Eldest Graduates From College

Today, Eldest graduates from college. Like all major life events, this gives me pause to remember. I remember the morning my wife’s water broke. It was July 1st and she wasn’t due until August 4^th. It was four weeks before the due date and we were both concerned.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that my wife went into labor early. She is early to everything, she comes from a long line of women who are early to everything.

I called the doctor’s office, which was closed, and was given the number for the on-call answering service. I called the number and the man on the other side asked his scripted questions. “What is her due date? How far apart are her contractions?” and so on.

When I told him her contractions were many minutes apart, he asked if this was our first child. It was. He told me to call back when the contractions were two minutes apart.

I wanted to reach through the phone, grab him by the neck, and shake him, but I did not.

Instead, I took a deep breath and said, “Let me start again; my wife is due August 4^th.” And then I stopped. There was a long silence on the line and suddenly the faceless voice on the line said, “Ooohhh. She is four weeks early!” I could almost hear the panic in his voice as he told me he would page the on call doctor immediately, and if I didn’t hear from the doctor in twenty minutes, I should call back.

Eldest was born the next day. She was healthy and happy. At least I think she was happy. She didn’t say much those first few weeks and months, so I cannot be absolutely sure. In fact, she didn’t say much the first few years. Beloved and I would often have to encourage her to use her words, which she adamantly refused to do.

For most of her time in grade school, middle school, and high school, Eldest wanted to be an engineer. She took all the math and science classes she could. She took classes on electricity and computer aided drawing. And we still had to remind her to use her words.

Today, three years after graduating from high school, Eldest graduates from college. Like her entrance into the world, and in the tradition of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, who all believe that being on time is late, she is graduating early.

Today, Eldest graduates with a degree, not in math or science, but English. Apparently, all those years of admonishing her to use her words stuck with her and now she writes—and wow, does she write! (Check her blog out at kaleigh.distaffen.com)

So, Eldest, congratulations on finishing your baccalaureate degree. I am in awe of your quiet strength, your tender wit, and your firmly caring heart. I am proud of you and can’t wait to see what this new chapter in your life brings.

How Did I Celebrate My Birthday?

It was my birthday this week and I took some time to review my life, especially in relation to birthdays. At least this is what I told my wife, when she asked why I hadn’t loaded the dishwasher yet.

A few years ago I received a book of quotes from Mr. Rogers, the children’s television personality from here in the United States. One of my favorite quotes is, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” I have never been good at birthdays, so I keep trying.

When I was 12, I was out riding my bike on my birthday. Like most 12 year old boys, I wanted to be a cowboy, and so I pretended my bicycle was a horse. And like most cowboys, I held a long piece of grass in my mouth. I am not sure where I saw a cowboy engaging in this blade of grass chewing behavior, but it was probably on television.

It was a wonderful warm summer day, and the breeze felt good as I rode my bike at a full-out gallop. I rounded a corner and the hooves of my horse slipped on loose gravel. I was elated that I had not suffered too badly and escaped with only a few minor scrapes.

Unfortunately, that entire day I had a scratchy throat. Nothing seemed to help. Not drinking water, not drinking a carbonated sugar-filled beverage, not even the homemade ice-cream roll my mother made for my celebration.

At the end of the night, mom asked me if everything was alright. I finally told her about my scratchy throat and explained that it felt like I had a sliver in my throat. She rolled her eyes, grabbed a flashlight and looked in my mouth, all the while muttering about my odd way of describing things.

Then she stopped. She stepped back and looked at me, and then looked down my throat again. In absolute amazement she called my father; “Come look at this, he has a sliver stuck in his throat.”

That sentence was repeated a few more times at the hospital emergency room to nurses and doctors and then they repeated it again once they looked at my throat. It seems that when I fell off my bike, that long piece of grass had slid down my throat and a small piece had impaled itself into my flesh.

 I am not so good at birthdays.

