DeBence Museum: Local gem

(News-Herald, June 25) When you visit friends in some exotic far-off locale, they’ll tell you about all the sights they never see except when they’re hosting out of towners. Every place, big or small, has these underappreciated gems that locals never get around to visiting.
One Venangoland version of that is DeBence Antique Music World.
Don’t be put off by the name. At some point somebody convinced the DeBence folks that the word “Museum” is scary, so they became a “Music World.” Yeah, sure. They’re a museum, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Most locals know the story. In a barn just south of Franklin, Jake and Elizabeth DeBence assembled the biggest collection of Cool Old Music Stuff that anyone has ever seen. When Jake died, Elizabeth was so committed to keeping the collection intact and local that she passed up chances to become a millionaire several times over.
Local investors and fans raked up the kind of money needed to keep the collection and to house it, creating a showcase that also rescued one of the better old storefronts in down town Franklin.
The collection includes old Nickelodeons, band organs, calliopes, plus an assortment of other oddities (a mechanical violin player?). Under the watchful hands of talented volunteers, DeBence has over 200 of these musical devices operating. These machines represent an era in music, not mention mechanical wizardry and inventiveness (historical side note—player piano technology became the foundation for beginning computers).
Creating a large collection of such amazing antiques requires determination and a certain amount of vision. Before something becomes a Valuable Antique, it’s usually just Some Old Piece of Junk. Most people don’t hold onto their junk long enough to see it become a valuable antique.
Several things make DeBence a museum unique not just in the state, not just in the nation, but in the world.
First, beyond the sheer size of the collection, there are machines here that are the last of their kind, the only ones left on the planet. Some are merely extremely rare. At DeBence you can see things you can’t see anywhere else.
Second—well, my father likes to tell the story of how DeBence contacted the Smithsonian for some assistance and expertise. All the DeBence folks ended up doing was upsetting the Smithsonian folks.
The Smithsonian’s idea is that these rare and valuable instruments should be wrapped in plastic and sealed in amber. Then the public should be allowed to glance at them through three feet of plexiglass.
The DeBence idea is that these instruments were built to make music, and so they should be played. There are other places where you can SEE some of these rare instruments, DeBence is the only place where you can actually HEAR them.
You can also watch them. DeBence is not only great for music fans, but for gadget fans as well. If you love seeing how things work, you will find the innards of these beasts amazing. Most were not mass produced, but were created from basic plans which the builders “reinterpreted” for each individual machine. This makes maintenance and repair an adventure.
Behind the scenes, the second floor has become a workshop that has become the go-to repair resource for amusement parks throughout the Northeast. And on the third floor, they have re-opened the only intact top-floor ballroom in Franklin (with the assistance of the ever-resourceful Rotarians). Once a month you can enjoy a DeBence mini-event in the ballroom, a small, intimate musical treat presented for free. They usually have cookies, too.
Until the end of October, the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11-4. On Sunday it’s 12:30 till 4. You can find information about DeBence online at www.debencemusicworld.com.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should acknowledge my stake in this; since my father’s retirement, he and my mother have been heavily involved with DeBence. Their children are pleased that they have found a new hobby (hobby defined as “job nobody pays you for”) that keeps them off the streets and too busy to fall in with unsavory companions.
Like most museums of its type, DeBence survives on copious volunteer hours and contributions. Admission fees cover a tiny part of costs; contributions and memberships are a more important source of support.
People come from all over the world to see and hear this unique collection. If you’ve never made the short trip to check it out, or even if it’s just been a while, this summer is a good time to enjoy this really cool collection.

Committee Reporting and Vetos

(News-Herald, June 18) Everyone who has ever served on any kind of board knows the process:
There’s a new project that needs to be handled, so first, you beat bushes, twist arms and otherwise pummel folks with clichés in an attempt to put together the committee that has to do the project handling. Then the handful of willing members (minus the ones who said they would serve but who will never actually show up) carve out time to meet, discuss, study up on their own, read old reports, consider alternatives, explore possibilities, etc etc etc and also etc. After many many many hours and perhaps more than a bit of soul-searching and heated discussion, the committee will finally come up with a plan.

At this point they will bring the plan back to the larger group, at which point they’ll get to field some questions. Some of these are legitimate:
“What were your criteria?” What yardstick did you use? Cheapest? Closest? Most gerbils per square hectare?
“How did your solution measure up?” Does this one provide, in fact, the most gerbils per hectare?
These are important and legitimate questions. A good committee presentation has already answered them; a bad committee can’t answer them. The worst illegitimate committee doesn’t know the answer. Instead, they picked their solution first, and then spent their time as a committee making a case to support that solution, the only solution they ever seriously considered.
They may try to hide their poor work by claiming that their solution is “just common sense” or “obviously, the only way.” All they’re really saying is, “We didn’t do our homework. We just picked the answer we like best.”
A legitimate committee can answer the criteria questions easily. But even if they navigate the legitimate questions, they’ll still have to deal with questions like these:
“Could you just walk us through the steps that got you to this decision” or some other question that basically boils down to “Tell me everything I’d know if I had sat through the hundreds of hours of meetings myself.”
“You really ought to consider Option X.” In this example, Option X will be something that the committee considered, discussed, and rejected two months ago.
“I don’t want you to do that.” This person just wants veto power over all decisions made by the group.
Maybe there’s no such thing as a stupid question. But there is still such a thing as questions that stupid people ask.
The people who ask these three questions will have one other thing in common—they will be people who had the opportunity to serve on the committee, and refused.
These are people who do not want to invest the time and effort in dealing with problems and issues, but they still want the power that comes with that investment.
They are first cousins to the people who take on a job, get someone else to do the work, and then come in at the end to pat everyone else (and themselves) on the back.
These are the folks who want veto power, who don’t want to help find solutions (that would be hard), but just want to be able to alter, edit or eject the solutions someone else comes up with.
(I’m not talking about bosses—actual bosses have the right and responsibility to alter, edit or eject. I’m talking about people who have not actually earned the right to take a hatchet to the work of their peers. Okay, maybe I am talking about one or two bosses.)
It’s tacky to try to cross the finish line when you haven’t run the race. It’s rude to make your premiere appearance at the theater on opening night and ask to play the lead.
And it’s the height of organizational obnoxiousness to avoid doing any of the work and yet show up to second-guess the people who actually got the job done. It’s a cheap way to avoid responsibility for the proposal while still claiming credit for involvement. It’s lazy. It’s cowardly.
The modern philosopher Stan Lee wrote “With great power comes great responsibility.” Power comes with a cost; if you aren’t willing to pay the price in time and effort, don’t try to swoop in at the last moment to steal it. Veto power is for people who have been involved in the journey, not for people who sat it out on the couch.

