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.  Despite reminding her that I was very nearly nine years old and promising that Jaws would not instill in me a fear of the water, my repeated entreaties were unpersuasive.  It was a great letdown, and I thought my mother was being completely unreasonable.  In retrospect, however, and through the responsible lens of parenthood, I respect and admire the wisdom of her decision.  Short of seeing the film for herself , there was no way for her to know just how intense it was, and the hype at the time proclaimed that  Jaws was terrifying.  My wife and I have always been rather conservative about what we have endorsed for family viewing, and only recently, with our youngest at age 12, have we carefully expanded our collective entertainment to include more mature fare.

So at long last, as we settled into our living room furniture with ample food and drink, I was finally getting around to seeing Jaws.  I found the movie entertaining, though I cannot agree with its presence among our nation's top fifty films as recognized by the American Film Institute.  It was much more a cultural phenomenon than a great movie, although its storytelling is compelling and its technical execution holds up well in our digital age.  Not a bad movie by any means, but far short of a great one.  I was surprised by its tame depiction of shark-related violence, as I had expected a much more gory experience.  However, as my wife reminded me, the graphic scenes of Jaws were more noteworthy in 1975, when a fountain of blood erupting from the waves would have shocked an audience.  Ultimately, Jaws is a fun thriller, with interesting performances from its three principals offsetting a few dubious plot contrivances.

The next evening, still chewing over the previous night's entertainment, we began to wonder how such a film could ever spawn a respectable sequel.  Once again, our Netflix connection offered instant gratification to our curiosity.  Jaws 2, released in 1978, clocks in at just under two hours with a threadbare script that might have made a decent half hour of television.  Long stretches of the movie are simply tedious, and none of the characters nor their relationships are developed enough for anyone to care whether they are destined to be survivors or shark food.  Well, that's not entirely true, as one teenage cast member becomes so obnoxious with incessant screaming that we were begging for her to be eaten.  In any case, Jaws 2 is little more than a pointless assemblage of not terribly interesting action scenes interspersed with boring filler.  Remarkably, it cost more than three times to make than the original, and one wonders where the money went.  Certainly not to special effects.

Having digested the first Jaws sequel and finding the experience distasteful, there was some hesitation over whether we should bother to watch Jaws 3 (1983) the next night.  However, knowing that it was originally presented as a 3D film, I was thought that it might contain enough gratuitous effects shots to keep us entertained.  We were not disappointed.  Jaws 3 is a spectacularly bad movie, but very amusingly so.  It is a great flick to laugh at together, and as it rests at the bottom of the cinematic barrel, even serious filmgoers will have no qualms about maintaining a running commentary with fellow viewers.  There is so much about it that is abysmally awful, not the least of which is the cooperative participation of Sea World in the endeavor.  I mean, we're talking about a movie in which the chewed end of a severed limb floats lazily before the audience, and the brain trust behind Sea World somehow saw it as a sound promotional tool.  Not to mention the out-and-out disaster that occurs at their park under incompetent management.  Horrible as the association is for Sea World, Jaws 3 is never dull, and it is often laugh-out-loud funny, though the guffaws are never intentional.  Our favorite part of the film, which had us in higher hysterics than many a comedy, featured the great white shark baring its teeth like a dog and roaring like a lion.  I highly recommend it.

By Wednesday evening, we were nearly Jawed out, but having come this far, it seemed almost a shame not to complete the cycle.  Besides, according to Wikipedia, Jaws: The Revenge (1987) is notable for being critically distinguished as one of the worst films in the history of cinema.  So with great anticipation of really bad filmmaking, we hunkered down for the last chapter of the Jaws saga.  Though preposterous, Jaws: The Revenge is actually more engaging than Jaws 2, with developed characters interacting in evolving relationships.  The presence of Michael Caine as a romantic interest for Lorraine Gary, who played Roy Scheider's wife in Jaws and Jaws 2, livens things up, though how the esteemed Oscar winner for Hannah and Her Sisters wound up in this mess is nearly as incomprehensible as much of the Jaws saga.  Similarly, Mario Van Peebles' turn as a good-natured Jamaican oceanographer is fun, and we enjoyed dropping the occasional ya, mon as we watched.  If only it had not been a Jaws movie, the film might have worked, as the bits not involving the shark are not bad.

Thus we have joined what surely must be an exclusive circle:  that small group of people who have seen all four Jaws movies (and the even smaller number who have watched them on consecutive nights, like the lowbrow's Ring Cycle).  How we'll break the news to our eldest daughter upon her return I don't yet know, but perhaps we can make it up to her.  I see that Netflix also streams three-quarters of the Karate Kid tetralogy.

HackingEthics

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.

"We just put up with it."

"How did you sleep at night?"

I recalled the ever-present drone of box fans propped in our bedroom windows, which made sweltering summer nights more bearable.  When temperatures approached record-breaking highs, there was some debate as to whether window fans should be reversed in order to draw hot air out of the house, but I always preferred to maintain a strong current of air through my room, no matter how hot.  Better a warm breeze than stagnant heat.

To a certain extent, I suppose one's heat tolerance is affected by whatever measure of discomfort seems normal.  I certainly made things worse for myself during all of my childhood summers due to my preference for full-length jeans instead of shorts, even on the hottest days.  Add to that the calf-length tube socks with multi-colored cuff stripes that no one seemed embarrassed to wear in the 70's, and I begin to get uncomfortably warm at the memory of such summer attire, even as I type this with bare legs extending from my laptop in my air-conditioned living room.  Then again, my old Acer does run rather hot sometimes, so perhaps it's not all in my mind.

I was reminded of my uncomplaining allegiance to jeans during a family visit to Memphis a few summers ago.  It was a wonderful vacation, yet it was remarkably hot when we were there.  We had a hotel near the end of the streetcar line, so our ventures into downtown were via trolley, and we were out on the streets much of the time.  Trudging up historic Beale Street after lunch one oppressively sticky afternoon, we were delighted to discover the small, air-conditioned lobby of the Visitor's and Convention Bureau.  We ducked in for a few minutes, if only to remember what it was like to breathe effortlessly.  That evening, the marquee at the Arby's where we enjoyed a round of milkshakes indicated that the temperature was still over 100°.  It was the one and only time that we ever bought a second round of shakes for the road.  Yet throughout that sweat-drenched day, we observed many a Memphisonian striding vigorously across the steaming asphalt wearing long, denim pants.  Do they save their shorts for the days when expanding mercury explodes their thermometers?

Perhaps the hottest day in my memory happened nearly thirty years ago during a cross-country trip with my parents.  We were parked in the enormous lot of Circus Circus, at the time the only casino in Las Vegas that admitted minors (this was shortly before the Strip's brief flirtation with being "family-friendly" and long before the descent into "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" depravity).  The temperature was well into triple digits as we passed the afternoon inside the cool and cavernous casino.  When we returned to the lot to leave, however, we were astonished by the superheated interior of our old Volare.  I had stupidly left a box of cassette tapes on the rear dash, resulting in some of them being melted beyond use.  Most remarkable, though, was our rear-view mirror.  It was no longer attached to the windshield, the industrial adhesive that had previously secured it there having failed in the heat.

