Dallin Malmgren's Blog, page 35

Inservice Training

Bend over and we’ll teach you to teach

(Blogger’s note: Twenty years ago I wrote a book called Is This For a Grade? — a collection of essays about teaching high school. My latest book project is re-issuing that book, only amending it; adding to the original text my current opinions on the same topic. You’d be surprised how school–and I–have changed in twenty years. Since I and most of my friends in education are trapped in Inservice this week, I thought I’d offer up my outlook on the process. As you’ve probably guessed, it ain’t pretty. You can tell the amended from the original by the bold, italicized script.)

Every year the teachers come back a week before the students do. (Now it has become seven school days.) I think it’s our way of staking our claims on the building. The immediate irony is that by mid-August most kids can’t wait for school to start (even the ones who deny it), but I’ve rarely met a teacher who feels that way.

But we come back early so we can learn to be better teachers. A-hem. I could count on one hand the number of useful insights I’ve received from inservice training, and on one fist the insights which translated into improved classroom performance.

The school district goes out and hires presenters to teach us during these inservice sessions. We used to have a variety of presenters, but more and more they just herd us into the school auditorium and let one educationist rattle at us. I’m sure there are fiscally prudent reasons for doing this, and I wouldn’t complain anyway. It is easier to achieve anonymity in an auditorium audience. (Actually, there has been a slight change. In what I am sure is a cost-cutting measure, we hire fewer and fewer outside presenters—now we mostly present to one another.)

A lady called the curriculum director is responsible for lining up the presenters for our inservice sessions. I don’t know where she finds these people but she seems to have two fairly rigid criteria: first, the presenter must hold fast to the tenet that the behavior most to be avoided in the classroom should be modeled during the presentation (i.e., boring instruction); and second, the presenter must speak in a monotone at all times. I’ve often wondered what the curriculum director does the rest of the year. Sleep a lot, I suppose.

Of course, these sessions are highly annoying to the classroom teacher. We know as well as our students when we are not learning anything. So we’ve devised our coping mechanisms. At the start of each inservice presentation you will see teachers scurry to find seats next to those they feel most comfortable talking with; they will proceed to converse throughout the session, trying to maintain the maximum level of volume which permits hearing without coming across as blatantly rude. (It’s a fine line, often crossed.) (I’ve noticed the audible level of conversation has dropped significantly in recent years–now, everybody is texting.)

Creativity is required of those with a less garrulous nature. My favorite game is surveying the crowd. I give out three awards: The Most Wide-eyed, to that teacher (always a rookie) who actually believes something of benefit is to be derived from the session; The Most Changed in Appearance, to the teacher most unrecognizable after a summer’s makeover (the reigning champion is a coach who returned with a gut-splitting perm); and The Most Unmannered, to the teacher who makes the least pretense of listening. (Sleepers and knitters are disqualified. I admire the audacity of headphones.)

Not all presenters are idiots. Some realize immediately that they are dealing with a hostile audience, and the proud but few are even willing to engage the battle. I have grudging admiration for the inservice presenter who will clear his throat into the microphone, or adopt a verbal mannerism that is impossible to ignore ( one memorable lady hissed all her s’s), or even haul out the nuclear warhead of inservice combat–group involvement activities.

You have to feel a little sorry for these people. After all, it’s an ugly job, they only get to do it about once or twice a year, and they can’t be paid all that much for it. What is the poor presenter to do? Well, I know what he shouldn’t do. As a public service, I’ve formulated The Eleven Don’t’s of Doing an Inservice Presentation. Educationists, take heed!

1) Don”t use an overhead projector.

2) Don’t lecture for over fifteen minutes.

3) Don’t ask anyone to move up to the front.

4) Don’t take your audience response personally.

5) Don’t use any “touchy-feely” group therapy techniques.

6) Don’t forget to bring coffee and donuts (especially coffee!).

7) Don’t speak in a monotone.

8) Don’t ever plead with your audience.

