Pooch Problems Persist

Reprint from "Mesquite Citizen Journal", Oct. 10, 2011

I’m going to devote this column to that which comes out of our community’s dogs. No, I’m not going to write about barking. I’m writing about what comes out the other end.

I am a denizen of the Oasis golf courses and during a recent round I was approached by one of the finest beverage cart drivers this city, or any other, has ever known–a true Hall-of-Famer. I respect her expertise and when she came roaring up to our group in her wagon demanding, “I want you to write a column about poop!” How could I turn her down?

I generally don’t take requests, but I said, “Sure. This may be my only chance for a Pulitzer.”

First, I had to clarify if she were referring to my golf game, the town’s propensity for gossip, or something more literal.

“I’m sick of it! People don’t clean up after their dogs around here.”

Not wanting anything unseemly added to my next on-course Bloody Mary, I assured her I would try to comply with her wishes. What I found upon looking into the matter by looking for the matter turns out to be a near epidemic.

Like all good research, I limited my study to the Mesquite Vistas area around the Oasis golf courses, the Oasis Business Park, and Marilyn Redd Park, so my comments are specific to that section of town. I could only conclude that I am, by nature a “heads-up” sort of guy. Because, when I walked around with my head down the sheer volume, variety of sizes, and collection of shapes of the examples I found of the reported problem astounded me. I began to share our cart driving, EPA expert’s outrage.

I can, with some certainty report that many of our dog owning citizens adhere to safety regulations and walk on the sidewalks and paths provided by our town elders. I know this not because I witnessed the actual walking, I can report this because of the evidence emanating from exercising their hounds. I saw way too much of what pets’ behinds leave behind, left behind.

The sides of the cart paths on the golf courses, the edges of the walkways along the streets, and worst of all, sections of Marilyn Redd Park are all fouled with “steaming piles of (expletive)” as the Queen of Carts most daintily put the problem to me. Kids playing in the park should not have to decide whether or not they are picking up their errant Frisbee or a dried, flattened mound of waste. I’m sure Mrs. Redd would be aghast that her namesake park has become more of an obstacle course than a playground.

Our olfactory organs need not be assaulted during a daily exercise routine. And, I shouldn’t have to play policeman and issue a warning to adults that shirking one’s civic duty is illegal

There is, after all, City Ordinance 10-3-16, titled: “Animal Waste, Odor, and Noise”, requiring, among others, owners to pick up after their pets (excrement is the legal term used). This isn’t a matter for the city council at one of their recently opened to the public Technical Review Sessions. This is strictly a matter of conscience to be dealt with by our dog walking citizenry.

So, in the inimitable style of the late-great Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss:

Do not leave it in the park,

In the morning or after dark.

Do not walk eyes to the sky,

Pick up pooch’s little pie.

Do not think you are being kind,

When piles of poop you leave behind.

It’s the law–so clean the grass,

Of that which comes from Fido’s ….

Americana

Reprint from "Mesquite Citizen Journal", August 29, 2011

Mrs. Writers’ Corner and I recently returned to Mesquite from an extended road trip. There were many facets as we covered all four time zones and added four thousand miles to our family Truckster. We traveled through 10 states and saw seven Capitol buildings plus two former Capitols, one in Iowa City, Iowa that proudly served until Des Moines replaced it in 1857 and one that served Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois. That’s a total of nine domes. Denver, Colorado’s is gold plated–Americans know how to build cool domes!

We once lived in Denver and most of our family still does. 30 years ago Denver was a cow town but has been diligent and made itself one of the fine cities of this country. Once smog riddled, they actively cleaned the air. Not stopping there, Denver serves as a prototype for modern cities. The prime example is the grand transportation/pedestrian hub at the edge of downtown. The project rehabilitates the classic Union Station into a center for travel around the city and a point of departure throughout the state and beyond.

I’m qualified to call Denver a great American city because I got to compare it to Chicago, Illinois, one of our greatest historic cities. Our stop in the Windy City revealed cool jazz clubs, the grandeur of the Tribune building, classic architecture, and a focus on museums and galleries.

We experienced a second look at Chicago from across Lake Michigan. About 60 miles away in South Haven, Michigan we stood on the beach and saw the glow of the city at night.  

