rustypants speaks

spring break is here and we all know what that means: leaving the sunny, warm beach to come 11 hours to rainy, cold cincinnati to discover what all needs to be done to get this house sold.

so yesterday morning i got my act together, my things together, kissed my wife and petted my dog goodbye, and got out the door by 6:30 or so as the sun was rising. that first hour of the drive is always invigorating – on the road again, gearing up for a long drive, getting some time to just sit, look, think, listen. driving solo is not my favorite thing to do but there’s something to be said for the ability to contemplate your existence. there was a nice sunrise going on and up near century, florida there were pockets of mist and fog that stirred the old imagination up.

once i hit alabama the sun disappeared and has yet to be seen again. could this have been a harbinger of things to come? one never knows.

the drive was uneventful until almost to the alabama / tennessee border where, from a mile away, i see a huge confederate flag flying high. now, my opinion about the confederate flag is mixed as i have seen it used as a racist symbol to intimidate but also as a source of genuine pride. the vast majority of the use i’ve seen has been the former, however.

so now i’m wondering what clown would fly this thing so big that it can be seen a mile away. as i get closer, i pull over and get my camera out – this one is too good to pass by.

it’s the alabama chapter of the sons of the confederacy. their contact info? 1-800-MY-SOUTH. yeesh. i found them online and their purpose statement seems awash in doublespeak. this is an uninformed opinion, however.

i was making good time through tennessee and looked to arrive in cincinnati before 7pm. mom had already made some dinner and was ready to come over to the house with it when all of the sudden…

i-65 became a parking lot.

70 miles south of louisville, traffic comes to a halt. no signs. no emergency vehicles. no detours. just immobilized cars.

now, i lived in washington d.c. and baltimore for 10 years: i know about traffic. no problem, i said. we’ll wait it out. but then things start inching along. and continue to inch. and inch. and inch. and after about 90 minutes of inching and going maybe 7 miles, i begin texting folks to find out what the hell is going on here – my stick shift is a joy to drive until you have to work the clutch like this for more than 30 minutes. no one knew what was up. and at the 120 minute mark, i’m going a bit nuts. finally at about the 150 minute mark and 10-15 miles later, this is what i see:

still no emergency vehicles, no cops, just a couple guys trying to get a trailer out of the ditch.

well, dinner’s cold now and it’s going to be too late to have mom over. i drive for a spell, pull over, sleep for 30 minutes, and get back to it, arriving at the house around 9pm.

i’m getting too old for this.

days like today and this past week

wear the hell out of me.

i get tired of playing psychologist at school.

teaching has many perks, not the least of which is having holidays off. good friday is on the school calendar and my plan was to spend most of it on the beach, reading, biking, etc. then thursday night, lise makes a few calls and finds that her office is going to be closed on friday! woo-woo!! a three day weekend TOGETHER!!

it started off on the right foot – we both slept in and caught up on the beauty rest. lise took the dog out for a good long walk, and we hung out with him until around noon.

then we were off.

we loaded our beach bag up, grabbed the cooler and hit the road. first stop: The Bead and Crystal House. lise has been working hard making earrings and other jewelry in the last few months and this place has a great selection of cool, unique beads to choose from. this does scott no good, of course, so while lise went shopping, scott went to joe patti’s seafood and loaded the cooler up with raw shrimp and some of their delicious spinach dip.

then it was off to captain joey patti’s seafood deli / restaurant. plastic spoons & forks, paper plates, bare bones surroundings, but some of the best and cheapest seafood in the area.

we ordered and devoured a bowl of their fantastic seafood gumbo…

and ate a basket of their catch-of-the-day, some hushpuppies, and baked beans. mmmm-mmm!

a side trip to wal-mart was needed as i had left all my sunscreen in my car. wal-mart is never a fun trip for me, but there was an ulterior motive involved:

hershey’s ice cream parlor is a block away from the one near perdido key. and i knew we needed some ice cream to get the lunch settled correctly. we’ve not been in months, but we’ve agreed for years that hershey’s makes the best freakin’ ice cream out there. we weren’t disappointed this time when we saw a new flavor: girl scout thin mint chocolate ice cream. oh. my. gosh. it was awesome. little chunks of real thin mint cookies all mixed up in there – it was heavenly.

