Whatever Flips Your Waffle (192)
At a football game earlier this season, the opposing team ran the same play twice in a row. The same back ran the ball, the same defender made the tackle, and the same penalty was called on the same player of the offense. The timing was perfect for me to utter into the microphone, “It’s déjà vu all over again,” in a nod to the recently-departed Yogi Berra.
Even if you’re not a sports fan, it’s likely you’ve heard of the great New York Yankees catcher. You might not be able to recite his stats or his incredible number of trips to the World Series, making him arguably the greatest winner in sports history, but you probably remember him in the Aflac commercials dumbfounding the duck with his malapropisms.
And that’s why I figured everyone would react well, having heard the quote I used at some point in their lives. Yogi Berra expanded beyond the world of sports. He was also an example of a great athlete who gave up some of his prime years to serve in the military during World War II. Others on that list include Bob Feller, Ted Williams, and Jackie Robinson. Now there are thousands of young men and women who have given up opportunities in their jobs to serve our country, but can you imagine a war today and seeing LeBron James or Adrian Peterson stepping aside from their contracts to go fight overseas?
Jackie Robinson certainly shows just how much sports can impact everyday life. He broke the color barrier in baseball and helped push ahead the Civil Rights movement. Would civil rights have happened without Robinson? What would the result in our country have been if that color barrier had not been brought down yet in sports? I’m not sure I know the answer, but it would make for an interesting debate.
It’s fine if sports aren’t your thing, but it’s hard to deny the impact they have on society. The Super Bowl is the most watched program on television year in and year out. It brings people together, not just to watch the game (or the commercials) but to enjoy each other’s company and have a good time. Think of the money generated for the economy through the food and drink bought, as well as the millions paid to air those commercials.
Without the sports teams in our state, there would be fewer jobs available. How many people work for the Gophers, Twins, Timberwolves, Vikings, Wild, and Lynx? What would they do without sports? Would there be other jobs which popped up to take the place of all those careers? Granted, some are surely minimum wage jobs, but that’s better than being unemployed.
Some people claim we don’t need sports in our schools or that we pay too much attention to them and spend too much money on them. The actual amount spent on sports is around 1% of the overall budget of a school. And the skills taught go far beyond shooting a basketball or serving a volleyball. Kids are taught teamwork, how to overcome adversity, and how to be a good winner and loser, all things we need to know in our adult lives. I actually heard someone say years back, when our school district was struggling a bit financially, that we should just cut all the sports. What if that’s the one thing keeping a student focused on their work? It’s the idea that the student needs to keep the grades up in order to participate in something at which he or she excels, maybe the only thing that comes easy. More and more, schools are becoming a place to teach more than reading, writing, and arithmetic, and sports (as well as other extracurriculars) are a big part of that.
When I mentioned Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton in last week’s column, you might not have recognized them if you are not a baseball fan. Indeed, not many athletes so transcend their sport to draw attention around the country and the world. But if I talk about Tiger Woods, you almost for sure know who that is and what sport he plays. You might not know much beyond that, but he had such a tremendous impact on golf that his celebrity status grew beyond that contingent of fans.
Possibly the biggest athlete in that realm was Muhammad Ali. He, like Jackie Robinson, helped define civil rights from a sports perspective. Even today, Ali is recognized wherever he goes; I would guess most of you would be able to name him if you saw a picture. He used his celebrity to do many good works, and these are the athletes who are most admirable. Take that money and power and help others.
As has been clear when I delve into the world of sports in my columns, I can’t imagine life without them. They are true reality TV, where you’re never quite sure what might happen, unlike the many other formulaic programs on the tube. Without sports (to paraphrase Yogi), the future wouldn’t be what it used to be.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is gannet, which means a greedy person, as in, “Yogi Berra might not have been considered a gannet when he told the server to cut the pizza into four pieces because he wasn’t hungry enough for six.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!
As I type my first draft, the Minnesota Twins are beginning their final series of the 2015 season against the Kansas City Royals, a playoff team again this year. The Twins are a game out of a wild card spot and a chance to compete in the postseason for the first time in five years. And everywhere you’ve gone this summer, wherever there was a baseball fan, there was talk of hope for a franchise that lost over 90 games each of the past four seasons.
There is heavy investment in our Twins again. People really care from game to game. We get mad over one game lost in the vastness of a 162-game season. Three hours of every day during the long baseball season can be spent rising and falling with the team we call our own here in Minnesota. At different times, I’ve declared the team dead in the water or ready to leap up and join the playoff crowd.
And this is what’s fun about being a sports fan: There’s always something to talk about. We’ve spent the last four years complaining about Joe Mauer and Ron Gardenhire and how they’d better spend some money on better pitching and how they need to develop a home run hitter. Now I’ll admit that I questioned hiring Paul Molitor as coach, but will quickly stand up and argue that he deserves consideration for Manager of the Year after quieting us doubters with his winning style. Twins fans will still complain about Mauer but look forward to many years of Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton leading our squad to playoff glory.
Of course, if the team twists into a downward spiral in the next couple of years, we’ll all call for firing Molly and all his coaches and how we need to get rid of whatever overpaid putz is underperforming (still might be Joe Mauer). We sports fans are mercurial in that sense, always flowing whatever way the team is performing. We’d all love to be the New York Yankees or the New England Patriots and make the playoffs every year and stack championship trophies on top of each other, but we’re satisfied to have a team to care about.
When the Twins and Vikings were fighting for new stadiums and threatening to leave our fine state, Sid Hartman used to say we’d become “a cold Omaha” if we lost our sports teams. Many people grumble about paying for stadiums from taxes, but Sid had a point. There are so many people who spend so much money on these teams that our state would face some financial difficulty if not for our sports teams; investment in their homes is worthwhile.
If we didn’t have them, who would sports fans root for? After years of hating the Green Bay Packers and the Milwaukee Brewers, could we really bring ourselves around to cheer for them? Can you imagine a Minnesota Wild fan changing over to the Chicago Blackhawks, the team that has bounced our team from the playoffs the past two years?
And that’s part of it too. So many of us love sports in general. I don’t particularly understand or follow hockey, but I want the Wild to do well because they represent us. I’ll watch a bit if I’m flipping around or if it’s playoff season. Heck, the other night I flipped on ESPN2 and watched the end of a soccer match. They were in a shootout for the win, and that made it pretty exciting. Sports!
We become so invested in our favorite teams too, don’t we? I’ve learned to expect disappointment from the Vikings in the most crucial situations, but it doesn’t temper my anger about it. I still picture Gary Anderson missing that field goal along with Denny Green saying to take a knee in the NFC Championship Game against Atlanta, though that pales to Brad Childress earning a penalty after a timeout and Brett Favre throwing an interception with a shot to win in New Orleans for a chance at the Super Bowl. Those are as painful of memories as I possess; I’m just glad I wasn’t old enough to understand what was happening during the Vikings’ Super Bowl losses.
