Last Day of School Edition

Melancholy - noun - a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause

The ebb and flow of the 'school' year is all I've ever known. Since I began preschool, age 3, until today, age 44, my summers' starts have not been defined by the Summer Solstice but rather by some random date selected by adults as the 'Last Day of School!' To multitudes of students, the last day of school is cause for celebration. Vivid memories of several last days of school dance through my mind's eye from childhood and all were joyous occasions. Released from education's calendrical bonds to the freedom of lazy summer days, a young boychildman knew no other emotion but pure happiness!

I was, however, one of an odd group of children. I LOVED school - everything about it! My friends were there and I saw them five times a week. I was smart - admittedly without ever working very hard at being 'smart' - and could get good grades without much mental effort. I got to climb on now banned due to immense danger cool metal structures or play kickball or run to the big tree at the edge of the playground at least TWO times a day! The school day completed, I would ride home and watch a cartoon or two before being sucked into the vortex of boredom that was pre-tech childhood. By five o'clock, my friends and I had morphed into leisurely Einsteins attempting to discover a new way to play an old game - no YouTube videos provided!

Summer was - by extension - a colossal after-school voyage of discovery. Sailing on our bicycles like Ferdinand Magellan or Vasco da Gama across the oceans previously unseen, the first weeks of June called us to explore every nook and cranny of our neighborhood. Gertrude Jekyll said, 'What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of promise of earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind us that its fresh young beauty will ever fade.' And boy were those first few weeks of no school perfect and beautiful! Once we had extracted every precious secret from our asphalt-paved journeys, summers would fade into a familiar pattern of monotony which would quickly have me looking forward to school again. Shortly after the last ashes of July 4th fireworks had brightened the night sky and floated slowly down to earth, I was ready for school to begin anew.

Some pieces of my outlook have never changed - I still LOVE school! The 'Last Day of School' is joyous but not in the childlike version. I celebrate now with a sense of melancholy I find indescribable. A feeling that I could have done more - I could have taught better - I could have reached another student who was struggling - I could have helped another teacher in time of need ... but mostly a sense of time expired. As the sands slip away, the alchemy of time and memories veers toward the territory of escaped dreams and unrealized hopes. The 'Last Day' finish line is beckoning and inevitable, crushed against the desire to be and do more in the classroom. It is between this Scylla and Charybdis where my melancholy dwells as the first days of summer freedom appear.

Okay ... on to audience participation!

When we last spoke I asked your opinion about speed and driving in the left lane of multi-lane highways. I even got several texts and emails!! There was no definitive answer - two said I should slow down (thanks Mom!) and three said too many people cruise in the left lane instead of just using it as a passing lane. My two cents are that you should not DRIVE in the left lane. You are not the police, sheriff or highway patrol. You are not in charge of speed control. The left lane is for PASSING. If you are not passing, then you should move to the right and allow the person who wants to pass you to do so. So help a fellow American out if you are one of the estimated 40 million people driving long distance this Memorial Day weekend (and every other weekday and weekend!) and move right if there are faster drivers around you.

This weekend is a sportsman delight - at least until the games are played and races run. It's one of my favorite weekends of the year! Saturday sees my beloved Arsenal Gunners take on Chelski DirtyRussianMoneyBlues Chelsea Football Club (I will NEVER like Russia or Russian owned things due to the Cold War! 'Merica! The Cuban Missile Crisis! Ronald Reagan! Rocky over Drago! The Miracle on Ice!) in the FA Cup Finals at Wembley Stadium. COYG!!! (If you don't know what that means then you don't care anyway!) Sunday is a race fan's cornucopia trifecta - Monaco Grand Prix/Indy 500/Southern Coca-Cola 600. Monday is Memorial Day afternoon baseball - nothing more American than that. While I'm soaking these events in simultaneously through multiple screens, I will tip an ice-cold Miller Lite (embedded advert!) and thank God for the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our great country.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend everyone!

All the feels ....

Over the last five days, I have witnessed nearly 2000 young men and women cathartically release the last vestiges of childhood with the flip of a tassel across a mortarboard cap. A flowing gown so proudly worn in their moment of achievement is shed, a cicadian shell reminder of where they had once toiled mostly unseen. Freed from the conventions of mandatory schooling inside brick boxes, these 2000 young men and women crawl inexorably toward adulthood wide-eyed (although thankfully not wide-red-eyed like our friendly brooding cicadas!) with optimism of a story yet unwritten but grand. The world in all its beauty opens before them as they flex their wings in flight to destinations knowingly unknown. Wiser souls, cynically hardened by life, rejoice in this nostalgic flit to a time when they too shared a wide-eye optimism of endless and undiscovered possibilities. Our culture's true celebration of youth is not tied to sinewy muscles and aerobic capacity. Instead we celebrate a youthful return, however briefly, to a time when the optimistic possibilities of life were at their widest and wildest in our future imaginations. Metamorphosis complete, open air ahead!