It is mind boggling to leave our high desert and compare our mountains with the still-snow-capped-in-August Rockies of Colorado then compare them to the wonders of a body of fresh water whose far shore cannot be seen from side to side. Also witnessed were more rain in one night than we see here in two years, humidity percentages in one day greater than the aggregate of more than two dry Nevada summer weeks, and a completely incomparable amount of water running through the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to our Virgin River.

Those are the natural wonders and the man-made wonders rival them. The above-mentioned Capitols are inspiring. I learned a ton about the Civil War, an area in which I brag of some knowledge, at the Abraham Lincoln library and museum in Springfield. We saw artifacts of which we previously only read or saw in photos. I was most impressed with old Abe’s ivory handled sealing wax dauber that retains his red wax laden fingerprints.

America’s interstate highways are a marvel. Even the inconvenience of road construction slow downs didn’t dampen our spirits. It is good to see Americans working on what is called “infrastructure” on news reports.

The rest of what we witnessed was corn.  Get a map and draw a huge box around the area from eastern Colorado across Nebraska, Iowa, and into western Illinois. Travel south and then west through Missouri, back across Kansas and north in Colorado returning to Nebraska. That’s about 10 degrees of longitude wide and four degrees of latitude deep–tons of land covered with maize. And to think, it all will become fodder for our future food, fuel for our future transport, and seed to do it all again next year. We even get to eat a bit if it straight off the stalk.

Trip notes include getting the best customer service we’ve ever had in Benton Harbor, Michigan when Mrs. Writers’ Corner’s e-book broke and we had to replace it at a Best Buy. The noteworthy item here is that Benton Harbor is best known these days as a city so troubled and economically depressed that it was made a ward of the state. Elected officials were axed and the governor now runs the city. With all those woes, workers at the store gave us superb service with a sincere smile.

The main reason for the trip was not to nearly bankrupt ourselves with fuel costs, although that was a side effect, the reason was family. We saw family in Denver, took some with us and saw more in Michigan. Along the way we made stops at a major airport, ate meals at a wide variety of eateries, and bunked in places ranging from awesome to awful.

In total, what we participated in was Americana. I could have shared one word in lieu of the 700 you are reading: Majestic. The bottom line is that with all our political warts, this is a country worth saving.

An Ode to Autos

An Op-Ed Column from November 24, 2010

Pontiacs–history. Oldsmobiles–gone. Gas-guzzlers–outlaws. The auto industry needs a ton of changes, pronto. But, I fondly remember the age of cool cars. I grew up in Michigan. 

Denying that the mitten state is intertwined with the car industry is to deny nature’s mixture of hydrogen and oxygen to make water. As a youth my friends and I waited excitedly for September when dealers would yank the sheet off or color in the silhouette revealing the new car models. We stared in awe through such innovations as wrap around windshields, dual headlights, and of course, fins of every dimension. There were also the oddities like the hard top folding into the trunk and the ill-fated Edsel. We could identify year and model of every car. 

Upon reaching our teens, cars became an obsessive pastime. First, there were the ones we actually drove. My best friend’s mom had a 1952 Studebaker we drove all over the countryside. We’d often pool our pocketful of change to buy enough gas to get us through the evening. The Michigan winters were full of opportunities to spin out on icy roads and test the drivers’ education theories of tapping the brakes and turning into the slide. Of course we had to do the opposite to see if one method worked better than the other. Thankfully, the only casualties were a couple of mailboxes and a fence post. 

My ride, when I got a chance to back out of my own driveway, was Mom’s 1954 Ford station wagon. It was an eyesore then, but I’d give my savings account to have it today–it had wooden sides!  

Then, there was that glorious day when my steady girlfriend’s mom decided their family needed an upgrade. She traded the faded red, 1955 Buick sedan for a brand-new, 1962 Chevrolet Impala convertible; sea foam green with a white top and leather seats. I’d drive the station wagon over for our dates and, bless her heart; Mom would cede me the keys to the shiny new ragtop. When we broke up, I’m not sure if I missed Sue or that car more.