Many of us do this with our high school teams too, right? There is much grumbling if the local squad isn’t living up to expectations. Trust me, you don’t want to be up in the booth at a football game if things aren’t going our way; there’s a reason my microphone has an on/off switch! And then we remember that it’s kids out there competing and doing the best they can. We can’t win them all, and we won’t get all the calls from the officials. But we continue to cheer.
With that in mind, if you’re reading this on Oct. 8, get over to the football field and cheer on the home team in a big game against Maple River. And then join us on Oct. 14 for a home playoff game; let’s pack the stands and let the boys know we support them!
Oh, and the Twins? As you know, they missed out on a playoff spot. But as Cubs fans always say, “There’s always next year!” Speaking of years, happy anniversary to my lovely wife Michelle, who put up with me for Year 17!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is mot juste, which means the right word, as in, “The columnist searched for the mot juste to describe his feelings about sports.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!
It probably seems like the most senseless thing you can do, and you are probably right, but not for me. Who in their right mind would cut apart a beautiful picture into 50, 100 or 1000 pieces and then struggle to put it back together again?
Problem solvers, that’s who!
You might say I have an addiction to jigsaw puzzles.
There is usually one in process of being completed on my mother’s bar in the corner of the kitchen. Sometimes they are easy, other times often incredibly complex and hard. They are a diversion, a time out, a chance to give yourself time to think about something different, or a time to think of nothing at all but the task at hand.
You can learn a lot from the process of completing a puzzle. Think of how much better the world would or could be if we looked at it like we do a puzzle. I hope each one of us would find all the pieces needed, and then help to make them fit our lives, where we fit in and where we fit into the big picture. It would help complete our lives and make this a better world.
If you look back at the whole picture as a pile of individual pieces it is almost overwhelming, though you find yourself wanting to get busy and start putting them together. Each of us has our own style of “puzzling,” but most start with the “edge” pieces. The edges are the framework in which we seek to fit the pieces of lives.
Picture the puzzle of the world as it is today. Yes, we are all enclosed in that border and if each one country, or person, did their part to put the pieces of their world together, with the pieces all fitting together, wouldn’t it be wonderful?
Back to our own family scene. The puzzle is there. Sometimes we make ourselves find at least one piece to put in place each day. Sometimes it takes a lot of patience, but we make it. Some days the pieces fit so easily and sometimes they are almost impossible, to the point you would like to chuck it all back in the box and give up. Sometimes looking at the pieces from a different angle makes a big difference. By twisting and turning, comparing the colors, and going back and looking at the whole picture, it really helps to solve the situation. I am talking puzzles, but I am thinking life.
My grandmother used to say, “Give me a scissor and I’ll make it fit.” It was funny, but it was not the answer. Doing the wrong thing, or taking the easy way out wouldn’t solve the problem or situation. It is just frustrating at times to leave things the way they are instead of working in a way to make them as they should be.
Life is a puzzle. But it is workable if we truly try. It is all in how you look at it and do your share to make the picture perfect.
Such is life.
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Birthdays and anniversaries:
• Thursday, October 2nd: Laurie Jensen, Taya Richards, Amanda Hullopeter, Makayla Vangen, David Lembke, Christopher Bergerson, Adrian Jensen, Allen Jensen, Andrea Zamora, Wilma Ditlevson, Dawn Hanna, Chuck & LuAnn Hanson, Amy & Alex Kromminga, Brooke & Tim Krohn, Brody & Katie Richards, Bob & Kathy Hanson
• Friday, October 3rd: David Bunn, Lori Neidermeier, Dawn Enzenauer, Colette Holmes, Carrie Thompson, Wendy Thostenson Bogen, Paul Wayne, Lisa Zabel, Edna Thomas
• Saturday, October 4th: Susan Cornelius Wehr, Helen Jagusch Mantahei, Skyler Hanson, Clair Clausen, Michelle Lageson, Jerome Simon, Dale Waage, Jeff Waage, Lori Zabel, Matt Redmon, John & Cynthia Nelson, Krista & Randy Baana
• Sunday, October 5th: Kijah Joy Mikesell, Bethany Otto, Graciela Solveig Ortiz, Larry Pence, Karen Wiersma, Julie Cornelius, Jamie Farr, Elizabeth Randall, Peggy Sorenson, Linda Harding, Karen Kasper, Ray & Bunny Jepson, Jim & Pat Lyle, Wayne & Jo Schimek, Mandi & Darren Johannsen, Doug & Deb Braaten
• Monday, October 6th: Evan Matthew Beckman, Mesa Jo Grace Krause, Jackson Wyatt Lageson, Mark Plunkett, Marlin Beckman, Kaira Glienke, Melissa Horan, Aurie Brighton, Caden Reichl, Gail Turvold, Julie Born Beenken, Scott Holmes, Tait Misgen, Cindy Kasper Johnson, Jayme & Ryan Paulson
• Tuesday, October 7th: Ethan Hullopeter (2014) Candace Lageson Baker, Carolyn Weller, Jason Huber, Todd Wayne, Debbie David, Garrett Briggs, Jill Bergdale, Kris Strenge, John & Ellen Hanson, Denise & Jerry Abbott, Jamie & Brian Riley, Pat & Barb O'Conner
• Wednesday, October 8th: Axel Schlaak (2014) Mandy Moon, Lauren Olivia Sommers, Haley Hanson, Barb Hagen, Barb Dobberstein, Barb Strenge, Mary Kay Spurr, Brad Anderson, Doug Anderson, Hazel Spiering, Daniel Paulson, Kay Nelson, Julie & Brian Dahl
• Thursday, October 9th: Matt Kubiatowicz, Joshua Kasper, Cheryl Paulsen Wilson, Randy Mucha, Nancy Jo Anderson, Ashley Hove, Keith Neidermeier, Dennis Blouin
• Friday, October 10th: Pat Goodnature, Trevin Stollard, Aarin Gray Pirsig, his 2nd; Eric Anderson, Nicole Anderson Loken, Luverne Hamor, Haley Hanson, LeRoy Ingvaldson, Nicole Lonning, Betty DeRaad, Elena Grace Spande
• Saturday, October 11th: Alisha Moody, Reed Michael Kath, Mitchell Edwards, Ebonie Mullenmaster, Mayro Leak Kubista, Melissa Otto, Jenna Swearingen, Mike Trumble, Cory McGrath, Shawna Besco, John Cyr, Alisha Moody, Lee & Jody Loverink
May all of your favorite things be within reach? Have a wonderful day!