Cyber-lying in the workplace

(News-Herald, June 11) Saying that computers have changed the workplace is like observing that automobiles have changed people’s vacation planning. It’s more obvious than air.
What’s less obvious is exactly how computer technology has affected the kind of smarts needed in the workplace..
Sometimes what is needed is the ability to outsmart the computer. Last spring I made one of my semi-annual pilgrimages to Cedar Point. This trip was in the company of a group of high school students and upon arrival it was discovered that the computer responsible for issuing group discount tickets was having some sort of emotional breakdown.
In order to get us the appropriate discount, the sales rep had to tell the computer that we were not a high school group (I don’t remember exactly what we masqueraded as—a group of wheelchair bound girl scouts or geriatric hockey all-star team or something). The computer spit out some appropriately cheap tickets and all was saved.
This particular technique for dealing with reluctant computer technology is what we used to call “lying.” When you use this technique with humans, it’s generally considered Bad. But with computers, lying is often necessary, and also requires a fairly advanced set of lying skills. Every workplace needs at least one person who can lie to computers with a level of skill which, if used on live humans, would suggest some kind of sociopath.
A workplace without such workers can become even more ridiculous. I was at a grocery store a while back when the computers went down, and so could not give the usual card-swipy auto-discounts.
I watched a check-out person completely stumped by a buy one, get one free sales item. Without a computer to work out this tricky transaction, she was flummoxed, and she told the luckless customer that he would just have to pay the full price for both of his items. I don’t know if working out “get one free” manually was beyond her comprehension or her administrative powers, but it was still a sad moment to watch.
This wasn’t so much of an issue two decades ago. Back then, most software was still written by software engineers to be used only by other software engineers. Workplace desks included cheat sheets for when you couldn’t remember that getting the computer to add two plus two required selecting the drop-down menu under operants and then clicking on the base twelve tab and clicking through to the cgi bin sort descriptors and manually type in “xxC23g*vi\2.009”. You didn’t need someone who could lie to the computer so much as someone who could just talk to it.
Then workplace software evolved and software engineers learned to write software for purchasing agents. This software was also useless for the actual employees in the workplace, but it was generally much prettier. Sample conversation from this era:
Boss: How’s that great new widget software working out?
Employee: It takes me twice as long to complete the design drawings.
Boss: Yeah, but how about that cool alien ray gun effects that come with the screen saver?
In this era workplaces started needing someone who could trick the computer into doing what it had promised to do in the first place. The age of the gifted cyber-liar had arrived.
We already understand that by and large, lying to other humans is bad. Lying to animals is a bit fuzzier ethically—if I pretend to throw a stick and instead hide it behind my back, that counts as part of the game. If I trick Rover into going to the vet, that’s for his own good.
But a tool? I never had to lie to a hammer or screwdriver to make them work properly.
Of course, in my relationship with a hammer, there’s no question about who’s in charge. The new dilemma may not spring from any abilities of computers, but in the way we’ve given them authority in the workplace.
The Terminator movies imagine a future when computers become so smart and self-aware that they take over the world and start hunting down pesky humans. The scary face of the future, we’ve been told, will be Arnold Schwarzanegger coldly declaring “I’ll be back” and shooting up hundreds of hardened humans. It seems more likely that the real face of computer domination is a flustered cashier saying, “Sorry. The computer’s down, so I can’t give you your change.” Cyber-lying may be the next necessary survival skill.

Flaming Dead Possum followup

As a writer, you hope that someday you'll create something that will move others to their own special... well, after the column about incompetent bosses and flaming dead possums ran, this arrived from a fan of the column who works out at Polk, and words just fail me.

Graduation 09

(News0-Herald, June 4) I am a fan of Occasions. I think we are in danger of seeing every event as entertainment, but being entertained is not the highest goal humans can have.
Weddings, funerals, baptisms—nobody should walk out of these Occasions discussing if it was fun, amusing or entertaining. People should be moved, humbled, inspired, excited, saddened, touched by some sense of deeper human truths and beauty that surface in these moments.
Each of these should come wrapped in a Sense of Occasion, a series of cues that help us understand that we are witnessing a moment that is special, illuminating, a reminder of the grand trajectory of human life. That’s why we dress up, decorate, observe ceremonial acts that we can’t even explain.
Graduation is one of those Occasions. Why a funny hat and goofy gown? Why a long walk set to old music? Because they help create a Sense of Occasion. Our local graduates hear a lot of language about this big moment, this great transition, this complete change in their lives, and I believe wholeheartedly that every one of these homilies is true.
But I don’t think that’s the thing to remember.
Big Occasions are important, and it is right that we should honor them. But focusing on them too much leads some folks to imagine that these Big Occasions are sparkling islands surrounded by vast, flat, changeless seas.
We humans take comfort in routine, in the belief that between Big Occasions, things are Usually This Way or Always That Way. It’s just not true. I could talk about what I “always” do at Christmas. But I have only seen fifty-two Christmas’s and each one was different.
If you aren’t around teenagers, it’s easy to forget how quickly things change, how completely different ninth grade is from twelfth grade. Yes, the commencement ceremony marks a big change in their lives, but so has every single year leading up to graduation.
Decades ago in his book Future Shock, Alvin Toffler argued that too much change too quickly throws humans into a bit of an anxious tizzy, and I suppose he has a point. It may be comforting to believe that we are fairly stable people passing through a frozen and unchanging landscape.
It’s just not true. We are changing daily. The people around us are changing daily. The world around us is changing daily.
The advent of the oil industry created upheaval and disruption on the world. Whalers, once as much a part of America as apple pie and amber waves of grain, were thrown out of work. Later on, the invention of pipelines created a new industry and ravaged an old one.
The oil industry itself has never stood still. Pick any moment in its history—things were getting better or getting worse or some fundamental of the industry was changing forever.
When people make the oft-repeated comment that Venangoland must be revived by returning to the industry of yesteryear, I wonder exactly which year they mean. Do they want to return to a point when things were bad but getting better? When things were great but soon to turn sour? You can talk about the way things Always Were, but it’s just not true.
Every Utopia ever proposed assumed that a perfect society would remain locked in position, unchanging, unshifting. But no such static society has existed in human history. Not ever. Never.
It’s like watching a rock roll down a hill and saying, “Right there, when it was about halfway down. That was the perfect spot. I want it there.” You can’t have one moment without the whole trip down the hill.
We may fear change, want to avoid it, but it is the most unavoidable thing in life. We are in the car, and the engine is running and the car is in gear and we are headed up the road. We can try to steer, we can try to get someone else to steer, we can find ways to brace ourselves for impact. What we can’t do is stop the car from moving.
We’re continuously hitting a new stretch of pavement. We can celebrate Occasions to mark particular mileposts, but before and after that milepost, the car keeps moving and someone still needs to steer.
So yes, your Graduation Day is an Important Occasion. It is a unique once-in-a-lifetime day that may change your entire life. That’s is true. But here’s the thing—it’s also true for every other day that you’ll ever live.

Rewarding Incompetence

(News-Herald, May 28) One great workplace mystery: why do some people get punished for good work while people who do lousy work are rewarded for their slackness?
Ordinarily, it’s smart to make the most use of your best people. If Pat can build ten types of widgets quickly and Chris can only do two kinds at a moderate tempo, then the smart response to a new complicated rush widget order is to give it to Pat.
But in this scenario, Chris is less spectacular, but still competent. It’s when a weak manager and an incompetent worker enter the picture that the backwards rewards system kicks in.
One major rule of bad management is “Avoid problems.” Bad managers don’t know how to fix problems or deal with crises, so their management style is based on ignoring, waiting, hiding, or sweeping under carpets.
When Mr. Dimbulb considers his workers, he’s not thinking “How do I get the best work out of this person?” He’s thinking, “How can I get this person to create the fewest problems for me?”
For Mr. Dimbulb, the best workers are the ones who solve their own problems, or at least won’t pass them back up to the front office. If Mr. Dimbulb needs to hand a flaming dead possum to someone, he’ll hand it to the person least likely to squirt it with kerosene and throw it back.
So the best, most responsible workers get the flaming dead possums.
Pat may get tired and frustrated. Pat may go home thinking, “Can’t Dimbulb see that I’m killing myself putting out these dead possums? Can’t he see I’m staying late and starting early and wearing myself out? Can’t he see there’s a problem?”
The answer is, no, he can’t, because those problems aren’t Mr. Dimbulb’s problems. All he knows, all he needs to know, is that there is no flaming dead possum on his desk. And as long as he can make them go away by handing them off to Pat, Pat will be the flaming dead possum specialist.
But for Mr. Dimbulb, Chris is a challenge. If Dimbulb hands Chris so much as a slightly stuporous hamster, he’ll get yelping from Chris, calls from the customer and Chris’s supervisor, and complaints from all quarters about Chris’s mishandling of the little dysfunctional rodent. Not only will he not get rid of the hamster, but Chris will manage to turn it into an angry water buffalo.
From Dimbulb’s standpoint, the best job to give Chris is an assignment along the lines of “Go sit in the shady corner and take a nap.”
So for doing good work, Pat gets dumped on, and for being incompetent, Chris gets a cushy job that demands little.
A better manager than Mr. Dimbulb would follow a simple two-step process.
Step One: Help Chris Improve and Become Competent.
Step Two: If Step One Fails, Fire Chris.
A manager can skip step one in certain extreme cases (Chris is late every single day, Chris blows up workplace, Chris shoots colleagues). But generally the first smart move is to see if Chris can be salvaged or turned into something productive. It is, after all, a manager’s job to figure out how to get the best work out of his people.
Mr. Dimbulb will not choose this option. He is pretty sure it would be hard. At the very least it would require him to take on a problem, and this is where his fundamental weakness as a manager lies. You can only solve a problem if A) you acknowledge it exists and B) acknowledge that it’s your problem. And Dimbulb’s first priority is to make sure that he doesn’t have any problems.
And since none of the problems are his, he never solves any of them. He just keeps passing them on to the employees who, as far as he knows, make the problems go away. And he gets angry at the people who keep bringing him more problems.
Under this system, competent employees face a tough decision. They can keep enabling their incompetent boss, like the alcoholic’s wife who keeps telling the kids, “Daddy missed Christmas because the space aliens got him.”
Or they can step back and let the next flaming dead possum burn the place down, thereby running the risk of either getting themselves fired or letting the workplace self-destruct. Option #3 is to send articles like this one to Mr. Dimbulb, but this never helps, because the Dimbulbs of the world will never recognize themselves in this column.