My favorite instance of unexpected melting, however, occurred one spring afternoon many years later when my wife and I had taken our young family to a community Easter egg hunt.  While we were there, my brother paid a surprise visit to our home to deliver a festive hollow chocolate bunny to his niece.  Finding the house empty and not knowing our whereabouts, he left the tall, rectangular box on our porch, where it eventually encountered the strong rays of the sun.  When we got back home, we were mystified by the presence of an empty bunny box at our front door, at least until we peered through its cellophane window and discovered a pair of candy eyes floating atop a pool of brown goo.  Such is the peril of warmer temperatures.  Chocolate Santas never face such a fate.

Of course, there is always the long-running argument over which is the worse to endure, blistering heat or bitter cold.  The wonderful thing about living in Ohio is that we usually get an annual dose of each extreme.  Whenever you find yourself at either end of the spectrum, it's always fun to contemplate the opposite end.  For example, only six months ago, I was concerned about the undercarriage of my Civic as I repeatedly bottomed out against the deeply rutted ice that city plows had been unable to remove from our street.  This is amusing to me today, when I might easily cook breakfast by leaving a plate of raw eggs on my dashboard.  Yet the snowy days shall return, and we will have the advantage of leaving our groceries in our trunks for as long as we like.

All of these experiences come to mind on these muggy days, when napkins and coasters must be employed to absorb the condensation rings from our drinks, and asphalt driveways are too hot for bare feet.  I suppose there are those rare individuals who thrive in these conditions, but most of us seem inclined to pine for cooler times.  Sure enough, we will be craving the freedom of short sleeves and sandals come February.

HackingEthics

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.

Hop's regular duty was to run the department's trash truck, which was dispatched to empty the plentiful green barrels that dotted each of our city's parks and playgrounds.  In the summer, he was given a pair of seasonal workers to accomplish this, which meant that he spent most of his working day bouncing along the springy bench seat of the truck cab.  I was a little nervous that first morning, sandwiched as I was between Hop and a beefy returning seasonal named Doug.  Not much was said as we rattled and creaked toward our first destination, and I hoped I would be able to do my job well.  When at last we pulled into the parking lot of a hamburger joint on the other side of town, I was confused.  What were we doing here?

"Breakfast time!" announced Hop gleefully, and the three of us trundled out of the cab for coffee and donuts.  And here I was worried about keeping my job.  Welcome to Parks and Recreation.

Working with Hop would turn out to be one of my favorite assignments, although the actual labor wasn't too desirable.  Doug and I would hop onto the back of the truck whenever we reached a park entrance, holding onto a handle and perched on little running boards as we traveled from can to can.  Our hands protected with heavy work gloves, we would roll each rusted metal can toward the back of the truck and hoist it along the lip of the hopper to empty its contents.  I soon got used to the sickeningly sweet smell of picnic trash that had stewed in the summer heat for days.  Many times we had live maggots wriggling in the toxic soup that would slosh around the bottom of the bin until we periodically operated the compactor.  On the rare occasions that we emptied trash at an active playground, the kids thought Doug and I had the coolest jobs on earth.

I enjoyed working on the trash truck only because it put me in the eccentric company of Hop and his infamously crude sense of humor.  He was an unapologetic man who had obviously long ago stopped caring what anyone thought of him.  The rumor that I would eventually hear was that Hop had once been one of the most industrious employees in all of Parks and Recreation, but when he was overlooked for a promotion he felt he deserved, his demeanor changed.  Apparently he had been sticking it to the man ever since, doing precisely what was asked of him and nothing more.  It must have been cathartic for him, because far from being a bitter soul, Hop was as jovial and carefree as a lazy boy whiling away idle summer days.

"Ohhhh....we ripped and we snorted and we shat on the floor, wiped our asses on the knob of the door!" sang Hop lustily to the tune of Turkey in the Straw.  Attempting to shift into third gear, he struggled for a moment as the cab vibrated with a terrific crunching noise from the transmission.  Hop was undeterred.  "Ground me a pound!"  he grinned, and the hulking trash truck lurched forward.  Decelerating at a four-way stop, he looked both ways before asking rhetorically, "Anybody comin'?"  Doug and I learned to wait a beat for the punchline.  "Anybody breathin' hard?"

In the overwhelmingly male parks department, vulgarity was as commonplace as it is wherever juvenile men are allowed to speak freely.  But whereas less creative minds were known to pepper their speech with mere profanities, Hop eschewed such reflexive utterances in favor of more artistic fare.  For example, if an attractive woman (or nearly any woman, for that matter) used the crosswalk as we waited at a stop, Hop might appreciatively refer to her undulating brassiere as an "over-the-shoulder boulder holder."  And like any great actor, the performance was much more than words.  Hop delivered his crude remarks with such gusto and relish that he was nothing less than endearing.  It either made him happy or was a byproduct of his existing happiness;  either way, you couldn't help but be happy with him.

Hop's imperturbability extended to all aspects of his work.  Nothing seemed to faze him.  At one routine stop I opened the padlock that secured a trash can to a tree and was startled to discover a pair of wide eyes staring at me from the depths of the container.  I called to Hop for assistance, and he dismounted from the cab to see what was wrong.  "Nothin' but a possum," he observed, but when he tilted the trash can onto its side, the animal refused to leave its shelter.  I watched in astonishment as Hop got on his knees and reached into the can, emerging with a large and frightened opossum that had its tail coiled firmly around Hop's forearm.  The terrified marsupial was momentarily motionless, then it abruptly untethered itself and ran into the woods.  Hop treated the strange encounter with such aplomb that he made pulling a wild animal out of a trash can seem like nothing more than an everyday annoyance, like retying one's shoes.  He brushed some debris from his pants, smiled, and got back into the cab.

Hop was also an engaging storyteller, though his tales tended to be as bawdy as his humor.  He told me about a childhood incident in which he and a friend were out exploring in the woods when nature called.  His friend found it necessary to produce a bowel movement, and consequently the absence of available toilet paper became an issue.  This was remedied by the application of some nearby leaves, which were later identified as poison ivy.  Snorts and chuckles interrupted Hop's speech as he recalled his friend spending the rest of that summer on his stomach, humiliated by the attention of his mother to his most basic needs.

Not long after my last summer with the parks department (and perhaps a decade before Hop's death), I ran into Hop in the concourse of a shopping mall.  Contrary to all appearances while on the job, there were things about which Hop did care, and among them was wildlife conservation.  He was manning a booth devoted to the cause, and when I approached him, he admitted sheepishly that he could not recall my name.  He had worked with many seasonal temps over the years.  I introduced my fiancee, whom Hop received with such genteel politeness that she could scarcely believe my tales of his vulgar comments.  We said goodbye to Hop and sauntered onward.