I bought my first fifty-dollar car, a 1948, black Chevy in 1965. It soon blew an engine rod and was replaced with a 1959, baby blue Ford convertible. With all caution (and sense) aside, my fraternity brothers and I would let a pound or two of air out of each tire, which would cup nicely over railroad tracks. Then we could idle down the tracks on a slow moving joyride without having to steer or accelerate.

Sadly, there was the black letter day in 1968 when I went Benedict Arnold and traded my 1961, Ford Falcon in on a Datsun (Nissan in its infancy) sedan. It was a box on wheels, easy on gas, and what I could afford. Little did I know by doing so I sprung a leak in the dike before it became a full-fledged flood of foreign autos. That was the beginning of the end of the sweetheart relationship between Michigan boys and their cars.

But the dream was not over quite yet. There were the cars of pop songs and daydreams. Some of those cars showed up on my radar. We waited excitedly for several nerve wracking weeks for a friend’s 1968, Pontiac GTO to be delivered.  It did not disappoint.  Another friend’s Chevrolet Corvair Monza Spyder was the best even though it was pronounced “unsafe at any speed” due to the rear engine and its propensity to explode upon impact. I donated two dollars to a fraternity at the University of Michigan in 1966 to drive a Shelby Cobra around their circle driveway at a speed not exceeding ten miles per hour and loved every second. Finally, spring meant socializing by driving our back road loops near Olivet College with a mate who had returned from Vietnam sporting a 1968, poppy orange, 289, Mustang convertible. (Sigh).

I know the era is over. I know the auto industry has been stubborn about considering fuel efficiency and power alternatives. I understand the reality, and I accept it. Luckily, I still have those sweet memories that cannot be tarnished by greenhouse gas emissions or a downward spiraling gas tank needle. Good luck to General Motors and their pending IPO.

9/11 Remembrance from "Mesquite Citizen Journal"

A Memphis guitar and a rainbow

By: Terry Donnelly

Sept. 9, 2011

Our family’s 9/11 story melds tragic moments with family treasures.

My list of to-do’s after teaching on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 included picking up my suit and making a list of alcohol needed for our daughter and oldest child, Sara’s wedding to Frank three days away. Those after school chores had to wait.

What followed the day’s acts of terror is a cache of stories created by our family and friends that amount to sheer determination. The 125 invited guests were to start arriving that day–many were to be transported by airlines. An elderly aunt and uncle were in the air flying from Detroit, Michigan to Denver, Colorado during the hours of the four attacks. As all planes were ordered out of the sky, theirs was forced to land in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Being understandably frightened by the event, they rented a car and drove the 200 miles back to the safety of their mid-Michigan farm.

Also leaving from Michigan were our son and daughter-in-law-to-be. Sean and Annette were scheduled to fly after work that day. Bright boy that he is, Sean soon realized that the odds of getting on a commercial airplane in the near future were astronomical. He phoned Annette and they made arrangements to leave work immediately, meet at home by noon, and get on the road to Denver. A non-stop trip would be about 24 hours. They made it in fewer than 30 by only stopping at an Iowa rest area for a few hours of sleep along the way. They were the first out of town guests to arrive and were in time for dinner on Wednesday. Two guests accounted for and only 123 to go.

The two groomsmen had never met, but destiny created a time for them to become pals. Mark was a college friend of Frank’s living in Atlanta, Georgia. He, like Sean, realized he was not going to fly to Denver. Determined to fulfill his promise to stand at the wedding, he quickly located a rental minivan that needed to be returned to Denver. He jumped at the opportunity, snatched up the vehicle, and headed out.

Ken was Frank’s childhood chum living in Louisville, Kentucky. Mark contacted Ken, a complete stranger, and made arrangements to meet in Memphis, Tennessee. Without ever having laid eyes on each other, Ken drove to Memphis from Louisville and Mark with his fiancé, Paige, coming from Atlanta, met in the dead of night. They immediately continued their near non-stop journey.

Along the way the two decided to add a unique twist to the groomsmen’s toast. This was, after all, going to be a memorable wedding. The minivan arrived in Denver about two hours before the wedding on Friday evening–like the cavelry, just in the nick of time. When the toast was delivered, they brought forth a series of representative goods from stops across the country. There was a Georgia peach, Kentucky Bourbon, a guitar shaped fly swatter from Memphis, and spicy Kansas City barbecue sauce. The boys delivered a remarkable toast that included visual aids.