Love Your Job

(News-Herald, May 21) When did it become embarrassing to admit that you like your job.
I ask because it is that time of year when schoolteachers are routinely asked, “Hey, are you ready for summer” in a tone of voice that clearly means, “Hey, are you just dying to get away from your horrible students and your miserable job.”
Some days I’ll admit that I resent this no-win question just a bit. One possible answer is “No, I’m not looking forward to summer vacation.” This is both silly and ungrateful. My summer provides me with great opportunities and not appreciating it would be like refusing to appreciate my paycheck.
But it seems the only other answer is, “Yeah, I’m so looking forward to getting away from my students and my job.”
Of course, that’s what lots of people assume is the truth, when in fact, I really like my job. Honestly. And yet I feel as I type that that it’s one of the more outrageous things I’ve ever written here.
Nobody says they like their job. Nobody tosses into a conversation that they really enjoy the work they do. Nobody goes on tv and declares, “I hope I never have to retire. I’d love to do this forever.”
Well, almost nobody. One of the beautiful things about the tv show Dirty Jobs is the people who really love what they do and aren’t afraid to show it. But the fact that this show is unique tells us something about our culture. I know people who love their jobs, but most are careful not to be too vocal about it.
It’s not like I’m blind to the annoyances of the workplace (and to be clear, sometimes a “workplace” is the home). Even great jobs come with an assortment of extraneous junk that interferes with the really best parts. Bureaucracy, paperwork, support departments that don’t, leadership that doesn’t—all work is loaded with these things. No workplace is a paradise.
But very few workplaces are located on the seventh level of hell, either.
We train our children early on. While people are prodding me to declare how much I can’t wait to escape my job, they are also asking schoolchildren, “Are you getting anxious for summer vacation” or “Aren’t you just so ready to be done with school?” We encourage young people to declare how much they want to get away from school, and then we’re surprised that so many young Americans don’t get excited about education.
Imagine if every “I bet you can’t wait to get out of there” were replaced with “I bet you learned a lot this year.”
Right. A bunch of you read that last sentence and laughed. Because these days it’s the height of ridiculousness to suggest that people should be excited about what they do for a living. We are way too cool to get up in the morning looking forward to how we’ll spend the workday.
I have certainly known people who apparently had to drag themselves, whining and complaining, to work day after day. That must feel awful. Life is too short. If your job is a terrible chore, you need a different job.
I like my job; I always have. I’m not merely lucky; I spent a lot of time and effort to get here, and while that time was sometimes unpleasant, I slogged through so that I could get to do what I do today. If I won a gazillion dollars tomorrow, I would not retire (I would, however, get a much nicer car).
And yet, I know it’s far more likely that I will be teased for writing this than will some guy who complains about his crappy job and how much he wants to retire.
I have an uncle in Connecticut who is still teaching high school history. He’s 75 years old. He’s one of my teaching heroes.
I think everyone should get that for themselves—work that they enjoy and value and look forward to doing so much that they feel a little sad when it comes time to retire.
And I don’t mean to be rude, but while I am grateful for summer vacation, but I will be sorry to be done teaching for a few months, and I am already looking forward to next September and the chance to do this teaching thing all over again. And if you are another one of us, the folks who actually love their work, be brave and bold and say so to someone today.

Prom Decorating Lessons

(News-Herald, May 14) It’s May, and that means Prom season. I started working with Proms way back when I started teaching. As with any large scale undertaking, there are lessons to be learned that apply in life as well as the project at hand.
*Planning matters. The more prepared you are, the better you can cope. It pays to take an early look at those instructions for making the working model of Mt. St. Helens out of cardboard and cream cheese. Preparing to do the job and having some idea of how it’s going to work makes doing the job much easier.
*However, once you’ve made a plan, don’t get married to it. Something will go wrong that you don’t expect, and something else will be ready to go right in ways you never imagined. You must be flexible enough to deal with both of these opportunities.
*Fear water. As a decoration, water is seductive, sensuous, and beautiful. But it is also fickle and capricious; it doesn’t go where you want it to, and insists on sneaking into places where it is not welcome.
*Clothes matter. Folks of my generation sometimes like to pretend they don’t. They do. Masses of teenagers really are better behaved in tuxes and gowns than in jeans and t-shirts. If you dress them up, it really is easier to take them out.
*There is only so much you can do yourself. It is not always easy to find people that can help, and yet another step to motivate them to do so, but you can only get so far on your own. After that, the road must be traveled with companions or not at all. However:
*You cannot hand something to someone else if you will not let go of it. You do not get help with, “I would like you to do this, but I expect you to do it exactly the way I would if I were there.” Find someone you trust, and let them do the job. (If you do not trust anyone, you should not be in charge.)
There are two reasons for this.
First, the only people really worth working with are people who know how to apply their own smarts, talent, and judgment to the job. The best way to motivate people with smarts, talent, and judgment is to let them use those qualities. The best way to unmotivate them is to forbid the use of those qualities.
Second, you are not there. You may have had a very specific vision for how the top of a cream cheese volcano should look. But only people who are actually there discover that high-stacked cream cheese tends to slough off in gooey chunks. (This is where not being married to your plan becomes important.)
*Know the difference between big, important details and little, piddly ones. If the cream cheese is canted at a 45% angle instead of 47%, the volcano will still look volcano-ey. If the entire volcano crashes through the gym floor, that may be more of an issue. (If you use water and it causes a short-circuit leading to fire and explosion, that’s bad; this is why you don’t use water.)
*Despite all the planning and fretting involved, almost everything is a little piddly detail. If you have a space where everyone can get together, music they can hear well enough to dance to, and a place to dance, you’re okay. Focus on the main point. Everything else is gravy.
Note to parents: Your child does not by any stretch of the imagination “need” to be flown by private jet to Paris for a catered meal while being serenaded by Celine Dion (okay—nobody needs to be serenaded by Celine Dion) followed by a private party in a hotel room with booze. If you are dropping a few grand on this elaborate high school dance, I shudder to think what Junior’s wedding will be like.
*Clothing, decorations, planning, the little extras—it’s all to help foster a sense of Occasion, to suggest that these three hours are somehow different, more vibrant and exciting than any other three hours. As an organizer, you learn how to prompt that sense. But attendees should remember that the more you depend on external cues to get that special sense of Occasion, the fewer Occasions you will have. When you learn how to create that sense on your own, you can have an Occasion any time you choose. This may seem like one of the smallest lessons of Prom, but wait till you get married.