"Really," I explained, "it's the same Hop."

"He seemed normal to me."

"Well, sure."  We strolled along as I mulled over this truth.  "I guess if you really want to know him, you have to be one of the guys."

HackingEthics

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.

Patrol Today was two minutes and four chords' worth of self-pity that tapped right into our adolescent angst over being stuck out on safety patrol duty after a long school day.  As we were all entering the classic self-asbsorption of our teenage years, it seemed like an important and relevant topic.  Given that my very own brother not only taught science and math at our school but also organized the safety patrol, there was an enticing subtext of irreverence as well.

The children who walked to and from our Catholic school, which served grades one through eight, arrived and departed via three main arteries along a block-length stretch of Robb Avenue.  The most coveted positions were at the intersection of Robb and Elizabeth Street.  There, at the bottom of a flight of concrete steps between the church and the elementary building, three patrol members were stationed to handle the heavy pedestrian traffic.  The luckiest among them got to operate a long, wooden gate that pivoted on a base to swing out and secure the crosswalk.  Working the Elizabeth post was fun, social, and it even made you look important to the younger kids.

Much less desirable was the terminus of the block at Main Street, near the far end of the elementary building by the convent.  Because only two patrol members were located here and far fewer kids used the intersection, the post was comparatively dull.  The minimal activity made patrol duty seem much more like a responsibility, and consequently it was less fun.

Worst of all, however, was the lot of the unfortunate soul who got assigned to the opposite end of the block, a lonely outpost past the rectory at the West Street intersection.  Although plenty of cars sped by, the post was occupied by a single patrol member, and hardly anyone used the route to leave school.  On a balmy spring afternoon, the isolation and the monotony transformed minutes into hours.  Everyone hated getting stuck out on West, hence the chorus of our little tune:

Patrol today, patrol today.

I got it on West in the middle of May.

It’s so hot out, my shoes are turning to clay,

And I wish I didn’t have patrol today.

If the lyrics sound simple, the music was even simpler.  Every line of the verses and chorus was the same four-chord progression, as if echoing the punishing tedium of its subject matter.  I wish I could lay claim to having done that intentionally, but the truth is that we only knew a few chords.

John and I had been taught some rudimentary acoustic guitar skills by Father Paul, a young priest whose full beard and self-darkening eyeglass lenses made him stand out in our parish like a hippie in Mayberry.  He had recorded a couple albums of inspirational songs before coming to our church, where he implemented a folk mass.  Once, in the course of our religious instruction, he showed us a 16mm film of one of his concert appearances, including a bit in which he wore a top hat and cape to sing Duke of Earl.  Soon the church youth were doing calypso strums on the altar, exhorting the congregation to join in on folk renditions of They'll Know We Are Christians, You And I, and once in a while, a Father Paul original called Renew.

With the exception of Do Lord, a fast-paced slice of gospel bluegrass that we found hysterically funny, John and I eschewed the religious numbers in favor of applying our limited skills toward learning a little classic rock and composing our own quirky songs.  The annual spring talent show was a natural outlet for our musical interest, and so it was that we performed Patrol Today to a raucous ovation.  Despite clearly trouncing the competition on the Applause-o-Meter, we were awarded third place (and if I remember correctly, I think John's little sister placed above us with a well-executed piano solo).  Probably we didn't even deserve that, but the faculty judges likely felt some pressure to appease the howling mob.  It hardly mattered, though - we were instant celebrities.

As the end of the school year loomed, our newfound popularity was reiterated in the inscriptions on our new yearbooks.  To a great kid that's gonna have a great band, too...Get your records out soon...Good luck in the future with your Ed Hannon Band...Good luck on your next album...and so on, and so on.  It seemed to John and me that we should strike while the iron was hot.  With a sure-fire hit in our repertoire, it was time to work up a setlist and capitalize on our smash debut.  We set our sights on the church festival, which was scheduled in early June.  By some miracle of generosity or perhaps a complete lack of foresight, the festival organizers gave us an early afternoon slot on the stage in the food tent without even requiring us to audition.  We were elated.

A month of furious rehearsal ensued.  We went to a local pawnshop and rented an electric guitar, a bass, and an amplifier.  The organizers granted our request for an upright piano in the tent, so we worked up some arrangements with that in mind.  The pressure to put together a show fired our creativity, inspiring us to write some new tunes.  John wrote a song called Don't Applaud (Just Throw Money) with the opening line, "We are the Edward Hannon Band..."  I cobbled together a lengthy piano instrumental.  We decided that we would play a couple covers, but we were confident enough in the strength of our own compositions that the set would be built mostly around original material.  We would impress them with our "new stuff," then we would finish strong with a triumphant Patrol Today.

The food tent was mostly empty as we set up for our performance;  a small group of volunteers manned the grill along the opposite side.  As we tuned up just before showtime, a dozen or so students settled in among the first two rows.  They were there to hear Patrol Today.  Which we would give to them.  After we played the entirety of our set.

I don't recall being too disappointed at the small turnout, but I do remember the terrible weight of dread and embarrassment that descended on me before we had finished playing our first number.  Judging by the skeptical looks on the otherwise unemotional young faces of our tiny audience, we were not going down well at all.  We good-naturedly ignored a few calls for Patrol Today, sticking to our game plan to make 'em wait 'til the end.  The longer we played, the more restless they got, and the more difficult it became to carry on.  My face was burning red with humiliation, yet we persisted.  Our hour-long set seemed to expand and transcend time itself, transforming into an alternate reality of anxious desperation.

Midway through our performance, we barreled through our cover of Chicago's Dialogue, which ends with the repeated refrain, "We can make it happen."  A caustic voice from the first two rows heckled, "No you can't!"  By the time we reached the end of our set and finally played the hit that made us famous, no one cared anymore.  Only the kind ladies working the grill offered words of support.  And just like that - pfft!- the brief flame that was the Edward Hannon Band was extinguished.  John and I would remain good friends and continue to play a lot of music for our own enjoyment, but the church festival would be our one and only public performance.

Tucked among all the effusive praise from fellow students in my eighth grade yearbook is a short message written in a more mature hand.  It reads:  Lots of luck in school and in whatever you do.  If you make a lot of money with the band, send me a few dollars.  Mr. Hannon.

The check is in the mail, Ed.

HackingEthics

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.

During my last evening at Harpers Ferry, I ambled down the steep streets of historic Lower Town and took my place in line at the bookstore.  Dr. Hooks was signing copies of his 2004 autobiography, The March for Civil Rights: The Benjamin Hooks Story.  I took advantage of the short question-and-answer session to ask about the importance of religious faith in the success of the civil rights movement.  For Dr. Hooks, who had served simultaneously as pastor of churches in Memphis and Detroit for thirty years, my query must have seemed like asking about the essentiality of oxygen.  He politely responded that a sustaining faith had always been a part of things. I left the bookstore with my copy of The March for Civil Rights inscribed, "To Bob - Thanks.  Peace - Power!  Benjamin Hooks, August 17, 2006."  It was a heady feeling to have interacted with a revered freedom fighter who had done so much in the best interest of our country.  But the real highlight of the day had taken place that afternoon, when I witnessed something remarkable.

