Jennifer Bohnhoff's Blog, page 40

Earning the Hat

My son and his girlfriend just after Ranger School graduation. When my son was seven years old, he bought a hat that had the Ranger logo on the front.

The first time he wore it, a stranger approached him.

"Son, is your father a Ranger?" he asked.

"No," my son replied.

"How about your big brother?" the man continued.
"No," my son answered.

The man frowned. "You're not a Ranger, are you, son?"

"No, sir," my seven year old son squeaked out.

The man shook his head. "Don't wear it until you've earned it," he said.

My son took the hat home and put it in his closet. From time to time, he looked at it. The hat reminded him of a promise he'd made to himself soon after 9/11, that he'd protect his family and those he loved from the bad people out there who wanted to hurt them.

Last month my son earned his Ranger tab, and wore the hat again.

The End of the Night of Miracles

I hate driving after dark. I don’t like driving any car except my own. And I don’t like driving on unfamiliar roads. Yet, here I was, driving a rental car between Columbus, Georgia and the Atlanta airport at midnight so that I could pick up my husband, whose flight was going to land at one in the morning.

Earlier in the day I had been a little ticked at my dear husband. The work commitment that had kept him from coming with me a day earlier had miraculously disappeared, and while I was glad that he would be able to see our son graduate from the Army’s Ranger School, I wasn’t happy to spend three hours of my short visit driving back and forth on an unknown road in an unknown car. At least, I had thought, our son had returned to base for the night, so I wasn’t losing time with him.

But by the time I left Columbus, there wasn’t any room in my heart for annoyance. A series of miracles, all small enough that they might have been mistaken for coincidences had they not been stacked up one after the other like dominoes, had left my heart filled with gratitude and wonder. My son’s car had died, but it had done so in a restaurant parking lot instead of on a lonely, dark highway. Two strangers had helped him push it into a parking space. We’d driven in two cars, so my son wouldn’t return to base late. A call to AAA had brought Roy, a gentle giant of a tow truck driver who’d helped me get the broken-down car to a repair shop, then had insisted on driving me back to my hotel. Roy had warned me about dangerous truck stops and deer on the road, and sent me on my way with a prayer for my safety. I drove along singing hymns and praise songs and offering up long, rambling prayers of praise.

God wasn’t my only guide on the road that night. In her flat monotone, the Google Maps voice informed me about every upcoming turn. Still, the Atlanta airport is a huge facility, with a north and south terminal. I read every sign twice, worried that I’d end up in a permanent holding pattern around the airport without ever finding the right place to park. The signage seemed clear, and it agreed with Ms. Maps. I felt confident as I drove my car towards the parking lot’s automatic ticket booth.

Until I reached out to push the button, where the word INTERNATIONAL was written across the top of the machine. My heart lurched. How had I arrived at the wrong parking area? What was I to do? I looked in the rear view mirror. Although I saw no traffic behind me, the thought of backing down a one-way ramp seemed suicidal. The only way to go, I decided, was forward: through the multistory parking garage and out the other side, where I could explain that I’d made a mistake. Hopefully, they’d see that I’d spent mere minutes in the lot and wouldn’t charge me. Maybe they’d guide me to the right lot, since Ms. Maps had failed me.

“I blew it,” I said as I handed the attendant my ticket. “I meant to park in domestic.”

The man looked over the top of his glasses at me. “This is the domestic lot,” he said.

“I’m picking up someone who’s coming in on Southwest,” I said.

He nodded. “Then you’re in the right place.”

For the second time that night I looked in the rearview mirror and considered driving in reverse. “Can I just back into the lot, then?”

The attendant shook his head. “Can’t go back in. But you can just park here, right next to the booth. I’ll watch your car for you.” Enough had happened already that day that I didn’t question the man. I thanked him for his kindness, parked the car, and walked into the terminal.

When my husband arrived, he got an earful about the smoking clutch, the giant angel named Roy, and my parking lot confusion. He smiled. He’s used to me parking in odd places. But when we got back to the car, it was not alone. A car was parked next to ours, and in it was a crying woman.

“Can you help me?” she asked. I’ve lost my credit card somewhere, and I’ve called home, but no one is answering. They won’t let me leave the lot unless I pay.” By now it was 2 am, and the woman figured that those at home had their phones on silence. She offered to give us her name, number and address, but my husband just smiled and paid her ticket.