next, we hit one of pensacola’s three tiny used bookstores. i had forgotten my book to take to the beach and had to have something to read! after much searching, snow falling on cedars was purchased, and we continued our trip to the beach!

it was a gorgeous day out – temps hit the low 70’s and the sun was out the entire day. the beach got chilly as the sun was going down an hour or so after we arrived, but that didn’t take away our enthusiasm for seeing the sunset.

being a relatively cloudless day, the sunset was not quite as spectacular as some, but it was still an awe-inspiring sight. we sat a bit after the sun disappeared, contemplated what a great day it had been so far, packed up our stuff and headed home to the big dog and some delicious shrimp just waiting to be cooked.

dinner was delicious. several years ago, my dad gave us a medium sized foreman grill – the old ones are a pain to clean as nothing detaches, but folks, when you want shrimp cooked right, the foreman is one good way of doing it. it was worth the cleaning job.

we ended our evening by catching up on Lost, season two. we’re late-comers to the whole Lost phenomenon and have been renting for the last couple weeks from netflix season one. that was finished on thursday. now we’re on season two and we’re hooked.

it was a good friday, indeed.

i’m pretty simple and keeping me happy generally doesn’t take much.

lise and i have survived on simple things most of our 17 years together. when things got too complex and fancy, we moved and gave up much of the comfort that we had built up in the previous couple of years.

but i will admit this: there are some things that, once you’ve had them, it’s hard to compromise on later.

now, after 12 years of marriage, living in apartments and using laundromats or other people’s washers / dryers, when we bought our house in cincinnati one of the very first things we did was to go out and buy a washer and dryer of our very own. nothing fancy. we bought a dent and nick washer from sam’s club for 50% off. bought the previous year model dryer for 50% off from home depot. they didn’t match. we didn’t care.

but the sweet, sweet comfort of washing our clothes in our own house? oh. my. gosh. no more quarters. no more lugging bags of soiled linens and detergent and hangers and change to a public place after an already busy day. no more wondering who washed what before you in those machines. no worrying about That Guy who always hung out at the laundromat. no more having to wait to wear this or that because it was dirty and we couldn’t wash it. no more worrying about having to put clothes on to do the wash – naked clothes washing is highly underrated.

and then we packed up and moved from our huge house to a tiny apartment in pensacola.

and we’ve been dragging our clothes around again. and begging for quarters. and putting off washing things. and worrying about what that is coating the inside of the washer. and finding all the washers taken. or all the dryers.

and i’ve been rationalizing in my head: if we’re spending $10/week on laundry and we can find a washer / dryer for $500… wouldn’t we be kinda saving money, time, and our sanity all at once?

so we decided to take a 2 block trip to a used appliance store today. i don’t like these places because i generally think they’re going to be shady, 2nd hand questionable pieces of overpriced crap. nick and dent stuff rocks! and it’s new! and it’s guaranteed!

but this dude surprised us. c. burnham appliances changed my mind about 2nd hand. the pensacola better business bureau came up clean on him. picked up a whirlpool ultimate care II quiet wash / quiet dry set for $395 and he delivered them for us on the spot.

and i can’t believe how happy i am to have a washer and dryer again. it’s one of those hard-to-compromise items for me. i’ve been sitting here in the living room with a smile on my face knowing that our first load in our new washer and dryer is about finished. simple pleasures.

when asked for a comment on the new set, dolby the dog sighed deeply, rolled his eyes, and wondered when he was going to get fed.

frickin’ high maintenance mutt.

tomorrow the FCAT begins.

and my class is gonna kick its butt!

my students are a tough bunch. passionate and vocal about everything – happiness, anger, fights, bickering, petty squabbles – they don’t hold back and this is cause for a lot of trouble at times. there are moments when i love this loud passion and many times when it makes me want to scream.

this loud passion also causes the few quiet, introspective, reserved students to get lost in the shuffle of classroom dynamics. i frequently feel frustrated because i want to give them more attention but often cannot simply because they’re not being obnoxious loud and passionate enough to be noticed.

but one girl in particular has been a real powerful influence in our grade. she’s quiet. she’s smart because she works hard and studies. she’s not real popular with the other girls because she’s not in-your-face and doesn’t look like them, but she has a lot of admirers. she was the first student in harper’s class voted as student of the month because she follows all the rules, does all her work, goes out of her way to be helpful, is quite respectful to not only students but to teachers, too.