Specter, the GOP, and robocalling

(News-Herald, May 7) So last week I returned home from work to find a message waiting on my answering machine. It was from “Jack” (no last name) who recorded it on behalf of the Republican National Senatorial Committee.
That struck me as odd, because I am a registered Democrat. But robocaller Jack explained that he was calling to help me welcome “your newest Democrat Senator, Arlen Specter.”
Jack followed with old sound bites from George W. Bush. “Arlen Spector is the right man for the U. S. Senate… I can count on this man.” George also said, “He’s a firm ally…when it matters most.”
Jack also shared sound bites from Senator Spector on “important issues to labor and Democrat interest groups.” Spector is then quoted saying he wouldn’t be an automatic 60th vote and gives an example of a pro-labor bill he plans to oppose.
Jack invited me to a website created just for the purpose of “introducing” Spector (www.nrsc.org/meetarlen). It includes various quotes in which Spector says he likes Bush, Rick Santorum and Rush Limbaugh. There’s also an old quote in which he accused Anita Hill of perjury.
I can’t quite figure out what the Republicans are trying to tell me. They agree that these are all awful things and therefore everyone should vote against Specter? They assume I automatically vote for any yahoo with a D in front of his name, so they want me to think of Specter as still an R?
Just as Senate Republicans are slamming Specter for being a Republican, other Republicans are stepping up their castigation of Specter for not being Republican enough (I thought I’d google a good quote, but a search on “good riddance Arlen Specter” turned up 42,000 hits). “He’s a RINO (Republican in name only)” goes the refrain. He’s not pure enough, not on the right side of enough issues.
This emphasis on ideological purity is a new GOP initiative, borrowed from the Democrats. For decades the Dems have demanded that their candidates pass ideological litmus tests; this has been enormously effective in helping Dems lose election after election.
Had they followed their usual procedure, Dems would have nominated Senator Clinton (an outcome so completely predictable that for months the Clintons simply couldn’t believe it wasn’t happening) and Specter would be reminiscing with President McCain about their boyhood adventures back before the invention of dirt.
Instead, the Dems went off script while the GOP pulled Sarah Palin out of a hat, a woman whose only qualification was her ideological purity. After she sent voters running away in waves, the party decided that what it needed was more of that voter-alienating purity. So now Republicans are the new Democrats; they’d rather be Right than win.
Why build a big tent when you can make the old tent seem larger by throwing more people out of it.
Specter claims this is why he left the party. I suppose that’s sort of true. But if you don’t think he’s trying to save his Senate seat, you probably also believe that Barry Bonds bulked up just by lifting weights and eating twinkies.
I honestly can’t tell how Republicans want us to feel about this. Do they want him to win so the Democrats will have to put up a not-really-a-Dem on their side? Are they really seriously using their own party label as a slur? Whether D or R, I expect Spector will do whatever he wants as he always has. When you’ve beaten cancer and been in the Senate longer than the furniture, you probably get feisty that way. One of the odd features of this is that I doubt that party label will make that much difference in Spector’s vote, so in some ways this is just a flap just about the labels.
Never mind what he’s going to do—what will we label him. Will Dems overlook all the things he’s done that they hated just because he’s now wearing their team jersey? Will Reps reject his assistance to their causes because he took their jersey off? Will he now be Smilin’ Ed Rendell’s new best friend?
Political decisions aside, I have always found it sort of inspiring that a man at Specter’s stage in life would want to stay in the Senate. But this whole flap seems to reveal more of the basic hollowness at the heart of US politics.
My buddy Jack Robocall is still making regular postings about Specter on youtube. I hope he’s not too busy to keep in touch.

The Rise of Wolverine and Fall of Marvel

This is "special" to the blog, i.e. my newspaper audience wouldn't be that interested, but I feel like the exercise. If you don't enjoy comics, you'll probably want to skip this one.

I haven't gone to see Wolverine and undoubtedly won't-- I barely tolerated the first X-men flick and barely made it through the second and wouldn't even rent the third one from Netflix.

For me, the ascent of Wolverine as Marvels leading character parallels Marvel's loss of most of what made it an important comics company.

Stan Lee's genius back in the 60's was to re-imagine comic book stories as metaphors. The DC universe was moribund, populated with characters so unimaginably perfect that teen sidekicks were introduced in hopes that young readers could see some character to identify with. What Lee figured out was that it wasn't simply age that made a character identifiable.

His first launch, the Fantastic Four, doesn't really count. It was a genius move of its own, a grafting of monster movie conventions into comics pages (Reed Richards did in fact make his first appearance in one of Lee's monster books). The scientist--man of action--damsel triad was augmented with the teen hot-rodder (think Steven McQueen in The Blob) to create a perfect team to fight the monster of the month. It was smart, but it wasn't what made Marvel great.

That was best personified by Spider-man. For Peter Parker, super powers became a metaphor for everything that sucked about growing up-- new responsibilities and a secret self that made it harder and harder to connect with the people around you. It became the Marvel formula to present a hero who struggled against personal issues (Jules Feiffer once smartly observed that Clark Kent was just Superman without his cape, but Spider-man was just Peter Parker in a costume).

Peter Parker was an unpopular skinny geek. Tony Stark had heart problems. Matt Murdock was blind. Bruce Banner, worst of the lot, had an uncontrollable, destructive secret self. All of them harbored love for a mostly-unattainable woman. All of them found that what made them special separated them from the people around them, made it harder to live a normal life. There wasn't a teenager who didn't get it. Clark Kent may have been the man we wanted to be, but Peter Parker was the guy we were pretty sure, sadly, that we actually were.

The X-men took that concept of the alienation of power and ramped it up. In their first incarnation, they didn't do well. For some reason (perhaps Lee didn't quite yet have a handle on scripting a large group) they had a rep as the talkiest book in the stable. Even some genius work by Neal Adams and Roy Smith didn't save them.

But the 1970's group, created by Len Wein and written thereafter by Chris Claremont, refined the Marvel formula to perfection. These were heroes whose abilities made them outcasts of the society they were sworn to protect.

The centerpiece character was Cyclops, Scott Summers-- quiet, sensitive, and certain that his unique self made it impossible for him to live among "normal" folks, he dedicated his life to his work. Like every other Marvel lead, he had a frustrated love for a woman he thought he could never have because of his nature, and their love story was the cornerstone of the book for decades.

But by the nineties, something was happening in Marvel.

Peter Parker, once a shy skinny geek struggling to get by was a hunky successful photographer with a smokin' hot model girlfriend/fiance/wife. Newer characters, like the Punisher, were simply acting out revenge fantasies-- people who crossed them got shot, a lot.

Marvel heroes had once been metaphors for the search for self and growth and a place in the world, but with a heavy twist-- "With great power comes great responsibility." Somewhere along the way the subtext became "With great power comes the chance to do whatever-the-hell you want to."

No long-standing characters showed this better than the X-men and Wolverine. In his earliest form he was a rough and insensitive bully, a thug who needed to learn to play nice. His crush on Jean Grey came early, and a scene showed him arriving at her hospital room with flowers, sure that he would score big points; instead he is surprised to find her room filled with many other people because it had not occurred to him that she had friends, and this is what friends do.

But after a few years, he was a new Wolverine, his signature line that he is "the best at what he does." He was a fantasy on steroids, able to beat anyone up, a colorful past, comfortable in any setting, man of the world, attractive to numerous babes. Fans clamored mercilessly for Jean Grey to dump that wuss Cyclops and pair up with Wolvie, and while the main continuity line stayed faithful, Marvel never passed up the chance to use alternate realities or mental planes to put the two together.

By the time the movies rolled around, Cyclops, the central character for years, the leader and linchpin and the identifiable character for a generation of readers-- well, he was reduced to minor status.

Once Marvel comics showed us who we were and who we might become. On their best days, they even showed us how we might grow into that person. Now Marvel, led by Wolverine, is simple wish-fulfillment fantasy. We don't want to know who we are-- we just want to imagine being the biggest baddest best mother on the block.

There's nothing wrong with that. Millions of comics have been sold on the promise of attractive fantasy, improbably physiology, and sheer escapism. But for me it has been a slow step backwards, and nothing personifies that regression more than the character of Wolverine, grown to become popular and successful and as perfect and alien as that amazing stranger from the Planet Krypton (it is ironic that as Marvel has become progressively less interesting, DC has become more so-- but that's a discussion for another day). The man of adamantium today is no more interesting than the man of steel used to be.