“This one’s for Roy,” he said.

We finally made it to our hotel at 3 am, then had to get up at 6 to make it to graduation. I may have been running on fumes the next day, but they were good fumes.

It wasn’t until after graduation that the repair shop called with the bad news that repairs on my son’s car cost more than the value of the car, but that’s when I realized the final blessing of the weekend; my husband is good at many things, but he is the best negotiator I’ve ever known. That afternoon he and our son sat in two different dealerships and discussed buying a new car. By the time we flew home, my son had learned the fine art of the deal, and was the owner of a new car.

People helped us. We helped people. I am not sure if I know what the higher purpose was that weekend, but I am glad that I played a part in it all. God’s ways are mysterious. They may seem like mere coincidence. But I believe something far greater was at work on that night of miracles.

More miracles

I sat in the restaurant in Columbus, Georgia, nervously wolfing my salad and looking for a sign that the tow truck had arrived in the dark parking lot. If he got back to Ft. Benning in time, my son John would graduate from Ranger School the next day. Tough luck that his clutch had burned out just as he pulled into the restaurant parking lot.

I kept telling myself that all would be well. Our party of four had come in two cars, so I could stay and take care of John’s car while the others drove him back. I’d taken rides in a tow truck before, but always in my hometown, where I knew where to go and what to do. Even there, not all the drivers had been pleasant men. One had been downright snarly, nasty. I hoped I wouldn’t get someone like that again, especially here, where I didn’t know my way around.

The man who climbed down from the cab of the tow truck was a big, big man: very tall and very wide. His skin was so dark that it was hard to distinguish his features. I admit that my heart lurched. By the dim overhead light I read the name embroidered on his shirt. Roy. I smiled and thanked Roy for coming. Roy smiled back, and with that smile and a few gentle words, all my fears evaporated.

Several people came out of the restaurant as Roy attached chains to the underside of the car. One of them, obviously drunk, shouted racist and disparaging things. Roy either didn’t hear or ignored the man. Several people offered to give me a ride. One couple told me it wasn’t safe for a white woman to ride in a tow truck with a black driver. I assured them I didn’t need their help, clambered into the cab, and off we went.

Talking with Roy was easy. I told him that I was a teacher, and he shared that his son had dyslexia. We discussed education, parenting strategies, and how hard it was to find the right school for a boy with special needs. Roy praised God for giving him a wife who was patient and level headed. He called his son, a 14-year-old freshman football player, a big, scary-looking kid who was really a teddy bear. It was clear that this man cared deeply about his God and his family, and that the son took after the father.

At the dealership, Roy helped me fill out the information on the envelope for the nighttime key drop. I asked for the number for the local taxi service, but he insisted on driving me back to the hotel himself. As we pulled up, he told me that I could put my feet up and rest: my night of troubles was over.

I told him I had no time to relax. My husband’s schedule had cleared, and he was able to make it to graduation. I was going to grab a cup of coffee, then make the hour and a half drive to the Atlanta airport to meet him when he landed at 1 am. Roy’s smile faded. He warned me to drive in the left lane because deer came out at night. He also told me which exits were safe for a woman alone at night and which were not.  

And then we prayed together. Roy asked the Lord to protect me on my drive, and I asked for guidance for Roy’s son’s reading problems. Roy gave me his number and made me promise that I’d call the next day. He wanted to make sure I made it back safely, and he offered to tow my son’s car to another mechanic if the dealership’s estimate was too high.

I drove all the way to Atlanta singing hymns and praising God for bringing me the biggest, scariest looking angel ever. I saw deer – both alive and dead – on the drive, but because of Roy’s advice, I didn’t hit any of them.

Little did I know there were more miracles to come that night.

Night of Miracles

I was in Columbus, Georgia a couple of weeks ago to attend my son John’s graduation from Army Ranger School. The night before graduation, he got a pass to have dinner with his girlfriend Deanna, his girlfriend’s mother Carolyn, and me. Later that evening I would drive the hour and a half to Atlanta to pick up my husband Hank, whose schedule had changed, allowing him to grab a flight that came in at one in the morning.