To answer a frequently asked question, I own about 50 ties. And no, that doesn’t count the multitude that we used at school last year in our weekly tie-cutting votes to recognize outstanding qualities in our students at NRHEG – those were all donated after people cleaned out closets or visited the Salvation Army.
Most days at school you’ll see me with a tie wrapped around my neck. It’s not a practice that is used frequently anymore by most male teachers. Long gone are the days when all men wore dress pants, shirt and tie while women wore a dress or skirt of some sort. Every Friday, both at school and at many professional businesses that usually have more formal dress, you will see casual Friday with employees wearing jeans. NRHEG, along with many of those other businesses, asks for a donation for a charity in exchange for the comfort of blue jeans.
Still, most days I like to wear my shirt and tie along with dress pants and shoes. I have ties that range from various color patterns to more fun ones that show off some of my interests like Star Wars, Dr. Seuss, sports, and even a batch of Christmas ties. I even added a Mark Twain tie this summer while visiting his hometown. One of my most prized ties is one I don’t wear anymore. One of my basketball teams from years ago got a white tie with a Panther logo and they all signed it for me. I wore it occasionally for a year after that, but am so afraid of staining it that it has been retired.
So here’s a conundrum that I thought about while looking around church before mass one Sunday. I rarely wear dress pants or a tie to church. As I glanced around at others entering the church, I found that I was not alone. Growing up, church was much like those aforementioned businesses: men and women alike were dressed in their finest. I could count on Dad to wear a suit coat to church, no matter the weather. I don’t even own a suit coat that Michelle would allow me to wear out of the house.
So what happened? Have we just become a much more casual society? And is there anything wrong with that? There might come a day when I stop wearing ties to work, though I’ve grown so accustomed to it, and it certainly helps to have a professional look when meeting with parents. There really is no functional use to the tie; it doesn’t hold a pen for me or anything.
While researching the history of ties, I found that some form or another dates back over 1000 years to ancient China where neck scarves were a badge of honor. Another style of those was used mainly in a military sense during the Middle Ages. The cravat became the height of fashion come the 19th century, and the modern-day tie evolved more into the 1920s. When I was a teenager, the skinny tie was all the rage, and I keep waiting for those to return, even though I’ve ridden myself of most of the ones I owned.
Some folks still dress up nicely for church each week, though they tend to belong to the older generation. When I played piano for church, I would dress up for Christmas and Easter; I’ve always believed that I perform my best in situations that I dress nicely for. That was something one of my college speech professors stressed, and I’ve stood by it. That’s probably as good a reason as any as to why I still dress up for school: every day is a performance!
I’ve struggled a bit with seeing my own kids wear a T-shirt and shorts to church at times. I’ve decided it’s not a battle worth fighting. If the kids are more comfortable, maybe they’ll be better prepared to pay attention during the ceremony. And it’s clear I’m not the only parent who has decided to forego the issue. After all, Jesus and his disciples wore the equivalent of togas and sandals, right?
And see, there’s one thing that bothers me a bit: footwear. I’ve never been one to walk around barefoot or to wear anything on my feet that show off the actual foot. I like to keep my feet covered up; they’re not my finest feature. I always worry about if they smell too. If I’m walking around outside in the summer, there may be sweat involved. Eww.
I think I deal better with seeing people in sandals than those horrid flip-flops. The latter are just nasty. Have you ever looked where your foot goes after wearing them for about a month? Folks, the color has changed. There’s that sweat factor again. Ugh. And that’s to say nothing of the sound; flip-flops may actually be onomatopoeic, making the sound of their name. If your footwear is so loose that it’s flip-flopping down the hall, that can’t be good for your foot, can it?
Who knows, maybe I am a bit old-fashioned after all. I do know this: I’d much rather wear a tie seven days a week than expose my feet to the general public as I go tramping along in flimsily-constructed footwear!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is pullulate, which means to swarm or teem, as in, “The flip-flops were pullulating with germs which increased by the day.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!
The new fall season of television is upon us, and there isn’t much that has grabbed my interest as needing to be added to an already-full docket on my DVR. The one exception might be the new Muppets show; it’s hard to go wrong with those fuzzy friends! (Okay, we’ll try to forget Muppets in Space.)
There are days of the week where I need a couple more days just to catch up on how much good television there is. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are so full that I might not catch up until the following week at that time. I just don’t often feel like watching three hours of TV in a night.
However, there are people who have taken that idea and run with it. The big fad now is binge watching a television show. The idea is to watch as much of a series as possible in as few sittings as is humanly possible. Some folks will watch an entire season of Game of Thrones (about 10 hours) in one day! Other series that have longer seasons will be watched over a weekend by some. Many people won’t watch week to week, but will wait until the end of the season to binge watch and catch up in a short time, thus avoiding the week-long wait that many of us endure throughout a 22-episode season.
That’s too much TV for me at a time, but I got to thinking about old series that might be worth trying to watch large batches at a time. As much as I enjoyed Friends when it aired, I don’t think I could stomach more than three episodes today before needing fresh air. But what truly classic shows could entice me (and maybe you) to become a true couch potato?
Cheers might be one. The place where everybody knows your name stands up well over time. Sure, there are some time period references such as Kevin McHale playing for the Boston Celtics, but Sam, Norm, Cliff, and company would keep me interested and laughing for a long time before I needed to move away from the screen. If one wanted to watch all the episodes, that would take some time. Cheers ran for 275 episodes! At about 22 minutes an episode, that would be 6050 minutes, which would take just over 100 hours to watch! Maybe one season per weekend, which would still take 11 weekends!
Another great show was MASH. I didn’t watch it much growing up, but I’ve caught a number of great episodes over the years, and it might be fun to watch a whole batch of them consecutively in order to get a better feel for the show that many people consider one of the greatest of all time. MASH also ran for eleven seasons, but had just 256 episodes. That would save about seven hours of watching from Cheers!
Believe it or not, The Simpsons is entering its 27th season! So far the show has 574 episodes that have aired, and it’s already been renewed through the 2016-2017 TV schedule. Michelle and I used to watch the show a lot and probably saw all of the first 10 seasons or so, and just the other day she mentioned it might be fun to watch some of the old ones and the ones we’ve missed. That would take over 210 hours so far; I guess if I’ve got nothing planned for a month we could try it!
And it’s easier than ever now. You can get DVD sets of more shows than you even remember being on TV. Michelle and I have made our way through the entire runs of Seinfeld (greatest sitcom ever) and The Office (only the seasons with Steve Carell). I’ve been making my way through the aforementioned Game of Thrones (almost on par with the excellent novels).