A few years later, as a college student, I was working at a camp. I stopped into the office early in the morning to pick up something I needed and the office manager stopped me and handed me some mail. It was a letter from my mother. I put it in my pocket and promptly forgot about it until lunch time. Then, when I had the chance, I sat down and read the letter. Mom started out the letter by saying, “If I timed this right, you should be getting this letter on your birthday.” I stopped short, realizing that, indeed, it was my birthday. I had squandered half of the day in ignorance, not realizing it was my birthday.

I am not so good at birthdays.

Therefore, I decided some time ago, to keep working at my birthday, specifically my 26^th birthday. All year long, when people ask how old I am, I say I am 25. Then when my birthday comes, if it is a success, I will move on. So far, they haven’t been a success.

This year was no exception. It started out wonderful, with a trip back home to the county fair, with my wife, daughters, and a couple of their friends. I visited with my mom, and my sister, and her granddaughter, who developed quite an attachment to Eldest. (Even though my sister is the youngest in the family, she is older than I). It was a wonderful day. We ate funnel cake, since birthdays and cake go together. We bought some maple syrup to pour over homemade waffles (I love breakfast, and real maple syrup is amazing).

Things were looking quite successful.

Then in the evening, the family and I went to a baseball game. My alma mater, Roberts Wesleyan College, was holding an alumni picnic before the game; it was great to see friends. My youngest and middle daughter spent a little time with the college mascot, Reggie, and there was food.

Things were looking quite successful.

It was a chilly night, with temperatures in the mid 50’s (F). This was not a bad thing, since I sat between Beloved and Eldest, and they snuggled close to keep warm. I like snuggling with family almost as much as I like breakfast. But, about halfway through the game, it began to rain. A light rain, just enough to make us all damp and to make it feel even colder.

Not only that, but the hometown team was losing, by quite a significant margin.

I am not so good at birthdays.

So again, my birthday wasn’t a success, but I will “try, try again.” It’s tough being twenty-five again, but I will persevere.

What Did You Forget?

I went to college once. I attended back in the dark ages, before internet and email, when personal computers were a fanciful dream for college students and laptops looked like small suitcases with screens as small as some of today’s smart phones.

One of the classes I took was called, “Learning and Memory.” It may have actually been called “Learning and Cognition”, but I normally try to stay away from words that are too long. One notable exception to that rule is “chocolate”. Therefore, I am insisting that the class was called “Learning and Memory”.

The class had a laboratory. We actually picked out a rat and taught it to negotiate a maze. We rewarded it with an edible reinforcer. It was an amazing look into the realm of classical conditioning and left me hungry for more knowledge.

That is, until my rat died in the middle of the semester.

That class came to mind last Saturday. I had just finished my ritual of personal cleansing (that would be a shower, completed with a shampoo!), when my wife asked me to bring the hair clippers down, so she could cut my hair. I am quite vain, and only allow my wife to cut and shape my glorious head of hair. Besides that, I am frugal, and we barter for the cost of the haircut. I usually repay her by taking out the garbage, or starting a load of laundry.

Laundry, by the way, seems to never stop at our house. The week prior to my haircut had been especially bad for laundry. This was due to the neglect of the teenagers in the house to follow through on putting laundry in the dryer when they were supposed to. They claimed that they “forgot". Noting my wife’s agitation at the laundry not being put into the wash in a timely fashion, I decided to lecture my daughters.

I cleared my throat, and with a deep and commanding voice I began, “There has been entirely too much ‘forgetting’ in this house this week.” I paused for dramatic effect.

Beloved, not being one to pause for anything, piped in, “Hon, did you bring the hair clippers down?”

“Oh Crud.” I replied wryly, “I forgot.”

End of lecture.

What Will It Be Like in Twenty Years

This was the last full week of summer. Next week school begins, at least in my neck of the woods. From reading comments on Facebook and Twitter, along with more traditional sources of news, I understand that for many of you school has already started. My daughters would say to you, “That’s ridiculous. Ain’t nobody got time for that going to school and listening to muddle-headed teachers yet.” Let me extend my apologies to all of you teachers, we really do appreciate you.

