Okay, Mr. Johnson up Minnesota way has tagged me for a meme about former favorite posts. We have to choose one post from each of four categories, so, with no more ado or adieu . . . my favorites from my short blogging career.

1) Rants: This one is pretty easy. It’s my post titled Houston, We Have A Problem! It was one of the first posts I ever wrote that got good, and widespread, reviews. I talked about how librarians tend to take themselves entirely too seriously and as a result, we often get sidestepped by teachers not looking for additional stress. It was my first post to garner a lot of attention and I still get comments on it.

2) Revelations: I had to look back over all my stuff to see what would qualify as a revelation and I finally decided upon An Uncomfortable Truth in which I revealed to myself and some others that our profession isn’t as necessary to the  livelihood of a school as we like to think. I also mentioned our image problem with teachers and it seemed to resonate with a few of you.

3) Resources: This was the hardest one of the categories for me to decide on because I was much more a people person than a thing person so I didn’t have a lot of ideas about resources. I did, however write up a critique of Interactive Whiteboards in my post called Paint It White.

4) Reflection: Easy. Of Starfish. I have to admit that it’s hard for me to read this post lately. No job and no prospects. Still, I can look back and remember when I did some things right. This is the only post I’ve ever written to go over 1,000 views.

Now, Cathy-jo tagged Doug and Doug tagged me, so who the blazes can I tag?

Okay, let’s start with Ms. Alice over at Alice in Infoland, then my favorite Georgia Peach — the Unquiet Librarian, and finally, since I don’t know half the internet like CJ and Skunk do, how about another Ms. Alice — this time at Reflections on Teaching.

Now don’t be shy everyone 🙂

Oh yeah . . . make sure you wash your feet!

Today would have been my Papa Wham’s 90th birthday. Unfortunately, the Wham men have two tendencies: one, we marry beautiful women and two, we die of heart attacks between 71 and 77 years of age.  Papa made it to 76 and might have broken the mold, but Granny Wham had a stroke two days before he died and I truly don’t think Papa believed she’d ever come back home and after 50 years of marriage, he just couldn’t bear the thought of living without her and his dear sweet heart gave out on him. He died in Daddy’s arms just as they reached the emergency room. The first call I ever got on a cell phone was from Mama telling me to go to the hospital. I figured Granny had passed and was already upset about that, but when Daddy put his hands on either of my shoulders and told me Papa was gone . . . well, the world slowed down to about half speed. It would stop completely eleven years later when Papa John went on to glory, but that is more than enough story for another time.

Papa Wham was the embodiment of the “Greatest Generation” to me. He quit school in the ninth grade to take Uncle William’s job at the local cotton mill after the latter lost his right arm in an ice truck accident, which is, again, a story for another time. Between the mill and Granny Mattie’s farm, Papa and his nine live-born siblings made it through the Great Depression. Papa was a Southern “Yellow Dog” Democrat until the day he died. He and Granny, like many people of their era placed F.D.R.  just a tiny bit below the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Then, in the spring of 1942, Pearl Harbor caught up with Papa and three of his four brothers. Papa finished basic training at Fort Jackson down in Columbia, SC and shipped out for England in September of that year aboard the R.M.S. Queen Mary, converted for wartime troop transport. Papa’s view of New York harbor was the last he would see of America for three years. Reading Papa’s DD-214 got me interested in World War II and the more I learned about the War, the more I held Papa in awe. This small, precious man had served in the First Infantry Division, “The Big Red One.” He was part of the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and, of course, Normandy. Papa NEVER moved much faster than a walk. A slow trot was his ABSOLUTE top speed and the house pretty much had to be on fire to get that out of him. Whenever Granny or anyone else complained about his slowness, he liked to say, “I ran from North Africa all the way to the Rhine River and that was enough for a lifetime.” Papa never bragged about his military service, but I have his DD-214 and the one medal that made it home with him. When I asked him about the rest, he told me they were in a sea bag somewhere in New York Harbor and he really didn’t care where. Daddy told me Papa’d accidentally dropped his sea bag on his way across the gangplank when he got home, but Papa was so glad to be on American soil again, he never bothered trying to get it back.