Plus there are services like Netflix. That company, along with other online services, are even creating their own series that you can only see there. They’ll release an entire season on one day, which causes many people to binge immediately. There’s something to be said for not being strung out over nine months for one season.
And it’s possible that by the time you read this, Jayna will have convinced us that getting Netflix as a birthday gift for her will be a reality (Happy 14th!). What could be better than a gift that gives for the entire family? I’m glad I got a lot of reading in during the summer; I have a feeling I have some binging to do!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is doryphore, which means a persistent critic, as in, “The doryphore was forced to change course on her opinion of Seinfeld after binge watching the excellent season four.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!
One of the best books I’ve read this year so far is The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. It’s a fast-paced thriller that keeps you guessing at every turn and was hard to put down; I think I finished it in two days. If you enjoyed the novel Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, this book will be right up your alley.
However, this book is littered with grammatical mistakes, the most glaring being the constant use of what English teachers refer to as comma splices. This is a scenario where a writer connects two complete sentences with only a comma. Let me give you an example from the very first page of the book: “It could have been left behind by the engineers who work this part of the track, they’re here often enough.”
Ninety percent of the population will look at that sentence and not see any problem. It nagged at me, and I saw more and more throughout the book. Here’s the problem: “It could have been left behind by the engineers who work this part of the track” is a complete sentence. So is “they’re here often enough.” There are three ways to write those two sentences.
The first is the easiest. Simply put a period after the first sentence and start the second sentence with a capital letter. The second is also something that most of my readers may recall from their grammar studies. You can connect both sentences with a conjunction, in this case a word such as “for,” and then place a comma prior to that conjunction.
The third way is the least used and probably the most misunderstood. That is to place a semicolon between the two sentences. You remember the semicolon? Your English teacher spent about 10 minutes on it in junior high. My students often call it the comma with a period over it.
I remember being taught to rarely use a semicolon. It can be used to connect two complete thoughts, but those thoughts should be very closely related. You would not write, “I walked down the street; my sister was sleeping at home.” Those two thoughts aren’t very closely related. However, it would be okay to say, “I walked down the street; I had to leap out of the way of a car.” One idea leads to the next.
What frightens me is that books continue to be shabbily edited. I find mistakes all the time in best-selling books that scare the dickens out of me. Words are left out of sentences, punctuation is wrong, and I even find misspellings. I wonder if book companies are trying to pump books out so quickly at a cheaper rate that they have cut out some of the important revisions and re-readings that are necessary prior to publishing.
If there’s one area my students struggle with the most, it’s the proper use of commas. Most of them would look at the example I used and say the comma looked right. After all, you would pause when you read that, right? That’s a good place for a comma. While that’s often a good rule for using a comma, writers have to take the extra moment to review the overall sentence and make sure it’s not the aforementioned comma splice in action.
I call some of those users comma-holics; they like to use commas everywhere they might take a breath. Yet, they will probably forget the necessary comma on Facebook when they wish somebody a happy birthday and put the person’s name after it. Remember that rule from your grammar class? When you talk directly to someone, put a comma before their name (or after it if the name starts the sentence). So when folks posted on my Facebook page, they should’ve written, “Happy birthday, Mark!” You don’t necessarily pause, which makes that a tough sell as a go-to for using commas.
I often joke that my mutant power is knowing when to use commas. I doubt the X-Men could use me for that unless it was to read their outgoing correspondence. It’s not easy to know all the rules; plus, some of them have changed since many of us were in school. The most important thing is to slow down when writing and double check before sending.
And even if you never find a use for a semicolon, maybe you’ll find better uses for commas than connecting two complete thoughts, even if that comma is only a nice addition the next time you write happy birthday to someone!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is gongoozler, which means one who stares for hours at anything out of the ordinary, such as, “The gongoozler spent hours staring at a piece of writing using more semicolons than periods.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!
I don’t know how to pronounce the word meme. You know, those funny little pictures with catchy sayings that are littered across social media. It seems there are more of those than there are actual status updates.
And so many of them are angry. Any time there’s even a minor controversy in the news, new memes appear quicker than a CNN update. And when something really big happens? There is a meme explosion! However, be cautioned: As the Daily Lounge Web site espouses (in a meme, naturally), “If you want to know what’s going on in the world you probably shouldn’t get your news from Internet memes.”
We’re a quick-reaction society. As soon as many of us see something that grabs our attention, we tend to think along the same lines. Before you know it, people are commenting on potentially inflammatory pictures and sharing these to their own personal pages on Facebook, Twitter, etc. The unfortunate part, I think, is that many people make up their mind on an issue before really looking into the entire story.
Let’s look at one example: police killing unarmed miscreants. It seems like this has been a headline way too much. Immediately, it seems to take on a new life online, claiming racism and/or police brutality. But before we just lump all these incidents into one or the other of those categories, why not take a look at the entire story?
Are there some of these police items that involve racism or police going above what they should do? I’m sure there are. But there are many others where I’ll read about constant threats from the civilian. If you fear for your safety, you might react in a similar way. Or you might not. If you wave a weapon of any kind at a cop, you’d best expect the possibility of lethal force.
Every life is sacred; it’s never good when someone gets shot, no matter what he or she was doing. But let’s not just jump on the latest bandwagon. I’ve written in the past about looking at both sides of an issue; sometimes we need to read past the first paragraph of a news story. At the very least, we should read past the funny meme we see on Facebook.
The President is another easy target. It seems no matter what Mr. Obama does or does not do, someone will target him. Did he lower the flag to half-staff as soon as he possibly could to acknowledge the loss of someone? Oops, no he didn’t, but he sure lit up the White House in rainbow colors after the SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage – meme it up! I even saw one decrying a Marine holding an umbrella over the President’s head during a speech when it was raining. Is that really worth getting worked up over? Would we see the same attacks if a Republican were in the White House, from the same people? I have a feeling the answer is yes; some people look for any reason to get outraged, no matter who’s in charge.
And these things escalate quickly. I’ve seen people comment on some of these memes, trying to give information on the other side of the issue or just plain refuting the idea. Those people get slammed immediately, which is what keeps me from commenting on any of them. I just want folks to stop and think before really putting out something that often ends up being offensive in retrospect.
And isn’t that the biggest problem with the Internet? It’s so easy to click a button and then realize you can’t take it back. Some of you are out there reading this and thinking, “This guy is full of it. He writes things that offend me. Why doesn’t he follow his own advice?” I’m glad you asked. I do follow that advice. I have yet to send my first draft of a column to the paper. I write it, put it aside for a couple of days, read it again, make revisions, and then send it in. I always ask myself if I really believe some of the more volatile opinions I put out there. Do I know the whole story? Often, on a second reading, I’ll dig a little deeper in research before finally sending it off.