Maybe the oddest story of all is the one provided by Frank’s Uncle Tim. He had a flight booked out of O’Hare airport in Chicago for Friday morning. By then the airlines were beginning to inch back into the air as millions of people across the country were scurrying to get any kind of flight. Uncle Tim went to the airport– ticket in hand, boarded his on-time original flight, and landed in Denver as scheduled. Imagine that.

Those are the success stories, but as expected there were others that didn’t end as well. Sara’s college roommate, Rhonda, was to be her matron of honor. Rhonda was coming from Michigan and, try as she might, found no way to get to Denver. She would not be in the wedding party. Her husband, Adam, was visiting friends in Steamboat Springs, Colorado the days before, so he merely drove down the mountain, but alas, no Rhonda to stand beside her friend.

Who do you get in a pinch as a maid of honor? Your brother of course. Sara nominated Sean to fill the empty slot. He took a lot of ribbing about the dress he’d be expected to wear, but in earnest, we jumped into action getting Sean a usable proximity to the tuxes the other wedding party men would be wearing. He was good to go by rehearsal time on Thursday.

By Sara’s count, there were 78 attendees of the 125 who were invited. The events of Tuesday added an unwanted somberness to the Friday evening vows. But, aided by a glorious rainbow the two were married and feted in a true gala.

The now ten year old wedding photos remain a dual reminder of the best of times and worst of times offered by the week of September 11, 2001.

Ready for some football?

College campuses are all Edens; inspiring, intellectually stimulating, and really bad with math–at least the athletic departments. As it stands now many large, well-known conferences are shuffling teams faster than a single deck twenty-one dealer with a full table.

Ironically, the Big Ten now has 12 teams and the Big 12 has 10.  The Pac-10 has 12 and a full one third of them are not anywhere near the Pac (Pacific). They are either in the desert or the mountains.

I understand the need for change and getting teams settled into the best possible setting to display their athletic prowess. Schools grow and many change their focus over time, but while doing so they shouldn’t expose their lack of a desire to be completely accurate on all fronts. After all, they do compose our higher educational system, the silver bullet for sustaining our revered democracy. They must lead by example.

Athletic conferences have shifted from time to time for years, but not until recently have they not accurately reflected the number of tribes representing their nation. Some have chosen names that will stand and have stood the test of time. Harvard and Yale started playing football against each other in 1875. They and the six other ancients chose the Ivy League as their collective title around the turn of the twentieth century. It didn’t become official until 1954 when the NCAA stuck its nose into the fray and designated representative divisions. The Ivy League has stayed intact ever since with no changes on the horizon.

The Big East, Southwest, and Atlantic conferences will always work too. They can add or eliminate teams with impunity and still hold an accurate moniker. The Mountain West is fine even if they carry out their plan by adding two and subtracting one. The problem stems from those pesky numerically named conferences when they get the itch to see how much more television money they can snag by adding, trading, or exiling teams.

The Big Ten, having more teams than the Big 12, should rename itself the Big Dozen or So. Rumor has it that they would like to go all the way to 16 teams. If so, maybe Chock Full O’Teams would be better. The Big 12 having lost some schools should be the Big Several.

With teams all over the topographical map, the Pac-10 wants to change its name, this time to the Pac-12. They have had numerical representation from five to 12–enough! They should be the Pacific-Mountain-Desert Conference. That doesn’t sound poetic. Maybe it could be even more general and be dubbed the School of Schools West of the Mississippi. That may not float either. They could always revert to 1959 and their original name, the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) but that is really boring so how about the Couple-a-Hands-Full Conference for the time being?

The best news coming out of my massive renaming project is that with so many numerals being freed up by conferences moving from definite to indefinite titles, Notre Dame, the staunch independent, could pick up a loose digit and dub itself the Gigantic One Conference. That may accurately represent their ego, but unfortunately, it won’t solve what may become their next biggest problem. Due to conferences around the country picking up teams at a frantic clip, in the near future there may not be room on any team’s schedule for the unattached Fighting Irish. They may have to invent football’s version of the Washington Generals, a la the Harlem Globetrotters, to find someone to line up against their golden domes. Either that or play BYU 12 times each year if they choose independency too.