9) Don’t pretend you wish you were still a classroom teacher (we hate that).

10) Don’t wake the teachers when they appear to be in REM sleep.

11) Don’t read your inservice evaluation forms.

That tells you what not to do, which is kind of like advising a drowning man not to go under and take a deep breath. Could I be more helpful? Probably not. The best advice I got from the School of Education came from a professor who took me aside and told me that most of what he was teaching in Techniques of Classroom Management was folderol. “What matters,” he said, “is whether or not you can stand up in front of a class and turn it on. And you can’t be taught how to do that.”

An afterword: All the above remains mostly true, and it is more frustrating than ever! I have to give my school’s administration some credit—they have found a way to greatly diminish the problem of “teacher inattention.” Instead of sitting in a large auditorium having speaker after speaker move up to the podium while we hide in our seats, we now move from one classroom to another for very abbreviated sessions which address separately the topics on the agenda. The physical movement keeps us awake, and the closer proximity to the speakers makes texting, reading, knitting far more difficult. Insidious! But my major objection to Inservice remains content. Session after session of our most recent inservices have focused on things like our Continuous Campus Improvement program, a curriculum program called C-Scope, and eight million ways to prepare for the new STAARS tests. I have seen the same sexual harassment video at least four times. We sit through these sessions like zombies. And it’s a shame, because the truth is that there are very valuable things we could be learning during all this mandated teacher training. Education is being transformed by the wave of technological tools and social media that can be adapted to restructure how we deliver content to our students. My librarian showed me internet materials available for doing research that make note cards and copy machines obsolete. We have Smart Boards and Twitter resources and databases that can enable us to learn anything about everything. And most of us teachers have very little idea how to use these resources. I can barely manage the most basic functions of our Gradespeed accounts and our campus email deliverer. I know I am just scratching the surface of what is available to me. Admittedly, I’m probably behind the curve in using these resources, but no one is way ahead of it! But instead of learning more about this valuable stuff, I am sitting in a darkened auditorium or a classroom, not listening to someone prattle on about the latest educationist wave.

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The Vagaries of Memory and the Spirit of Perverseness

This has always been one of my children’s favorite photos!

When I taught sophomore English, we did the novel The Lord of the Flies. I thought it was a strange choice because there are no girls in the book, which tended to diminish the interest level of half my class. But I had no trouble accepting the main premise of the book, that when the constraints of social decorum are removed, man will revert to every kind of evil behavior, and I had no trouble demonstrating the truth of that premise to my class. About halfway through the novel, I would announce that I was no longer the teacher. I would sit at the back of the classroom, but the rest of the reading and teaching of the novel would be left entirely to the students themselves. We would take the test in four days. On your mark, get set, go.

By the end of the third day, total chaos would reign in my classroom (never failed). I’d step in and compare and contrast the class’s behavior with that of the boys on the island. Nice little thematic lesson, gift-wrapped.

One of the main tenets of Christian theology is that man is fallen, that he is inclined toward evil, and that, left to his own devices, he will inevitably gravitate in that direction. This inclination often manifests itself randomly, without regard for rational thought or justice. Edgar Allan Poe calls it the Spirit of Perverseness in his short story The Black Cat.

I learned, or thought I learned, of this human condition in my childhood. There was a boy on our block that nobody liked. Our neighborhood Piggy. One late summer night our gang snuck out, raided another neighbor’s vegetable garden, and pelted the side of Piggy’s house with ripe tomatoes. We took off running when the house lights went on. The next day Piggy’s mom took up a neighborhood inquiry; when questioned by our mother my brother confessed to our participation, and we (but none of the rest of the gang) spent an afternoon washing the side of Piggy’s house.

But it gets worse. Piggy’s imagined crimes against his peer group became more serious, and a plan for retribution was hatched. On another midnight raid, we snuck into Piggy’s backyard, released his pet duck from its cage, and hung it. I was the youngest boy in the group, so I had no hand in the deed, but I remember watching in horror and fascination.