The conference was being held up on Camp Hill at the campus of Storer College, one of the first institutions in the country to offer higher education to African Americans.  Storer was founded in 1865 and did not close its doors until 1955.  Some of our sessions were held in the very room where Frederick Douglass gave a famous speech in defense of John Brown in 1881.  As conference attendees, we had reserved tickets to see a reenactment of an important civil rights trial in the small Curtis Freewill Baptist Church at 4:00, a mere half hour after the ceremonial unveiling of the Niagara Movement State Historical Marker on the grounds outside Anthony Hall.  But the marker ceremony was late in starting, as a late addition to the guest list - West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, the longest-serving member of the Senate - had not yet arrived.  As 4:00 neared, I realized I would have to make a choice between the two events.  I'm forever grateful I stayed within the tent on the lawn of Anthony Hall.

If one is fortunate, the average American citizen may find him or herself anointed by circumstance as a witness to a handful of historically significant events.  As I sat in my folding chair observing the arrival of various dignitaries, I anticipated an interesting yet routine ceremony.  I had no idea that I  would leave the tent with a sense of eye-opening exhilaration.

Benjamin Hooks was 81 at the time, and he advanced slowly toward his seat on the dais with the aid of a walker.  Robert Byrd, the senior of the two at 88, made his way across the stage using a pair of canes.  After a few unexceptional announcements and observations from various personages, Senator Byrd rose from his chair and approached the podium.  The official transcript of his remarks does not do justice to the words he spoke that afternoon.  In fact, much of what he said was heartfelt and extemporaneous.  Here was a man who, before embarking on his notable career of public service, was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan.  Now he stood on the platform with an aging confidant of Martin Luther King to celebrate the prototypical organization of the NAACP.

If it is possible to sincerely apologize for grave mistakes while maintaining one's dignity, Senator Byrd did just that before a riveted audience.  He is one of the most influential lawmakers in Washington, yet he expressed how humbling it was for him to even be allowed to participate in the ceremony.  Pausing frequently, he nonetheless spoke forcefully with the emphatic conviction of a man who has acknowledged, confronted, and atoned for the sins of his past.  "I said it before, I'll say it now.  I was wrong."  The tent was still.  "I don't say that to get your votes," he clarified before deadpanning, "I don't have to say that to get your votes."  A ripple of laughter broke the tension.

Throughout his speech, Senator Byrd referred repeatedly to the transformative power of religion.  "Like much of the American public, my views on civil rights have evolved over a period of years.  I was not immune to the attitudes and mores of my childhood and youth.  However, as time has passed, I have come to view matters differently.  God continues to work with me, as he does with all of us.  With the Bible as my companion and guide, I believe that I have come to understand the true fellowship of all of God's children."  Senator Byrd even compared himself to the proverbial prodigal son of the Gospel of Luke.  "Thank God," he observed, "for bringing the prodigal son home."

Benjamin Hooks congratulates Robert Byrd after his speech.

Senator Byrd's speech was warmly received.  There was not so much as a whiff of Washingtonian insincerity in the air, as it was evident that he had little to gain politically by his appearance.  After a warm round of applause in an atmosphere of forgiveness, Dr. Hooks hobbled to the podium to lead everyone in prayer.  In conclusion, he asked everyone in attendance to join hands and sing We Shall Overcome.  To be among those present that afternoon, watching Dr. Hooks and his wife Frances upon the dais with Senator Byrd and others, all of us united in singing the verse, "Black and white together, black and white together, black and white together today," was unforgettable.  The subsequent unveiling of the historical marker was a mere formality, like candles on a cake.

Posing before the newly unveiled historical marker.

A few of us in the small crowd followed the entourage into Anthony Hall, where Dr. Hooks and Senator Byrd were presented with commemorative Niagara Movement medallions.  Punch and cookies were served, and the informal gathering took on a jovial tone.  It was as though we had all shared in the tension and momentousness of a very public and deeply meaningful confession, and now we revelled in the euphoria of forgiveness.  Like the father welcoming home his prodigal son, Dr. Hooks smiled, laughed, and seemed altogether jubilant that he who was lost was now found.

Dr. Hooks and Senator Byrd with their commemorative Niagara Movement medallions.

HackingEthics

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.

Ice skating is about as natural to me as extracting oxygen from water with gills.  Had I the opportunity to develop the necessary skills as a child, perhaps things would have turned out differently, but as it happened, I never put on a pair of blades until I was eighteen.  Just as learning a foreign language is more taxing to the mature mind, so is gliding gracefully across the ice a greater challenge for the adult body.  All of the vital neural connections between body and mind are already set in their ways, and reprogramming oneself to acquire the requisite motions has all the success potential of a Microsoft operating system upgrade.  Better to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch.  That first painfully slow lap around a rink saw me hunched over like a showbiz chimp, and only the firm grip of an understanding college friend kept me from smacking my knees on the ice.

I wouldn't attempt ice skating again for more than ten years.  My wife and I took our two very young daughters to a December display of holiday lights at the zoo.  The festive mood was heightened by the presence of hot chocolate vendors, kiosks selling roasted chestnuts, and a miniature ice rink constructed within an open-air pavilion.  Accompanying my family on the ice seemed like the responsible and sporting thing to do, but I was dismayed to find that skating was just as challenging for me as it had been the first time.  In fact, it was just a bit worse, as I was already noticing the subtle decline in agility that a decade of adulthood will bring.  I valiantly clung to the boards and made a mental note for future reference:  Remember that you can't ice skate.

If there is irony to be found in my incompetence, it rests in the fact that I am the father of a proficient figure skater.  Amber makes spins and jumps look as effortless as walking.  Simply moving along the ice is automatic for her, and I have little doubt that she could simultaneously eat dinner, read a novel, send text messages and do laps around the rink if she so desired.  As for me, staying upright on skates requires my full concentration.

So as I wobbled along on my tightly-laced rentals toward a third encounter with ice skating in as many decades, it was not without well-founded trepidation.  I disliked the amount of play at my ankles, as I would have preferred to completely immobilize the joint, leaving one less variable open to failure.  Others trotted confidently before me and zipped onto the ice in one fluid motion, while I cautiously gripped a railing so as to firmly establish verticality before daring linear progress.  One thing at a time, you know.  Having assured myself that I was not in imminent danger of falling, I set about trying to move forward.