Too complicated? Perhaps we should return to the days of leather helmets and few pads, play the schools on our own blocks who are about our same size, eschew complex NCAA rules, and play the game for fun. I don’t think football was ever designed to be big business. It’s not a good fit. Let’s keep both money and any conference names containing definite team counts completely away from the collegiate game.

Language Usage Change Alert

Capital S status for the sixties

By: Terry Donnelly

1960 was the year John F. Kennedy won the presidency and marked the beginning of the 60s calendar decade. By then the cyclone of activity calling for huge changes in America was already near warp speed. The sixties got a forty-niners type jump-start before the decade actually began and then dribbled over past its numerical endpoint.

1955 was the year that Rosa Parks gave the figurative thumbs down to a request to move to the back of the bus, got arrested for said insubordination, and ushered in the year-long Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott that, along with the Ku Klux Klan’s murder of Chicago teenager Emmet Till earlier that year, got the snowball of civil rights activism rolling downhill and gaining momentum. 1955 was also about the time America started nosing around and sending advisory personnel to assist in a certain civil war in Southeast Asia. Youthful protesters started honing their skills and perfecting their trade a full five years before the new decade arrived.

By 1960 the stage was already set for the ensuing years of activism through sit-ins, boycotts, picket lines, marches, takeovers of college campus buildings, and student and ghetto riots, to cite a few examples (Let’s not forget Rock and Roll). This youth rebellion spawned tons of like-minded activity inviting anyone who wanted to be a part to either get involved or, at least, sit up and take notice.

By the time the numerical end of the decade was rolling around in 1968 and 1969 protest activity and demand for change in the status quo had reached a frenzied pitch. The civil rights movement, which had its roots in nonviolent protests, had lost its leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to assassination. After 1965 the movement began to settle into large cities and after MLK’s assassination, was led by Black Panthers whose “motis operands” turned to violence. Activists were buoyed by successes in effecting change during the early and middle years of the 60s including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Matching civil rights activists step for step were the Vietnam War protestors calling for America’s withdrawal from a battle in which we did not belong and one which we could not win. The heat of anti-war sentiment caused the unlikely situation of a sitting president recently buoyed by victories in civil rights to not even run for reelection.

Work for change was not finished, so the decade didn’t cede to the next in line and carried momentum right into and beyond 1970.

Unlikely events including American soldiers firing on and killing American students at Kent State University in 1970 and the incumbent president obstructing justice in order to gain reelection in 1972 typified the early years of the seventies.

Then, suddenly, the frenzy that had been a way of life for nearly twenty years stopped cold turkey. The activity of the 1960s fell off a sheer cliff, vanishing with the closing of a helicopter door. The escapee was, none other than Richard M. Nixon, the only American president ever to resign the office. He was disgraced over unlawful activity in both politics and war. When he quit being president, the sixties were over.

December 1, 1955 (Rosa Parks’ protest day) all the way to high noon, August 9, 1974 (Richard Nixon’s disgrace day) bracketed the hectic, violent, inspired time that is referred to in American lore as the sixties.

Few times in history have produced so much mass change. The laws abridging American black citizens’ rights, especially to vote, were legislated away.  And, no longer would high officials be taken at their word. Greed, power, and bigotry took a severe blow.

Therefore, I believe the time deserves to be considered an era akin to the Crusades or the Age of Enlightenment. I’d like to propose an official language usage change. Because of the impact of those years, the fact that it was indeed an era ushering in a new age–the age of Aquarius–I suggest we grant the phrase capital letter status. Henceforth, the years from 1955 to 1974 shall be cited as “The Sixties.” Take it or leave it. I like it

Fathers' Day Tribute

A good life learned through golf

By: Terry Donnelly

June 23, 2011

Last Sunday was Father’s Day. I’m late, but permit me to share some about our relationship. Like many, I profess Dad to have been a great father. He went on Boy Scout outings even though he had more than enough camping to suit his taste during World War II and also volunteered to lead our church youth group. He liked to listen to my friends. He thought they kept him current and young. They, in turn, liked him. I quipped in his eulogy four years ago that his plus column included getting girls for me. The minister gasped but was relieved when I explained that my girlfriends all thought he looked like the television/movie star Fred MacMurry. He was kind and easy going. The girls thought if I turned out anything like him, they’d chance a date.

