Gesture

“Shoot around time” back in grade school could be a little chaotic. This was the fifteen minute period that separated the end of school and the beginning of 6^th grade basketball practice. During “shoot around time” it was expected that we quickly change into our practice clothes, hopefully find a ball younger than our parents, and then spend the rest of the time working on layups, jump shots, or our dribbling technique. 

One day in December of 1988, our coach started practice a little later than usual. A buddy of mine, who will remain nameless, suggested to me that we had already spent enough time working on individual fundamentals and now we should focus on passing. This started out well enough, with the two of us tossing one ball back and forth. After a minute or so, though, we had mastered that skill and were ready to move onto something more challenging.

Why not pass two balls back and forth, he suggested. Granted, this activity had no offensive merit, but true growth, as you know, comes from constant struggle. Thus, one of us passed a ball at a casual arc while the other tossed the second ball back in a straight line, and this actually went surprisingly well for about seven seconds.

But then coach walked into the gym.

The specifics of what he said to us have been lost somewhere in the mists of time, but the gist of his message was loud and abrupt and it went something like this: if the team ever needed circus clowns for a half time show, we could sign up. In the meantime, however, we had better work on basketball fundamentals or leave the gym.

Our halftime show career was over.

Sometimes, particularly when we’re young and unfocused, such immediate correction is exactly what we need. In just a few short, gruff sentences, coach taught us one of the most important of life’s lessons: Time is valuable; don’t waste it. Don’t waste your own time, and don’t you dare waste anyone else’s time, either.

About a year later one of my English teachers passed me back a Halloween story I had written for a creative writing assignment. “This is really good.” She commented. “Do you mind if I enter it into a contest?”

At the age of twelve, writing was something I simply did as school work and not much else. It didn’t really occur to me that writing was something I might be good at and could pursue outside the parameters of the school day. Regardless, I said “yes,” of course, and entered the contest. The story didn’t win, but that was irrelevant. A teacher told me I was good at something. She saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.

One gesture, a little extra time on her part, made a huge difference in my life. All of my columns—the decent and the dull—grew from that seed. Everything I’ve ever written was planted on that day.

Considering gestures, we just finished reading October Sky in my sophomore English class, the Homer Hickam book about his high school days building rockets in Coalwood, West Virginia. One of the most important events in the story takes place when Homer’s science teacher, Miss Riley, gifts him a book entitled Principles of Guided Missile Design. Hickam later reflected that the tome represented the “Holy Grail of rocketry;” a treasure trove of science and math and precisely what he and his friends needed to continue in their academic quest.

Miss Riley’s confidence in Homer’s potential and her willingness to make the extra effort to secure such a gift—decades before Internet search engines—made all the difference in the young man’s life. He went on to learn how to make exceptional rockets, to win science fairs, and to eventually work for NASA. (And, of course, to write a best-selling memoir that eventually became a popular Hollywood film.)

I’ve been thinking about such gestures quite a bit, lately. With Christmas finally here, I’ve been reflecting on Decembers from my own childhood, and also Decembers from earlier days of parenting. It’s remarkable what kids—what young people—remember. It can be intimidating, in fact, to think about what children carry with them into adulthood. For grown-ups and our mile-a-minute schedules, seemingly common events can become mere punctuation in the pages we call our days. For a young person, though, what might seem mundane to us can take on tremendous—even catastrophic—importance.

This is why the adults a community allows in front of its young peoples—its coaches, its youth group leaders, its mentors, teachers, principals and school bus drivers—are so important.  These adults are—if I can borrow a phrase crafted quite eloquently by St. Louis Children’s Hospital—the “defenders of childhood.”

In closing, then, I want to return, very briefly, to 6^th grade basketball practice. By our modern, softer standards, coach’s response to our silliness might come across as a little harsh, so it’s important that I mention something relevant: he set high standards for our conduct in practice because he knew it transferred directly to our game. He expected hard work and seriousness because he knew those attitudes transferred directly to all of life, inside and especially outside of the gymnasium.

Having fun was one thing, but wasting time was too high a price to pay. It’s what we do with our “shoot around time,” he taught us on that day, that would help define our lives.

That lesson, among others, is something to consider when we get the privilege of parenting, coaching, mentoring or otherwise teaching our young people.

After all, you really can change a life today. You may have done so already.

Reaction

Good parents don't let their kids play around rat poison, right? A good pet owner, in fact, would likely have a similar, "Stay away from rat poison" policy. Most of us have been conditioned to know that poison is bad and we shouldn't touch it or eat it, and we certainly wouldn't allow little kids to do either one of those things, either.

This is kind of what leaving our home can feel like, though, for our family: navigating one hazard after another, trying to keep our littlest kid from eating something that will send her to the hospital.

Before continuing, I should mention that, yes, this column will discuss our daughter Annaka. Again. I know, it’s exhausting, but she’s very interesting and I live with her, so it only makes sense that some of my columns will focus on her life. So, if you are one of the dozens of Americans suffering from Annaka-fatigue, that’s cool. You will not hurt my feelings by reading something else. I get it. Regardless, you have been warned.