Now older and wiser, and with the spacious luxury of an uncrowded rink, I was able to be a little more analytical about the challenge.  I extended my arms outward for balance and pushed off, trying to build and preserve momentum while maintaining a straight course.  Soon I realized that I was experiencing much the same annoyance and frustration that must hinder babies as they learn to walk.  Just how is all of this supposed to work, anyway?!  Accomplished movers take a good deal for granted, but there is a whole lot going on that means all the difference between successfully getting from here to there and the humiliation of falling flat.

For example, there is a sweet spot of skate alignment, wherein the blades are held vertical and kept at a parallel distance.  This ensures straight coasting and maximum conservation of momentum.  I found it a difficult position to consistently maintain, especially since I had to keep disturbing my alignment by making alternating propulsions forward.  That required me to stay balanced on one foot while the other pushed off at an angle, and then I had to do it the other way around, and back it forth it went.  Which brings up timing, another crucial element that came to my attention.  And it also helps to relax, as one's feet will soon ache when kept in a tense grip against the boot sole.

By paying close attention to these details and through a series of diminishing errors and overcorrections, it wasn't too long before I won the admiration of my wife and daughters, who had wondered whether I would be able to do more than stand.  Hey, look at Dad!  He's actually skating!  And so I was, though precariously.  I would relax enough to set a steady pace and build up some speed, but then a small wobble would be enough to set my arms flailing.  That combined with no practical knowledge of how to stop made me a bit dangerous.  But sure enough, I was skating better than ever.

As I attempted small refinements in propulsion, timing and alignment, I had an important revelation that gave me some insight into my failure as an ice skater.  Each time I've stepped out onto the ice, I have brought with me a lifetime of overpronation.  That is, my feet roll far too inward when I walk.  It's not too much of a problem under ordinary walking conditions, though it's bad enough that I use motion-control shoes when I run.  On the ice, it's problematic.  I think I'm standing up straight, but my feet are inclined toward each other.  When I force them into a position such that my blades are plumb to the ice, it feels like my feet are splayed outward.  You can imagine how difficult this makes it to skate.  What I really need is a pair of motion-control ice skates, with the blades moved in about a quarter of an inch.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for the puzzling allure of clumsiness.  We would like to be good at everything, yet we are sometimes endearing in our awkward failures.  I've learned to never discount the charming potential of my ineptitude, as I've profited from it in one major way.  That understanding college student who held my hand as I braved the ice for the first time?  We'll have been married for 20 years in June.  We were both too shy to get that close under any other circumstances.  But there's nothing like a chimp on skates to break the ice.

HackingEthics

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.

Whatever compelled me to adopt a pseudonym is now beyond my ken.  All I can say is that I'm certain the moniker had almost no significance to me other than having the vague authorial ring I thought my own name lacked.  Did I think a pen name would increase the likelihood of readers taking my work seriously?  Who can say?  As evident in the following paragraphs, it's hard to get inside the head of Edward Cramer.

The Glass Eye

By Edward Cramer

One day a man was fixing some pipes.  He was a plumber.  Suddenly, he heard something rolling down a pipe.  He picked it up and saw that it was a glass eye.  “Now how did that get there?” he said, puzzled.  He finished his work and asked everyone if they had lost a glass eye.  They all said no.

I love that second sentence.  There's nothing more endearing in a child's writing than totally unnecessary exposition.  Incidentally, this mysterious setup is about as realistic as the story gets.  It's all high-concept from here on out.

            “I feel like a stupid Cyclops!” he said to himself.  The plumber didn’t know what to do.  He put the glass eye in his pocket.

I'm sure I must have felt quite clever inserting this mythological reference.  A youthful fascination with monocular creatures and prosthetic eyes was probably the kernel from which the entire story grew.

            The next day he was fixing some pipes when he heard something rolling down a pipe.  He picked it up.  It was a glass eye.  Now he had two glass eyes.  He asked everyone if they had lost a glass eye.  They all said no.  He put the glass eye in his pocket and forgot about it.

Just what might the plumber place in his pocket that he would not forget?  It would have to be something pretty weird... 

            Now the same thing happened over and over again, day after day, week after week.  The plumber had forty-eight glass eyes.  The plumber finally took up collecting glass eyes.

Well, why not?

            The next day he was fixing a sink and he heard something rolling down a pipe.  The plumber picked it up and saw that it was a head with no eyes, ears, teeth, hair, or nose.  He took the head home and put two eyes inside.

Good heavens.  I don't think a human head could make it down one of our heating ducts, let alone clear the water pipes.  Must have been an industrial-grade utility sink.

            Now each day he worked, he got more heads rolling down pipes.  Finally, the plumber had twenty-four heads.  He put the forty-eight eyes in the twenty-four heads.

It's a bit like Sesame Street, no?

            Two days later, he was working on a sink, heard something rolling down a pipe, and picked it up.  He had one hundred teeth.  This happened for four more days, and the plumber had five-hundred teeth.  He put the five-hundred teeth in the twenty-four heads with the forty-eight glass eyes.

Apparently I had no idea how many teeth are in a typical human head.  The average number is 32, and if we multiply that by 24, we produce a product of 768.  A collection of 500 teeth, assuming sufficient variety, would provide only 15 complete dental sets.  Now you know.

            Now the plumber decided to start collecting body parts.  So, as he collected body parts, he got more excited.  Two month later, he had twenty-four heads with twenty-four noses, forty-eight ears, five-hundred teeth, one million hairs, and forty-eight glass eyes.

That second sentence is particularly disturbing, isn't it?  It's the sort of thing you can get away with writing when you're under ten years old, but after that, beware the men in the white coats.  By the way, the hair estimate is also grossly insufficient.  With an average of 100,000 individual hairs on your garden-variety human head, a million strands would cover a mere ten heads.  Rather ruins the story.

            Now he wanted to get rid of the heads, so he flushed them down the toilet.  Two months later, the plumber was fixing his own sewage pipes when they suddenly broke in half.  All the heads he had flushed down the toilet came tumbling down.  The plumber was stuck with twenty-four heads.  He was really mad.

I don't know, if I were trying to get rid of two dozen heads, I certainly wouldn't want to take the risk of creating impenetrable blockages in my sewer line.  Still, you have to admire my childlike faith in the power of toilets to rid us of all problems.

            The plumber took the twenty-four heads, put them in a large box, and buried them under the ground.  The plumber was happy now.  He finally got rid of the heads.

            Two months later, the plumber had flowers in his back yard.  He went back to look at them and he could hardly believe what he saw.  The flowers had blossoming heads!

            Now the plumber was as mad as he could get.  He took his grass trimmers out and chopped the heads off the flowers.  He took the heads and put them in another box.

I don't think I was sophisticated enough to pun with the word head.  More likely I had seen a picture or cartoon of flowers with anthropomorphic heads.

            The plumber went to the airport and ordered the plane to be flown from the airport in New York to the tropics in Brazil.  Though for some reason, Georgia was in the way of the flight pattern.  The plumber lived in Georgia and this is what happened.