Dad was never one to have long philosophical conversations. The obligatory chat about “growth and human development” took about five minutes–max. Neither was he one to give advice. Dad led by example. He had no guile and no false pretense. What one saw was what one got.

His other strategy was to teach me the wide world ways through the metaphor of golf. Starting at age eight we played hundreds of rounds throughout our time together. Work had him on the road, so when vacations came around, we stayed home and he and I played golf. There were his weekly games on Saturdays, but Sundays and often Friday afternoons were devoted to my game and moral development.

A six or eight handicapper, Dad was a pretty good golfer remaining a mid-eighties shooter into his eighties. When I approached his skill level during my teens we had fierce battles on the links–he never took quarters nor asked for any. The exception came during his post-prime years when he and my wife, the lovely Pat, played as a team from the forward tees with me on the tips–their best ball against my ball. The bet was a beer at round’s end. Guess who always bought.  

One afternoon when he was 76 he called reporting that he shot 35 that morning with his pals.

“Wow Dad! Great! What did you shoot on the back nine?”

“We only played nine holes.”

“What? Score 41 on the back and you’d shoot your age! Do you know how many people shoot their age?”

Duly chastised, he called about two weeks later saying he had a similar score that morning and bribed one of the guys by buying lunch to get him to play another nine. The old boy shot 76, right on the number.

Dad had rotator cuff surgery at 84 and never regained enough range of motion to play again. Shortly before surgery we went out to play. Dad stopped after nine holes and Pat and I finished the round. He had played badly and was discouraged. He was waiting when we arrived home and dragged me to the driving range to see if I could help his game.

We got a bucket of balls and he took a couple of swings with a 7-iron, our standard lesson club. He grounded them and was not pleased. I noticed that he had his chin tucked tightly to his chest. This position doesn’t allow room for the shoulder to turn freely and causes an over-the-top swing.

“Raise your head and look down your nose at the ball.”

He instantly removed his bifocals and flung them aside. “(Expletive) glasses!”

Now, without having to focus through the lenses his chin went up, his back straightened, his shoulders squared–he looked like a golfer again. The next few 7-irons flew straight and true. Then he pulled out the Big Dog driver, teed up a ball, took his stance, and skeptically glanced at me as if this club would be the alpha test. He swung and we watched the ball soar in the prettiest arc out to the 200-yard marker–his best drive in months. Smiling, he put away the driver. Dad was convinced his son was a genius. Sadly, that swing was the last golf swing I ever saw him make.

Trigonometry for Dummies

Warning: trigonometry can be hazardous to your health

By: Terry Donnelly

Imagine the fun of seeing your high school mathematics teacher turn ashen twice within about two minutes. Most school days don’t include incidents that put teachers and students in life threatening situations or send blood pressures into the stratosphere, but those days do occur and they can be memorable.

Spring of 1964 had sprung in winter-ravaged Kalamazoo, Michigan. The sun was shining and an assortment of 25 high school seniors, primed for spring break, and one tall, math nerd, yet beloved, teacher set out together to conquer the mysteries of sine, cosine and tangent. The ringing of the tardy bell foretold nothing more than a standard trigonometry class as the festivities began.

The teaching/learning cycle began slowly, restless students started being called upon to show skills with a slide rule, and the pace slowly quickened. Posers were posed and a mish-mash of correct, near miss, and far-fetched answers began to shower the front of the room and be recorded in a cloud of dust on the chalkboard for later scrutiny.

The board was nearly filled with an impressive array of chalk lines and arrows leading from one section of writing to another section of numerals all orbiting a neatly constructed, centrally located right triangle when Mr. Rothmann, in his best academic tenor, spoke these now infamous words, “Len, give us a step by step process for finding the dividend for 3,663 divided by the square root of 91 using a slide rule.”

Len was Len Farley, the student everyone universally wanted to be called on in class. His turn in the barrel nearly always sent the class into an uproar and the instructor into a cold sweat. Every time the feckless instructor called on Len to respond he ended up scratching his head and wondering where he had gone wrong in his teaching. This effect was often accompanied by our leader fading into a trance, dreaming about retirement, and writing a great American novel in the serenity of his own den with his basset hound, Pythagoras, peacefully sleeping at his feet. His thoughts also likely turned to wine as well, but that cannot be confirmed.