We drove to a restaurant in two separate cars, the mothers in one, and the lovers in the other. As Carolyn pulled into a parking space, I noticed two men standing on the berm in front of us. They were looking toward where our young ones had parked, and they wore horrified looks on their faces. My heart lurched.
I jumped out of the car and ran. John’s car was stopped halfway into the parking space. Smoke billowed from the engine, which made a high, squealing sound. We tried pushing the car into the space, but the clutch was stuck down and the car refused to budge. The two men from the berm joined us. “Looks like your clutched is cooked,” one said. They suggested we try pushing it again. With their help, it slid into place. Before we could thank them, the men went their way.

We looked at our watches and considered our situation. If John was even one minute late returning to base he wouldn’t graduate, and ninety days of sweat and toil would have been wasted. I pulled out my AAA card, which I have carried ever since that fateful day 29 years ago when I locked my keys, my grocieries (including ice cream!) and worst of all, my baby into the car on day when the temperature had topped 100°. AAA had never failed to get me out of a jam. I had to depend on them now.

We ordered our food, then called AAA, who assured us that a tow truck would arrive in 45 minutes. As I ate, I thought what a blessing it was that we’d chosen to drive two cars so that Carolyn and Deanna could drive John back while I got his car to the dealership where he got it serviced, and what a blessing my AAA membership was. I thanked God for the two kind men who seemed to have been standing on that berm, waiting for us to need their help.

It seemed like God was in control and everything was going to work out fine, but I couldn’t help eating my food with one eye gazing out the window, waiting for the truck and wondering what would happen next. What did happen surprised me.

To be continued . . .

All our gloom going up in smoke

Santa Fe has celebrated Las Fiestas de Santa Fe since 1712, making it the oldest civic celebration of its kind in North America. It began as a religious celebration to celebrate the reconquest of New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt. This year, the Fiesta runs from September 2-11th.
 Since 1924, the Fiesta has begun with the burning of Zozobra, a gigantic boogey-man puppet. Zozobra, which is Spanish for 'the gloomy one,' was originally created by Will Shuster, an artist who thought the Fiesta, was far too serious and solemn. Inspired by Mexico's Yaqui Indians, who burn an effigy of Judas every year during Holy Week, Shuster created a 20-foot-tall puppet, stuffed him with fireworks, and set him ablaze in his own backyard. He and his friends were so pleased that they repeated the performance the next year. A tradition was born.

Even though Shuster continued to create Zozobra, or Old Man Gloom, every year, the effigy didn't always look identical. During World War Two, Zozobra took on a distinctly Asian look, with slanting eyes and round spectacles. Other times, he had sharp teeth and pointed ears, giving him a vampirish appearance. In 1964, Shuster handed over his plans and his rights to the Kiwanis Club, who has kept the tradition going ever since. It has become not only a favorite event, but the major fundraiser for the Club.

I have only seen Zozobra burn once, in the early 1970s. Back then, the crowd was unruly, with lots of drunkeness and brawls breaking out among motorcycle gangs. Since then, the crowds have become much larger, but better behaved.

Have you ever been to Zozobra, or is there a similar tradition in your area? I'd love to hear your stories.

This year's Zozobra is over 50 feet tall. He will go up in flames on the evening of Friday, September 2nd, at Fort Marcy Park.
"Zozobra is a hideous but harmless fifty-foot bogeyman marionette. He is a toothless, empty-headed facade. He has no guts and doesn't have a leg to stand on. He is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. He never wins. He moans and groans, rolls his eyes and twists his head. His mouth gapes and chomps. His arms flail about in frustration. Every year we do him in. We string him up and burn him down in a blaze of fireworks. At last, he is gone, taking with him all our troubles for another whole year. Santa Fe celebrates another victory. Viva la Fiesta!" - A.W. Denninger 

Dehumanizing the Enemy

In my novel Swan Song, Helen and her exchange-student friend Dervinder go for a run. As they run, they talk about their assignment: writing a research paper based on the Old English Epic Poem Beowulf.