Oh yes, did I forget to mention that the plumber lived in Georgia?

            The plane lifted off and was in the air.  It went over Georgia when half of the plane crumbled.  The half that crumbled had the heads in it.  The heads dropped in the plumber’s back yard.

Oh, the irony!  The irony!

            There was nothing the plumber could do.  He was stuck with twenty-four heads with twenty-four noses, forty-eight ears, five hundred teeth,  one million hairs (not rabbits but hairs) and forty-eight glass eyes.

            Now the plumber was piping (HA, HA!) mad.  He put the twenty-four heads that had twenty…Oh, I’m not going through that again!

Now we seem to have taken a break from narrative in favor of experimenting with homophonic and occupational puns, as well as a dose of comically exasperated meta-commentary.

            Anyway, he put the heads in a new box and put the box in the trunk of his car.  He was driving his car when all the sudden (he timed it just right) a dead cow fell on his car and crushed it.

And while we're at it, why not throw in a wacky non-sequitur?  Probably inspired by Monty Python.

            The next thing the plumber knew, he was in heaven.  He looked around.  In one corner was a box.  The plumber went over to the box and opened it.  Inside were the heads.

            “Damn those heads!” said the plumber.  Right then the plumber saw God.

A shocking use of profanity from a tender mind, decades before South Park.

            “You shall pay for that,” said God.

            “How?” questioned the plumber.

            “Sell your soul to the devil,” replied God.  So the plumber did that and paid God forty thousand dollars.  “You forgot,” said God, “you’re already dead!”

One can only hope that the author's take on the monetary value of one's soul is at least as woeful an underestimation as his guesses regarding human teeth and hair.  And what's up with God in the role of trickster?  An odd theological stance from a young Catholic.

            “Oh, no!” cried the plumber.

Cue the muted wah-wah-wah horns here.

THE END

At last our storytelling train chugs into the station, and what a long, strange trip it's been.  As I consider the twisted tale penned in my own small hand, I am reminded of the adage, "The child is the father of the man."  Now all these years later, it's clear to me that I must have been adopted.

HackingEthics

"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.

Incident Number One occurred at approximately ----- on the evening of -----, when the defendant, Emeril Lagasp, experienced hunger pangs while watching Helen Hunt in a broadcast of the TV movie Quarterback Princess.  Repairing to the kitchen, he examined the contents of the refrigerator and freezer before at last retrieving a frozen pizza.  Mr. Lagasp was undaunted by the fact that he had never before prepared a frozen pizza, reasoning that any boob is capable of following the brief and uncomplicated directions printed on the box.  To this end, he duly preheated the oven until a commercial break, whereupon he removed said pizza from its box, stripped away its plastic outerwrap, and placed it directly upon the center oven rack as recommended in the printed instructions.  Mr. Lagasp then set the timer for the specified interval and returned to the living room to resume watching television.

According to the defendant, his first inkling that something might be amiss was caused by repeated utterances of "I think something is burning" by his grandmother, whom he dismissed partly due to her senility and partly due to his stubborn refusal to give her the satisfaction of being right.  Within minutes, however, it become undeniably obvious that something had gone wrong, as an acrid stench permeated the living room and the smoke alarm sounded.  Mr. Lagasp reports being confused by these developments, as they occurred only halfway through the recommended cooking time, and he was certain that he had set the oven at the correct temperature.

Upon entering the kitchen and opening the oven door, Mr. Lagasp discovered multiple tendrils of melted cheese and various toppings descending from underneath the pizza, oozing through the center rack and contacting the bottom surface of the oven, causing said elements to congeal in a burnt, black mass.  As the defendant's grandmother heightened the drama with cries of distress and subtle, passive-aggressive gloating, Mr. Lagasp had a sudden revelation.  He recalled the moment he initially removed the pizza from its box and noted the thick shell of frozen cheese that obscured its toppings.  Mr. Lagasp remembered thinking this was odd, but having never before prepared such an item, he assumed this was what the top of a frozen pizza looked like while still in its frozen state.  Now staring at the smoking mess in the oven, the defendant realized and painfully acknowledged that he had placed the pizza into the oven upside-down.

Incident Number Two took place sometime on the evening of -----, as the defendant, Wolfgang Schmuck, was enjoying a brief out-of-town stay with relatives.  Mr. Schmuck states that he took it upon himself to prepare a small meal intended for his own consumption.  He is unclear about many of the details, which attending psychiatrists have attributed to either repressive memory loss as a coping mechanism or the defendant's general lack of observational skills.  In any case, Mr. Schmuck is certain that the foodstuffs he desired required cooking, prompting him to search throughout the unfamiliar kitchen for the appropriate utensils and a suitable pan.  He soon encountered a rectangular pan with convenient handles attached at either end.  The large cooking surface was more than ample for his purposes, and having thusly acquired all necessary materials, he set about at once to prepare his meal.

There was a small amount of difficulty in commencing the cooking, as the pan was unconventionally equipped with a quartet of squat legs that elevated its cooking surface by approximately one inch.  However, Mr. Schmuck overcame this inconvenience by carefully placing the pan on the stovetop such that it straddled a gas burner.  By adjusting the burner setting accordingly, he was able to produce an adequate flame that contacted the bottom of the cooking surface.

To the defendant's credit, he rapidly ascertained that something was not quite right.  For as he prodded his meal with a spatula, he noticed that not only did the pan have handles and legs, it also sported a rectangular, metallic protuberance from one end.  It occurred to Mr. Schmuck at this moment that he was looking at a receptacle that might accommodate a small thermostat that could in turn be plugged into an electrical outlet.  That would mean, of course, that the four-legged pan contained its own heating element, making the use of an external heat source unnecessary and possibly even dangerous.  Mr. Schmuck immediately turned off the burner as it dawned on him that the foreign pan was, in fact, an electric skillet.

Ladies and gentlemen, the defense rests its cases and awaits your verdict.  The defendants agree to shut up once and for all about the matter after the impartial public has spoken.  You are hereby entrusted to resolve this long-debated question.  Baking a frozen pizza upside-down or placing an electric skillet atop an open burner:  which is stupider?

HackingEthics

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."

If athletic ability is predestined by our DNA, the sports gene is surely absent from my genetic code.  If it is a matter of nurture rather than nature, then I must have been abandoned as a fledgling and raised by charity.  Whatever the cause, it has always been painfully evident to everyone that I am far more suited to the role of spectator than that of participant.

Not that I didn't try.  When I was about nine years old, I signed up for Catholic Youth Organization summer softball.  Lord knows whose idea it was.  Maybe my parents thought it would provide me with exercise and boost my overall confidence.  Perhaps I actually suggested it myself on a whim fueled by youthful denial.  Somehow I wound up playing softball that summer, clad in my purple team shirt with the CYO logo on its front and an ad for a sponsoring local insurance company on the back.  I had an oversize softball glove and an undersized, red-painted, wooden bat.  I understood the rules and showed up for every practice.  I really did try, but I was inept.