For example, when I wrote about the Confederate Flag kerfuffle in Albert Lea, I bet I went over that section ten times and even asked Michelle if I was getting across the point I hoped to. I had seen so much nonsense online from both sides of the issue that I hoped to be very clear. I fear though, that in our quicker all the time world, the normal gut reaction will continue to cause problems.
By the way, I looked up how to pronounce meme. It’s a long e sound and rhymes with seem. Now I have to train myself to say it that way. Maybe I should make a meme about it.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is fribble, which means to fritter away, as in, “The social media follower fribbled away much time looking for memes to slander people he didn’t like.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!
There’s a great episode of Seinfeld (really, they’re all great) where the character George declares he will have “The Summer of George,” doing only things he found worthwhile, such as sitting on the couch devouring cheese. That was, in part, my goal this summer. Not the cheese part, but as mentioned before in this space, it was a rather stressful school year last time around, and I needed to get my head clear before getting ready to welcome the new squirrels.
In addition to running my kids all across the area for sports, much of that involved reading. I didn’t keep track, but I’m sure I did more reading this summer than I have in some time. Granted, part of this involves reading books that I think might belong on my bookshelf in my classroom, but mostly I stayed out of the process at school.
And now I think I’m ready, or at least will be by September 8! My long-time readers are aware that I have worked with a different grading system the last two years, focusing more on meeting the English standards in place. This will be my third year of that, and I hope I have worked out the bugs over the first two years to give my students the best opportunity to show improvement in their skills.
One new element I am trying this year is a version of gamifying my classroom. I read about a junior high science teacher in Roseville who took some of these elements and found success in motivating students to complete their work at a high level. After touching base with him, he was kind enough to provide some details, and I, like any teacher, took some of what works for him and will try it myself.
Let’s face it. Kids today are largely enmeshed in a gaming culture. They play games like Call of Duty and Clash of Clans, which sometimes use working with others to solve a problem part of the basic game structure. They reach various experience levels and earn badges of honor to adorn their game and social media pages with. So why not take some of what works in their lives and use it in my classroom?
I will be randomly placing students in “clans.” It is the job of each clan to earn rolls of the dice through various tasks. These are as simple as turning an assignment in on time and as difficult as earning an “exceeds the standard” twice in a row. Students will earn badges for things such as turning ten assignments in on time in a row or redoing a paper and moving up a grade level. It’s hard to believe sometimes, but students seem to like it when you paste things on their lockers!
At the end of each quarter, my classroom may become quite loud as teams roll off to earn the highest score in the class and claim victory over the boss (me). This will earn them fabulous prizes that largely involve food, the best motivator for most kids this age!
Being my first go-around with this, I’m sure I’ll find things that work and things that don’t work. My main goal is to continue to motivate students to do their best. Sometimes we see that using bribery to a degree leads them to a path where intrinsic motivation takes hold and they don’t need that constant reinforcement to do their best.
Another educational item before I go. Lately we’ve all read numerous letters to the editor proffering the idea of letting our students choose what they want to learn. Let’s clear the air here at NRHEG – there is some of this happening already. Many teachers in our elementary will have students who have shown mastery of basic skills choose an area to research and learn about. In the secondary building, we have times where students have choices about topics to explore or choices about how best to learn something. True choice arrives in high school when students begin choosing elective classes, including our English department, which allows for many choices the last two years of high school.
However, to allow children to choose their entire curriculum is both unwieldy and incomprehensible. Public schools are at the whim of the government in many of the basic ideas we must present to our customers. How we do it is often up to us, but to just let Johnny learn about butterflies because he’s eight and thinks they’re pretty and then have Suzy check out asteroids because they’re big and cool doesn’t give ALL our students the basic skills they will need.
People who choose to home school their children are working only with those kids, and that works well for some folks. We have 20-30 kids at a time to teach and challenge. While the idea has some merit, it’s simply not the answer. Alternative learning environments are fine for those who want to go that route, but public education teaches everyone who walks through our doors. We’re not perfect, but we’re doing the best we can to create citizens for a global society!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is nescience, which means ignorance, as in, “The teachers all hoped to eradicate nescience by the end of the year.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!
With football season upon us, excitement is in the air. High school football has played a game already, college football is nearly here, and the NFL fires up right after that. If you’re a football fan, it’s a glorious time of year.
Many people are busy planning trips to watch games live while others get together with friends and family to watch on somebody’s big screen TV. Another aspect of planning deals with those of us who play fantasy football.
Depending on sources, an estimated 40-50 million people play fantasy football, a game where people pretend they’re general managers and draft a team of players, including quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, kickers, and defenses. Each week, these “managers” choose who to place in their starting lineups in order to earn more points than their opponents.
Leagues vary in their scoring, with some only giving points for touchdowns and field goals, while others, such as the league I’ve been part of, also award points for yardage gained by each player. Sometimes you even have points taken away if your players turn the ball over.
This adds a layer of complexity to watching NFL games. While I will always root for the Minnesota Vikings, if I have a player from the other team, say Aaron Rodgers from the Green Bay Packers, I might root for Rodgers to have a great game but the Vikings to ultimately win the game. Believe me, this has caused some stress over the years! There are times where a Vikings defensive stand means that I don’t win that week for fantasy and other weeks where a Vikings loss directly contributes to me winning. I will always pull for a Vikings win over a fantasy football win!
I was introduced to fantasy sports my first year of college, in 1992. One guy on our floor started a fantasy basketball league. It sounded like an interesting concept, so I joined in. I was part of that with the same group of guys for five years. I first played fantasy football my senior year at WSU, in 1995. It was fun and I hoped to find a group of people for a league when I moved to New Richland.
However, my first year was so busy trying to figure out what I was doing that I never had a chance. After I met Michelle, she hooked me up with some people she knew at work who played in a league. I will now be in my 19th year in this league! While some of the members have changed, there are still four of us that remain from my first go-around.
The best part of fantasy football is when the league gets together for the draft. We used to need everyone in one place since we did everything by hand. However, as the Internet has grown, we have fewer guys at our annual draft, which is too bad. It’s a great time to trash talk and just hang out.
Looking back, I can see the progression of fantasy sports mirror our league. Fantasy football actually started in Oakland back in 1962. It started to pick up steam in the late ‘80s. As mentioned though, everything was written down. Our commissioner for my first fantasy basketball league would look at USA Today weekly where they would have players’ accumulated statistics and then do some subtraction with the previous week’s stats. When I started playing fantasy football, I’d have a little notebook where I’d write down when one of my players or one of my opponent’s players would score points.
