Hot Hot Hot
Hot times on Beale Street, Memphis, 2006. Note the pedestrians in long pants.
It's hot right now in the Midwest, though nowhere near as steamy as the triple-digit extremes that the unfortunate citizens of our Eastern Seaboard are experiencing. Nevertheless, once the temperature tops 90° Fahrenheit and surpasses that benchmark on a daily basis, those of us with the luxury of air-conditioned homes and cars take a little longer to acclimate. We even start to ponder how the world ever got along without air conditioning, ignoring the fact that much of it still does. Once you're used to living in perpetually comfortable environs, it's easy to get so accustomed to it that the seasonal highs of the summer months seem almost like an affront from nature.
"When Mom and I were your age," I recently pontificated to our eldest daughter, "we grew up without air conditioning in our homes."
"What did you do?" she asked, never having known such discomfort.
Hip Hop
The irrepressible Hop guides the trash truck home at the end of another day.
As a summer job, it wasn't bad. Working for my hometown's small parks and recreation department gave me a steady 40 hours a week with weekends off. Although it was for minimum wage ($3.35 an hour at the time), the full-time seasonal position allowed me to earn enough money for the textbooks and miscellaneous expenses of a further three quarters of undergraduate study. Furthermore, one's employment there made the prospect of being re-hired the following season likely, and so it was that my college experience was interspersed with a trio of summers spent keeping the parks beautiful.
The colorful characters I met there could have populated a lowbrow sitcom. Each day began and ended in a dingy office area within the maintenance garage, where assignments were given out in the morning and the same four regulars concluded each afternoon with a few rounds of euchre. Many of them had been working for the parks department for years, and the atmosphere was very casual and wisecracking. On my first day there, another "temp" and I were assigned to the most casual and wisecracking of them all, a small and rotund man who went by the nickname of Hop.
The Rise And Fall Of The Edward Hannon Band
John and me with the man responsible for teaching us a few chords.
The applause was explosive, a prolonged cacophony of shrieks and howls that reverberated throughout our small gymnasium. As teachers attempted to restore order amid bellowing calls for an encore, John and I sat on the stage and regarded the chaos we had created. We had expected to go over well, but never did we anticipate the wave of adoration that washed over us. It was all coming from the end of the bleachers along the north wall, where our eighth grade classmates were sitting. The rest of the student body craned their necks and looked back and forth in silent confusion.
We called ourselves The Edward Hannon Band as a tongue-in-cheek homage to our social studies teacher, a transplanted Pennsylvanian whose ample moustache and east coast colloquialisms were amusing to us. Plus, naming a band after someone who isn't actually in the band is ironically hip when you're thirteen. Mr. Hannon tolerated our tribute with good humor, though the quirky adoption of his name was not the key to our success. Rather, we won the approval of our peers by penning a folksy lament that pushed all the right buttons.
Lost And Found
Senator Robert Byrd pauses during his humbling speech as Benjamin Hooks looks on.
Yesterday's death of Benjamin Hooks left me contemplating my brief encounter with the accomplished civil rights leader nearly four years ago. He had been invited to speak at ceremonies commemorating the 100th anniversary of the meeting of the Niagara Movement at Harpers Ferry in 1906. I was there doing research on an historical novel while attending a weeklong educator's conference on the Niagara Movement and the legacy of controversial abolitionist John Brown.
Conceived as a means to secure civil equality for disenfranchised African Americans following the failure of Reconstruction, the very first meeting of the Niagara Movement was scheduled to be held in Buffalo, New York in 1905. When Buffalo hoteliers saw organizer W.E.B. DuBois and other black attendees, they refused to offer accommodations, forcing the group to reconvene across the Canadian border. Harpers Ferry, site of John Brown's raid in 1859, was chosen as the location of the 1906 gathering. Within three years, the Niagara Movement evolved into the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Dr. Hooks, among many other achievements, served as Executive Director of the NAACP from 1977 to 1992.
Ice Folly Of 2010
Notice the grace, the artistry, the purity of form and line...
Last weekend I laced up a pair of rental skates and ventured tentatively onto the slick surface of an ice rink for only the third time in my life. It was an impulsive decision, brought about by our attendance at eldest daughter Amber's synchronized skating team banquet. There was a lull in the proceedings after dinner and awards, with an hour of open ice before the broom ball activity anticipated by youngest daughter Melinda. What to do until then? No one was interested in skating, until I jokingly suggested that I might give it a try. Then the whole family was interested.
"Oh! Dad! You should do it! You should! If you go skating, I will seriously get on the ice with you," vowed Melinda. I had painted myself into a corner with my careless talk, and now I saw only one honorable way out. The burden of rescuing my family from an hour of boredom was on my shoulders. If I refused to hit the ice, I would be a hopelessly dull, stick-in-the-mud dad who would have to endure our children's complaints of ennui and potential sibling bickering. But if only I gave it a try, we would all be entertained for awhile, and I'd be hailed as a heroically Fun Dad. If I didn't break anything, that is.
The Annotated Edward Cramer
An early influence?
When children express their boundless imagination in writing, the results can be bizarre. I am regularly reminded of this as a teacher of elementary-age students. It is my privilege to observe their literary development at a formative stage, when their novice attempts to emulate various styles sometimes merge with their limited background knowledge to surreal and unintentionally humorous effect.
What I try to remember when evaluating student narratives is how incredibly strange my own attempts at storytelling were at that age. As unusual as some of the student work I've encountered has been, none of it has surpassed some of my juvenile efforts in their breadth and depth of sheer weirdness. Take, for example, The Glass Eye, a macabre stab at humor that I wrote circa second or third grade. Its off-kilter flavor is apparent even in its byline, as I attributed the work to Edward Cramer.