After the war, Papa married Granny and together, they raised a family. Aunt Judy died only four hours after her birth, but Daddy and Aunt Cathy made it here just fine. In 1953, Papa put $8,000 cash down on a three bedroom brick home in Fountain Inn and paid it off ten years later. Aunt Cathy still lives there and about 75% of the best memories I have growing up took place inside those four walls.

I could go on and on about him. He was my hero and I miss him just as much today as I did the day I sat on the pew at Beulah Baptist Church and listened to his funeral being preached. I had a huge grin on my face and couldn’t help it. Aunt Cathy was mortified and wanted to know what I found so funny. I’ll end this post with that story . . .

Papa was a deacon, one of twelve, at the church. It came time for new carpet and pew covers and Papa and the other three “older” men on the deacon board voted for a conservative “sea foam” green color scheme. Unfortunately, the rest of the board, composed of “the younger generation”, won a majority and the church was redone in a crimson and scarlet color of fabric and carpet that Papa said looked like belonged in a Parisian whorehouse. I was a teenager at the time and couldn’t help but ask Papa just exactly how he knew what the inside of a Parisian whorehouse looked liked, He cut his eyes at me, but couldn’t help smiling and said, “You’d best be glad your granny didn’t hear you say that or we’d both be in a world of trouble.”

Anyway, when Granny asked Papa at supper that night what the church would look like, Papa said, “Mama, just know that when you see it, I voted SOLIDLY against it.” Those were the words that were running through my mind in my beloved Papa Wham’s soft voice as I sat between Granny Wham and Aunt Cathy that hot July day in the church and saw, reflected in Papa’s brushed steel, flag drapped casket, a scarlet that “belonged in a Parisian whorehouse.”

They don’t come like my Papa Wham anymore. I don’t have the same faith in an afterlife I once did, but what faith I do have, I cling to in large part because of my hope of seeing Papa Wham again one day beyond the clouds. I don’t know of much of anything else in this world or the next that would make me happier.

Happy Birthday, Papa. I love you.

And I love y’all as well. Wash your feet, now, and if you think about it, say a prayer for me and my beloved Papa.

Two hundred thirty three years ago tonight, it was hot and sticky in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Clouds of biting mosquitos would undoubtedly infect some of those gathered with Yellow Fever for which colonial Philly was famous. Crowds cheered and the Liberty Bell rang as America’s birth certificate was read to the masses. The greatest experiment in representative democracy since the Roman Republic had begun.

Two and a third centuries, five declared wars, a bloody Civil war, many other uses of the armed forces, several recessions, and one Great Depression later and we’re still here. Sure, we may not do everything right everytime, but if we’re such a bad place, why do so many people risk so much — up to and including their lives — to come to our country by any means, legal or illegal?

Truthfully, we need look no farther than the hysteria taking place in Iran. They have an election, the ruling party is theoretically ousted and they don’t leave. Instead, they recount the votes, claim victory, and SHOOT anyone who disagrees. Now, the difference between us and them is, granted, around fifty percent of the people in the country don’t want the person who is President to be President but we don’t SHOOT each other over it.

So, watch the fireworks and let’s hope that when all gets said and done, this recession ends and we keep Cadillacing along. After all, we can’t go under . . . the world needs America. Otherwise, who else would the rest of the world love to hate?

Keep your feet washed y’all and have a happy Fourth 🙂

Yesterday was Father’s Day. That means Saturday past I had to perform the most difficult scheduled task in my year. I had to pick out a Father’s Day card for Daddy. The problem that makes the task so onerous is my inability to lie to myself and others coupled with the extreme lack of creativity exhibited by most greeting card writers.

Most cards for Father’s Day, at some point in them, will say something on the order of “Thank you for always being there for me” or “I could always count on you being there.” I can’t buy those cards because they would be a lie. Daddy wasn’t always there for me. As a child, he almost NEVER was there for me. I can’t remember a play or a chorus concert he ever attended. I wrestled four years in high school. He came to one match.

