by jphilo | Nov 6, 2009 | Current Events
The big, bad world touched our safe, little neighborhood this week. Around Halloween, I found three smashed pumpkins littering our gravel road. Sadness engulfed me as I thought of the children who lost a little of their innocence and trust when they discovered the theft of their decorations. My heart ached to think of the anger, hurt and self-absorption of thieves who would behave so callously.
When I noticed one of the pumpkins was intact, having landed in the soft grass lining the ditch, my mood brightened. The thieves hadn’t been completely successful.I toyed with the idea trying to find the owners. Maybe an ad in the paper or posters on telephone poles. In the end, I decided to give the stray pumpkin a home on my doorstep and eventually cook it down.
“Take that, thieves,” I said, in case any pumpkin snatchers lurked in the woods beside the road, as I lugged my find home. “Your nastiness won’t triumph here!”
My bright mood lasted until Sunday afternoon when our neighbor called. She’d found a meth lab across the road from ours, while walking in the woods behind their house. “The police thought it was pretty recent. They thought the manufacturers were probably dropped off by their cohorts and picked up again once they were done.” She called all the neighbors. Now we’re on the look out for suspicious vehicles, strangers in the woods, bad odors, muddy footprints.
I’m sad again today. Our little gravel road let in the big, bad world again. Strangers invaded our woods. This time they left nothing to be rescued, only a sense of violation and an atmosphere of fear.
What can I do in the face of such calculated evil? Lock the doors at night, walk in the daylight, and pray for our neighborhood’s safety and the transformation of such depraved men.
by jphilo | Oct 27, 2009 | Current Events
Since his first appearance in St. Elsewhere, Denzel Washington has been one of my favorite actors. I haven’t seen all his movies, but his performance in Glory and The Great Debaters, which he also directed, are two of my faves.
A couple days ago, I listened to him on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and was impressed with his down-to-earth attitude about acting. Near the end of the interview, Terry asked Denzel about growing up as the son of a Pentecostal minister. Denzel’s response was one of the most gracious witnesses of faith I’ve ever heard.
But, do you think I can locate the interview? No matter how many times I search NPR’s website, it doesn’t show up. But, I did find the following interview at the Reader’s Digest website. While it doesn’t tell as much about the effect his father’s integrity had on Washington’s life, it’s a fair substitute.
Take a look the interview and see what you think. If you’re like me, you’ll be renting every movie he’s been in – perfect entertainment as the nights get longer and the days get colder.
And if you locate the link for the Fresh Air interview, send it to me, please. I’d love to post it so more people can hear it.
by jphilo | Oct 6, 2009 | Current Events
When the Harding County newspaper arrived yesterday, I couldn’t believe the headline. Our old friends in the remote, northwest corner of South Dakota had approved a $5 million bond issue for a new K – 12 school.
That may seem ho-hum to you, but the county’s population is only 1,353, which means if you spread the citizen of that vast high-grass prairie evenly across its 2,678 square miles, every single person would have 1,280 acres of elbow room. Those 1,353 people, none of whom live extravagantly and all of whom work hard to eek out a living in untamed and beautiful semi-wilderness, passed a $5 million dollar bond issue.
The new school will cost considerably more than that. But because the proposal passed, the project will receive $5 million federal dollars, thanks to the stimulus package. A sizable amount in their school improvement fund whittled the amount down further, but $5 million is still a sizable amount for the tax payers in Harding County.
Of course, their only other option was to pass a bond for $6.5 million to repair and renovate the old school. Apparently, the fine folks in that county did the math and voted for the cheaper option. Even so, the vote was remarkable. 58% of voters went to the polls and passed the bond issue with an 84% majority. I’m proud to report that our old friends in the small town where we once lived, Camp Crook, voted 76-13 (85%) in favor of the bond issue.
The superintendent of schools said she was surprised the vote passed on the first try. Maybe she wasn’t familiar with the big-hearted generosity of the independent, tough-as-nails townsfolk and ranchers who live so close to the McFarthest Spot in the United States. But Hiram and I are. After Allen was born in 1982, the residents of Camp Crook had a fund raiser for us and raised over $1,500 in one night.
So I wasn’t surprised when the bond issue passed. But I am bursting with pride for a county full of people willing to put the needs of the next generation ahead of their own wants and desires. I’m kinda hoping their attitude is as contagious than the H1N1 virus and spreads all over the country. Our children and their children could use a little of that kind of medicine.
by jphilo | Sep 24, 2009 | Current Events
A recent entry at Justin Taylor’s blog Between Two Worlds almost blew my socks off. He quoted from a blog entry by Stephen Von Worley. Von Worley was contemplating the McDonaldization of America and decided to locate the farthest point from an Mc Donalds in the contiguous United States. Here’s what he found:
As expected, McDonald’s cluster at the population centers and hug the highway grid. East of the Mississippi, there’s wall-to-wall coverage, except for a handful of meager gaps centered on the Adirondacks, inland Maine, the Everglades, and outlying West Virginia.