As an afterthought: Both of these incidents are so hazy in my own recollection that I called my brother to verify their authenticity. He could not recall the tomatoes but does not doubt that such a thing might have happened. But he is unequivocally certain that there was no lynching. Not ever, at least, not in his presence. So where did I get this stuff? From a dream? A flight of fancy? I don’t know. I do not, however, doubt the fall of man.

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God and the 5th Hole

God is intensely involved in my golf game. Does that sound as ridiculous to you as it does to me? And yet I believe it is true. You see, I have invited God to participate with me, and I believe He is there with me every hole I play. I freely admit I do most of the talking, but He has His own way of communicating also. Many golfers I’ve played with have talked about the “golf gods”, but I am monotheistic. It’s me and Him.

Let me explain my limited understanding of God’s involvement. God is concerned with my character. He wants me to “…be transformed…” – He wants me to “…become like Him…” I read these things in my bible. With me, as with many others, He has a long way to go in this transformation process. I believe He is looking for every opportunity to move things along. I think I am most open to change, to being transformed, when I am engaged—when I care about what is going on. I’m more aware; I’m more motivated; I’m more malleable.

I am intensely involved in my golf game (some would say foolishly involved). I have a little putting green up in my study. I go to the range two or three times a week. In the summer I play at least three times a week. I save all my scorecards and maintain a registered handicap online. I care.

So how does this work out, me and God and golf, on a practical level. Please don’t think I am so spiritually immature to think that God is blessing me when I’m playing well and disciplining me when I play badly. Results oriented interpretation of the will of God is utter bombast. That’s like sports fans who pray to God for their team to win. In an effusion of self-righteous piety, they even decide their team should win (Spurs vs. Miami comes to mind), and become spiritually indignant when it doesn’t go that way. This is vanity and striving after wind.

Of course, every golfer’s goal is to play well—that’s when golf is the most fun. But if that really was my bottom line, I should give up the game because I’d be coming home unhappy more frequently than happy. About a year ago, I contracted this golfing disease called the yips. Your hands tremble and your body no longer responds to commands from the brain. I was playing a round with the men’s group at my golf course—paired up with three guys that I didn’t know very well, but wanted to impress. In our group play, you’re playing for an individual score but also a team score, so the guys you’re with want you to do well. I five-putted twice and missed an 11 inch birdie putt! It was the most humiliated I’ve ever felt on a golf course, and I asked God how He could let this happen to me. No answer.

Which brings me to the 5th hole at the Bandit (see photo). It is a beautiful hole but mean as a snake. Look at the lush curves and contours. You might notice that everything is sloped to the left, and just to the left of the cart path runs Long Creek. So you can hit a great drive on this hole, right down the middle of the fairway—hell, even up the right side of the fairway!—and your ball can land wrong, kick left, roll down the hill and across the cart path to disappear forever into Long Creek. It’s not fair! And when I hit that ball and get that result, I look up at the sky… And I will gasp in disbelief, or whine, or flip my club, or, on very bad days, actually curse. I suspect that God laughs. Job had devastation and tragedy and loss and canker sores—Dallin got a bad bounce. Ah, perspective.

I am certain God is completely disinterested in my score at the golf course. He doesn’t care (though I do) if I can learn to draw or fade the ball. But I know he is concerned about “..works of the flesh”—I see words like contentions and jealousies and outbursts of anger—and I know He is nurturing “..fruits of the Spirit”—like peace and long-suffering and self-control. So I pray for the grace to let Him work on His game while I work on mine.

And, as ever, He meets us where we are. I haven’t played very well most of this summer. But the other day I was playing with two of my favorite people, and I had one of those heavenly days. A good score on the front nine, and then I go unconscious on the back. Eight straight pars! I hit my drive on 18 knowing I have a chance to shoot par for 9 holes and tie my best score ever in Texas! I have a blind shot to the green. I know how far away I am (117 yds.), but trees and a hill completely block my view. I take my best guess and hit an 8 iron three feet from the pin. Luckiest shot of my life! New record for me! Grace and peace to you from Our Lord Jesus Christ!

