthy child. Last week, our eldest son, Taylor, coached his Hiram College basketball team to a tournament championship. And this week, our youngest son, Tanner, passed the written portion of his paramedic’s exam on his first attempt. If you look at the pictures below, you’ll see happiness written all over their faces.

Taylor is on the far left. You need to click on the photo to see him.

If you think they’re happy, look at their mom and dad.

Who knows what the near future holds — or even the next ten minutes — but for today anyway, we feel happy.

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Some of the People in My Life: Vol. 14 – Rick Dominick

There’s never been a truer hometown sports fan than Rick Dominick.

As I grow older, I’m gaining an appreciation for old friends, not friends who are old — which is also increasingly the case — and not those who were friends long ago, but constant friends with whom I’ve shared a lifetime. For me one of the most constant of friends has been Rick Dominick. However, even as I claim my stake of friendship with Rick, I know he has an inner circle of devoted friends even longer enduring and more intimate than that which he and I share, and I’m only a little bit jealous.

Rob, Phil, Rick, and Mike. Lifelong Friends.

Other than our college years, Rick and I have traveled in the same orbits for the majority of our lifetimes. He was a year ahead of me at St. Mary Elementary. In high school, after working under him as a sports editor, I succeeded Rick as editor-in-chief of the high school yearbook. After college, Rick was instrumental in bringing me back to our alma mater as an English teacher and coach, positions I held for ten years, and a year after I accepted a teaching position in Port Clinton, Rick finally followed me. Therefore, forty-seven of the forty-eight years I’ve spent in schools, as either a student or as an educator, Rick has been in the same building.

In an age when self-promotion is not only the norm but, in many cases, the expectation, Rick remains humble and most happy basking in the glow of others’ successes. His tenure as athletic director at PCHS has been marked by one accomplishment after another (upgraded facilities, unprecedented success among our sports teams, hosting numerous prestigious events, and playing a key role in conference realignment are a few amongst many others), yet not once, have I witnessed Rick seek recognition, much less credit, for his efforts.

Rick has always been a glutton for punishment as he has consistently sought out jobs that, if he’s lucky, he might please half of the people involved: coaching, officiating, guidance counselor, and athletic director. Despite regular criticism from those who believe they know better but have no idea of the many strings attached to the difficult decisions his jobs require, Rick remains not only unperturbed by but also affable toward his critics. The ultimate criterion for his decision making has always been the answer to the question “What is best for kids, the school, and the community.” Trust me, it is never “What is best for Rick Dominick.” He has always been and remains a consummate professional.

Unlike his volatile, heart-on-his-sleeve-wearing friend and longtime co-worker, meaning me, Rick has the patience of a saint and an even-keeled temperament that serves him well in his various positions. Far from rare are the phone calls from irate parents of both students and athletes, the teachers/coaches storming his office to address some misperceived slight or slip-up, the student made distraught by academic and teenage stresses, and the administrator asking for the nearly impossible. Yet, much more-often-than-not, they all leave his office with an assurance that their concerns will be addressed and all will be okay.

While wearing any of his hats, Rick has always known and modeled the truism that treating everyone fairly doesn’t necessarily mean treating them the same. As a result, he is often faced with disgruntled constituents whose displeasure he absorbs with remarkable grace, which is an increasingly rare talent in our current age of rage.

The number of students and athletes whose lives have been made better by Rick’s guidance and example are numerous. It’s a multitude that includes my oldest son, Taylor, who had the great fortune of playing freshman basketball for Coach Dominick. Taylor is now the head college basketball coach at Hiram College and living his dream while emulating many of the behaviors he witnessed under Rick’s tutelage. He will be the first to tell you of Coach Dominick’s influence on his career choice and his coaching style.

Coach Dominick with Port Clinton’s State Runner-Up Team

I picture Rick Dominick as a blend of the actors Tom Hanks and Alan Alda. He’s an everyman who rarely stands out in the crowd but without whose presence the crowd would be incapable of coalescing into a functional group. I think of him as the point guard on the basketball team who’d rather pass than shoot and who runs with his head down back to the defensive end of the court while the shooter raises his three fingers in celebration of the basket, which he never would have scored had the point guard not set him up for success.