Beyond a good laugh, the other benefit of having Len asked to stand and deliver was that it always took up a substantial chunk of time that often saved others in the class from being targeted for a response. Everyone loves the class clown. We never could figure out why Mr. Rothmann called on Len as often as he did. Maybe he was so dedicated that he was determined to crack that nut, or it could be he just wanted a few moments of comic relief himself.

True to form, Len stood with his slide rule in hand. He slowly moved the slide bar to and fro remaining mute. He moved the clear plastic cursor to the far end and again focused on the slide bar. This time the slide came completely out of the device and clattered to the floor. Len picked it up, replaced it, and returned to his calculations. Next he began turning the tool upside down and back upright again in front of his eyes, cocking his head as he turned the device, and reading numerals aloud in a way that suggested the oration was more panic than answer. He had put the slide bar in upside down and was trying to come up with something–anything to say.

What came out was this: “Step one, check to be sure the slide rule is properly assembled.”

“Sit down Farley. Sit down.”

The class had just started to quiet their laughter when we all heard the electric simulation of the ringing of a bell transmitted over the intercom system indicating it was time for lunch. That sound initiated a Pavlov reaction that sent us into escape mode. Our schedule called for a split class around our lunch period–thirty minutes of class, thirty minutes for lunch, and thirty minutes more of class to kick off the afternoon.

Lunch always went quickly and soon we found ourselves sated from pizza slices, mac and cheese bought in the cafeteria, or the peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches on rye brought from home. We all began to herd ourselves back to class and mingled in small cliques around the classroom door. No one dared go into the dark, empty room without Mr. Rothmann giving the okay.

Len was blue all during lunch. He felt like he let Mr. Rothmann down and wanted to get back into his good graces. The problem was that his chance for brilliance had been blown and the opportunities for redemption this day were slim, slimmer, and slimmest.

“How can I get myself out of this? What will make Mr. Rothmann happy again?”

“Send him some flowers and say your sorry,” was the only half doable suggestion uttered from the group.

Len lit up like an octogenarian’s birthday cake. “Hey! That’s a great idea. I saw some flowers growing out in the field. They’re right outside the classroom window. They’ll be perfect!”

I had my lunchroom half-pint milk carton with me, polishing off the last bit of sweet liquid saved specifically for the trip from the cafeteria to the classroom. Len grabbed the now empty container out of my hand, tore loose the staples obliterating the spout, and opened the top wide. He then did the unthinkable. He tiptoed into the classroom but immediately reemerged with a metal compass for drawing circles and a ruler. Len then sprinted out the back door and into the open field that lay behind the school.

Ours was a new school two years before and the building was a beautiful creative design. It had three pods of classrooms plus a gymnasium and an Olympic sized swimming pool attached with corridors to a central office area. The pods made the school seem small and cozy rather than big and frightening. It was fresh and modern causing the cross-town rivals attending the old, downtown school from which most of our school population was gleaned to dub it “the country club.” The building work was all done but landscaping had been neglected. Around the school remained piles of construction materials that needed removal and heaps of dirt that needed grading. The area outside our classroom window looked into a wooded area that was scenic as all get out, but the debris between the window and the woods was unsightly as could be.

Mr. Rothmann, being one who enjoyed natural beauty, had gotten fed up with waiting for the construction team to put the finishing touches on his view. So, he planted a small patch of crocus bulbs so that on spring days he could glimpse a wee bit of beauty and a splash of color as a break from sitting at his desk correcting math papers. He loved his crocus bed and admired it every day the flowers were in bloom.

Len returned with the milk carton filled with dirt and sporting half-dozen or so colorful plants. He had improvised using the tools of math, the compass and the ruler, to dislodge the crocuses from their home and repot them into the wax covered paper carton. He beamed from ear to ear. He was so proud of himself for finding this perfect peace offering that he was bursting his buttons and couldn’t wait for class to resume. All of his former sadness and gloom was instantly replaced with elation and the anticipation of a whole new dawn of mathematic successes.