and she’s compassionate.

early in the year as i was trying to establish my relationship with the students, she wrote me notes several times to let me know when this or that student was “doing a good job” – meaning that i should make sure i praised / reinforced them.

she has drawn me pictures just out of the blue. she’s made pipe cleaner / ribbon things and given them to me. we have swapped seashells and told stories of how we found them.

a couple months into the year, she wrote me a page long note letting me know that some of my interactions with the students were making them unhappy because they felt i was making fun of them. she folded the note into an interlocking square and colored the outside of it bright colors and gave it to me quietly at the end of the class period. honestly, i’ve not felt so chastised as at that moment.

several weeks ago she asked me what my favorite candybar was – i told her hershey’s special dark and forgot about the conversation. a week or so later, she’s brought me a mini special dark bar.

all this to explain how i continue to learn about compassion:

last week i hit the store and found bags of skittles 2 for $.95 and bought several to use for incentives. harper’s class is the noisiest and most obnoxious and in need of the most incentives, so during a 30 minute period during which students were to be working independently on computers in the lab, i made the following offer: the two students who could be the most quiet during that half hour would get a bag of skittles.

and it was amazing. the whole class. dead quiet. honest! you could have heard a pin drop. i was literally flabbergasted and at odds as to how to distribute two bags of skittles.

so i picked the two students who get into the most trouble for talking and messing around, and in front of the whole class, pointed them out, complimented them on how hard they worked and how quiet they were, gave them their skittles and was ready to proceed to the playground for a bit.

the moans and groans from those who didn’t get the skittles were predictable. what was also predictable was seeing this young lady so happy for those two students that she was literally hopping in place in line, huge smile plastered on her face, and she was clapping.

two students who almost never get praised for anything looking at skittles like they’d won the lottery. eighteen students who were mad that they didn’t get the skittles, some complaining and wanting to know how / why these two got them, it’s not fair, how did you decide, etc.

and one girl who was thrilled to not get the skittles. thrilled that two others got them. so thrilled that she couldn’t contain her happiness for them and was clapping for them.

now fifth grade is fifth grade and she realized that she was getting The Look because of her compassion and caring and clapping – obviously she stopped, but the smile never left her face. and i knew i had made the right decision about giving those skittles away.

and i am continually taught about compassion and love from sources i don’t always expect to find it.

last week, two of my frequently misbehaving students were discussing with me the discipline that occurs at home. it was a light conversation that ended like this:

student 1: have you seen how they make the kids squat against the wall and put their arms straight out when they’re in trouble, like to punish you?

me: yeah, that would stink to have happen!

student 2: my daddy makes me do that when i’m bad. he gives you a whuppin’ if you put your arms down or sit before he tells you to.

me: wow – does that happen often?

student 2 (with pride in her voice): no! i don’t never get no whuppin’ – i can squat and hold my arms out a long time! i have to do it a lot!

student 1 and i exchange a look that i wish were caught on camera.

priceless.

this past tuesday was quite cool.

my dad and his wife karen came into town for the afternoon. they and my brother and his wife were in biloxi for a couple days on vacation – lise and i took the afternoon off work and they drove the two hours into p-cola and we had a great, but too brief, time together.

we unloaded the truck of our chest of drawers and two bicycles and an added treat of several cans of skyline chili and several bottles of montgomery inn sauce – all welcome additions in our home. we hung out at the apartment for a bit and caught up (and caught our breath).
then we hit mcguire’s irish pub for a fantastic meal of corned beef sandwiches, reubens, and monster-sized burgers – add a couple bowls of their famous bean soup and two pitchers of homemade root beer and you’ve got a great couple hours of food, fun, and talk.

next to the beach where the wind was blowing hard enough to lean at a 45 degree angle without falling over. sadly, it was too windy and cold for karen and we didn’t get her picture this time around. :-( a quick picture and a visual for them both of where we spend most of our free time (and what brought us to pensacola in the first place) were had and we were off.

a drive to my school and lise’s place of work, then back to the apartment rounded out the afternoon. we had a great time and it sucked to say goodbye but it was great to see them both and catch up.

and i have to remember to bring karen a reuben from mcguire’s when i hit cincy at the end of march!