Growing a Conscience

Folks have called for a lot of things during the Economic Troubles, so much and so often that some days I think one more piece of news about economic downturn will produce a digestive upturn of my lunch.
What is scary about our economic system is that much of the power is in the hands of people who are not elected and over whom we have no control. We have no effective way of telling investment bankers, housing lenders or other ginormous financial institutions that we want them to making venal, stupid choices. It’s that impulse to get come grip on the slippery weasels that leads for calls for more laws and action from Uncle Sugar.
But what ails our system is not a lack of laws or oversight or regulation or deregulation. What we’re missing is what those elements try to make up for, but never can. What we’re missing is just old-fashioned conscience and responsibility.
A sense of responsibility and a well-developed conscience are no guarantee of behavior that everyone will approve. John D. Rockefeller was a serious churchgoer, but even as he economically crushed and manipulated the little guys in the oil region, there’s no reason to think his conscience ever bothered him a day in his life. All the good works he did (and there were plenty, from inventing modern corporate philanthropy to founding important colleges for African –Americans) were not to assuage any guilt he ever felt—they were just the actions he felt were his God-given responsibility for his God-given money.
But the other thing those earlier leaders didn’t have was a bubble. Charles Miller not only lived in Franklin within spitting distance of the men who worked for him, but in many cases he went to church with them every Sunday. And he wanted it that way.
People in power should live near the people that their decisions affect.
I’ve always said that public officials should live among the taxpayers that provide their salaries. Teachers and other school district employees should live in their district, both for of the economic impact and the accountability. If I make decisions affecting the life of your child, I shouldn’t be able to go home and hide from you. I should have to face you in church or the grocery store, and the knowledge that that meeting could occur should influence my choices. I should treat every student I work with as if I’m dealing with my neighbor’s child.
What we often call conscience is sometimes not so much the voice of little angels perched on our shoulders as it is the voice that reminds us that we might have to face the person we just hurt.
I have to believe that if this several-decade bonanza of business bozos had known from the get-go that they would have to personally take the money from individual human hands and flush it down the porcelain portal in front of that now-broken investor—well, I have to think that picture might have at least slowed them down.
It’s a sort of safety feature in humans—we can know something without really feeling the truth of it. I can sit in my corporate office and know, intellectually, that I just brought ruin and disaster on a bunch of folks. But they aren’t folks who live anywhere nearby; I’ll never meet them and I can’t even imagine how they will react.
That’s what’s so striking about moments like the AIG bonuses or the corporate jet trips to beg for taxpayer money—these are guys who have been in the bubble for so long that they have lost the ability to even imagine how people would react to their venal stupidity. They shop at a grocery store where only other fat cats shop, and they don’t know how other voices sound.
Men like General Miller made lots of decisions that were unpopular and unlikable. Certainly their proximity to other mortals did not make them perfect human beings. But there’s a reason that the mayor of a town lives in the town—every day he has to face the people, places and things affected by his decisions. He may make hard choices, but he can walk out his front door able to face people believing he did the right thing. There’s a difference between a clear conscience and an absent one.
There’s no way to give people a conscience implant. But it doesn’t always take the voice of God to fill the gap; sometimes the voice of a neighbor is enough.

Oil City Bicycling

(News-Herald, April 23) I have discovered one more reason to be jealous of Oil City.
I don’t mean merely their politics. Oil City has been on the move the last year or two, and I don’t think it’s because of any clever marketing. The growth of the arts initiative has been great and one or two other pieces are falling into place, but mostly I think Oil City has managed some interesting, robust politics.
I mostly blame the mayor. Small towns are at their best with interesting mayors. It’s true that interesting doesn’t always sweep or patrol the streets, but cities have paid employees for that. It’s a mayor’s job to keep the city interesting, to put a good public face on it, to give it a personality.
Goy Mammolite and Bob Olson certainly gave Franklin an interesting face in their day, and I suppose that I am bitter that none of the interesting people I suggested as mayoral material stepped up. We don’t even have a race for mayor in Franklin, and while our single candidate may be competent, I have no idea if he’s interesting. Certainly a one-man race is not interesting. I mention this now only because there is still time for a write-in campaign, if we can just come up with someone willing to be written.
But that’s my old reason to be jealous of Oil City.
I discovered my new one last weekend when I ventured out on the bike trail. The trail was, as always, a pleasure. The Allegheny Valley Trails folks have given us one of our greatest recreational assets, a long winding stretch of placid pavement that provides a window on some of the greatest scenic splendor in all of Pennsylvania.
I was so energized by the ride upriver that I decided to check out the marked extension of the trail that runs through town.
I do this kind of adventure carefully. I am not a Serious Biker. Bicycling offers a chance to get Really Serious by buying special accessories and toys and clothing in various shades not ordinarily found in nature. I don’t own any of that—I have reached a point in life where I have no illusion that any sort of athletic gear could ever make me appear either cool or hot. So I settle for comfort.
I have several friends who are Serious Bikers. There’s Steve, who rockets down the back roads of Venangoland at speeds that make me uncomfortable in a car, and Paul and Terri who have logged enough bicycle miles to travel to Peru and back 147 times, or Mike who uses biking terminology that sounds like space shuttle parts. They all have great biking stories, though I notice that many of these stories include phrases such as “and then I hit the yak” or “when I woke up in the hospital” or “the doctor said that with therapy I’ll be good as new in a year or twelve.”
So I’m not a Serious Biker. And I am happy to report that even a non-serious biker can navigate the Oil City bike environs with relative ease.
Unlike Franklin, which asks cyclists and pedestrians to battle it out on the sdiewalk, Oil City has actual bike lanes in the street. There are drawbacks to this—Oil City streets include potholes large enough to have their own zip codes—but for the most part it makes navigation easy and uncomplicated.
The signage is good, though in one or two spots it’s an advantage to already know one’s way around Oil City. And the bike paths provide a biker’s version of the Oil City one-way maze.
But (ignoring hilly parts) it is much easier to navigate through Oil City by bike than it is to pedal about Franklin. It may even be easier to get around Oil City by bicycle than to get around Oil City by car. (It should be noted, however, that in both cities your troubles begin when you decide to get off the bicycle and park it somewhere.)
The Oil City leg only takes you to the top of the North Side; the next adventure will be to orienteer my way to Oil Creek park and on to Titusville. This summer’s goal is a Titusville to Emlenton ride.
In the meantime, if you love the bike trail, too, remember to support the AVTA folks with some cold hard cash. Anything worth having is worth paying for.

Venangoland TEA Party

(News-Herald, April 16) As a fake journalist I occasionally take on a story that can’t be covered from my home. Someone invited to the TEA party, so Tuesday night I hightailed it over to the Rocky Grove Fire Hall for the big tax protest meeting.
The tea party rallies have been a growing phenomenon over the past several years. This year the American Family Association either decided to help or co-opted the business, depending on who’s talking (there’s a small internet tempest among some disgruntled “original” Tea Party organizers). They clearly didn’t hurt; there were thousands of these rallies this week.
Venangoland’s tea party was an AFA affair. I disagree in the extreme with some of AFA’s behavior and beliefs, but I also believe it’s dumb to assume that if someone is wrong about A, I should assume they are wrong about B through Z. Since I don’t think an American tax revolt has a lot to do specifically with God or gay folks, I was happy to listen to some political rhetoric.
A wide variety of folk showed up. I saw Christian bikers and Libertarians, jean jackets and faux leopard furs, a variety of office-holders and office-holder wannabes. There were plenty of flags (traditional American and “Don’t tread on me”) and signs ranging from the direct (“Don’t put our grandchildren in debt”) to the obscure (a man holding up a small grave marker for the Federal Reserve). Inside, tables set up by WAWN/AFA handed out materials and Constitutions. Outside it was spring-in-Venangoland chilly and wettish.
Some of the content of these rallies is pretty predictable. There is the reading of the Declaration of Independence, noting that some of the offenses of the 18th century Brits are being replayed today. This routine was first employed during the Lincoln administration and has been trotted out regularly ever since.
Which is not to say that protestors don’t have a point. The government spends way too much imaginary money on stupid things and sticks its nose in many places where it causes more harm than help. This is just as true as the cold and mud of a Western PA spring; if you are surprised or shocked by either, I can only assume that you have been living in a cave.
Plenty of rallyers were against spreading government involvement and spending and socialization and a congressional process that thwarts the thoughtful involvement of all representatives. The cynical side of me wonders where these people were for the last eight or fifty years.
Of course, wasteful government spending is money the feds give the other guy. Ed Scurry, Venangoland’s eternal Democrat, was there with a sign that read “I love Medicaid, Department of Defense…” and a host of other federal programs.
But I nit pick. If you’re finally at the party, I guess it doesn’t really matter how long it took you to get there. And Jane Richey and her crew provided a well-crafted tea party.
She is a smooth and capable speaker, and she had clearly come prepared to work a mixed crowd. She kept her own presentation largely non-partisan, and though she ended with a prayer, acknowledged that not necessarily everyone would want to take part in that portion. She even handled unscripted interruptions (hint: what can’t you ignore in the RGVFD parking lot at 7 pm?)
Other speakers appeared by tape. Rev. Peter Marshall Jr. offered some history of grass roots revolts (the crowd’s attention wandered during the lesson). Wingnut Alan Keyes observed that the government can now control the will of its citizens. He talked about “these people” and how they are overthrowing the system of constitutional government so that “this is no longer a government in which the people are sovereign.” His line “if it [the government] is really broke, throw it out and start over” was the first big applause line of the night.
Some familiar foes were invoked (the media, and whoever it is we need to Take Back Our Country from—other voters who imagine they’re Americans, too?) and folks were given a chance to sign a Declaration of Dissatisfaction. Jane observed that we don’t have money problems so much as moral problems in this country and that people should actually do something rather than counting on others to guard their interests. Lots of folks stayed to sign the Declaration. Throughout, a videographer circulated to capture footage to be made into a Youtube video (I’m pretty sure nobody did that during the Lincoln administration).