To put the finishing touches on the surprise, Len crept back into the dark, forbidden room to place the gift on Mr. Rothmann’s desk, planning to announce his genius at finding the perfect addition to the teacher’s desk when Mr. Rothmann spied the treasure and queried, ”Where in the world did these beautiful flowers come from? What student could be so thoughtful and mature to think of his dear teacher and offer such a lovely addition to our class?”

Len’s scheme for entrance back into good graces was all in place. Mr. Rothmann would be returning from lunch at any minute and all would be right with the world once again.

The entirety of the class was in the hall and a couple of us stood with our backs to the door so Len couldn’t get out of the room, rejoin the group, and let his plan evolve. He pushed against the door. It wouldn’t budge. He pushed harder and all he got was a little bump open and then a snap back shut. He began pushing and kicking at the door like the caged animal he had become. Five or six of us were leaning against the door and resisted all Len’s efforts to get out. He began spewing a torrent of random words designed all at once to threaten, cajole, and plead with us to let him out. He got a running start and slammed into the door. No movement. Panic set in. Len had to get out. What could he do other than try again?

He couldn’t crawl out a window–they were too small. He thought about hiding in the teacher’s coat closet and trying to sneak out and slide into his seat undetected after everyone was back in and mulling around before class started again. That seemed like a long shot, so he went back to brute force as his only mode of escape.

About this time we saw Mr. Rothmann coming down the hall rested after lunch and ready to, once again, dig into advanced trigonometry. We could see him from quite a long distance through the glass corridor walls that made for brightly lit halls. He was ready. We all dutifully lined up awaiting his signal to enter the room. He turned the corner. We waited. He approached the room. We waited. He stood about four feet from the now unpopulated entrance ready to step in and reach for the handle to open the door when with what seemed like an explosion and rush of air that could only be explained as a sonic boom, sent the door wildly swinging on its hinges. The door swung so close to Mr. Rothmann that it may have peeled off a layer or two of skin from his nose.

Len found himself sweating from his ordeal and gasping for breath a mere inch from Mr. Rothmann’s face.

Len had taken one more frantic run at the door, which was now unbarred, and blasted through, unimpeded, from darkness into the brightness of the hall.

Len was stunned and blinking eye-to-eye with Mr. Rothmann who was frozen in place and was, unknowingly for only the first time that day, completely without facial color–ashen.

“I’m sorry Mr. Rothmann. I had to go in to…to…I had to go in to…”

Mr. Rothmann silently tottered around Len and into the room. We all followed. It took every ounce of strength the 24 of us could muster not to burst into uncontrolled laughter. It took every ounce of Len’s strength not to wet his pants. He did console himself with the fact that the piece offering still lay, undetected, on the teacher’s desk. It would now have to serve a double duty–first for messing up the slide rule demonstration and secondly for nearly flattening our teacher into a manhole cover sized mass.

Someone turned on the classroom lights and we all scurried to our desks desperately averting our collective eyes, holding our collective breath, and biting our collective tongues trying to control our laughter.

Mr. Rothmann, still wobbly, shuffled over to his desk and placed a hand on top to support some of the weight his legs were refusing to hold up. He mopped his brow with the handkerchief in his free hand. As the florescent lights flickered and began to illuminate the room he saw the crocus bouquet on his desk. As understanding began to seep into his consciousness, he went ashen for the second time in as many minutes. He plucked the milk carton from the desk and, without sound, stumbled to the window. Resting his forehead on the glass and peering out into the field he confirmed his worst nightmare–the crocuses were indeed from his own beloved garden–his once pristine respite from clutter and ugliness. His small retreat into serenity and beauty had been snatched from their arena in nature and were now wilting inside a chocolate milk carton in his very hands and before his very eyes.

Mr. Rothmann, still the color of last year’s Yule log ashes and with a deeply creased brow, slowly turned to face the class. Hoisting the carton of blooms high above his head looking every bit like the Statue of Liberty holding her torch in both stature and hue, he tried to speak. From deep in his chest arose a nearly inhuman sound. The words were those of human speech, but the roar was loud, filled with vitriol, laced with saliva, and inspired by our evolutionary link to the feral animals of the world.

Mr. Rothmann sounded as if he were trying out for the part of Thor in the school play as he thundered, “Who did this?”