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The Birds and the Bees and the Flowers and the Trees

The following is a chapter from my autobiography in progress:  

 

The Birds and the Bees and the Flowers and the Trees

 

I never even thought about my parents having sex.  In retrospect, I’m sure they did—there are six of us children and only occasional suspicions about parentage.  I don’t suppose any child is comfortable conjuring up images of his parents doing it.  So when did the first bubble of sexual awareness emerge in my psyche?  I’m guessing it had something to do with animals.  I dimly remember two dogs getting stuck together, and my mom spraying them with a hose.  (Pretty sure they weren’t even our dogs!)

I remember going into my parents’ bedroom on a weekend morning once when I was a small boy.  They were just getting up, and my mother was wearing a flimsy nightgown.  She bent over to get something and I got a child’s eye view of a breast hanging free under the nightgown.  Then I looked at my father, and he had a funny indefinable gleam in his eye.  It just clicked.  I knew immediately that there was a certain part of their life together that I knew nothing about.

When I was in the second grade and my brother Carl was in the fourth, my father took us out to lunch.  We knew that something was up, because he hardly ever did that.  Carl rode in the front seat and I rode in the back, and we went to Dairy Queen, which I believe was the only fast food restaurant that existed at that time.  My dad had decided that it was time to explain the facts of life—I mean, the mechanics and everything.  I don’t recall exactly how he brought it up, or even specifically what he said.  I only knew that I didn’t believe him!  I remember cornering my brother in the restroom after our luncheon and demanding to know if Dad had been telling truth.  I just couldn’t believe that what I used to pee with could have an entirely different function.  I still think it’s a biological incongruity—waste and reproduction through the same instrument.  How great Thou art.

My next recollection of sex probably closed out my childhood era.  I found a Playboy magazine hidden in one of my dad’s drawers.  (No, I don’t know why I was going through his drawers.)  That really shocked me.  But I was getting older by then, and I thought the magazine was very cool.  Jayne Mansfield was in it.  Pretty soon I was searching through my dad’s stuff, looking for other Playboys.

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Three Movies

…you gotta see!

I’m not one of those guys. I never sit around and watch a movie over and over again, memorizing every line of dialogue, so I can spring it into my next beer/guy talk. Even movies that I love I very rarely watch more than once. I take the same attitude I have with books—since there are so many great ones out there to discover, I really don’t have time to try one over again. I think there are only two good reasons to watch a film a second time: either you are trying to figure something out that you didn’t get the first time, or it is one of your Three Movies.

Yep, I have Three Movies that get a pass on the above paragraph. It is not because they are incredible artistic achievements that enhance my humanity simply by watching them. Not an Academy Award winner (or nominee, I think) among them. In fact, apart from my immediate family, I doubt if there will be a single reader who has actually seen all three. But I’m sure I’ve seen each of them at least five times—and not because I’m channel surfing and one happens to pop up. No, I watch them because I want to.

Insert drum roll here. My first movie is called Beautiful Girls. I just watched this one on IFC about a week ago. Matt Dillon, Timothy Hutton, Uma Thurman, a very young Natalie Portman. A group of guys and their wives/girlfriends are back in town for their 20th reunion. Events ensue. Yeah, nothing profound. Except it’s really about us guys and how our obsession with how women look utterly incapacitates us from developing deeper, meaningful relationships. It’s about finding beauty in the soul. But in a hip, funny way. Rosie O’Donnell has a great rant on guys and boobs, and all of the boys grow up a little by the end.

My second movie is Grosse Point Blank. Just realized, another reunion movie. A hit man comes home for his tenth year high school reunion (well, for a job, too) and gets reacquainted with the girl that he stood up on Prom Night. John Cusack (a personal fave) and Minnie Driver in by far her most appealing role, along with Dan Ackroyd as a rival hit man. But what drives the movie is the hysterical rapid-fire banter that goes on between every character in the show. You need to shut up when you watch this movie! I don’t think there’s any underlying redemptive message in this one, but I don’t care. Great soundtrack, too.