Daddy doesn’t live in Texas or Alaska or anywhere else like that. He lives about six or seven miles away from me, as he has pretty much since he left Mama and me.

Now, things are better these days between the two of us. Budge worked very hard in the early years of our marriage to broker, if not complete reconciliation, then at least a peaceful coexistence that allowed us to be in the same room without firing daggers at one another out of our eyes. For reasons I don’t fully understand, Daddy loves my Budge very much — not that I find that hard to believe, but Daddy actually TELLS her he loves her.

So holidays are pretty much enjoyable these days. I can go eat a meal my stepmother (who is the woman Daddy left Mama for) has prepared without nausea; I can even acknowledge that she makes my favorite chicken since Granny Hughes stopped cooking. Daddy, Nicholas (my 12 year younger half-brother, that I don’t count the “half” because none of this sordid mess was his fault and he’s always loved me warts and all), and I can sit in the living room with our spouses and have grown up civil conversations.

Daddy has not mellowed much over the years. Rather, he’s gotten older and so cannot keep up the rant for as long as he once could. He is not a happy man. A good part of that is due to terrible times he endured in Vietnam’s Central Highland killing fields as a 19 year old kid. Some of it is due to Granny’s unyielding and un-breathing over-protectiveness. Some of it is due to his own father, my late, beloved, sainted Papa Wham’s belief that a man showed love to his family by providing comforts for them rather than quality time.

Daddy is very complex and I love him tremendously. I have ALWAYS loved him, even when I’ve wanted to rip his heart out and take a bite out of it right in front of him. At the heart of 99% of everything I’ve ever done, attempted, or accomplished has been the desire for two things: to show Daddy just what a great thing he left AND to hear him say, “Son, I’m very proud of you.” He will never admit the former and I still haven’t heard the latter in 38 years.

I cannot discuss my relationship with Daddy in “adult terms” because, for reasons I can’t explain, but my therapist probably can, any discussion of Daddy and I turns me back into a helpless, fat, blubbering, five-year old standing on the front porch of the trailer where I grew up watching Daddy put his bags in the truck I “helped” him paint as I begged him not to leave then watching him leave.

We have an understanding now, Daddy and I. No peace treaty has ever been signed. We are rather more like the DMZ of North and South Korea than we are the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri. I do love him and I live to please him AND over the years I’ve learned as a man things that a child cannot have understood. Daddy isn’t quite the monster that five year old inside me accuses him of being. Mama wasn’t quite the angelic saint the five year old clung to. In my five year old mind, the math is simple. Mama stayed; Daddy left. That was as far as I took the matter for years and it remains the “argument ending” fallback position. But I do love Daddy.

I just have a very hard time finding him a Father’s Day card that is truthful AND loving.

Fathers out there. Take this post for what it’s worth to you.

Sons out there. You do the same.

The phone lines run both ways. So do the post office, the cell towers, and email. Don’t tell me it’s too hard and don’t DARE tell me I don’t understand.

So, until next time. Love y’all like always.

Keep cool and wash your feet.

Sometimes I feel no one is listening to me. I talk and I write and I try to get to the heart of very important things, but it seems that a great many people either tune me out or mentally pat me on the head as if to say, “There, there now, dear, it’s not good for your blood pressure to get so worked up.”

On good days, when the medication is working the way it’s supposed to, I realize that I’m not alone and most people prefer not to hear unpleasant things (unless the unpleasantness is someone like Brittney Spears singing) and they would rather just pretend that everything is okay. I wish I had the ability to do that. It would make my life — and Mama’s and Budge’s — a lot easier. Forty six years ago this week, people weren’t listening in South Vietnam either.