In 1997, fantasy sports started to enter the digital world, and that’s when the popularity exploded. Being able to play online opened up a semi-enclosed world. Our league eventually went online, and now I can sit with my iPad, constantly checking the score of my game for the week, updated to the minute; no need to wait for the scroll on the bottom of the screen or halftime highlights. Sometimes I miss the old ways of doing things, but I’m also a guy who always did my baseball team statistics by hand.
I’ve dabbled in fantasy football, basketball, and baseball over the years, but my league in Owatonna is the one constant. One year I had five baseball leagues online, but it’s started to get a little wearisome. I’m cutting back to nothing else outside of this football league. Once my baseball leagues end in September, I’ll be hanging it up for those, hopefully with a championship in one where I’m currently in first place! Strangely enough, I’ve done the best in fantasy basketball, even though I rarely watch NBA games!
If you see me during the NFL season and ask how I’m doing, you’ll likely either hear me praise or curse Drew Brees and Marshawn Lynch, since they’re on my team this year! Let the fun begin!
And speaking of fun, our NRHEG Panther football will play their home opener this Friday, August 28. I know the boys and the coaches have been working hard, so please join me in filling the stands and cheering them on. If you can’t come to all the games, try to make an effort to attend at least one and cheer on the home team, appreciating the efforts of our student-athletes. That goes for all our Panther sports – Go Panthers!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is exungulate, which means to pare nails or claws, as in, “The football fan unwittingly exungulated himself during the nail-biter of a game.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!
In middle school phy ed, we always had to do physical fitness tests. I generally liked these and did pretty well… except for the sit and reach. I had/have zero flexibility and always failed that test miserably.
However, flexibility is not all about the physical aspect, as I recently discovered with our family vacation to Missouri. Michelle and I had visited the Show-Me State on our honeymoon nearly 17 years ago and decided to take the kids through Kansas City, St. Louis, and Hannibal (hometown of Mark Twain). We’d visit some of the places we had all those years ago, along with baseball games at Kauffmann Stadium and Busch Stadium.
We didn’t plan much, preferring to fly a bit by the seat of our pants – no reservations, tickets, etc. This worked well right from the start. We had planned on visiting Kansas City first, but upon checking the weather forecast before we left, we saw extreme heat warnings for the next two days. We didn’t want to think about watching a ballgame in that, much less do anything else. Flexibility kicked in with the ability to change it up and head to Hannibal first, leaving KC as our last stop.
I expected to need flexibility with driving all that way, anticipating plenty of road construction along the way. However, that flexibility wasn’t needed much. There was no place in Missouri where there was more than a mile stretch of construction, except areas marked as having lane closures at night, when the crews could work out of the sun and it wouldn’t stop up traffic as much. The roads in Missouri are beautiful; maybe Minnesota could take some notes?
The great thing about not planning is that you don’t have to be all these places at certain times. You can take time to explore and discover places you might not have otherwise. Just wandering the streets of Hannibal and looking at all the Mark Twain-related stores was fun. We timed tours of the caves and a steamboat cruise pretty close to the mark and enjoyed the ability to just go back to our hotel and relax.
Flexibility of headwear is important when visiting other stadiums. While I wore my Minnesota Twins cap around both St. Louis and Kansas City, I bought hats for the local home teams to wear to their games. Even at the game, I discovered the flexibility of fans. In St. Louis, I had Cardinals fans next to me who lived in Chicago, a tough sell to Cubs supporters. There was also a San Diego Padres fan behind me. The toughest might have been the Pittsburgh fans around us, since that was the opposing team!
We had originally planned on visiting the zoo in KC, but found out the one in St. Louis was free and ranked one of the best in the world, so we changed plans. Upon arriving in KC, we found out there was a Legoland there, which Anton said we HAD to see, so we adjusted our plans.
We found flexibility in others as well. Trying to find a museum in KC, I got hopelessly lost and ended up in Kansas. Stopping by a bank to get directions, a gentleman there showed the goodness in mankind and actually had me follow him down some crazy roads to just a short distance from our goal – now that’s a flexible schedule!
The flexibility even extended to when we returned home. We had planned on being gone six full days and driving home the seventh. However, we were sick of hotels and just wanted to get home, so we drove from KC to Ellendale the last evening rather than stopping again. It was nice to get into our own beds, even if it was late!
There are times it’s nice to follow a more rigid schedule; our trip to Florida a couple years ago is a good example of that. But these driving trips are more exciting without as many plans. We still saw the things we really wanted to see and also found some neat places, like the Science Museum in St. Louis.
If you’re open to being flexible, I highly recommend a trip to Missouri. There really is a lot to see, but it’s best discovered on the fly. Sometimes those vacations can create the best memories!
A couple items of business before I depart and start thinking about school again! First, this is my 156th column. My New Ulm math tells me that makes three full years of writing in this space! Thank you so much to all of you who read my ramblings every week. A special thanks to those of you who continue to give me feedback, whether it’s positive or negative; I really enjoy hearing from you!
Also, my apologies for not having a Word of the Week last week. I had one, really I did! It’s in my file on my computer, but I failed to copy it on my e-mail to the paper. So here are last week’s and this week’s!
Word of the Week: Last week’s word was osculate, which means to touch or bring together, as in, “The music was able to osculate the congregation, as everyone belted out their favorite hymn.” This week’s word is tellurian, which means an inhabitant of Earth, as in, “It was interesting to see the many varieties of tellurians while on vacation.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!
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Earlier this summer, my family and I went to the theater to watch Inside Out, the latest Pixar animation offering. It was the story of a young girl and what goes on inside her head with her five main emotions: joy, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. The girl, Riley, moves with her family from Minnesota to San Francisco and struggles with that change, as any 11-year-old would.
The movie gives us some insight to how our emotions change over time. When we’re born, joy jumps to the fore as we explore our new world. Sadness soon follows though, as we know by the frequent tears of newborns. Fear follows shortly after as young ones start to recognize familiar and unfamiliar sights. Anger and disgust are added as kids get older and can communicate and understand the world better.
These emotions are a frequent part of everyone’s lives. We hope to stick to mostly joyful emotions, but that’s unrealistic at times. The movie shows how easy it is for sadness, anger, etc. to rear up and take over.
Case in point: Anne Feist called me last week. I was having a very good day. I’d finished a good novel and accomplished a few things around the house on my to-do list. Joy was bubbling over. However, Anne was calling to tell me that, after 15 years at NRHEG, she was taking a job at USC, her home district. My joy was quickly displaced by sadness. Anne and I had taught together for most of my career and always gotten along well. We worked in the same cohort for our Master’s degrees a decade ago and really understood each other’s style of teaching.