Easter with Thoreau

(News-Herald, April 9) You remember Henry David Thoreau. Went out and lived in a little cabin next to Walden Pond. Wrote a book about it. That’s about as much as most folks remember. If they remember much else, it’s the picture of some monk-like stick-in-the-mud anti-social fuzzy-headed philosopher.
This is at least partly the fault of those of us who inflict Henry on our high school English students. Sometimes we get more wrapped up in the highlights instead of the important details. So if Henry is mis-remembered, I have to take some of the blame myself.
It’s unfortunate, because Thoreau’s work strikes me as strangely relevant once again. But let’s clarify a few points before we get into that.
Walden Pond was not in the wilderness, and Thoreau did not cut all human ties while he lived there. He was about twenty minutes from town, which he visited often. He had parties. He grew beans and sold them. He delivered lectures about the experience even as he was having it; audiences found them witty and fun.
Thoreau’s move was not some sort of philosophical wild impulse. It was a response to his own situation and the state of the world at the time. He had gone to the big city to try to break into professional writing, and found the big city a tough nut to crack. He had worked as a handyman and au pair for his buddy Emerson, his days filled with looking after other people’s families and property.
The state of the world? In that pre-Civil War period, the country was in the grips of a tremendous economic downturn. Unemployment was high, prospects poor, the great experiment of capitalism apparently collapsing under its own flaws. Boy, just imagine a country in that kind of mess!
So Thoreau’s action was not an attempt to escape the world and rise, unencumbered by ordinary life, into some cerebral mental plane.
It was, instead, an eminently practical attempt to come to grips with the world. It’s not a reality escape—it’s a reality check. For himself, he was seeing if it was possible to do the work he wanted to do with just enough space to focus easily. For the country, it was almost a dare. So you think you can’t have a life without a pile of money and a big house packed full of stuff? Let’s see if that’s true.
The parallels to our own time seem obvious. The economic mess is, well, a mess. But it’s also a reality check. Last week a headline said “$500,000 home sold for $200,000.” Well, no. If the house sold for $200,00, it was a $200,000 house. Whether a McMansion, a hovel, or a box of beanie babies, any commodity is worth exactly what someone will pay for it. Pretending it has some other monetary value over and above that is invitation to disaster.
We’ve run headlong for a while now, our list of things we Must Have getting longer and longer. I don’t want to suggest for a moment that real human beings aren’t suffering real hurt in this mess, but as a country and a culture, we’re forced to deal with some perhaps overdue questions—how should each of us go about making a life in this world? Thoreau didn’t suggest we should all live in tiny cabins. He was suggesting that we all ask ourselves what parts of our lives we should really care about.
It’s an appropriate question for Easter week. The events of Easter capped a revolution that was far less, yet far more, than people had been looking for. People had clamored at God for generations with a long list of Things We Need From You To Make Life Good. I like to think that Jesus’s story is God’s way of saying, “Look, let’s talk about what you can really afford and what you really need. Let’s talk about what you really want your life to be.”
Thoreau’s intention was to live deliberately, to do things on purpose, which seems like a simple enough goal. Yet most of us are content to flop through whatever hoops are set before us by accident and habit. Thoreau believed that any day could be the day that we begin the life we choose to create for ourselves instead of one we drifted into, seduced by the world. Times can be scary, but as it turns out, we can lose much of what we want and still have everything we need.

Unplugged Progress Report

(News-Herald, April 2) Last fall I decided that it would be a good idea for me to save some of the money and time that television cable was sucking away. I’ve now been living without cable for six months and I’ve already learned some lessons about life unplugged.
The very first thing I learned was how much company I have. A surprisingly large number of Venangoland residents stopped me in the store or sent an e-mail to let me know that they, too, had disconnected. Apparently plenty of people live full, rewarding lives without that steady stream of electronic marketeering.
There have been a few things I’ve missed—the Macy’s parade, the occasional news story, the—well, you know, I remember missing some things at the time, but as I sit here and try to conjure up the list, I’m stumped. And that perhaps is one of the surprising parts about life without cable—how quickly I’ve stopped missing things.
I did have a handful of shows that I watched regularly, and I figured I’d miss the habit. I fully expected to be hurrying online to stay current with many shows, but it hasn’t happened.
I thought I might miss tv news as well, but reading is a great substitute for getting bombarded with short, quick, ill-created blasts of tv news-like substance. I read the News-Derrick in print, several other newspapers on line, and I swear I actually feel smarter than when I absorbed the tube-based fast food news.
I never said I was going to go all cave man. I still have a television, but now it’s hooked up to a dvd player. I am a major Netflix fan, and I have watched my way through the complete run of a few series, both modern and classic. I’ve watched a slew of movies, and lots of fun documentaries.
But the biggest change is that I have become more deliberate in my tv choices. I used to just turn the tube on for background noise and company—now I don’t watch anything that I don’t purposefully put in the dvd player myself. Watching tv this way forces me to consider some of my tastes in viewing (I must, for instance, confront the fact that I have turned out to be one of those people who thinks documentaries are fun).
I watch way less television than I ever used to. And that means that I watch far less advertising than ever before.
Watching a modern tv series on disc, one can’t help noticing that an “hour” show actually runs about 42-44 minutes. In other words, watching a program on “regular” tv means spending about 1/3 of your time being bombarded by ads.
When I encounter “regular” tv, it’s the advertising that I find most striking—the show is interrupted so often, and for so long! And so many of the ads are sooooo bad (really, whoever’s spending money on “Rediscover Your Oil City” might as well take the money and staple it to the ice catchers).
Many 19th century novels (think Charles Dickens) weren’t really meant to be novels, but the collected chapters of weekly magazine serials. Collected episodes of tv series might also be the birth of a new form, a long rambling narrative that can’t be viewed in one sitting, yet works better as one big work than it does as many little pieces. NCIS, Arrested Development, Lost—all somehow more interesting in large continuous chunks than as weekly bits. Do be careful of the classic shows—they aren’t always as good as you remember (sorry, F-Troop).
Being freed of “regular” tv also means being freed of the clock. The network schedule doesn’t tell me when things stop and start.
I confess that there have been times when I have really missed having something stupid to do while I turn off my brain. For that sort of brain novacain, nothing beats television. But it turns out that with practice, I can get used to having my brain awake and working more hours of every day. And occasional bouts of restlessness sure beat discovering that I’ve just had several hours sucked out of my life by a show so stupid that even the bacteria on the tv screen are insulted by it.
I know there are folks who felt sure I’d eventually fold and go back to “regular” tv. I wondered myself if this would be a short-lived experiment. But between dvds, the internet, books, music, the river and the bike trail, I don’t think I’ll ever go back.