Perhaps, the only hat Rick wears better than those already mentioned, including friend, is husband and father. Rarely have I met a man more devoted to his wife, Sherri, and his son, Cody, who is a math teacher following in many of his father’s footsteps as an educator and coach.

Although I never thought about it this way before, I can’t imagine my life without Rick Dominick in it.

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St. Nevercome’s Day

In Catholic school, we regularly celebrated various saints’ feast days, but in the entirety of my Catholic education, I never heard of St. Nevercome. That is until I read Bertolt Brecht’s brilliant play The Good Woman of Setzuan in which a disgruntled-with-life character by the name of Yang Sun sings “The Song of St. Nevercome.” By the way, Bertoldt’s play also provides insightful commentary on gender politics.

You might think of the fictional St. Nevercome as the patron saint of unfulfilled dreams, wishes, fantasies, goals, promises, etc. The expectation is that on St. Nevercome’s Day all of our unfulfilled longings will come true. Yang Sun’s greatest desire is to be a pilot. In the communistic system under which he lives, however, the quota for pilots is already at its maximum. Therefore, he is unable to live his dream, so he languishes in self-pity as he awaits St. Nevercome’s Day.

In the song that Yang Sun sarcastically sings, there’s an Edenic wish expressed for a day when basic human virtue will be universally rewarded and evil punished and when everyone’s needs will be met, not just those of the wealthy few: “Oh, hooray, hooray! That day goodness will pay! // That day badness will cost you your head! // And merit and money will smile and be funny // While exchanging salt and bread.”

The problem with St. Nevercome’s Day, of course, is that it never comes.

In many of our personal lives, we’ve been passively waiting for so long for St. Nevercome’s Day that we’re forced reluctantly to accept that it’s too late for us to ever see its arrival. Our ship of dreams never came in, and it isn’t drawing near on the horizon. On the societal level, some of us have sincerely tried to, as Gandhi implored, to “Be the change [we] wish to see in the world,” but we’ve been so beaten down by other people’s skepticism, negativity, and outright rejection that we’ve grown disillusioned, sullen, indifferent, and worst of all, we’ve stopped trying.

Lately, like Yang Sun, I’ve found myself saddened by and disgruntled with myself, other people, and the state of the world in general. My once youthful, naive dreams of personal achievement and societal betterment are disappearing at an alarming rate. Each day, each news cycle, I find myself slipping towards lassitude, surrender, and withdrawal rather than meaningful engagement in professional, social, or political arenas. Darkness beckons.

I’m hoping it’s — and it probably is — just a phase, a period from which I will soon emerge full of optimism regarding the world and my place in it. But as for today, I’m feeling forced to reckon with the grim realities that Camelot never existed, the cavalry ain’t coming, and in the words of Our Lady Peace, “Superman’s Dead.”

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Talking Race in the Classroom

For the first time in thirty-seven years of teaching, this week I felt the need to inform my bosses of the material I would be sharing in my classroom. I wasn’t seeking permission as much as providing them with a warning that the topic of the readings in the upcoming unit in my college composition course was a “hot button” issue: reckoning with America’s overtly-racist past and the insidious persistence of systemic racism in modern American institutions.

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when only the most delusional of White supremacists would have raised an eyebrow at such an acknowledgement of a blatantly-obvious truth, but sadly, today some folks have concluded that patriotism means never having to say, “We’re sorry” or “We were wrong.” These same folks tend to be vocal and to stir up controversy where none need exist and run for school boards.

“What changed?” you may ask.