Of course I’d be sad she’s leaving; we’re losing another exceptional teacher. However, much like with some of our other departures, I had to find that joy again. Good for Anne for an opportunity to not have to drive so far every day and to get to teach in that fabulous new structure in Wells. And who knows? The teacher that is found to take her place could teach here for even longer and be just as good.
Anger was never part of the equation of that scenario. I’ve tried to scale back on anger, but earlier this summer, it boiled over; in fact, I faced all five emotions seen in that movie in a matter of hours.
I’ve gotten a lot of joy from providing music to my church for many years. I only become wholly invested in mass when music is involved, and playing and singing hopefully gives joy to not just me, but everyone around me. It was a Sunday morning, and I had that joyful feeling with the songs I had picked out for church.
However, the joy was displaced by the time the sermon was over. Our local Catholic churches have one priest who serves us sometimes who stood up and ranted about the Supreme Court decision regarding same-sex marriages.
Let’s be clear. Everyone has an opinion and a right to that opinion. It wouldn’t matter if I agreed or not, but the illogical and obscene things I heard out of his mouth that morning started a simmer going. It hit the boiling point when I had to listen to the conjecture that the Supreme Court was ruining our country, and soon we should pull our kids from public schools because of what will be taught regarding some of the controversial items such as same-sex marriage, contraception, abortion, divorce, etc.
Nobody gets to attack my profession in public in that manner. I’m proud that I give my students the ability to look at BOTH sides of an issue and make an informed decision on how they feel. I’m proud of so much about our public schools, and that horrible statement sent me over the edge, where I couldn’t even play music any more that morning, removing so much of the joy I normally experience.
Michelle and I talked about it after church, experiencing all the emotions. I felt so much anger and disgust that I suggested I could no longer play music at church, never being sure when that particular priest would be present. I felt sadness at that. I hope I’ve made a difference for some people at church, but no more.
It’s only about a year until our parish closes anyway. We decided to make the trip to New Richland for church every Sunday, and I will take time off from music until we get our new priest. That quick trip through all the emotions displayed in the movie really rattled me, but having a supportive wife to help guide me through them sure helped.
And now I’m focusing on joy. That’s where most of our memories should be built. Others help shape us, as we learned in the movie, but if we stray too far from the good memories, joy can leave our life. I’m finding joy from singing loudly every Sunday, without the other emotions getting in the way.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is osculate, which means to touch or bring together, as in, “The music was able to osculate the congregation, as everyone belted out their favorite hymn.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!
Last week was the final week for Jayna’s softball season. Anton’s baseball team finished a couple weeks before that. Now what?
For much of June and July, Michelle and I were on ball fields four nights a week. Jayna had Mondays and Wednesday, Anton Tuesdays and Thursdays. Throw in some Sunday evenings for practice for Anton’s squad, along with field prep, and I logged many hours this summer watching and coaching ball.
And I loved it. It really can get long, especially when you consider that Jayna started practice at the end of March. When you think about it, kids who play spring and summer baseball or softball have a season at least as long as basketball!
Growing up in New Ulm, we never wanted baseball season to end. I was never a great player, but played out in one of New Ulm’s many suburbs, Essig (population 43), for many years. We had fun and learned a lot and played the game the right way.
This has been my philosophy in coaching Anton’s 3rd and 4th grade team the last two years; I want those boys to have the same experience I did at that age. Winning and losing was inconsequential at that age; we rejoiced in a victory, but quickly forgot a loss. I couldn’t even tell you for sure what our record was these past two years. I never wanted to tell them the score until the game was over – you should always play as if the game is on the line, both defensively and at the plate.
I really try to drill home playing the game the right way. You never throw a helmet or bat – it was not their fault that you got out. Remember, the greatest players in the major leagues get out 7/10 times. Keep your eye on the ball at the plate and in the field. Before every pitch, think about what you will do if the ball is hit to you when on defense. Before every pitch, think about what you will do if it’s a ground ball or a fly ball when you are on base. Get in front of the ball and keep it in front of you on defense; that’s better defense than making a fabulous play one out of 10 times.
These are all things I and the other coaches drilled to our players. Always learn from every inning and every at-bat. Listen to your coaches and work to get better. When the games really start to count, the cream that rises to the top in baseball is not always the most athletically gifted, but sometimes the kid who hustles on defense and knows how to take an extra base on offense. It’s the kid who hits the cutoff man instead of trying to throw it all the way home. It’s the kid who realizes he doesn’t have a play at a base and holds the ball so other runners can’t advance.
I see this in some players on each of the kids’ teams. It’s important to look beyond the kids who always seem to get big hits to see the ones who hit the ball to the right side to advance a runner to third base with less than two outs. I’m thrilled that both my kids proclaim their summer sport as their favorite, and while the big hitters are nice, I’ll be satisfied with my kids doing the little things right to contribute to the team effort. After all, a pitcher can constantly throw strikes, but if he or she doesn’t have a good defense, it doesn’t matter. Baseball and softball are the ultimate team sports.
So now what do we do? Well, at least the Twins are still playing meaningful baseball. It’s funny how most of us wrote them off in April and now get upset when they blow a lead or don’t win two out of three. The past four years, we would have just shrugged and turned off the TV. Now we are invested again since they have a chance at the playoffs. Last year the Royals and Giants showed us that all you need to do is get in the playoffs to have a chance to win it all.
This team reminds me a bit of the 1987 version that won our first World Series. There is not really a batch of stars that are recognized outside of Minnesota, but they do enough to win ball games. However, if you were paying attention back then, the 1988 version might have been more talented, but couldn’t compete with the mighty Oakland A’s. So even if the Twins don’t make a run this year, maybe 2016 will be the year!
The dog days of summer are upon us, but we still have baseball to watch, and that is always a good thing!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is tohubohu, which means chaos or confusion, as in, “The tohubohu that erupted on the field when the player got in a run-down between third and home was not helped when another runner arrived at third base.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!
Earlier this year, I was excited when I found out Harper Lee would publish a follow-up to her only novel, the inimitable To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s my favorite book of all time, an exercise in perfection, showing exceptional character development and intrigue. Every time I read it, I think it might end differently, which is why I pull it out about every five years, just in case!
When Lee’s sister Alice was asked years ago why another novel was not forthcoming, her response was, “When you have hit the pinnacle, how would you feel about writing more? Would you feel like you're competing with yourself?” And most of her fans were satisfied with that. How do you top the greatest story ever?
My initial excitement was quickly tempered. Wait a second. How DO you top the original? Still, I ordered a copy, looking forward to July for the release.