Right here and now, let me be clear. This is not a post or discussion of the Vietnam War. My kind and fun-loving father fought and died in Vietnam and sent a similar looking stranger that no one in the family, including Mama, knew back to his home in his place. I lost the father I never got to know to the Vietnam War — that is all I know of that war and I’m quite passionate about that fact. If you don’t believe me, feel free to contact the Clemson professor who told the class I sat in my sophomore year that Vietnam was fought by a bunch of drugged out baby killers. I did manage to graduate once the charges were dropped though. So, spout politics around me all you want, but leave the Southeast Asian War Games out of it.

But I digress.

Forty six years ago. South Vietnam. The president of that vile little nation was a vile little man named Ngô Đình Diệm. Under his administration, religious freedom was quashed throughout the land. The Mahayana Buddhist monks of the country were especially hard hit and oppressed. Their temples were being invaded and destroyed in some cases and many of the monks themselves were jailed or, in some cases, murdered outright. Despite the protests from within and without the country, Diem turned a deaf ear to the monks’ pleas. He simply refused to listen to them. Unfortunately, lots of the powerful people in his nation and the world at large didn’t listen either. It wasn’t their concern, they weren’t Mahayana Buddhists, it didn’t affect them, they weren’t going to worry about it.

Then along came fifty-six year old monk Lâm Văn Tức. He didn’t feel anyone was listening to him either and it broke his heart and moved him to take action to ensure people would listen. At rush hour on June 11,  1963, he, accompanied by a handful of his monastic brothers and pupils, walked out into the busiest intersection in Saigon, seated himself in the lotus position, poured five gallons of gasoline over his head and body, lit himself on fire, folded his hands in his lap, and burned to death. Perhaps you’ve seen the Pulitzer Prize winning picture taken by Malcolm Browne?

Lam Van Troc burning himself to death June 11, 1963.

The administration didn’t immediately cease the crackdowns, but the monk’s actions had inflamed the population against Diem. Before the end of 1963, he would be dead by an an assassin’s bullet and his government replaced by a military coup. The oppression ended then. It took drastic measures, but someone finally started listening.

Now, I don’t think anyone who reads this should self-immolate. I am using the extreme to draw attention to the mundane. Having said that, do you think anyone is listening to teachers, librarians, parents, police officers, firemen . . .?

The list could go on. Our professions are attacked and our motives vilified. We make too much money and the students we turn out are inferior. We are saddled with laws and policies and rules that we had no voice in making and the people who made them will take no hand in bringing to fruition. Is anyone listening?

I have a very short time left that y’all will listen to me. That’s why I’m writing these hard to take posts now instead of usual summer fare. I’m not employed anymore . . . it seems increasingly unlikely that I will be a librarian or an educator of any sort come start of school next year. For good or bad, it seems principals don’t want “my type” in their schools. That means I’ll begin losing credibility with others who are educators because I won’t be “in the trenches” anymore, so I’m trying to fire you up now and leave you with a battle call that lasts after your memory of me fades.

Summer is here. Rest, recuperate. Most of all, though, plan your battles for the upcoming year. You are usually your students’ best advocates. You often know them better than their parents. Do not allow them to squander their potential, but more than that, do not allow the godforsaken system of testing and “rote”ssiere learning to victimize their spirits. Every brawl I’ve gotten into with the powers that be has been over my doing what I thought best for children. Whatever I’ve done, for nearly fifteen years now, I’ve done for my kids. When no one would listen, I made them hear, but that kind of passion is not without its price as Don Quixote and I have discovered.

I know lots of you may not feel like it, but I won’t be there to carry on the fight . . . so don’t let the fight die down.

Please. For me. For them.

Now, wash your feet, y’all, preferably in a nice cool ocean surf on some beach . . . somewhere.

Till next time. Love y’all.

This post has been on my mind for quite some time now and tonight is just as good a night as any to get it off my chest. Not to put too fine a point on it, I am sick and tired of fighting the crab bucket people inhabiting this crab bucket world with its abundance of crab bucket mentality.

Some of you get the allusion right off; others of you are convinced, if you weren’t already, that I have finally lost my mind. I stepped in something barefooted and the toxins went through the crust on my grocery store feet and right to my brain. I hear you thinking now, “The poor man (or we would say here in the South, “Bless his heart”) he’s overcome by seafood.”