Eldest, being in college, has been back to school for a week. Monday, her first day back, was Convocation, a deeply symbolic service, celebrating the return of professors and students to campus.  Professors dress in full academic regalia, the Grand Marshall of the college carries the College Mace (a great big stick with some goo-gaw on top, like a royal scepter only for collegiate setting) and leads a processional down the main aisle of the auditorium. I have no idea how the Grand Marshall is chosen; I think perhaps the faculty chooses one of their members who isn’t afraid of walking down the aisle and carrying a big stick.

And so, during Convocation, the campus, dusty and bored from the summer absence of students and faculty, enfolds the new and returning students and faculty into it’s protective embrace, yet again.

I did not attend Convocation this year and haven’t attended since my years as a student. However, after Convocation I did attend a luncheon on campus, with Beloved. Prior to the actual luncheon there was a punch hour. Now, it sounds as if this college has a violence problem, what with Mace at Convocation and punch hour prior to a luncheon. I assure you that it is a very non-violent place and I saw no evidence of a pugilistic melee prior to the meal. At the punch hour, I ran across the college’s 

First Lady. To be clear, I did not literally run across her, that would be considered vehicular assault, and I am first, non-violent (despite playing violin from elementary school and into college. Yes, it is the same college where Eldest now attends.), and I am a professional driver.

The First Lady, although not imposing in stature, certainly commands attention with her warm spirit, keen intellect, and that warm Texas twang in her voice. As she made her way around the room, she stopped to share a funny story with me.

She shared a scene she saw in Convocation, this most pompous of circumstances, with the dimly lit auditorium, quiet music playing, the soft swishing of the robes as the faculty wait in the wings for the cue for the Grand Marshall to commence the procession. At the outset of this regal event, she watched as Eldest, and one of her biffles (my children tell me that biffle means, best friend for life) saw and greeted each other.

“Now mind you, these two haven’t seen each other for, what? All of twenty minutes. When they saw each other, they hugged and squealed and jumped up and down, like they hadn’t seen each other in years. I can only imagine what homecoming will be like for them in twenty years,” she said.

So, gentle reader, whether you are hugging this new school year and jumping up and down with glee, or you are entering it with all the seriousness of the Grand Marshall carrying the big stick, do it with all your heart.

Even Littlest, who suspects that all teachers are escapee’s from a lunatic asylum, have absolutely no idea how to teach, and who does not want to go back to school to sit under their tutelage, has decided to complain about this year with all her heart.

I Was Board This Week

This past week was the Free Methodist Bible Quizzing Final competition. Last year the competition was held in Seattle, Washington. That trip took us all the way across the country. This year, the competition was held right here in my hometown, at Roberts Wesleyan College, so our trip was far less.

For those readers who are unfamiliar with Bible Quizzing, it is a competition where the participants are asked questions from a predetermined section of scripture. They sit on chairs and jump into the air at the end of the question. Pads that sit on the chairs register the order in which each person stands.

The contestants then take turns answering the question in the order in which they jumped. Until, that is, someone gets the answer right; then a new question is asked and the entire jumping process is repeated.

You might think that Bible Quizzers are a jumpy lot, but that would be jumping to conclusions.

Since  this competition was held at my alma mater, I thought I would be quite comfortable. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The first night I found that the bunk I was sleeping on was quite hard and I awoke as stiff as a proverbial board.

Apparently, sleeping on hard mattresses does not affect young people. When they weren’t quizzing, I saw Quizzers, who range from 6th graders to seniors, out for early morning runs, playing Frisbee before dinner, and a few of them actually doing one-armed cartwheels, amongst just a few active endeavors. (When I was young I couldn’t even do a two- armed cart wheel. I tried a few times but found the results to be an embarrassment and a danger to my health.)

That was how my day went, watching these young people jumping, running, and, cartwheeling; all the while I worked on stretching out stiff muscles from sleeping on my hard mattress.