The third of my Three Movies is Dazed and Confused, probably the most well-known of the three. This is the last day of school (and night) at a nameless Austin high school in the mid-seventies. A bunch of unknowns who went on to become big names (McConaughey, Affleck, Zellweger) played the high school kids. I feel funny giving this movie such a glowing endorsement since most of the kids are stoners and profligates who would have driven me crazy if I had them in my class—but there is something about them that rings so true and wins over my affection even as I’m shaking my head. It is one movie that makes me want to be young again. I know for sure the next time I’ll watch it—on the night I retire.

There you have it. If you didn’t have anything to watch tonight, you do now. Of course, movie tastes are like music tastes and a certain part of our anatomy. My Three Movies might not be your cup of tea. But if you follow my blog—then please reply and let me know what your Three Movies are. I’m always looking for something good to watch.

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Insert Foot in Mouth

In the Epistle of James, we read: “The tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.” Hoo boy. I’ll go along with that. My mouth is always getting me in trouble.

It happened again just last week. I was at a get-together, just sitting around chatting, when a very dear friend arrived. “How’re you doin’?” she asked. “Better than you,” I replied without thinking. Her face fell. “Oh. So you’ve heard?” Huh? No clue. “Heard? What? I haven’t heard anything.” “Oh. From what you said—I figured someone must have told you. I’m getting a divorce.” Insert foot…

This seems to be a life-long problem with me. Examples are numerous, but I’ll just highlight a few particularly painful ones. When I was a freshman in college at the University of Missouri, I hitchhiked home to my parents’ house in St. Louis. The house was empty when I arrived, but I could hear people conversing on the back porch. I went out and found my folks having drinks with the couple next door. I grabbed a beer, sat down, and answered the obligatory questions about college life, dorm food and my weight. Then an object on the back porch caught my attention. “Oh my God,” I said, “who on earth gave you those awful wind chimes?” My mother glared at me, and my father looked down at the concrete floor. “Uh, we did,” said the neighbor’s wife. Insert foot…

One of the supposed perks of my job is that you get to play an active role in your children’s educations. All three of mine passed through my high school—as a matter of fact, they all took my Creative Writing class (at different times). At least one wishes he didn’t.

The first major assignment is an autobiography; six chapters long, visual aids, life map, a pretty package. On the due date, each student reads on chapter aloud to the class. It so happened that my son was absent on the due date. A boy read his chapter on how much he loved roller-coasters. Afterwards, I responded. “I don’t like roller-coasters, because I don’t like heights. Which is a problem when we go to amusement parks. My daughter is absolutely fearless. There isn’t a roller-coaster in America she wouldn’t go on. My sons, thankfully, are a little more cautious. I mean, they like them, but they’ll check it out first. If it’s a little foreboding, they’ll take a pass.”

Fast forward to next day, my son back, his turn to read a chapter. “My favorite thing is roller-coasters,” he reads, “the bigger, the faster, the scarier, the better.” The class breaks out laughing—he looks up, embarrassed, uncomprehending. Insert foot…

I have a worse one! I’m walking down the hallway during my conference period, and my other son is sitting in a desk outside of a room. “What’cha doin’?” I ask. “Making up a current events quiz.” A flash of inspiration. His teacher is one of my coaching friends. I open the classroom door. “Uh, excuse me, coach, but I think we have a problem out here. This young man seems to be cheating on a quiz.” “Oh, is that right?” says the coach, going along. “We’ll just have to see about this.” He steps into the hallway, lifts my son’s paper—and finds another student’s quiz underneath! Total mortification all the way around. Insert foot…

The tongue is a fire, no doubt. But a few small words in my defense. When my dear friend says “How’re you doin’?” and I respond “Fine”, the conversation has basically ended, or is looking for a new beginning. My reply invites further interaction. Conversation is an art, and art involves taking risks and self-revelation and exploration. The people I enjoy talking to most are the ones who don’t censor themselves too tightly—who are honest and open and funny and maybe even a little off-putting at times. I like conversations that surprise me. Burn on.