Parental Pride

(News-Herald, October 2002) I had the pleasure of visiting with young Keegan Hoover last weekend (I believe that his parents were in the vicinity as well). Keegan is one of those rare babies who’s actually as cute as his parents believe him to be. Walking him around the yard until he fell asleep in my arms reminded me of how much I liked the whole baby part of parenting.
I still have fond memories of the days when my non-mobile daughter could sleep in an open suitcase. I have equally fond memories of having my son fall asleep lying on my chest. I remain, to this day, a sucker for babies.
I also liked the toddler stage, the stage at which they were so free and open and just a big bundle of raw, exposed heart. At this age everyone can dance; I videotaped my children dancing decorum-free to their two favorite tunes of the time (“Walk the Dinosaur” by Was (Not Was) and Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”). The only people who will enjoy that sight as much as I do will be my future grandchildren-- the invention of the home video camera brought a quantum leap in the art of embarrassing your children.
I have always said that as much as I miss the previous stage, and call it my favorite so far, the next stage is always even more fun. In the last six months, I have discovered my children entering a new and even more remarkable stage. You experienced parents may recognize it; those of you trundling along behind me can look forward to it.
This stage involves a change in a dynamic that has existed since birth. That dynamic is simple. Let’s face it; only one baby in a hundred is actually cute. Most newborns range in appearance from “hairless ape” to “mildly alarming” to “cute as a sharpe that’s been squeezed through a garden hose.” But that’s just the objective view, and no one who’s related to the baby takes it. My two children were the most beautiful babies that I have ever seen, and nothing will ever change that.
Parents of small infants don’t need cable because they can sit and watch their progeny’s face for hours. Every expression is exciting, moving, hilarious, touching. Refrigerator art is an unending source of joy because you are seeing the expression, the creation, of your own flesh and blood.
You remember how this small person in front of you once fit between your palm and the crook of your elbow, and pretty much anything they do is astonishing. You are proud of every achievement because that is your child who has done it. Some parents become stuck at that stage and become insufferable (“Junior was the best looking person in the police line-up!”) though I would rather see that parent than one who simply ceases to feel any pride at all.
Beyond that level of pride lies an even better one.
You notice it first when other people begin to compliment your child. It takes a while to sink in—at first you mistake it for politeness, an effort to praise your child as a kindness to you. But then you realize that these people are praising your child’s achievements for reasons completely unrelated to you. It has become all about your child’s achievement.
So you look at your own children and realize that they are capable, able, admirable human beings in their own right, completely apart from any connection to you.
We should not be slow to feel pride for our children—not the kind of pride that reflects back on us, but which spotlights them. I think it’s a mistake to view young people as threatening creatures that need to be kept off the streets night and day. I have been proud of many people’s children over the years: the ones who traveled abroad to learn about the suffering in other cultures, the ones who learned how to run a successful business, the ones who stumbled and fell and found their way, the ones who grew up strong and good. I am not proud of them because they are somehow mine (they never were) or because I somehow made them better people (they found that in themselves) but because I feel a sort of humble awed pride in seeing what great people they have become.
It has been a great revelation to feel that while looking at my own children, to discover they have grown to be fine people. They have grown into people I would be proud to know if I had just met them today. It is the best stage of parenting so far. May all other parents be so fortunate.

Air Traveler Dysfunction

(News-Herald, March 26) My daughter came home last week, having completed the great trans-continental commute once again. My family has logged more air miles in the last couple of years than in all the preceding decades.
When I’m at PIT it’s usually to meet someone who is coming in after 11 at night, which means there are only a couple handfuls of flights arriving at the same time. PIT late at night is a quiet, quiet place. I made better-than-average time on my late-night cruise to the Pittsburgh airport, so I had plenty of opportunity to think about air travel as I rattled around that empty slice of concrete realty.
The effects that rippled out from 9/11 have been discussed at great length, but I’m not sure we’ve heard much about one group that must have been hurt badly in these high-security years—the people who built shops and restaurants on the wrong side of the security fence.
PIT has a great little mall. How many families must have dropped a bundle waiting to see someone off in the old days? Now those days are gone.
Some airports have been hit harder than others. If you’re a traveler, PIT and Philadelphia and Denver are all pretty nice on the inside with plenty of good places to eat and shop. Denver looks a lot like the inside of Pittsburgh, only strung out in one long cardiac-inducing stretch. Chicago has a really cool light sculpture underground. Las Vegas has a nice view and plenty of gambling right in the terminal while you wait, just in case you don’t feel the airlines have sucked up enough of your money.
No airport I’ve seen has been ravaged as badly as Los Angeles. LAX has been turned from a neatly-arranged airport complex into a mess of seven separate terminals. Heaven help you if you are connecting through LAX and have to change airlines—you must leave the airport and come back in through security which, depending on the airline, can be a horrific mess.
Airline service can be as predictable as a roll of the dice. Last Friday we waited with my daughter’s fellow-travelers as the luggage was unloaded by, apparently, one arthritic old gentleman whose prosthetic arm was nailed to his wooden leg.
One would think that baggage handling has become a simpler line of work since travelers now routinely try to jam the contents of a small U-Haul trailer into the overhead compartment, the better to avoid the additional costs for checking any luggage larger than a toothbrush.
The attempt to avoid checking luggage has led to larger loading stampedes. Everyone’s seat is already assigned, but there is only so much room in those overhead compartments, and travelers are determined to get every last family jewel jammed into that space.
Airports are not the place to see the milk of human kindness rise to the surface. Air travel seems to give an extra boost to that part of the human brain that believes that other people are not real and need not be considered. It’s no wonder that terrorists can blend into an airport crowd; on an airplane, almost everyone is a possible sociopath.
My son is large and imposing-looking and in his trips other travelers seem reluctant to mess with him. When they traveled together, he was the one-man flying wedge that carried his sister and himself to the next gate through crowds of people (unconscious, as only a terminal-dweller can be, that the space they occupied had any purpose other than for them to stand and stare blankly). This is good, because my daughter, who is now a graduate student, has been mistaken more than once for a high school freshman (“Aren’t you brave to travel alone,” cooed one kind elderly lady just last week.)
The rudeness of fellow-travelers, combined with the odd combination of frantic rushing with tedious waiting, can be a great economic booster for the flying biz. Getting home a few hours later can seem like a great way to save money until you are sitting in a terminal for interminable hours over a brain-numbing paperback novel—that’s when an extra fifty bucks to get home at a decent hour seems like a wise investment.
I can imagine the perfect marketing strategy for flights out of Franklin. After someone drags the car to PIT, parks it and contemplates the cost of leaving it there, struggles through security, and is jostled through that massive concrete cave by surly selfish travelers—that’s the time to hit him with the sign saying, “NOW does it seem too expensive??”

Teacher Strikes

(News-Herald, March 19) We’ve heard a long series of rumblings out of Cranberry School District about the state of teacher contract negotiations. Nobody likes to think about a teacher strike, but from out here in the cheap seats, it doesn’t seem unlikely.
Cranberry’s approach to teachers has always been puzzling. Given the most robust tax base in Venangoland, CASD could easily declare that they were going to become the premiere district of the region, a drawing card for new residents and growing economy, by upping their teacher pay just enough to outbid every other area district for the best teacher talent. Nobody sells a community with, “Come here. Our schools always get the last pick of teachers looking for jobs.”
(Before anyone asks why I pick on other school districts while never going after the one where I work, the answer is that my bosses and I are contractually bound to avoid picking on each other in public.)
I’ve some experience with the strike route—I was the president of the Franklin Teachers Association when we struck in 2002—so I can pass on a little of what I learned.
Teachers do not strike easily. As a group, we are big on behaving ourselves and following the rules. Yes, there are always some out front of the pack looking fairly agitated. But before anyone hits a picket line, there are many many meetings involving a hundred variations on “Isn’t there something else we could do instead??”
As with any high-charged time of stress and conflict, you have some choice about your opponents, but you can’t choose your friends. This is often unfortunate for both parties.
Some folks are surprised that teachers take some of this stuff personally. Those folks should not be surprised. Teachers identify closely with their jobs; for most of us, “teacher” is part of our identity. It’s not a suit of clothes we put for work; it’s our skin. If you say things like, “That’s just not a very important job,” we take it personally.
For many teachers, the hardest part of tough contract negotiations is confronting how little some people think of our lives’ work. It can be tough to be told repeatedly that your job is stupid and unimportant, or to face someone who is angry because you won’t just do as you’re told, as if you’re an unruly servant who insists on speaking even when not spoken to.
At the same time, teachers can get so caught up in our own work universe that we forget the universe that surrounds it. Invariably some teacher will trot out a comment like, “Do you know how much a teacher is paid in Mount Lebanon?!” The only appropriate response to that is, “Do you know how much a house costs in Mount Lebanon? Or groceries?” Venangoland-style teacher pay and benefits are not great compared to other corners of the universe, but we don’t live and work in other corners of the universe. We live and work here.
Every contract dispute gives rise to teachers who want massive raises plus ice cream on Sundays, as well as taxpayers who think that teachers should be paid no more than a fast food cashier. Both groups need a reality check.
A board may try to splinter a union into warring factions, or agitate the community. Sometimes it works. But it’s a short-sighted tactic; once the contract is settled, that splintered staff has to work with each other and the community to keep schools successful.
Both sides can get too heated. During our strike, we picketed board members’ homes. Heat of the moment and all that—I won’t make excuses, and I can only speak for myself. But that was a mistake; that was wrong.
And that great old line “This is our final offer” is just dumb. The final offer will be the one that both sides sign.
Teachers need to use PSEA expertise and experience, just as boards need to use PSBA. But those groups can only advise, and they will never know your community—where you will still live and work after a contract—as well as you do.
An unsettled contract is not a contest to be won; that’s why the best solution is a contract that both sides have reasons to dislike. An unsettled contract is a problem to solve, a problem that they share. The most important thing for all parties to remember is this: when the contract is eventually settled, everyone will still have to live and work together.