Dumb And Dumber
"I think something is burning...I think something is burning..."
The following accounts are true. The names have been changed to protect the guilty. This week we present the culinary offenses of two brothers for your consideration. No partners in crime, they committed their transgressions independently and inadvertently decades ago. Despite having moved on to competency in the kitchen, the siblings have not forgotten what they once did, nor have they ever stopped arguing about it. At issue is the question of whose kitchen mishap is the stupidest. As both jury and judge, you will see for yourself that there exists no debate whatsoever as to whether each unfortunate cooking decision was stupid, for you will soon observe that this is a given. Rather, you must weigh their relative stupidity.
The defendants would prefer that you take into account their youth and inexperience in the kitchen before rendering a verdict. They were raised in a coddled and protective environment by a generous and solicitous mother who saw to it that they were provided with delicious and nutritious meals on a daily basis. Thus, when left to fend for themselves at ages somewhere between late adolescence and early adulthood, they encountered what the general public might think of as common kitchen situations for the very first time. In the spirit of fairness and impartiality, and to spare them further embarrassment, you shall learn of their crimes without direct reference to their age at the time of the incidents. Nevertheless, the defendents reiterate their pitiable excuse that their actions were understandable because they were young and inexperienced, and hereafter they submit themselves to the mercy of the court.
The Reluctant Athlete
If gloves could talk...this one wouldn't have much to say.
"You want me to play softball in a prison?" I asked incredulously.
"I know," said Brian in a calm tone that resonated with sympathy and reassurance. We both knew that my objection had little to do with the unusual venue, and it was painfully obvious that he was desperate for players. So desperate, in fact, that he was approaching one of the last people you would want to ask if you wanted to forge a decent softball team. My brother tried to bolster his sincerity with a smile, but he could barely suppress a laugh as he tried to entice me by adding, "It'll be fun!"
"Yeah, fun," I grumbled. Brian belonged to a service organization that not only did the occasional good thing for the community but also participated in a recreational softball league. Scheduling a game against the inmates of our local minimum-security prison was a way to join the two vocations. Unfortunately, only a handful of members had signed up for the opportunity. Joining Brian in this endeavor would be the noble thing to do, but it would require a complete consumption of my pride. It was akin to taking a willing dive into a pool of embarrassment. "Let me think about it."
Sweet Home, Perstai
Standing before my 2-story home in Perstai. I hope to add a basement soon.
"You should get a home in Perstai, Dad," urged Melinda. I had reservations. I was not looking for new ways to occupy my time, and I had seen how willingly Melinda would sacrifice a free hour here and there to amble about her virtual world. I couldn't quite get it. It seemed like her avatar never did anything of much significance, yet unwinding within this mythical land apparently provided her much pleasure. I had to admit that Animal Crossing, the Nintendo Wii title that made Melinda's imaginary journeys possible, was a clever game. Its designers had crafted a tightly controlled environment that gave a satisfying sense of individual freedom within a dynamic fictional society fueled by limited artificial intelligence. Melinda was well aware that she was playing a game by herself and that her illusory interactions with pixelated neighbors were nothing more than simple, scripted encounters. But she didn't care, because it was fun.
"Maybe," I said, by which I meant, "No."
She had already persuaded Mom to establish residence in Perstai, and I had noticed Julie starting to take almost as much pleasure in this digital alternative existence as Melinda did. Sometimes one of them would watch the other strolling about town for awhile, then the one playing would log off and the one watching would log on. It didn't seem to make much difference who was actually playing, as both gamer and observer appeared to be equally absorbed by Perstai culture.
"Look," one of them would say, "Bones just clapped when I caught that fish!"
"Ha, ha!" the other would guffaw, and I would glance at them with withering condescension. Time wasters. It would be a cold day in Perstai before I indulged myself in that sort of pointless activity.
And The Shark Goes “Grrr!”
Oh, the many pleasant hours I spent plucking junk from its spring-loaded jaw!
We are in full summer mode here in the Hunt household, and perhaps there is no greater indication of our seasonal relaxation than the fact that we have just sacrificed four consecutive evenings to view the entire Jaws tetralogy. This is what can happen when you have time on your hands and the ability to stream Netflix offerings on your TV. It all started innocently enough on Sunday evening, the first of several nights that our eldest daughter was away at camp, thus reducing the number of family members needed for unanimous entertainment option agreement to three. Somehow the availability of Jaws for streaming came up, and it struck each of us as a fun viewing choice for different reasons. My wife remembered seeing it many years ago. Our youngest daughter had heard about it and was intrigued. And me? I came within a shark's tooth of seeing Jaws at a drive-in in the summer of '77.
It is easy now to forget just how big a pop culture phenomenon Jaws became after its 1975 release. The movie allegedly deterred impressionable viewers from enjoying the beach. It was memorably lampooned in the famous "Landshark" sketches of Saturday Night Live, an effects-laden sendup called "Jowls" on The Carol Burnett Show, and a classic Mort Drucker/Larry Siegel movie parody in MAD magazine. Among the merchandising tie-ins was an Ideal Jaws game that featured a G-rated version of the Freudian movie poster on its box (minus the naked woman swimming above the advancing shark). I owned the game, which consisted of a hollow plastic shark with a hinged jaw, upon which an assorted of marine detritus was balanced. Players used a small hook to retrieve the items, until at last the weight of the remaining pieces no longer counterbalanced the tensile strength of attached rubber bands, whereupon the jaws suddenly snapped shut. I thought the game was great.
A couple summers later I was asked by a friend to accompany her family and some other kids to a drive-in showing of Jaws. I was incensed when my mother firmly declined the invitation on the grounds that the movie was too disturbing for anyone my age.