Helen becomes convinced that  Beowulf is far older than people think it is. She believes that it is a story retold through multiple generations: a story about a conflict early in man’s existence:
      I say that if this story is old as the cavemen, like I think it is, Grendel’s no tyrannosaurus because they were all dead already. Mr. Reed said that. I don’t think he was a saber tooth tiger either. The Beowulf writer’s idea that the evil creatures of this world are not really monsters, but corrupted sons of Cain, the evil son of Adam and Eve who murdered his own brother. But what lived back then that might have been considered monstrous, a fallen man? Were there orcs back in the Stone Age?
      And that’s when Gurvinder says that maybe Grendel was a Neanderthal.
      I stop in my tracks. “What?” I gasp.
      “A Neanderthal,” Gurvinder says. He stops too, but leans forward, hinting that we’re supposed to keep going. I start running, but slowly. My mind’s racing.
      “What makes a Neanderthal like a fallen man?” I ask.
      “T’ink about it,” he says. “We depict Neanderthals as brutes. Half monkeys with stooping shoulders who drag their clubs on the ground. We make them look stupid. But they weren’t.”
      “How do you know that?” I wheeze. This talking and running at the same time isn’t easy.
      “I’ve read about them. National Geographic. Discovery. They were smart, like us.”
      “So why do we make them look like morons?”
      Gurvinder shrugs. “Maybe they’re too much like us. We need to make them look like they weren’t smart so we can explain why we survived and they didn’t. Make ourselves feel better.”
I wish that the Weders’ dehumanizing of the Berigizon was the only time one group of people have used this tactic to make themselves feel superior. Unfortunately, it's not.

I just finished watching Schindler’s List, a movie about how one German industrialist managed to save thousands of Jews from the Holocaust. Nazi propagandists had insinuated that Jews were less than human, and that they were dangerous because they seemed so much like people. While talking with his Jewish housemaid, Helen Hirsch,
Amon Goeth, the superintendent of Plaszow work camp, says “I realize that you're not a person in the strictest sense of the word. . . I mean, when they compare you to vermin, to rodents, and to lice,” reiterating the Party line than Jews were subhuman. In other propaganda, such as this poster, Jews looked like monsters with long claws and fangs, much like Grendle the monster is depicted in Beowulf.

We continue to dehumanize our enemies. We call them uncivilized monsters so that we have justification to fight them. And they return the favor, calling us and our way of life monstrous as well.

Perhaps this is the human condition, but perhaps one day we will stop using this ploy and recognize everyone as fully human, regardless of skin color, religion, or place of origin. Only then will humans be truly humane.

Jennifer Bohnhoff is a middle school social studies teacher and the author of several books for middle grade readers. Swan Song is her first young adult novel.

The use of kennings in Beowulf: Wealtheow the Peaceweaver

One of the literary features of Old English poetry is the use of kennings, or compound words that evoke vivid pictures. Beowulf, an epic written sometime before 750 a.d. and arguably the greatest literary work of Anglo-Saxon culture, is liberally sprinkled with kennings.

For instance, Anglo-Saxon scops, or storytellers, compared the bubbles and foam that form around the prow of a ship as it cuts through the water to a necklace on a woman's throat. They knew that the course which a ship took through the water could also be traversed by swans or whales. Therefore, when the hero takes a boat from the land of the Geats to Denmark, the poet uses kennings and says that Beowulf's foamy-throated ship goes over the swan- road to reach the tide-beaten land. 

This Anglo-Saxon love of kennings has persisted in the Germanic propensity to form compound words.

The kenning freodwebbe, or peace-weaver is used to describe Wealtheow, the Queen of the Danes, wife of Hrothgar, and mistress of the great hall Heorot. This term refers to a woman married from one tribe into another in order to secure peace between the two groups. While it is obvious that the Danes are one of the groups Wealtheow's marriage was to unite, we know very little of her original family or clan.  In line 620, the poet calls Wealtheow "the Helming woman," but the Helmings are not a tribe that can be historically identified. They show up in no other work of Anglo-Saxon literature. I wonder if they even existed by the the time the Beowulf poem was being written down, or had they succumbed to warfare or disease. 

Wealtheow's name further confuses those who want to understand her background. Wealtheow is a compound, a combination of wealh, which means Celt, foreigner or slave, and theow, which means in bondage, service, or not free. Although she moves freely through Heorot, Wealtheow's name suggests that she is not there of her own accord. Several researchers explain that there is not a clear distinction in Anglo-Saxon law between a woman being offered by her tribe as a pledge of good faith between tribes and a woman being taken from her tribe as a hostage. Other precious items such as jewelry and battle gear were exchanged as seals of good faith between tribes, demonstrating that women were treated as commodities in the Anglo-Saxon world.