For those who don’t know the story, a young man walked up to a guy crabbing off a pier and noticed the crabber had a bucket with several crabs in it and the bucket had no lid. Being a curious sort, the youngster inquired of the man why his bucket was lidless. Wasn’t he afraid of losing his hard won bounty? The crabber’s reply is telling and if we work in education it sticks a knife in our guts if we dare to give it more than a passing read; if we really let it sink in: “No son, you don’t have to put a lid on a crab bucket. The crabs take care of themselves. Soon as one gets a claw on the bucket rim and starts to work its way out, some of the others will grab it and drag it back on down into the bucket. Seems like they want to make sure everyone gets to the boiling water together.”

Know any crabs? Seen a bright student flush with potential get locked onto by some pincer claws and pulled back down into the crab bucket chaos? Crabs are everywhere and we’re all in the middle of a big crab bucket. The easiest crabs to deal with are those outside. They’re a lot of them, but they can be quickly dismissed as lacking intelligence enough to discuss the matter at hand. Politicians seem to be a crabby lot and they come to mind in this first bunch. You know the ones who get up and bluster “our public schools are FAILING OUR CHILDREN and if you elect me and support my voucher campaign, we’ll fix everything!!!!” Those of y’all working in those so-called “failing schools” and turning out exceptional children each year probably get a little nauseated everytime you feel that cold crab claw closing.

The second species of crabs are much worse . . . much, much worse. They are the insiders. They are the purest form of crab because they really ARE in the same bucket with you. Ever heard one colleague remark about or even TO another colleague something on the order of “I don’t know why you are bothering with National Boards (or getting a Phd or another Masters or working with a difficult child or using a different brand of toilet paper . . . etc) because it’s just a waste of time and effort because . . . ” and the old crab gives a list of reasons why “it’s a waste of time and effort” and, more often than not, the poor crabbitten victim starts to believe some of the poison.

So crabs are everywhere. You’ve got your Principal Crabs, your School Board Crabs, Parent Crabs, and the list can go on and on of people who just seem to enjoy watching, and sometimes helping, others fail. It’s human nature at its absolute worst. “I can’t do that so I’ll be hanged if I let you do that.” We think that schoolyard stuff gets left behind in the halls of middle school, but it has a way of surviving. Crabs are a very old group of animals and they’ve adapted well at surviving.

Still, those aren’t the worst crabs. The absolute, no doubt, bar none worst crab we have to deal with is the one reading this computer screen right now. Yep, I said it. WE are our own WORST CRABS. We listen to the devil on our shoulders. We believe the negative self talk and depressing thoughts about ourselves that always seem present. How many of you have ever sat down to hash out how you were going to do something new and innovative? How many times have you had to fight through the self-whispers like “What am I thinking?” and “This’ll never work!”

Dunno, maybe I’m the only one who has to deal with a nasty crusteacean between my ears. In any event, it’s up to us to fight back and claw our way out of these buckets we’re in by any means necessary. For some, it may mean a job change while for others it may take setting different boundaries with some family members. You can be your sweet Aunt Rosie’s right rear cheek that it won’t be easy, no matter what. But, you owe it to yourself to do it.

If I’d listened to the crab-thoughts in my head, I’d never have set foot on a college campus, much less ended up with a MLIS, and I’m a horrible crab fighter. So, the old school year just ended. Crush all your crabs and have a good old fashioned Lowcountry Boil. Vow right now to make next year a crab free time.

While you’re at it . . . watch out for your kids and for each other. Sometimes it’s easier for a friend to knock those pesky creatures off another friends back. Remember what I’ve always said if you don’t remember anything else I ever right in this dinky little corner of cyberspace “we are all on this rock together and we won’t make it if we don’t help each other AND just because no one else seems to want to help is no reason I shouldn’t.” We’ve got to look out for each other, y’all. It’s the only way we’ll make it.

Until next time, check out some of the new members of my blog roll for some crab fighting tips and as always, I love y’all and don’t forget to wash your feet.