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Los Spurs

Karen’s Spurs t-shirt

It has been ten days now. I am almost over it, but not quite. On the Wednesday morning after game six, I woke up at 4:37. It all came surging back, like a punch in my gut. Manu’s free throw, Kawhi’s free throw. Kawhi’s almost rebound. The ball to Ray Allen in the corner. (I knew that sucker was going in before he caught it.) Timmie on the bench. Manu getting raped as he drove the lane. I lay in bed and fought the inexorable truth that that was our chance.

On the Friday morning after game seven, I woke up at 4:48. The first thing I thought was that it was over. Then I thought about game six. All I could remember of game seven was Manu on the right side above the three-point line, close game, make something happen, ball through his hands, out of bounds. Followed by Manu at the top of the key, still close game, guarded, pass to the right, no one there, ball out of bounds! Manu! Manu will forever be my favorite Spur, the bravest soul in a pantheon of heroes. I was crushed.

I’m better now, still wounded but recovering, out of danger as they say. It took therapy. I didn’t watch PTI or Around the Horn for the entire next week. Didn’t open the sports page. Didn’t watch local news. The only King James I wanted anything to do with was the biblical one.

Now I realize how wonderful it all was, even given how it ended. Part of my appreciation is purely selfish. NBA playoffs start in the mid-April and go through the middle of June. The end of the school year! I can’t begin to describe what a balm it is as you limp through one of those final school days knowing that the Spurs play that night. A tonic for burn-out syndrome. (Not always easy to get up the next day, though.)

Facebook is more fun when the Spurs are in the playoffs. Spurs fans are knowledgeable, zealous and sometimes almost rabid. I’m shocked at how many women I know who are die-hard sports fans when it comes to Spurs playoff time. And I love it when I see someone I had pegged as a gentle, dignified soul go ballistic over a blown call or moronic comment by a television analyst.

This year I discovered a new pleasure that coincides with Spurs playoff games. As the game gets underway, I start a message board with my two sons, my daughter, and several other committed Spurs fans that I am close to. As the game proceeds, we shoot comments back and forth, expressing joy, outrage, passion, and mostly rather sick senses of humor. So much fun. It’s like watching the game with your family and friends, only you don’t have to buy extra beer and snacks.

Another great thing about rooting for the Spurs is that playoff fever seems to permeate every level of existence in San Antonio and the surrounding area. It’s not just people who go to sports bars. The other night I was running a tennis clinic, and I was talking with three girls, one fourteen and the other two sixteen. Typical teenage girls—except they were talking basketball! “Kawhi always comes up with that rebound,” one girl said. “We should have had Timmie in the game,” another stated. “Chris Bosh is probably the ugliest man on the planet,” the third opined. Knowledgeable basketball talk!

A common concern seems to be that this was our last shot, one final stab at the fifth ring. Heck no! My friend Sean, who keeps up with such things, assures me that we have the right people signed, we have cap space, we have free agents interested in coming here. I say we have Pop and R.C. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if we were talking about our Big Three five years from now, and it was Tony and Kawhi and Livio.

Houston has the Rockets and the Astros and the Texans. Dallas has the Mavs and the Cowboys and the Rangers and the Stars. They can keep them all. I am content to cheer for the soundest, classiest, most dignified organization in all of professional sports—win or lose.

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Photo #1 – My wife Karen and me — this is where it all s...

Photo #1 –  My wife Karen and me — this is where it all starts.

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My Next Career

“There was high school and there was retirement; then there was that year in between.”

–Dallin Malmgren

Thirty-two down and one more to go.  God willing, that is the plan.  Some people worry that they won’t know what to do with themselves when they retire.  Not a big concern here.  I frequently joke that I’ve already been retired for over six years because I never work in the summers, and I’ve had thirty-two of them.   One thing that I’ve already learned about retirement is that I’m good at it.  Never get bored, never run out of things to do, always come up with new projects.