For maximum McSparseness, we look westward, towards the deepest, darkest holes in our map: the barren deserts of central Nevada, the arid hills of southeastern Oregon, the rugged wilderness of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, and the conspicuous well of blackness on the high plains of northwestern South Dakota. There, in a patch of rolling grassland, loosely hemmed in by Bismarck, Dickinson, Pierre, and the greater Rapid City-Spearfish-Sturgis metropolitan area, we find our answer.Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car! Suffer a Big Mac Attack out there, and you’re hurtin’ for certain! For a coupla hours, at least, unless graced by the tender blessings of “manna from heaven” – that is, a fast food air drop from the Medi-Copter.
So what’s the big deal? Those “tiny hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley” were part of our old South Dakota stomping grounds. Our personal hamlet, Camp Crook, was about 75 miles straight west of Meadow, much tinier than the McFarthest spot, and didn’t have nearly as many paved roads.
What were we doing for the first three precarious years of Allen’s life, living so far from civilization? Answer: We didn’t know how bad we had it. Like Stephen Von Worley, we thought the most isolated part of the United States was far, far away in the rugged west, not in our back yard.
If we had known the truth, would we have skedaddled sooner than we did? Maybe, but as Hiram said when he read the report, “There we were on the edge of nowhere and look at the support we received from the people.” Maybe they supported us because they weren’t distracted by civilization – McDonalds and movies and shopping malls and inconsequentials – and had time to prop up two bewildered young parents day after difficult day.
Whatever the reasons, when I think of our seven years near the McFarthest Spot and the way the far flung community rallied round us, the truth is evident. During those years we didn’t leave civilization. We found it.
by jphilo | Sep 14, 2009 | Current Events
You may not believe this, but the rodent war, which formerly was confined to our little gravel road, has gone citywide. The invasion began yesterday, on a Sunday morning, if you can believe it, during church. Our congregation currently meets in our high school auditorium, and about halfway through the pastor’s sermon, a mouse joined him on the stage.
The little critter stuck to the shadows as much as possible and didn’t make a sound, stealthily scampering across the stage behind the pastor. But as we all know, cameo appearances can be show stoppers, and this one certainly was. So sermon waited until the newest member of our congregation negotiated his way past the set for the next high school play, jumped over the worship band’s power cords, and made his stage right exit.
Apparently, the little fellow was as impressed as I was with the pastors exposition of Mark 6:33-44, where Jesus feeds the five thousand, or maybe he was really, really hungry. Because a few minutes later, Mr. Mouse joined the crowd seated in the auditorium. Well, as you can imagine, things went a little crazy for a little while, until two valiant men, Mick and Perry, armed with empty coffee cups, live-trapped the little guy into Perry’s wife’s book bag. Wild applause followed them out the building where they released the interloper. By the time they returned, the pastor had ended his live feed, internet coverage of the action and resumed point five of the sermon.
As far as we know, the mouse did not return. He certainly didn’t come forward for communion, which would have been the logical next appearance. I mean think about it, a school mouse subsists on gum stuck to the bottom of chairs, which has to lead to poor nutrition and miserable digestion. The poor little guy must be continually plugged up. Some fresh bread and grape juice would be just what the veterinarian ordered, but then again, maybe the trip in the book bag shook things loose, so to speak. Hmm…I sure hope Perry’s wife did laundry yesterday afternoon.
Anyway, I’m wondering what the high school fall play is. Based on the set and the sneak preview, I’m thinking Of Mice and Men. But if you have another idea, please leave a comment. And keep your eyes peeled for rodents in all the wrong places and keep your book bags open. This could get ugly, folks.
by jphilo | May 4, 2009 | Current Events
Last Friday afternoon, I went to a reunion. Fourteen of my favorite people in the whole world came to the elementary school where we did fourth grade together. We gathered, a few weeks shy of their high school graduation, to open the time capsule they put together about this time eight years ago.
The young men were so tall and deep-voiced, it took a few minutes for me to match them with the little boys who hugged me good-bye almost a decade ago. The young women were poised and lovely, the fulfullment of the promises I had glimpsed beyond their ponytails and the chipmunk teeth that overpowered their nine-year-old faces. Not everyone returned for the festivities. Some I couldn’t locate. Some lived too far away to return for the party. Some chose not to come. Their absence was an emptiness in the crowded room.
My former students looked different, but their chatter was the same, as they watched the videos of their fourth grade year. Squeals of laughter and little screams filled the room as they found photographs of our Halloween party, field trips and playground fun. They read the stories they had written, full of their perfect penmanship and childhood wishes. “I don’t remember much of fourth grade,” several confessed. But by the end of the afternoon, they did – the broken clipboard, the multiplication songs, our class fundraiser, science experiments, social studies presentations, and one book they said impressed them: a true story written by children’s author Peg Kehret about her childhood battle with polio.
Eight years ago when these kids entered my classroom, they wormed their way into my heart. They’ve been there ever since. As they came up one by one to open the little token they placed in the time capsule, I marveled at the young adults they’ve become and rejoiced to hear of the dreams they have for the future.
Nothing dimmed the magic of the afternoon. For an hour, the soon-to-graduate seniors were fourth graders again, and I was their teacher. And I prayed that the memories of childhood and the sweetness of our days together will be one small, link in the chain of events that holds them up and carries them into the future. In that future, I hope they will experience one of the greatest privileges I have ever known: to watch a youngster discover the potential he’s been given and then use it to give to others.