One explanation is that a number of people, either uncomfortable with their guilt — individual or collective — or ignorant of the truth — willful or unintentional — were recently provided a scapegoat for their insecurities in the form of three words: Critical Race Theory. If you ask the majority of those whose white cotton panties are in a bunch about it to explain CRT, they could not, at least not in any way true to the scholarship and movement, which, by the way, has been in existence for nearly fifty years, but it is an easy-to-remember-and-repeat phrase and a convenient target on which to aim their laughable rage at largely disenfranchised and powerless groups in order to score political points or to paint their own racist notions in patriotism, which can’t help but call to mind the wit and wisdom of Samuel Johnson, who famously and correctly said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

Although CRT is never mentioned in the aforementioned readings, they challenge me and my students to explore and to consider such notions as white guilt and privilege, the re-naming of buildings and removal of statues that honor historical figures of questionable personal morality, affirmative action, and systemic racism with an open mind. None of it is being promoted or indoctrinated despite what those opposed to teaching the historical facts of racial injustice in America might want you to believe.

I believe that some of the misunderstanding regarding this issue stems from some folks’ inability or unwillingness to wrap their brains around the cognitive dissonance a healthy attitude towards America’s history with race requires. Cognitive dissonance demands that one can simultaneously hold as true two polar opposite realities. In this case, America has both much to be ashamed of regarding public policy and private prejudices in race relations and much to be proud of in championing civil rights. To deny either is to be willfully dishonest and unnecessarily divisive.

They would never admit it, but many of those opposed to preserving an honest accounting of our country’s past sins, desire to whitewash a deserved and healthy national guilt. I’m Catholic, trust me, I know much about guilt, and as much as I often feel angry at my church for foisting so much actual guilt or the mere fear of future guilt upon me, I also realize how valuable it has been as a means of correcting bad behavior or avoiding it altogether. I have a door in my house that many years ago I put my fist through in a fit of anger. Every time I pass it, I’m struck with guilt and shame. My wife frequently requests that I hang a new door; however, I refuse to because it reminds me of what an idiot I can be if I let my temper get away from me. I haven’t punched anything since. An adult admits their mistakes, apologizes, atones, and tries to do better going forward. Only a child denies their guilt when caught with a red hand in the cookie jar. To take anything but a full and honest accounting of the history and lingering effects of racism in America would be akin to my hanging a new door without repairing the hole.

Similarly, for anyone to deny that the majority of our institutions are slanted in favor of White people, especially White men, is to be disingenuous. The damage done by four hundred years of slavery, Jim Crow, and systemic racism can’t be erased in the real world with the stroke of a legislative pen or simply because we may wish it to be. In the words of Bruce Hornsby, “The law don’t change another’s mind / when all it sees at the hiring time / is the line on the color bar.”

It disappoints me to see candidates for local school board positions claim to be opposed to CRT being taught in their school systems, where, in fact, it is already NOT being taught. I’m willing to bet that the vast majority of teachers couldn’t provide an accurate definition of CRT if it were demanded of them; therefore, I doubt that they are promulgating it in their classrooms. These candidates have built a straw man of the issue in order to ignite racial fears and insecurities. It’s the oft-used-by Republicans Southern Strategy, and it’s reprehensible and shameful. To be clear, I have nothing against Republicans; I have much against anyone who stokes the flames of reverse racism where none exists then claiming to be opposed to the teaching of “CRT or other racially divisive material.” Give me a break. They know the dog whistle they’re blowing.

To paraphrase Jason Isbell’s song “White Man’s World,” I’m a White man teaching in a White man’s school. Percentagewise, the population of African Americans in my district is somewhere in the low single digits. My students have had very little exposure to African American culture or to the challenges faced by African Americans or to the obstacles placed in their way. The conversations I have with them regarding the history and contemporary state of race relations in America are vital to their intellectual growth and preparation for the larger, more diverse world they are about to enter.

Admittedly, my own experience with African American culture is limited, I have in my lifetime, however, been one of two white boys attending a dance sponsored by the African American fraternity. I have been the only white boy sitting in a pew in an African Methodist Episcopal Church. If you’ve never been the only white boy in the room, I highly recommend you experience it. Perhaps, if you combine the experience with an honest reading of American history, you will gain a perspective a bit more receptive to empathy and a bit less smug in your Whiteness.