Lenten Reflection

(News-Herald, March 12) We’re now in the midst of Lent, a season that the Christian church has observed since almost its very beginnings.
Of course, people are commonly familiar with Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) as a celebration of pre-Lenten excess. The idea is to indulge one last time before entering a season of self-sacrifice. In typical human fashion, we have an easier time remembering the over-indulgence part.
The term “lent” comes from the old Germanic name for springtime, and while many of us are a little fuzzy about the purpose, the general list of Things To Do includes fasting, penitence, simplicity, and self-denial in an attempt to grow in faith, a little spiritual spring cleaning. It’s not supposed to be like a New Years resolution with an expiration date.
When Lent is observed by folks who don’t put much thought into the whole business, it ends up being like the worst relationship therapy session ever.
Therapist: We’ve agreed that the relationship between the two of you is kind of a mess, and I thought today we’d talk about how far you’re willing to go to set things right.
God: Well, I thought I could take the form of a mortal human, setting aside my power over all creation, and then suffer a horrible death to pay for sins I never actually committed.
Mortal Human: I figured I could go a month without eating Twinkies.
I’m not sure you get any big credit for giving up things you shouldn’t be doing anyway. “I gave up robbing little old ladies for Lent,” doesn’t sound all that virtuous. Likewise, no fair giving up things that you haven’t actually gotten around to doing. I get no points for a Lenten decision not to sleep with Carmen Electra.
And we’re not just supposed to give something up. Part of the Lenten tradition is almsgiving—contributing to charity, helping the less fortunate. If I take all the money I would have spent on Twinkies and buy a few cases of Ding Dongs instead, I’ve missed part of the point. That Twinkie money should go to a good cause.
Not everyone is a fan of Lent. Many hard-core Protestant denominations find the whole business entirely too Catholic Churchy, while in modern times many churches rejected the season as too heavy on guilt and sin and just generally too much of a downer. The ashes of Ash Wednesday are about 1) being mortal and destined to die and 2) being sorry that we have behaved so poorly in our brief lifetime. Neither observation will make you the life of the party.
Which may be why this is a good year for remembering Lent—there’s not much of a party going on right now. I don’t have any deep analysis of the current mess other than economic messes are always hard to sort out because they involve some hard-to-quantify combination of real problems pushing people over the edge and people just freaking out and jumping.
Nor am I fan of cheery sayings like “Tough times don’t last; tough people do.” Too chirpy, too glib, and not always true. But I do like Easter, and one lesson I take from Easter is that life can get pretty rotten and scary, but that’s no excuse to stop trying to be a decent human being.
Lent provides a nice prelude to that, a chance to remember that we can give up some of our toys and still be ourselves, maybe even more so. Take away our uber-expensive stuff, and it turns out we’re the same people we ever were. Just with less stuff.
Occasionally circumstances can snap us out of our privileged complacency. We see people who suffer real catastrophes or catastrophic lapses in judgment. Watching people soldier on through disaster reminds us that A) mostly we suffer not at all and B) there but for the grace of God…
But there’s no reason to wait for circumstances to remind us of our humanity. A good dose of pancakes and ashes can be an occasion to remember that other people exist, that we all share some troubles, and we could stand to get over ourselves. The oddly encouraging thing about remembering that we aren’t all that great is realizing that we aren’t all that bad, either.
I don’t mean to suggest that real suffering isn’t hard and painful. But forty days of self-denial can help us rediscover gratitude, strength and empathy for our fellow strugglers.

Winter Sports Champion Season

(News-Herald, March 5)It’s championship season in PA high school sports, the season that captures the most attention from local fans. I like the winter sports. By which I mean the high school versions. I still occasionally try to enjoy professional sports, but endless seasons of contests between squads of over-privileged millionaires battling in allegiance to whoever is writing their next fat check don’t really send me. I know that there’s a trickle down effect, that some high school athletes are already motivated by dreams of future big fat paychecks of their own. But mostly high school sports can show you a lot about the human heart, striving and pushing to achieve.
I like basketball because of the team factor. The most exciting teams are just that—teams. It’s a fast-paced version of the part of life that is all about fitting together, working together, finding a connection and rhythm as a group.
There’s also a certain random suspense. Whether the team is hot or cold, fast or slow, in synch or out—on any given night, just about any team can beat just about any other team. And because you can have a direct effect on your opponents, it reveals character—how far will you go? Will you fight with class, back down, or become a thug?
Swimming, on the other had, is interesting because of the absence of those factors. Swimmers are great students of each other. Basketball players may have game films, but swimmers go on line day after day, checking results, looking at records, memorizing times. When a swimmer steps into a pool, he already know exactly what his opponents are capable of—and there isn’t a thing he can do to stop them.
So the best swimmers know how to dig down and extract every last molecule of grit, because the only obstacles they can control are the ones inside themselves. Swimmers know more ways to play mental tricks on themselves than any other athletes.
The sport I don’t attend as often as I ought to is wrestling. And I’m not the only one. Wrestling is the most woefully under-appreciated high school sport we have.
The physical demands are enormous, and they are immediate. Swimmers have no direct combat with their opponents at all. A basketball player has to fight an opponent for control of a ball and some space on the court. A wrestler has to fight another person for control of his own body.
That’s not easy. Spectators often question why the wrestler didn’t just hook his foot back a bit farther, or grab the leg that was right there. What you forget, if you didn’t have a larger sibling or at least haven’t been beaten up by him in a few years, is that it’s hard to know exactly where everyone’s arms and legs are when all you can see if the floor that your face is mushed into.
Wrestling has enormous mental demands as well (the common assumption is that wrestlers are the dim bulbs in the scholar-athlete chandelier, which is just not right—Franklin’s Cory Ace, for one, was as smart as any student I’ve ever taught). There’s no hiding on the mat, nothing for the crowd to see but you. Other sports certainly have moments of solitary struggle, but for a wrestler, that’s all there is. Other sports offer a full field of spectacle—in wrestling there are just two guys out on the mat.
And while outcomes aren’t as clearly fore-ordained as in swimming, many wrestlers have to walk onto that mat knowing that they’re facing someone stronger who is likely to make them look helpless in front of a full gym. Certainly guts, commitment and heart can be important in all high school sports, but I can’t imagine how a wrestler could hope to succeed at all without them.
Maybe that’s why more people don’t go to wrestling matches. In basketball, there a hundreds reason to lose. In swimming, the action goes on separately, impersonally, side by side. But wrestlers lose in each other’s faces. It’s raw. Watching a wrestler get badly beaten can be like seeing a singers step forward for a big solo and botching it badly—your gut twists in embarrassment, even when you know there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.
The unfortunate part of post-season play is the guarantee that most athletes play until they end their seasons, or careers, with a loss. Even so, I hope each athlete (and families and friends) take the opportunity to look back at the season with pride.