1,198 of the names I heard called held varying degrees of familiarity to me. Some were students in my class, former teammates in youth sports, kids from the neighborhood, school friends or children of my friends. The overwhelming majority were simply a short swirl of sound waves which would visit my mind briefly before fading into the deafening silence of never again. Two names were especially significant - having known one since she was nine and the other since he was a heartbeat. Like the distinctive sound of the cicada, spotting Nate's optimism took nothing more than a glance which held my eyes captive. Descending from the stage with his diploma in hand, Nate's tilted smile, the sparkle glinting off his eyes as he walked with a rhythmic bounce, betrayed the joyous, optimistic feeling of accomplishment springing from his puffed chest. As I made my way through the sun-dappled crowd outside the Cintas Center toward my son, Nate extended his hand from a distance and, with the same firm handshake I taught him those many years ago, crossed the bridge into adulthood. The only water to be found was welling in my eyes.

Time has a funny way of playing in your mind. Rewind doesn't work as well in real life as it does on your DVR. What feels like only weeks ago turns out to be years, and what you hoped would go on forever ends with pomp and circumstance in a rain of confetti. All you are left with are snapshots and images in your mind which jumble together like last night's dream you can't quite remember. As Tim King - a former teaching colleague of mine at Mason High School - reminded us yesterday, "love is really spelled T I M E." Nate's handshake in the shadow of a Musketeer proved our T I M E together has been lovingly productive. This morning I walked my familiar path to his room but didn't wake him. (I took his brother to school today in the start of a new morning routine???) Instead I peered from the door at him sleeping as I had done many weeks years ago when he was a child, awestruck by the optimistic potential I had helped to create. The story of his life is wide open, unwritten plot twists on every empty leaf, and hopefully the pages turn slowly so I can enjoy it as long as humanly possible.

Okay ... feels over for now.

On to more pressing items.

#1 - thank you to all the people who reached out after the blog's return last week. Closing in on 300 views!!! Wow!!!

#2 - New reader interactive section of the blog. Feel free to email, text or Facebook me suggestions. Today's topic - Life In The Fastlane - Literally! In SW Ohio we are blessed with an abundance of three lane highways. It is my understanding - correct me if I'm wrong - that the right lanes are for slower drivers and the left lane is for faster drivers. My question for you then is what constitutes a 'fast driver'? Is it the speed limit? Is is true speed? What's that ... my question has you slightly confused? OK here is an example: Driver A is in a 55 MPH zone and is driving 75 MPH while traveling in the farthest left lane - AKA the Fast Lane. Driver B is also in the Fast Lane while driving 82 MPH. Should driver A move right so driver B can continue driving at 82 MPH or is driver A entitled to remain in the Fast Lane because he/she no not Caitlyn Jenner is driving well above the speed limit? Please do not share this hypothetical situation with the friendly boys in blue as I prefer to continue my Mario Andretti/Jeff Gordon imitations as long as possible. My answer will be revealed in the next blog ... so join me then!!! End of the School Year Edition!!!

Of endings, fatherhood and Don Draper's finest moment!

Out in the distance, like the heat distorted images which dance along the horizon on a summer drive, endings big and small are rushing at each of us with unending frequency. As Johnny Carson's Carnac the Magnificent demonstrated many years ago (younger friends go to YouTube!), some of these endings are already predetermined yet still catch us off-guard when they arrive. The effect of this startling end can run the gamut of emotions - happiness, laughter, with a shake of the head to the more profound and morose human responses. And that, mes amis, leads me to this week and the phoenix which is my blog!!!

Unique among mornings, Monday morning is loathed universally as the true signal of joy's ending. School (for those younger) and work (for those older) beckons with a klaxon alarm promising to remove life's joy as quickly as one's eyelids allow. For the past 13 school year Mondays, my routine has remained constant - through slightly cracked eyelids I walk down the hall and wake up my oldest son Nate before waking up my youngest son. Even the words leaping out of my froggy throat have been unchanged for years. "Nate, time to get up and get moving." Nothing more was ever required for him to sit upright in bed and slowly begin his trudge to the shower and eventually school. I would linger by his door to give him a hug until his advancing age required him to check his phone before exiting the confines of his room. Your skepticism of teenage waking horrors may be well documented but believe me when I say he was the easiest kid ever to wake-up! 