Although she is a queen, Wealtheow is in a difficult position. She is isolated within a society that may not accept her as one of their own. Stripped of the protection of her own family, she lives among people she may not like or trust because they have, in essence, kidnapped her. Her goal, to weave peace among two peoples, is ultimately in the hands of the men who surround her, and who have already proven themselves warlike in the very act of taking her.

The Wealtheow who appears in my novel Swan Song is a quiet and dignified woman who carefully works to keep peace within her household, appease her guests and please her husband.  She is resigned to her fate, but if one looks, one can see the shadow of distant and violent events long past in her eyes.

Who - what - was Grendel?

In the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, Grendel is a frightening creature who sneaks into Heorot, the mead hall of the Danish king Hrothgar, and kills and eats the warriors. But what kind of creature is he?

The original Beowulf poet did not provide an exact description of Grendle, but he does provide some clues. In his 1977 translation, Amherst professor Howell D. Chickering calls Grendle, among other things, an unholy spirit (line 120), a dark death shadow (line 160), an evil monster (433), a dark walker (703), and a demon (706).
By J. R. Skelton - Marshall, Henrietta Elizabeth (1908) Stories of Beowulf, T.C. & E.C. Jack, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... Perhaps one of the reasons why there is not a lot of physical description rests in the fact that the poet calls Grendle a sceadugenga, a shadow walker, or as Chickering translates the phrase, a dark walker. Grendle only goes about at night, and is therefore shrouded in darkness, both physically and metaphorically.

Grendel is usually depicted as a monster, and while the poet does not give the reader a lot of physical details, those he does give are monstrous, indeed.
Grendle has”gigantic fingers,” each topped with a “terrible hand spike” that “glistened like steel.” (Chickering translation, lines 983-985).

In his 2000 translation of Beowulf, the Irish poet Seamus Heaney says that Grendel is vaguely human in shape, though much larger:
... the other, warped
in the shape of a man, moves beyond the pale
bigger than any man, an unnatural birth
called Grendel (lines 1351–1354)
 
While we are not given a full description of Grendle’s appearance, we are given his background. Grendle is a descendant of Cain, the son of Adam, who, according to the Bible, was the first man, created by God. Cain was the first man to commit murder, killing his brother Abel. The Beowulf poet says that God then drove Cain “out, far from mankind,” and Cain’s children became “every misbegotten thing, monsters and else and the walking dead, and also those giants who fought against God time and again.” (lines 110-114) Fans of Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings will be interested to know that the original word for walking dead is not zombie, but orc.)

So then, regardless of what Grendle looks like, he is a fallen man, corrupted by the sins of his forebear Cain. He may be monstrous, but he is fundamentally human in nature.
I’d been toying with the idea that Beowulf was not a 6th Century story (even though many of the characters are historical persons from that period) or a 9th Century story (one of the suggested dates for the one existing manuscript) but a much older story. What if Beowulf was a story from the dawn of humankind? A story that had been handed down through countless generations, changing with the times, adapting as new technologies were born and old ways were forgotten?
What creature would have existed at the dawn of humankind that was fundamentally human in nature, yet different enough to frighten and disconcert us enough for us to call it monstrous?

Could Grendle have been a Neanderthal?

Can Run

I can count on one hand the times I've gone for a run since my running buddy moved last November.  Yesterday was one of them.

​I got up before dawn, when the full moon still hung in the sky and the shadow of the earth lay low and purple on the western horizon. The air was cool and still. It felt good to be out. And I'm proud to announce that I beat my husband. Not in speed, nor in distance, but in the number of cans brought home. Can runs have been a family tradition for at least twenty years now. It began when I was just beginning to run, and my husband would go with me. He was faster, and grew impatient with me, but I learned a little trick that helped me keep up; I'd point out cans lying on the side of the road, and he's run to them, crush them, then race to catch up with me.

