Pinch Yourself

  PINCH.

Me and sis...a few years before I became a jerk.

    You can be in one.  Once a year you can choose to not wear green and receive one. You can come through in one.  My Granny mentioned a pinch once in one of our table-top conversations with my Pepsi and her ever-present coffee.  She said, “if you need to find yourself, just reach down and pinch.” I am sure that my little kid brain knew that was a great line, because 44 years later I remember it with a smile.  She must have been referring to some book or other feel-good fad about ways to “find yourself.”  

                Like my dad, I picked up some of my philosophy of life from Pauline. The whole family did. Between Pall Malls and Taster’s Choice the gems would collect for you.  Once when my cousin Bobby and I were running roughshod in some arrogant young-dude-teen way, our female cousins complained to Granny.  She did not tell them how to handle it, just where our early attempts at mansplaining and elitism emanated from.  She told them, “David and Bobby think they are God Almighty.”

               

  I was observing young kids walking with their dad yesterday.  I was on vacation and my mind was free and maybe the surge of organic, fair-trade coffee was helping me find myself.  I felt a pinch though as I passed a Latino man and his three small, beautiful children. As I walked towards them on a neighborhood sidewalk at 11 am, on a perfect day in Santa Rosa, California, I swear he pulled his children closer to him as we passed.  Their eyes seemed troubled.  I felt the pinch of being a threat to someone else.  Children like them are in cages and men that look like me not only made it happen, but are the loudest cheerleaders for tearing families apart in our country. 

                I have to pinch myself as observe large numbers of of citizens joyfully celebrating their immigration “win” and relishing the horror that the rest of us are feeling.  I don’t know if we need to find our true self as a nation or if we have pinched ourselves and discovered that racism, intolerance and comfort with authoritarianism are the truth that steers us.

Summer Reading

    Have you ever felt a little reluctant to tell people about a "classic" you are reading? If you are a few years removed from those glorious school days of youth people will often say, "you haven't read that" accompanied by a look of sadness for your unenriched life. 

    I just finished reading The Pearl, by John Steinbeck. Go ahead, sigh and make that "tsk-tsk" sound. If you haven't read it or cannot remember if you have read it, it is required for you to say, "I think I read that in Mrs. Jenkins class in 9th grade." 

      I loved the book.  My superstar reader wife will probably read it now.  She reads almost everything and then, just for fun, she reads whatever I read as a literary dessert.  I am not sure why I often turn to Steinbeck for my first book of the summer after a year of teaching. Actually, the answer is easy- the distance from the front cover to the back cover usually looks pretty short and I need a "doable win" to kick off the season.

        I read Travels with Charley: In Search of America by Steinbeck to kick off my summer a couple of years ago.  I was reading it during the run up to the Presidential election of 2016 and Steinbeck was commenting on the Nixon/Kennedy race during his 1960 road journal.  That book still makes me daydream about the future truck and dog that I want to ramble across America with. But, to change gears (ahem...) The Pearl hit me like a beautiful uppercut to the gut.  I sat in my suburban American backyard, yet somehow was in a canoe escaping the heat and humidity of a Mexican summer by leaping into blue-green water to gather oysters and maybe much more.
   

   Kids need to read...more...alot more. So do I.  Screen reading in your palm is amazing.  It is addictive. I realize though, that "phone reading" is usually grazing and not feasting.  I cannot recall much from the last dozen articles I have read on educational innovation, current events or technology, but if asked (please don't) I could probably draw a detailed timeline of The Pearl and relate the lessons, symbolism and emotion of the book to boyhood memories, my philosophy, and those BIG life questions.  I might even happily connect the message of the book to debates we have today about poverty, wealth, happiness, morality etc... Reading is fundamentally amazing. 
   
     I feel a quick "shout-out" to my phone is needed. The ability to

read and try to guess what a word means in the context of a story can be fun. It is even more fun to possess the superpower to instantly ask the Cosmos (or Google) for a vocab lesson.  My new vocab knowledge from The Pearl below. Match the word to the picture and write an essay describing how... 😂

Hmmm...

?...

  

This is.....

Freshet      Legerdemain
        Pulque      

     

"Everyday Amazing"

 

  -"Guest post" from a fictitious but cool 3rd-4th grader.. 😊
I have a pup and he's amazing. I mean his name is "Amazing." That was my little sister's idea.  Everyday Amazing walks to school with me. Amazing is always wagging a "hello" to the graddaddy with the Veteran's hat who volunteers picking up trash in front of our school. One day I saw Amazing with our road guard playing with some kids after everybody crossed. Amazing is everywhere. People tell me they see Amazing and smile.

   After school I tell Amazing stories about my teacher and he sits and listens. I love my teacher. I want to be the greatest teacher ever someday. I want to teach Amazing things too, like when he can't do something. I told him that he can't can't walk right on his leash "yet." I learned about "yet" last year from Mrs. Robles. I know it's true, I really am getting better at fractions and everything else!

    Well, summer is here and Amazing and I are playing and reading together more and I can see him getting smarter everyday. My teacher told me the same thing. 
                           
  On the last day of school

I met my new teacher for next year. He hasn't met my pup. I asked him if I could bring Amazing with me to class every day next year. He said that we all should. I like him already!

 - Julie, 3rd 4th grade!