Considering my offensive play alone, I am uniquely qualified to claim ineptitude.  Although I was always included in the batting order, if for no other reason than it was mandated by league rules, I struck out every time I stepped up to the plate throughout the regular season.  Our coach first advised me to "choke up on the bat," then to not choke up so much, but however I tried it, all I could do was choke, period.  Opposing teams were merciless with their chatter, every one of their mean-spirited utterances ridiculously unnecessary.  Instead of taunting me with hey, batter-batter-batter-SWING!, they could have chanted please hit the ball, please hit the ball and it would not have made any difference.

When it came to fielding, I spent more time on the bench than my teammates.  Still, I got out there for awhile every game, pragmatically stuck out in right field.  I always struck the little leaguer's pose, lurching forward with my hands planted on my knees and my eyes fixed on the batter.  Although my physical attitude might have fooled a passerby into admiring my apparent enthusiasm, inwardly I suffered the angst of a young Les Nessman:  Please, God, don't let them hit it to me.  When the odd fly ball did come my way, I would manage to run toward the general vicinity of its descent with my arm outstretched, whereupon the ball would inevitably plunge with a thud into the grass.  My frantic throws to the infield could turn a single into a home run.

Thanks to gym class, my lack of athleticism was evident not just during the summer but all year round.  Once I attempted to emulate the stance of a sprinter at the starting blocks when it was my turn for speed trials.  I was crouched down with all the tension of a coiled spring, and at the starting signal I suddenly catapulted forward and fell on my face.  When we were made to run laps around the field, I clutched my cramping sides and cast envious glances toward our asthmatic classmate Billy, who was permitted to walk his circuits.  What I would have given to trade places.  Maudlin images of juvenile asthma sufferers staring longingly from their bedroom windows as their peers engaged in strenuous physical activities did not arouse my sympathy but instead provoked my jealousy.

Nor did the passage of time lead to much improvement.  High school phys ed brought further humiliation, as it was taught by the head basketball coach, and my prowess on the court was even less impressive than my dexterity on the diamond.  It could not have surprised him to observe my utter incompetency with layups, the mechanics of which were a true mystery to me.  I saw others dribble toward the hoop and toss the ball in with ease, but my own attempts were executed with all the grace of Frankenstein's monster.  Obvious as my lack of talent was, it nevertheless perplexed our teacher when I was unable to complete an obstacle course due to its final element:  a successful shot from the free throw line.  He watched in disbelief as I missed again and again, unable to sink one until I was allowed to move embarrassingly close to the net.

As senior year loomed, everyone of my acquaintance knew better than to rely on me to help lead a sports team to victory.  This was something of a relief, as it meant that I was generally left alone to fulfill my non-athletic destiny without suffering humiliating interludes of awkwardness.  You wouldn't waste your time trying to train the family dog to take pinochle tricks, right?  Some efforts are simply unnatural and, consequently, fruitless.

However, I occasionally found myself once again a bumbler among the graceful.  During a co-ed summer leadership camp, I watched nervously as girls were assigned to the outfield for a friendly afternoon of softball.  The sexist assumption of the team captains was that boys would make the best infielders.  Having ascertained that I was a male, they put me at third base.  No one but I knew what a dreadful mistake they were making.

I can still see the mischievous smile of my new friend, Mark, as he strode to the plate and cockily pointed the bat at me, telegraphing his intentions.  Sure enough, he sent the first pitch hopping just inside the third base line.  I remembered from my CYO days that fielders are supposed to get down in front of ground balls to stop them, even if it meant taking a bad hop to the face.  I tried to do just that, but the ball zipped underneath me and continued deep into the outfield.  The girl playing left field intercepted the ball and sidearmed it back toward me with an athleticism ten times greater than my own.  Really, her arm was strong and bulls-eye accurate.  The ball landed a mere foot in front of me, and though I ordered myself to get down there like I was taught to do, it once again hopped beneath me and followed the foul line to home plate.  Mark jogged onto third base and laughed at his good fortune.  Two between-the-legs errors on one play by the same player is, I feel safe to say, statistically rare.

Not long after that notorious incident, I distinguished myself on the tennis court during a game of mixed doubles when I served into the back of my partner's head.  Such an action is pathetic under any circumstances, but being a guy and clobbering a girl in the noggin with an overhead smash is just mortifying.  She took it in good humor after recovering from the shock, having neither seen nor expected the offending projectile.  Still, I played the net after that.

These and other personal bloopers ran through my mind as I considered Brian's request to join him for some prison softball.  Ultimately, I agreed, succumbing to sibling pressure while harboring a kernel of hope that I might somehow find redemption for my past errors.  When we arrived at the correction facility, the dismal results of Brian's recruiting efforts became coldly apparent to me, as we didn't even have enough guys to field a team.  Playing against prisoners didn't sound too bad to me, because if I made some dumb mistakes, it would only benefit them.  But this meant that we would be playing with some inmates as well.  I wondered how they would take having a misfit like me on their team, and the thought turned my stomach.

We passed through security and were escorted to a rectangular courtyard surrounded by high brick walls.  There didn't seem to be anything particularly intimidating about the guys who had been permitted to play, and I was pleasantly surprised to find my inmate teammates treating me with good-natured camaraderie.  For the first time in my life, I was asked to play left field, and the gray clouds of my third-base fiasco began to threaten my optimism.  But when the opposing team stepped up to the plate, I realized that every single batter was pulling for right field.  This was because the dimensions of the courtyard made the right field wall much closer than the left field fence.  It was conceivable that a ball might possibly clear the courtyard wall for a home run, but at the very least, the right fielder was going to face a difficult rebound off the bricks.

I managed to avoid total embarrassment at home plate, flying out and grounding out rather than striking out.  And once, incredibly, I got a double.  Out in quiet left field, I watched with gratitude as ball after ball bounced off the right field wall.  Then someone who either swung too soon or decided to take advantage of my milquetoast game sent a high fly ball into my territory.  Like the terrifying interval between skidding tires and crashing cars, time slowed down to the accompaniment of my thundering heartbeat.  I followed the arc of the ball and tried to visualize the end of its trajectory.  I held my oversize glove open and kept my right hand ready to trap the ball.  There was a sudden thwack in my mitt, and I willed myself to react with nonchalance.  It was by no means a tough play to make, and I couldn't expect to be taken seriously if I sank to my knees in ecstasy.

"You know," I said giddily to Brian during the drive home, "I actually did have fun.  And I can't believe how nice our teammates were.  I really thought they'd give me a hard time, but they couldn't have been nicer."

"Mmm," Brian nodded, and we traveled on happily.  Redemption at last.

Years later, when I recalled the extraordinary cordiality of our hometown's minimum-security prison inmates, Brian cleared his throat and added an asterisk to our experience.

"Yeah, well...they were nice.  I didn't think it was necessary to tell you at the time, but..."

