Author Archives: michael

Monadnock In The Dark

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Goose dropped by Saturday for a short visit.

Diane asked, “How do like college? On a scale of one to ten? ”

Goose answered, “I’d say a seven, and I knocked those three points off because of the work.”

Seems to me most every kid we’ve talked to feels the same way. Should I be surprised?

Then Goose told us about his Mt. Monadnock climb with his girlfriend, Kristen. I think he said this was his third time up, but the first to watch the sunset. Now, the camping guys are always knocking around in the forest, balancing the need to explore with the need to come back alive. Hiking in the dark works – sort of – but only with good light, so I knew what was coming.

“It was hard climbing down.”

Yeah, now there’s an understatement. When the sun sets in the woods, it’s not a pleasantly receding light experience as it is in the city.

“We had two flashlights but they only showed small circles in front of us.”

The last time I hiked in the dark, I fell in a seven foot hole. Had it been ten feet deep, I’d still be there.

Zapped

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Jennifer

So, you wanted tales from college. This is a tale from middle school. 

First of all, you have to know that I am apparently known for my “Um”s. Students tally them. Two years ago I let on that I knew, and that didn’t improve the situation, so I’ve gone back to pretending that I have no idea why a pair of kids might be listening intently while simultaneously, apparently totally distracted by a tally sheet between them with, um, 40 – 80 tally marks on it. 

Earlier this week I noticed the students were oddly distracted in a different way. Something to do with their hands. Watching each other, not me. Suddenly I remembered “zap” – a student writes a time on the back of someone else’s hand, and a name on the inside. If the zapped student looks at the name before the time indicated, he/she has to … I didn’t know what. I thought maybe kiss the person, or ask them out, or something. Are you-all familiar with this game? 

Sure enough, that’s what they were playing. I couldn’t really find out what the rules are, because they know they shouldn’t be doing it. (Although they’ll claim it’s fine to play, they’ll lie about how it works.) Some students will challenge your authority to disallow it at school. But I did a pretty good job, I thought, both telling other teachers to be on the lookout for it, and telling the students they had to stop and there had to be no consequences to the zapped students for quitting NOW. 

One colleague decided to play it cool. She found out from older students (who play less innocent games) that if you look at the name before the indicated time, you have to ask the person out and kiss them. (Duh.) Then, in the next class, she got various students to show her their hands without letting on she knew about the game. I think she may have inflicted permanent psychological damage, because apparently she started laughing so hard she couldn’t teach when she saw the principal’s name and her own name – but those poor kids couldn’t check why she was laughing because their times weren’t up.      

College Life

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“Joseph, how’ve you been?”

“Good.”

“Where are you?”

“In my room”?

“Seems like everyone’s always in their room. Goose is always in his. Been in any fights lately?”

“No fights, but one wrestling match.”

“In your dorm?”

“Yeah, some punk kid who wrestled in high school found out I was a wrestler and challenged me to a match.”

“Found out? All he’d have to do is look at your neck. And you cleared your floor…”

“We went down to the common room and moved all the furniture. There were like thirty guys watching.”

“What about the floor? No mat?”

“Just tiles. I won, but I must have squeezed him too hard.”

“Do I want to know why?”

“He pooped in his pants. Smelled awful.”

Ghost Story

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BirdBrain

Perhaps for the blog — or just you guys…

We had a great Parents Day visit with Chris. Because of all the rain, our focus was on talking and eating. But of all the many things one expects to hear from our son, this was one was a surprise… in the midst of talking about his dorm, the kids, his friends, he says mentions that he’s worried about Halloween. Why? “Oh, didn’t I tell you? My room is haunted”….

Check the list of “haunted places in Massachusetts”and here’s the story:

Springfield – Western New England College – Berkshire Hall – Room 401, the students feel that when they are getting up they cannot, like some force is holding them down. Supposedly a former student had hung himself in the room upon hearing that his girlfriend had broken up with him. The students also wake up with sound of broken glass.

***************

I’m tagging along on BirdBrain’s post. From this weekend:

“Matt, check out my new shirt. It only cost four dollars.”

“Dad, It’s ugly. And it doesn’t have one ugly color, it has six.”

***

Got my teeth cleaned today. Andrea, the hygienist, on her way to the tooth she wanted to x-ray, was diverted by the molar I’d broken.

“Eeew, when did you do that?”

“A few months ago.”

“Was it sharp?”

“It was.”

“It was?”

“I filed it down.”

“You filed it down? What did you use.”

“Somethin’ from my shop.”

“Like you use on wood?”

“Or maybe it was the file that comes with nail clippers. I can’t remember which.”

Freeway Foilage

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Mike,

For the last few years I’ve been noticing changes in the freeway sound barriers in Maryland. They seem to be gathering foliage at a much faster rate than they used to. Can this be a harbinger of climate change? Botanists say that Kudzu and Creeping Charlie and some other vines are growing 2 or 3 times as fast as they used to because of increased CO2 in the air. (This has been proven by growing the vines in sealed greenhouses under controlled conditions with varied CO2 concentrations.)

But here in the mid-Atlantic, the advance of Kudzu and its cousins is not an unmitigated curse. The sound barriers on the highway to Annapolis and on the Washington Beltway look quite nice with all the greenery draped over them. And in late October and early November, their autumn colors are quite fetching. For quite a while I’ve been trying to get some photos of the better examples of colorful freeway foliage. It’s difficult to find a time of day when you can stand in a freeway and shoot a picture of the walls. But yesterday, early Sunday morning, I had some good luck getting shots.

Freeway Art

The walls where you can see these organic murals are in downtown Bowie, where the city fathers just last year erected some sound barriers around Annapolis Road. On the back side of these walls, the homeowners must have some colorful scenes much like these, but I haven’t climbed over to look.

The wild colorations of these vines must not even exist further south like South Carolina and Florida, where autumn is just a later part of summer, and perhaps the same vines don’t even inhabit New England, where fall colors are best. But as time wears on, and CO2 increases, Maryland may become part of the deep south, and the fall colors of freeway walls will disappear. New Jersey, then New York will get the vines and the colors. And inevitably, I think, New England will be invaded too. Then will the maples fade away?

-rakkity