A Road Trip With Middlest is a Trip

This past week, Middlest and I went on a four and a half hour road trip to visit a college she is interested in attending. I am not sure what all of her criteria for choosing a college are, but I think one of the criteria for visiting this college was that it was far enough away from home so Mom and Dad wouldn’t be “all up in” her business, yet close enough so Mom and Dad could drive to get her for breaks on a regular basis.

The drive was long but enjoyable. Middlest shared her music with me, and we were able to jam out as the miles passed. I wish I could tell you that we engaged in deep personal conversation, but we are both content to simply sit and be together. In fact, Middlest has never been one of those touchy-feely emotional people. When I would pick her up from pre-school, all the other children would run up and give their mothers or fathers a long hug. Middlest, on the other hand, would zero in on me from across the room, paw her foot on the ground a couple times, and with a wild gleam in her eye, she would charge full speed across the room, and slam her head into my stomach. Yes, while other parents were the recipients of loving and tender hugs, I would get a head butt to the gut.

Middlest has also developed a sarcastic and somewhat irreverent outlook on life. This, in fact, makes time with her even more enjoyable. When we left the house at five in the morning, it was dark and there was not much to see. As we travelled on, the sun began to rise, as it does every morning, and we could see the country side around us. Every time we saw something noteworthy I would say to Middlest, “Quick, take a picture.” This is quite easy to say, but very difficult to carry out when travelling down the highway at 65 mph. Consequently, we missed taking pictures of the fog wisping its way across the fields dotted with bales of hay, we missed capturing the pair of six point bucks munching on dew covered grass by the edge of the road, and we missed multiple chances to take a picture of the lovely sunrise.

That is until we reached one of our favorite rest stops along the highway. The actual rest stop sits in the median, and travelers heading either direction park their cars and walk on an enclosed bridge to the facilities and restaurants in the building in the middle of the lanes of traffic. As we were heading back to our car, I stopped and was finally able to snap a picture of the sun as it hovered above the highway. As Middlest and I enjoyed the scene, a truck driver ambled by and commented, “That’s not something you see every day.”  Middlest and I just looked at each other, fighting the desire to make snarky comments like, “If the sun didn’t come up every day, we would all be DEAD!” or, “Where are you from that the sun doesn’t come up every day?” But, we politely restrained ourselves. The driver, as it turns out, was talking about the bridges across the road and not the sun rise at all. 

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.