"But what?"

"Well, I told them that you had never played baseball before."

"You what?"

I looked at Brian in open-mouthed astonishment, and just as suddenly it dawned on me how great a brother's love can be.  He had been looking out for me, and I hadn't even suspected it.  We started to laugh, and we didn't stop for quite awhile.

HackingEthics

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 so it was.  Snow covered the ground not only in Perstai but in Ohio as well, and as I was enjoying that most magnificent of perks that come to elementary educators - namely, the annual two-week break at the end of the calendar year - it seemed harmless to idle away a few of those hours in a virtual way.  Melinda would be pleased by my interest, and maybe it would even be a little fun.

"You'll start by working for Tom Nook," Melinda informed me.

"Who?"

"Tom Nook.  He's the raccoon who runs the store.  He'll give you different jobs around town, and when you're done, you can pay off your mortgage."

"My what?"

"It's like rent.  He'll let you expand your house, and when you pay it off, he'll let you expand it again.  When that's all paid, you can get a second floor."

"Why would I want that?"

"More room for your stuff!"

I wasn't quite sure if I liked the rather materialistic bent of the game, as it seemed to eerily parallel the reckless home-buying practices that ignited our nation's housing crisis.  "Don't worry about the money, just pay me back as you can," is the message parroted by Tom Nook, who seems eager to lend without any evidence of consumer responsibility.  In fact, he never even mentions interest, which conveniently does not exist in this virtual paradise.  Pay off your house renovations, however, and he's all over you to expand again, hinting that you must be somewhat dissatisfied by your current lack of space.

I diligently began running errands for Nook, and soon I had enough money to enlarge my squalid starter shack into something more comfortable.  There didn't seem to be much point in the whole endeavor, although I did register a twinge of pleasure at replacing my standard-issue cardboard box and candle with a decent end table and lamp.  Soon afterward my indentured servitude to Nook was rapidly fulfilled, leaving me free to seek my own fortune.

Seeking one's fortune in Animal Crossinginvolves participating in a cycle of redundant activities to generate income.  Sometimes just shaking trees and banging on rocks with your shovel releases currency, but most money is earned by acquiring goods and selling them to Nook.  Picking fruit, catching fish, and digging up fossils are the beginner's route to financial freedom.  Oranges go for 100 bells apiece in Perstai, and some of the rarest fish can fetch up to 15,000 bells.  The bell, by the way, is the official monetary unit used in every Animal Crossing town.  If ya wanna make it big, ya gotta have bells.

I had noticed Melinda and Julie scurrying about Perstai trying to generate bells by engaging in these mundane tasks.  As a mere observer, I perceived only irony in their efforts.  Why would anyone fritter away their free time on work?  Virtual or not, that's what it was.  Run here, run there, fill your pockets with oranges, go sell them to Nook, run here, run there, fill your pockets with fish, go sell them to Nook.  You wouldn't do that for less than minimum wage in the real world, but Animal Crossing players gladly do these things for no real recompense.

Having a go at Animal Crossing myself gave me some insight into the human condition.  We are definitely a goal-oriented species.  It does not matter if the objective is particularly meaningful, nor must it be real.  Provided that all basic needs are met, give your average homo  sapien a sufficiently stimulating challenge and he or she will not rest until that aim is accomplished.  As I became immersed in Perstai life, I chided myself for having once dismissed this virtual existence as pointless.  I had been terribly closed-minded.  Because now that I had increased the footprint of my home to its maximum area, I was only 248,000 bells away from adding a second floor.  So it wasn't like I was wasting time, because I was actually accomplishing something.  I was saving bells.

But it wasn't all about making money.  Well, mostly it was.  Yet in addition, I had become charmed by the pre-programmed residents of Perstai.  The amiable dogs Bones and Marcel.  The endearingly boastful bear Teddy and the similarly macho eagle Pierce.  The girly-girl bear Tutu and the lady rhinoceros Rhonda.  Even the somewhat bitchy duck Mallory.  They would tell me amusing little anecdotes and sometimes send me on errands for which I'd always be rewarded in goods or bells.  Once in awhile, one of them will suggest a game of hide and seek, and my inevitable victory yields even more loot.

And they are wonderfully gullible.  The residents of Animal Crossingtowns love to use catchphrases and customized greetings, and they will frequently ask for suggestions along these lines to keep conversation fresh.  If, say, Marcel approaches you for some help in coming up with a clever new phrase, and if you propose something that is less than tasteful, and so long as the game designers did not foresee the sort of drivel your deviant mind is capable of concocting, then Marcel will henceforth trot happily about town repeating your crude remark.  This simple pleasure does not get old as quickly as you might think.

Plus, if you take the time to write them letters with an enclosed gift, they will ecstatically return the favor.  Your mailbox will soon be flooded with a bounty of free furniture, clothing, and exotic fruit.  The best part is that they are thrilled with whatever you give them, even if the items are totally worthless.  Thus, I write a flowerly love note to Tutu and enclose an old tire.  She gushes with appreciation and sends me a lovely violin.  I give Marcel a smelly boot that I fished out of the river, and he presents me with a computer.  This delightful practice also does not get old with any rapidity.

As life in Perstai evolved from Melinda's solitary preoccupation into a family pastime, more and more evenings included the warm, animated glow of Animal Crossing emanating from our television.  Only eldest daughter Amber remained a staunch holdout, declaring the whole enterprise a total waste of time.  We regarded her sympathetically, as a zealot looks upon the unsaved.

It was somewhere around this time that Julie and I became more frequent visitors to Perstai than Melinda.  One of us - I can't really remember who - wondered naively if there might be some useful information about Animal Crossing on the Internet.  It so happens that there is far more to our virtual existence than we had ever anticipated, and once we discovered this, there was no turning back.  No longer contented innocents, we were compelled to fulfill our destinies.  There were so many more species of fish for us to catch, a plethora of insects still uncaught, and untold varieties of fossils yet unearthed.  If you had enough bells, you could even add a basement.  And there was something that Melinda had not yet tested:  the stalk market.

Every Sunday morning, a warthog named Joan shows up with turnips for sale.  She always has one red turnip seed that can be turned around for a 14,000 bell profit on a 1,000 bell investment, providing that you remember to water it daily for a week.  Even more enticing are the white turnips, a highly volatile commodity.  One week Julie bought a few at 108 bells and waited to sell until Nook offered her a buying price of 459.  That was all it took for us to start dropping in at Perstai on a fairly regular basis.

On my most recent trip, I had been logged on for no more than five minutes when I had the good fortune to land a rare stringfish, a great catch at 15,000 bells.  Melinda was watching.

"Go sell that stringfish to Nook and let me play."

"But I just got on," I protested.  She looked askance at me, and I surrendered the controller.

"At least I'm not addicted to it," she added reproachfully.  "Unlike some people I know."

Relaxing in the comfort of my second-floor study.

HackingEthics