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Roth’s Class, Vol. #3: A Good Day

Lately, I’ve been experiencing a bit of self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy in many areas of my life, including the value of continuing this blog. It may be an act of neurotic self-pity or simply be a part of reaching a certain age and taking a measure of myself and my accomplishments or lack thereof. I don’t know. But I had a very cool and personally-rewarding experience in my English 12/British Literature class recently that came along just when I needed it and that, at least minimally, restored a bit of my faith in young adult readers and in myself.

The class is composed mostly of — if I’m being honest — less-than-highly-motivated scholars. A handful of them are college bound, and I imagine a couple of those will actually survive the rigors of university-level academia, but I don’t believe any of them plan on being English majors; in fact, the vast majority are simply wanting to earn their final English credit and to graduate in May.

They’re all sweet kids, and I truly appreciate and enjoy all of them, but their interest in my lectures and in the readings I assign them is limited. Despite all of my desperate histrionics and pleas for them to “think” and to “read along,” their attention is very difficult to hold. Clearly, they would much rather be staring into their phones, out the window, at each other, or just about anywhere but at me or the texts I place in front of them.

Trust me; I get it. I understand their indifference. The vast majority of what I make them read was written by old white men about old white men’s problems and experiences. We’ve been in class for two months, and we’re still trudging through texts written around a thousand years ago, and I’ll be lucky if I can share something written by an English woman by sometime in the second semester, and I’ll really have to stretch the traditional English canon if I want to include anything by a minority author.

Their indifference is not their fault.

In order to address my students’ lack of enthusiasm for reading in general and in line with my school district’s push for increased literacy and installing a love of reading in our students, this year I planned to incorporate an independent reading period of twenty to thirty minutes into my Wednesday class sessions. On the Wednesday morning of our first such reading period, however, I woke up and realized I had forgotten to inform my students of the plan or to assign them to come to class with something of their own choosing to read for pleasure rather than classwork.

In a panic, I remembered that I had enough copies of my second novel, Goodness Falls, for each member of the class, so I brought the books with me to school. (As a side note, I have never before used my own books in school or even suggested to my students that they should read them. I’m pretty sure that most of them don’t even know, and much less care, that I’ve written any.) When I distributed them to the class, I asked the kids just to read from my novel for the time remaining in the period and, if they wished, they could continue in it the following week or bring in something of their own choosing. They would not hurt my feelings.

I was shocked and beyond validated when, for the next twenty minutes, they read with a rapt attention I had not seen them apply all semester. When the bell rang to end the period, it was like an alarm going off to pull them back into the real world. Several of them even expressed their excitement about continuing to read from Goodness Falls the following week.

It may have been the greatest compliment I have ever received as a writer, and as it is wont to do, the universe smiled on me just when I needed it most.

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A One Tank Trip

While driving recently, I was surprised by the digital odometer on my dashboard informing me that I had only “110 Miles to E,” which was the equivalent of a quarter of a tank of gas. I could have sworn that I’d just filled it up. Shortly thereafter, it updated, “109 Miles to E” then “108,” then “107” and so on. The literature teacher in me couldn’t help but to recognize the metaphorical significance of the moment. The universe was talking to me, and my similarly past-its-prime Ford Taurus was the vehicle through which the universe was sending me a wake-up-and-live call.

Having just celebrated my 59th birthday and begun my 60th year on this planet, I began to question how I should respond to such a warning from the universe. In one of those too-apropos-to-be-coincidental moments, as I sat calculating that, if I’m lucky, I have about a quarter of my life yet in front of me, Keith Urban’s song “Days Go By” queued up on my shuffled playlist of random songs, and the lyric “It’s all we been given, so you better start living right now” — with “right now” meaning both immediately and correctly — poured through the car’s speakers.

My first thought was “Okay, where would I choose to actually go if I was suddenly granted only 110 ‘miles before I sleep’?” Of course, the work-a-round answer would be to save the miles, go nowhere, employ a “four corners” offense, park the car in the garage, and let the world come to me. That, however, almost immediately lost its appeal as I realized that the world wouldn’t “come to me.” In fact, it would quite quickly forget I even existed as it went about its own task of existence. I would devolve into a passive observer apart from the world rather than a part of it. Such a hermitage is no way to live whether one’s tank is full or nearing empty. It would be what the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge described as a “life-in-death,” and dying ain’t no way to live.