I thought and thought of a way to make my bunk more comfortable. And so in the middle of the day I broke the rules, and sneaked off campus and back to my house. I cut a piece of plywood the same size as my mattress. Then I covertly brought that board back to campus and up to my dorm room.

Putting that sheet of plywood over the mattress was amazing. It was almost like sleeping on a fluffy cloud.

Almost.

But, I still didn’t try to do a cartwheel.

How was your first day of school?

Today was the day; the day that children have been dreading, and parents have been yearning for all summer. It was the first day of school. I celebrated by going to work, driving a school bus. When I got to the garage, other drivers were gearing up for a busy morning. Soon, they had all left and I was hanging out waiting to see if my boss needed me. Sure enough, after a few moments of quiet, my boss looked out the window and barked, “Distaffen! There is a bus out there; go fire her up and pick up some kids and get ‘em to school.”

I asked which kids I should take to which school. There are a lot of children and a lot of schools in the district I work for.

“I don’t care!” He snarled, “Just get ‘em to school. Let the teachers and administrators figure it out, and smartify them. That is what they got all those college degrees for.”

I dutifully went out and started picking up students and dropping them off at school. Lots of different students, in different neighborhoods, and when I passed a school, I would drop some of them off. Although, once I mistook a lumberyard for a school, and the students pointed out my mistake.

When I got back from picking up dozens of students and dropping them off at a myriad of schools, my boss asked me how it went. “Just fine,” I replied. He grunted, “Fine? Then come back this afternoon.”

That afternoon I returned and looked around for my boss. He was chewing out a mechanic for using an amber light bulb instead of a yellow one. The mechanic looked plaintively at me. All I could do was spread my hands and shrug, because I couldn’t tell the difference either.

Finally, the tirade relented and my boss spotted me. “Distaffen! What are you doing back here?”

“You told me to come back this afternoon.”

“Well, yeah, whatever. Remember those kids your dropped off at school this morning?”

“Yeah.”

“Go put them back.”

My children’s first day wasn’t much better. Except I think they had a good bus driver. Littlest and Middlest had large packets of surveys to complete. Beloved and I had stacks of papers to sign, assuring that our daughters would be respectful, involved, and interested members of the learning community. I always have nightmares that one of them will yawn in class and the school police will hunt me down with a copy of my signature on one of those forms, and when they find me, they make me go to detention.

Eldest, who is finishing up her secon week of her freshman year lamented over a paper she had to write for some guy named Phil. I asked her who Phil was and why she was writing his paper. She groaned, “Daddy, Phil isn’t a person, it is a class in Philosophical Ethics”

I couldn’t help her, so off we went to see grandpa, who has a bunch of college degrees and he smartified her.

A letter to Eldest

This is, at least for us in the Distaffen household, the last week of summer. Middlest just sat on the couch and said, “I hate myself, I hate this time of year. I am excited that school is starting soon and I hate myself for that. Everything I want to do seems boring. You could invite me to go bungee jumping-- BUNGEE JUMPING-- and I would say, ‘No, thanks, that just seems boring.’”

While Middlest eagerly waits for school to start, Littlest is angry since she may not be able to take all the honors/AP classes she wants. It appears that the easiest way to conform “No Child Left Behind” is to hold the smarter children back. Since it is much easier to keep a smart child from reaching her full potential, than it is to have a less smart child exceed her ability. 

As for Eldest, today is her first day of college. It is only orientation weekend, but it is the start. She says she is nervous and I can understand that. Therefore, if you are looking for my usual funny stuff, be prepared to be disappointed, I have simply written a letter to Eldest and included it here.

Dear Eldest, 

Today you start college. I know you already knew that, but I wanted to remind you. It is a start, a new beginning, a canvas waiting for paint, a parchment waiting for words. 

I am firmly convinced that along the way you are going to make mistakes. To that I say, So what? Who cares? What is the big deal? For thousands of years people have made mistakes and the human race seems to be getting along just fine, and to let you in on a secret, those people whom you think are the most perfect and mistake-less, they too, make mistakes.