I won’t belabor my point and post today. Suffice it to say that 65 years ago today, a brave group of men from America and our Allies launched the largest beach assault the world had ever seen. It was the beginning of the campaign to retake Europe from the hands of a madman. It was D-Day for Operation Overlord.

Every June 6, I always miss Papa Wham even more than on other days. Papa was a member of the Big Red One, the US Army’s First Infantry Division. His DD-214 reads like a map of the European / African / Mediterranean Theater of WWII. The one battle he would never discuss with me, however, was that day at Normandy. From snatches overheard in the back room of the store Papa ran while the old men talked about The War when they thought I wasn’t listening, this is what I managed to piece together.

Papa was in the fourth wave to hit Omaha Beach. The two boats to either side of his were blown to bits by artillery, probably an .88 on Point Du Hoc, before they ever made the surf line. He was one of ten men to get out of his LC-I alive when the ramp dropped, one of five to reach the beach proper through the surf, one of three to take cover behind a tank barricade, and the single survivor of that craft once the sun had set. From that strip of beach, he walked all the way to the Rhine River.

In any event, Papa wouldn’t ever watch the movie “The Longest Day” and he was gone on before “Saving Private Ryan” made Tom Hanks a legend. Normally, he didn’t have flashbacks and if he suffered PTSD (as I’m certain he must have to some degree) he suffered quietly, but around D-Day, he would often get moody and, every tenderhearted, he would cry much easier than usual. Daddy, who had fought in his own war, tried to explain it to me as Papa’s way of remembering all those boys on that beach so far away.

As for me, all I can say is how much I appreciate Papa making it home, but I also appreciate all those young lifes who gave up all their tomorrows so that I could have a future. I only knew my papa, but I imagine there were many, many papas among those boys. Many papas who would never get to bounce a grandchild on their knees, but who were willing to die storming a beach to assure that someone would bounce that grandchild in freedom.

Freeing Europe from the Nazi fist was a job that had to be done, and Papa Wham, and the tens of thousands of men like him, did it. God help us if that need should ever arise again. Given the “me first” attitude and utter decadence of our current American society, I doubt a modern day Hitler would have anything to worry his sleep.

As you read this post, I ask that you please leave your politics at the door and join with me to remember Lexington, Yorktown, Lake Erie, New Orleans, Shiloh, Antietam, San Juan Hill, Santiago, Belleau Wood, Ypres, Argonne, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Anzio, Normandy, Inchon, Chosin, Khe Sahn, Da Nang, Saigon, Kuwait City, Baghdad, Fallujah, Tikrit, Kabul, and a thousand other bloody fields famous, infamous, or maybe forgotten where American men and, lately, women have spilled their blood to dye the red stripes of Old Glory and keep her waving high.

They did not have the luxury of picking their wars or their battles. The veteran of the jungles of I Drang could not switch places with his forebear at Iwo Jima. One who stormed the beach at Sicily cannot walk through the Sunni Triangle. At this time and on this day, let there be no debate over whether their cause was just . . . they fought and they died for their comrades in arms, their families back home, and for their country.

Please do not demean or belittle the names on the black granite scar because they did not free the world of tyranny as their comrades enshrined a few hundred yards away did. They went where they were told to go and they all, from the colonial militiaman taking aim at a Redcoat to the squad of Marines creeping house to house in Iraq, died under arms to make this country — for good or ill — what it is today.

General Sherman said that war is indeed hell, but, sadly, war and death will always be necessary so long as Lady Liberty lifts her light in New York Harbor. This country will always be hated for what we stand for, warts and all. So let us look with awe upon the rows of white stones at Arlington, the sea of white crosses overlooking the beaches at Colleville-sur-Mer, the monuments in over a hundred cemeteries here and abroad where brave men and women lie still and cold in the earth’s embrace that liberty and freedom might burn hot and active across this country.

Never forget them. Never forget the price they paid. They are our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters, our relatives and friends.

They are the honored dead.

Remember them.

In Flanders Fields

By: Lt Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.