I concluded that my 110 travel miles would be spent exactly how I’m spending them now: almost always, with my wife riding shotgun or taking a turn at the wheel while I try my best to take a good look at and to savor the beauty of both the natural and manmade world. Most of those miles would entail driving to be with family members, to drink coffee or beers and talk, laugh, and reminisce with friends, to play a couple of sets with my tennis buddies, and to help at OhGo’s biweekly mobile food pantries, where I’m an insignificant contributor to the efforts of people much better than me who are doing good work, donating their time and muscle — because none of us have much else to give — for goodness’s sake, not to see their names listed on a donors page or to pad their resume for heavenly admittance. Such are the people and activities that bring me the greatest joy as these “days go by,” and as my life-force tank empties, they will continue to fill my soul tank.

What I would try my hardest to avoid doing with my “110 miles to E” is to make wasted trips to any place, person, or activity that might bore, frustrate, or anger me. I would devote nothing to mean spirited, close minded, and/or intolerant people; instead, I’d even gladly burn a little extra gas to go around them. The fuel and time left is too precious to spend on such life-draining folks, experiences, and/or emotions.

Although it may seem like you just filled the tank, be sure to check your odometer because “days go by,” and life is a one tank trip.

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Roth’s Class, Vol. 2: Monsters

Because we start the year in my college-level English literature class reading such classics as Beowulf and its companion piece, John Gardner’s Grendel, because Halloween is fast approaching, and because one of my favorite pop-punk (It’s that’s not an oxymoron, I don’t understand the term.) bands All-Time Low has had a song of the title recently spend eleven weeks at the top of the charts, my mind lately has been on monsters.

The presence of monsters in the early literature of England was literal. Because of the limited knowledge and travel of the people of that era, there were many places both near and far that few, if any, folks had ever visited. As humans are wont to do, they filled such places with the monsters of their imaginations: ogres, trolls, dragons, giants, sea serpents, abominable snowmen, zombies, etc. Today, however, those unexplored places are much fewer, and anyone with a rational mind knows there is no such thing as a monster — at least not on the literal level.

The remaining value of monsters in society and storytelling, beyond the visceral thrill of a good horror film or a terrified walk through a haunted house, lies in their usage as symbols of the fears and anxieties we must overcome and the challenges we must eventually face if we have any hope of functioning effectively in the world.

Although the monsters of literature, pop culture, and our imaginations do not actually exist beyond their sphere, there are any number of real world monsters — some of our own creation — of which we must be wary. Unlike the monsters of fiction and film, such real world monsters can terrorize us and do actual damage to our lives.

To make matters worse, real world monsters often draw near to us dressed as the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing so that, unlike the zombies pictured above, we don’t see them coming, and when we finally do, it often feels too late to save ourselves from them. Such monsters include petulant students/children, unreasonable teachers/supervisors, drugs & alcohol, all sorts of phobias, abusive partners, con artists, road ragers, mass shooters, sex offenders, etc. As Eminem and Rihanna remind us, weirdly enough, we sometimes even choose to become “friends with the monster” rather than defeat them.

The good news is that there has never been a fictional monster created that couldn’t be defeated by some means: a wooden stake, a silver bullet, a bucket of water. All responsible storytellers subscribe to the practice of killing off their monsters at the story’s end unless, of course, it’s part of a film franchise like Halloween; whereby, the producers can keep Michael Myers alive as long as moviegoers are interested in watching the same basic plot again and again ad nauseum. The monster’s vulnerability ensures us that we do not need to allow our personal and very real monsters to terrorize us forever. If we possess and show the courage to confront them, we can destroy even the most formidable among them; if not, there are others who are available to help us face down our demons should we have the wherewithal, the willingness, and most importantly, the wisdom to ask for help.

Are you a dragon slayer? If not, “Who you gonna call?”

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