I also want to give you a warning, for the past four years, teachers have spoon fed you facts, and in the spirit of “No Child Left Behind”, with a few exceptions, have failed to fully challenge you. There are no bells, to mark the beginning and the end, no herds of people milling about as they move from stanchion to stanchion. No ten week review for a test written by some educational warehouse a thousand miles from your class room. 

Instead, you will be expected to learn, and much of that on your own. Questions will be asked, not only to clarify material and clear up confusion, but to challenge beliefs and encourage critical thinking. And by critical I mean terrifying, heart stopping, thinking. 

Your world will soon go from nice, neat, high school boxes, with black and white labels, and always right and wrong answers, to a terrifying hodge podge of brilliant colors and containers of all shapes and sizes. People and ideas will be far different from what you are used to. To be sure, there will be some definite moral absolutes, “Love God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” But beyond that, much will be challenged. 

I know you will do well, not only because you are your mother’s daughter, but because you have a strong character, a resilient personality, and a deep love for God. 

So, go forth, enjoy your first steps as an adult. 

Love,

Dad

Before I posted this, I printed a copy and let Eldest read it. She gave me that special look that teen-aged daughters reserve for their fathers. The look that says, “Male parental unit, you have finally lost every last bit of intelligence. You are officially off your rocker.” That was Eldest’s look and her words to me were, “Dad, I already know this stuff. Haven’t you read my blog?"

Then, I remembered holding Eldest as an infant and praying that she would grow into a young woman who loves God, herself, and others. 

Eldest wants to be an engineer.

Recently, I confronted sexism, gender bias, or whatever you want to call it, at least in some small way.  I was at open house at Gates Chili High School, where Eldest and Middlest are students.  The plan for the evening was to follow the girls’ schedules, spending ten minutes in each class. Beloved followed Middlest’s schedule and I followed Eldest’s. Eldest is a senior and is taking seven Advanced Placement classes this semester. I do not mean to brag. Actually, I do mean to brag. She, like her mother, is beautiful, intelligent, and driven. She does not even have time in her schedule for lunch. Which I do not understand at all, since lunch was my best subject in school.

Perhaps, those of you who are parents have experienced the babbling of an infant that in a moment sounds like intelligent speech. I am not referring to the approximations of saying words that sound like mom or dad. I am talking that surprising moment in which it sounds as if an infant has spoken a complete sentence. For Eldest that first sentence came as she was laying next to her car seat, pushing it back and forth, looking under it as if it were an automobile on a lift. At that moment she said, “How’s it work?”

The intervening years have been filled with pens torn apart, unused 35mm cameras dismantled, even rewiring a bathroom. The most wonderful thing for me?  Sometimes she even lets me help.

At this open house, I followed Eldest’s schedule diligently. Going to all of her Advanced Placement (AP) classes, until I arrived at the one class she is taking that is not AP, “Principles of Engineering.” The teacher began to talk and I eagerly listened, until he said, “This is an excellent class, if your sons want to become engineers.”

I was dumbfounded, stupefied, flabbergasted, and so angry I had to consult a thesaurus to find words to describe my emotional state.  My daughter is many things, but a son is not one of them. She is taking seven AP classes, not even taking lunch. She has her college application process started and wants to do three years at Roberts Wesleyan College and two more at Rochester Institute of Technology. She wants to be an engineer. And she is not male; she is a beautiful young woman.

If the high school teacher not acknowledging that my daughter, who is most definitely not a male, could want to, and actually become, an engineer was not bad enough, a few days later she received a letter in the mail from the BSA. I tried to think where I had seen those initial before. Was it “Beautiful and Stunning Americans”? No, BSA is the Boy Scouts of America, and apparently, the local Boy Scouts of America are holding a series of meetings to explore what it means to be an engineer. The only connection with BSA that my daughter has is her scouting for a boy. I do not wish her to find one too soon however, so she will not be attending these meetings.

I did not realize becoming an engineer was so complicated and had such gender bias. I hope that when Eldest finally becomes an engineer she will give me a ride. I really like trains.