But Monday morning May 15th, 2017 was different. Unconsciously I had ignored its significance even as I celebrated the other little milestones of Nate's senior year of high school. College visits in the summer, last first day of school, college applications and acceptance, his 18th birthday and the other 'lasts' which accompany the end were ticked off one by one until only three days separated Nate from shedding the last vestiges of his childhood. As my feet padded quietly down the carpet on this Monday morning, the sunshine streaming through the loft window slowed me just enough to allow my brain to catch up with the gravity of the situation. My emotions suddenly strained the bonds which normally contain them and I became still. 

Never again would I trod this path - in this routine - to wake up my son.

An immense sense of loss flooded my now rapidly awakening brain followed immediately by a tremendous pride in what Nate had accomplished in school and the type of young man he has become. The sun's rays metaphorically presaged the next emotional wave which washed over me - hope for the new beginning which awaits Nate. As I stood frozen in the sunlight, awe entered my consciousness as I realized the phenomenal potential inside my son. I mourned the loss of this morsel - unknown to Nate - of our relationship while simultaneously rejoicing in the successes we will celebrate in the years to come. 

Rarely have I had to reconcile such an explosion of emotions during my fifteen second morning walk. But in that moment I truly understood what C.S. Lewis (again lookhimup if you don't know who he is!) meant when he said of fatherhood and parenting - stay close but be far. Watching your children grow up is one of mankind's most imperfect sciences. What works for one child can backfire for another. You do the best you can given the circumstances until one day you remove the training wheels and hope like hell they can keep life upright! At first you stay within an arms length, then begin trailing in their wake until finally they can ride out of sight with your full confidence - all the while knowing you will be there for them if life's delicate balancing act requires a light touch on the handlebars. And that, mes amis, is the essence of fatherhood. It only took me 44 years and countless missteps to figure out!

In the now 54 hours which have elapsed since Monday morning, the stream of Nate memories which usually meanders through my head has turned into a wild, raging torrent. One day heredity will try to dam Nate's stream inside my head but digital never dies (hopefully!). Rushing out now is the confusion during his birth, holding him his first night watching a show about sub-Saharan Africa while his mother slept, his first steps, his broken arm, his collection of tiny NASCARs, decorating his bike for the neighborhood July 4th parade only to go to the wrong starting spot and miss the whole thing, losing his jacket under the bleachers at Sycamore and the courage he had to summon to walk underneath them to pick it up, playing catch with balled up socks as I folded laundry, telling a nearby spectator who was smoking at the races that he - the smoker - was stupid for smoking, his first soccer picture day where he ran around kicking the soccer ball until he was drenched in sweat for his picture, coming to my basketball camp at Mariemont HS and winning the 3-on-3 Cut-Throat competition, waking up from kidney surgery and wanting to do some homework, his various t-ball/baseball teams, the overnight at the zoo, the day I yelled at him during a car ride for being ungrateful only for him to give me the best essay ever written entitled 'My Hero' (all about me!) when we got home, the conversation we had in the car during 6th grade when one of his 'friends' pulled the big-time card on him, venting his frustration after a called third strike to end a baseball game that he insisted was a ball, the museum-like quality of his bedroom (if you ignore all the clothes), our yearly trips to the US Air Force Museum, his first trip to the islands in Canada (and the passport picture he took with his phiten necklace on), learning to drive a boat with my brother, our driving lessons together and his impeccable skills behind the wheel today ... the torrent rages still!!!

All of which leads me to Don Draper and his finest moment. Of the many fictitious accolades Don Draper received during his Mad Men days, none could ever be attributed to his parenting skills. What he lacked in fatherly manner, he more than made up for it with his uncanny ability to predict what people (other people - not family members) needed to feel a connection or emotional response. In what arguable was the best 3:30 minutes of television drama in the past twenty years, Don Draper played nostalgia like Mozart. As Nate prepares to graduate and (to soon for me!) head to the University of Cincinnati, Don Draper's imagined sales pitch for Kodak's (no youngsters not Kodak Black .. Kodak - the company!) new slide projector echoes through my head. Clicking through a slide show of his family's pictures he says, "This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. Takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the wheel. It's called the Carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around and back home again to a place we know we are loved." I ache to share those memories with Nate again and re-script my fatherhood failings. I steadfastly hope Nate comes around and around and back home again for years to come because there is no doubt that I love him.

The Carousel

Congratulations Nate! Here is to many more memories and celebrations!!