​Art follows life in Swan Song, my newest novel. In it, Helen befriends a foreign student whose dark skin and hair have made the other students wrongly label him a terrorist. Gurvinder then helps Helen become a runner. After one particularly difficult day at school, the two of them go on a run:      That evening, when Gurvinder shows up at my front door for our run I hand him a plastic grocery bag.
     “What’s this?” he asks, holding it up.
     “It’s a grocery bag.”
     He lets out an exasperated sigh. “I know that. Why are you giving it to me?”
     “You know all those cans we always pass? We’re going to pick them up, then throw them in the recycling bin when we run by the grocery store. We’re going to save America, one can at a time.”
     Cans against cruelty. I know it sounds lame, but it is all my brain could come up with. At least I am doing something.
     We head for the dirt road on the north edge of town. It’s where the bonfire was held back during Homecoming Week and I know there are lots of cans there. I see one in the ditch and point it out.
     “Stomp it flat and throw it in the sack,” I say. Gurvinder stops and I take the lead. I see three more cans, so I swerve to pick them up, then drop them on the road and run on. I hear Gurvinder smash each one, then race to catch up with me. This idea is pure genius; not only are we being good citizens, but I love being ahead of Gurvinder instead of huffing and puffing to keep up.
     By the time he finally closes the gap, his bag is clattering loud enough to wake the dead.
     “We’ve got twenty-t’ree, Atalanta,.” He shakes the sack, proving his point quite noisily.
     “Ata who?”
     Gurvinder laughs. “Atalanta. You know, the girl who threw golden apples?”
     “I’m not throwing anything.”
     Gurvinder laughs again. “It’s a Greek myth. Atalanta promised to marry the man who could beat her in a foot race. Hippomenes challenged her, and she really liked him, so she threw golden apples. Then she won and . . . . wait, that’s not right.”
     Now it’s my turn to laugh. “I’m not going to marry you, even if I do beat you.”
     “Why not?” Gurvinder asks. He asks it playfully, but I feel my face go even redder than the run has made it. I’m glad he doesn’t expect an answer, because what would I say? I would never marry Gurvinder. He’s a good friend; he’s just too different from me. It’s not the color of his skin. It’s a cultural thing. Despite what I said to my mother after having dinner at his house, I could never fit into Gurvinder’s family. Picking up a few cans may not change the world, but every little bit helps. My run ended well, with four cans and no one hurt. Helen and Gurvinder's did not end so well. Other students made sure of that.

How authentic is too authentic?

I'm working on a contemporary/historical dual narrative novel right now.  That means it has two different stories: one set today and one from a long time ago.

The historical story line is based on the Old English epic Beowulf, a poem believed to have been written about 750 AD.

Beowulf is written in 6,359 verses. Each verse has two accented trochee syllables, a pause, and then the second hemistitch of two accented syllables.  There is no rhyme, and instead the Beowulf scop (bard) used allliteration, repeating consonant sounds.  

If none of that last paragraph meant anything to you, relax.  You're normal.  Not many people except English professors care about trochees or hemistitches.   Here's a brief example, which might help you understand.  It is Old English, which is barely recognizable to us, so I've included a translation as well.
God mid Geatum    Grendles daeda
(God amidst the Geats  Grendle's deeds)
wlanc Weders leod    word aefter spraec
(The proud Weder lord    Words after spoke)  Most of my novel is written in contemporary English prose.  However, I felt I needed to give the flavor of the original work, and so whenever Maenan, the scop (bard) in my story tells a tale around the campfire, I wrote it in alliterating troachaic half-lines:             When the world was new       whelped from the blue mother’s womb
            Beautiful to behold it was,    full of fulsome wonder 
            Heavy the herds on the plains   Bounteous the berries beneath the forest
My critique buddies hated Maenan's tales. I argued long and loud how important it was to include at least a bit of the original form, but they argued that it was difficult to read and hard to understand.  They were tempted to just jump over the sections written this way.  That finally got my attention.  I rewrote Maenan's stories this way:    When the blue mother gave birth to the earth
It was beautiful to behold, and full of wonder
Huge herds roamed the plains, berries filled the forest My rewritten stories were easier to understand, and that led to my critique buddies understanding why they were included and how Maenan's stories related to the larger story.  Success!

Sometimes it's good to sacrifice some authenticity for the sake of meaning.