There are so many things I will especially enjoy when I am truly retired.  The feel of a well-struck iron headed right at the flag.  The smell of a Granzin steak grilling on my backyard barbecue.  The slice of orange at the bottom of an Old Fashioned.  The chatter of the mockingbirds outside my window in the morning.  Watching the sun set in a cloud-streaked Texas sky.  Harper Leigh.

But there is really only one thing I will miss about my job—you.  Of all the manifold pleasures God has created for us, the most exquisite ones revolve around people.  The importance of family is obvious.  The joys of friendship are undeniable.  I think real fulfillment extends beyond these.  It’s the countless other people who pass through our lives—the acquaintances, the co-workers, the unexpected encounters, the interest sharers—who give us the chance to shine.  In my case, it’s the students who passed through my classroom, the hallways, the tennis courts.  The opportunity to affect them and be affected by them has been one of the greatest blessings of a very blessed life.  The Beatles taught me years ago that “…the love you take is equal to the love you make.”  I believed them.

I got my first book published about three years after I began teaching.  My plan was to teach about three more years until I really got the author thing rolling.  It didn’t work out that way.  Looking back, there’s not a doubt in my mind that my true calling was to be a teacher.  I’m proud of my career.  But I always wanted to write too.

Which leads me to my next career: internet writer.  The miracle of e-publishing has made it possible for me to reach out directly to my audience.  The miracle of social media has made it possible for me to re-connect with many of the dear souls who have passed through my life.  My website has given me a space to cultivate the garden of my mind.

So this is my invitation to you.  A solitary garden is a waste.  A writer longs to be read.  I want to share and interact and exchange.  The demands of my calling are fading and my next career is beckoning me.  It’s my intention to write a weekly blog.  I also want to post a Former Students’ Writing of the Week, because so much of the work I’ve received has moved me.  And a Photo of the Week.  Maybe a Video of the Month.  Tons of ideas.  I already have three of my novels available as e-books that you can buy at Amazon or iTunes or Barnes and Noble.  I hope to add two more by the end of summer.

I’m all in.  You can follow me on Twitter or share stuff with me on Instagram (I don’t really know what that is yet, but I’ll learn).  I hope that you will “Like” my Facebook “Author” page.  And should you read one of my books, I’d be grateful if you’d go to GoodReads and do a quick review.  I am told that is how e-authors grow.  Word of mouth is my primary advertising plan, so talk about me.  (It doesn’t even have to be nice.)  Thanks for reading this far.  Keep in touch.

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The Joy of Life…

I remember when I was a boy, I would wake up and go outside in the early morning.  And I would stand in the air, and I’d breathe, and this feeling would pulse through me–the joy of life.  Gurgling and bubbling, an effervescence of spirit.  It would happen mostly in summer (at least I associate it with summertime).   The components were a sense of freedom and an anticipation that anything could happen.  The beauty of the feeling derived from its not being event-based.  I wasn’t going to Six Flags that day.  (The event-based feeling of joy almost always crashed in retrospect.)  I didn’t know what the hell was going to happen that day.  I only knew I was thrilled to have the opportunity to experience it.

I love that feeling.  I find it is mostly simple things that trigger it.  Breath.  If you pay attention, there are times when the simple joy of breathing resonates through your body.  Water.  It can be the ocean or a lake or a pool or even the shower.  Food, definitely.  Sex, as I recall. Memory.  Family.  Nature.  God.

A few weeks ago, I got out of my car and was walking toward my school building.  It was early June, and the air was clean and good, and the shadow of the school shaded the early morning Texas sun.  I felt it–the inexorable rush that started in my gut and spread outward to all my limbs, most especially the one on top of my shoulders.  I’m sixty-three years old and I still got it.  Blessed.

The joy of life.  Savor.