In the meantime, I thought about sequels which might have been better than the first entry. Usually, we think of sequels as poor follow-ups. In fact, I recently saw a “Rhymes With Orange” cartoon with God sitting on a cloud speaking to an angel. God said, “They think they want a second coming, but if I’ve learned one thing from humans it’s that if it did happen, they’d just complain the sequel wasn’t as good as the original.”
Usually we think that way, with movies especially. Still, most Star Wars fans will tell you that The Empire Strikes Back is clearly superior to A New Hope. Just the fact that the later film ended on a cliffhanger and forced you to wait three years for the next movie put it in an elite class. Of course, Return of the Jedi didn’t come close to matching its predecessor, but that might cause further conversation on why the third movie is often the worst of the batch.
Many Indiana Jones fans think Temple of Doom is better than Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it’s not by as wide a margin as the Star Wars debate. Godfather II actually won Oscars as a superior film, just as Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and The Dark Knight did, whereas their earlier entries did not receive that acclaim. Toy Story 2 and 3 are usually viewed as even better than the already outstanding original.
So why the hate for sequels? Ever see Cinderella 2? No? Good luck even finding it – that’s how bad it was. How about The Sandlot 2? The original movie was an endearing film of young boys playing baseball and learning life lessons. The sequel was the same basic plot with different characters and less endearing-ness.
There are books that should stand on their own, including some I teach. The Outsiders is a favorite of most of my students. There should NEVER be a follow-up to that book. Sure, Ponyboy shows up in another S.E. Hinton novel, but that classic wraps things up in a good way, without a need to check in on those characters later.
Where Tom Sawyer leaves off, Huck Finn picks up, but the latter is not a true sequel, just a changing of main characters. However, Mark Twain did write some more books about Tom. You don’t hear much about them because they were not that great and were likely written because the author was in some financial difficulties and knew he could make some easy money by returning to his beloved character.
As an author myself though, I enjoyed writing the sequel to my first published work, Heroics 101. When I wrote Heroics 201, I found I had a better grasp on my characters and had a lot more fun writing them. I knew them better and could explore beyond the origin story from the first book. I’ve had a number of people start a conversation with, “No offense, but I liked your second book better. The first one was good, but the sequel was really good.” No offense taken – I agree!
So what about Harper Lee’s recently published sequel, Go Set a Watchman? The reviews I’ve read are not favorable. I tend to agree, though not to the degree I’ve seen some. It was tough to see Scout, Calpurnia, and Atticus nearly 20 years later. It was difficult to read these characters from a narrator’s point of view instead of Scout’s take, like in the original. It was extremely hard to see some drastic changes in characters I have grown to love over the years.
That being said, I also know that Lee said she would not do any revisions when she discovered this manuscript. And it shows. Her original novel underwent numerous revisions and had tremendous editorial guidance. This one shows the lack of that. It’s disjointed at times, but not unreadable. I’m still not sure if I’m glad I read it or not, but I think I would have always wondered had I not cracked open the cover. I will not likely read it again, but I know I will pull out To Kill a Mockingbird again in about five years!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is lucripetous, which means money-hungry, as in, “Many speculated that Harper Lee’s family was lucripetous in pushing through the publication of her sequel.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!
Toward the end of this past school year, someone asked me what was wrong at NRHEG. I must have had a startled look on my face when I asked what this person meant. “Well, people are leaving like rats fleeing a sinking ship.” Mrs. Dinneen was retiring, Mrs. Schumacher was relocating to where she lived, and there were rumblings about the future of Dr. Goodwin. I didn’t consider that a mass exodus, and they all left for legitimate reasons.
And now Mr. Boerboom is also heading to Waseca after only a year with us as band director, so let the grumbling start again about what’s wrong with this school that people are leaving.
The short answer is that there’s nothing wrong at NRHEG. The long answer is coming up!
Listen, the grumblers will always be the loudest. The fact is (I think) that most people are happy working for this school. Are there problems? Of course, and we’re certainly in a transition period with another new superintendent. We’re dealing with constantly moving targets presented from the state legislature and department of education, which have put stress on the staff.
But I still think this is a fabulous place to live and work. The deal is that, with a younger generation, as I’ve written about previously, you tend to see a more mobile work force, always looking for a little bit better situation. I was speaking recently with a retired teacher and mentioned that this was my first job out of college, and I’m entering my 20th year here. She figured we wouldn’t see that as much anymore.
I agree. I hope to stay here until I retire and have never seriously considered leaving. I’ve been told of openings in other districts and been encouraged to apply for them. “You’ll make more money,” is one reason I’ve heard. “It’ll be a smaller school,” was another. Well, I didn’t become a teacher to become wealthy; I make a fair wage, even if insurance is eroding it like it is for everyone else. Plus, I love the size here at NRHEG. My kids are in classes that range from 60-80 kids, and they know everyone in their class. I don’t think smaller than here would be an advantage.
The truth is I was lucky and found my dream job right away. Not everybody is so lucky. I’ve had moments and weeks and months and years I’ve just wanted to scream in frustration, but never even close to a point where I considered looking elsewhere. In reality, those other openings were always told to me by other teachers; I’ve never once looked for what was available.
This is a great place to live and work. Just look at how many alumni work in our schools! The number of those who once sat in my classroom continues to grow, and they still came back despite suffering through me! I sat in on an interview last week where Mr. Bunn made that point to the candidate we were interviewing. Dave and his wife both graduated from here, went elsewhere for a number of years, but inevitably wanted to return. Why come here to our small communities? It’s simple: there are good people here, and it’s a wonderful place to raise a family.
Honestly, I never would have thought I’d enjoy living in such a small town. I would have bet good money when I was in high school or college that I’d at least live in a town the size of New Ulm, probably bigger. But something about our towns drew me in. Even if my job was good, but I didn’t like the town, I would not have stayed.
It’s a personal decision for everyone. I look at Mr. Boerboom, who has the opportunity to go to a band program in Waseca that is at such a high level and say, “Good luck!” It’s a wonderful chance for a young man who has shown he will be an excellent teacher. Would we have liked to keep him? Of course, but I trust the district will search for someone who will also meet those high standards. Other teachers have left because the small town lifestyle is just not for them, and I don’t begrudge them a chance to live in an area they are more comfortable.
Again, we have problems like everyone else. But I point to the large contingent of staff who have been here a very long time and never really looked elsewhere to strengthen the idea that NRHEG is alive and well. We’ll continue to work through transitions that occur in every school district every year and will end up stronger in the end. Go Panthers!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is longhair, which means an intellectual or one having a deep interest in classical music, as in, “The school found a longhair in two senses in their new band director.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!