So, to reiterate, Annaka is allergic to a remarkable amount of food—all dairy and eggs, for starters, along with banana, beef and avocado. She also seems to have intolerance to wheat, soy, peas, and strawberries. We have been told that these allergies are likely caused by the anti-rejection medicine she has to take to keep her body from attacking her transplanted liver. In other words, these allergies are something we might just have to live with for most of her childhood and perhaps even beyond.

Thanksgiving and Christmas, like most holidays—like most American events in general, really—are full of these allergens, and so when it comes time to gather in groups, we have to think long and hard about what our plans are. On one hand, these holidays are one of the few times during the year when extended family meets together beneath one roof. On the other hand, she could die.

One bite of mashed potatoes, for example, mixed with sour cream, would guarantee an injection from the Epipen and a quick sprint to the nearest hospital. One brush of the hand to cookie crumbs would be enough to produce a painful welt. 

Not only this, though, but even one kiss on the cheek from someone who has recently eaten an allergen could cause a reaction. We also have to be mindful of touching things Annaka might touch, because if someone eats one of her allergens and turns a doorknob, for example, before washing their hands, that doorknob is now unsafe.

To complicate the issue, Annaka is now very mobile and eager to explore. She’s old enough to want to eat anything she sees but not old enough to understand how dangerous this is.  A few years from now, she’ll be more cognizant of what she can and cannot eat, but that will bring with it an entire different level of anxiety.

Now she is this cute little toddler, totally oblivious to how different a life style she has to endure. Soon, though, she won’t be oblivious at all; she’ll be acutely aware of her uniqueness, and not in a good way. 

So we’re tempted to just retire from social gatherings altogether, at least in the short term. Not out of spite or animosity, but just out of a rational need for self-preservation, and if she was our only kid, that decision would be easier to make.

She’s only a fraction of our family, though. How fair is it to expect our other two kids to sit out on one Christmas after another just because their little sister has to avoid most foods? And if we actually did go that route, how long would it be before they started to resent her and the exile her condition has produced?

Thus, the larger point is, when it comes to food allergies, there is no easy fix. This is frustrating, because I am from the school of just figure it out and move on. Don’t dwell on it, don’t make it a big deal; just keep calm and work hard and things will turn out fine.

This one isn’t going away, though. Annaka may never eat real ice cream. She may be that student in the classroom who has to bring her own snacks to class parties and sit at a separate table in the lunch room to minimize her potential for anaphylactic shock.

Growing up is hard enough, but to try to navigate a culture that punctuates everything—every stinking thing—with enormous amounts of calories that could literally kill you?

Yeah, sign me up for that.

Annaka, though, like her brother before her, is a climber. She wants to climb up on beds, down the stairs, out of cribs, and onto chairs. She wants to be mobile. She wants to find out. 

And so keeping her locked away could never be an option. Not really. Thus, we’ve taken a cue from the toddler in the room—again—and have made steps toward trying to figure this stupid thing out.

The biggest hurdle, and perhaps the most important, is educating people about her condition without sounding like a whiny sociopath, because the reality is, we know things could be worse. (Things were worse.) Besides that, everyone in her life wants what is best for her, but no one can really wrap their minds around the whole thing until they’ve followed her around for a few days.  Food allergies are very real but they aren’t real until it’s you or someone very close to you who is going through them.

            Another challenge is discovering a way of feeding everyone in the family a reasonably priced meal that all five of us can eat and enjoy at the same time. The test will be attempting to carve out a life that is safe for her without it also being a constant reminder of how different that life looks from the average American.

            Thankfully her life is full of good people.  She has her mom, who has become an expert on her condition, an extended network of family and friends looking out for her, and, of course, her big brother, who reminds us—constantly—to wash our hands.

Hats

I came close to being a Steelers fan this past year.

Well, actually, “fan” is probably too strong a word. I was going to root for Pittsburgh, because of the hats. I was going to hope they won in a very noncommittal way and maybe even catch a game or two on television.
The reason for this is that in January we were in Pittsburgh. Annaka was a few weeks out of surgery but still in the hospital. The older two kids and I, along with my parents, were visiting for the weekend. The Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has a number of diversions, and we were spending some time in the 6^th floor atrium, a large, three story rec-room big enough for a kid to blow off some steam. We were planning on playing hockey, but New Era, the very famous sport cap company, was giving away Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers hats in the middle of the room.

Now, like many of you, I could never convince myself to wear a Pirates anything. Pirates play baseball and I’m a Cardinal fan and therefore the Pirates are the enemy. Football, though, for me, is much more benign, so the kids picked out a few Steelers hats and we went on our way.

The caps didn’t really mean much to me one way or another, because I didn’t grow up with football. In high school we played baseball and basketball and we sometimes ran track. I’m a St. Louis fan, yes, but the Rams left, and I could never bring myself to consciously root for a Chicago franchise. (Again, it’s nothing personal against Chicago, it’s just…you know.)

However, as I’ve aged and had children, there was something about football that began to entice me. What I found appealing, besides the fact that it’s one of the rare times in a week where it’s socially acceptable to sit and eat junk food for three hours, is the tradition of it all.  I wanted to create a sports tradition for my kids, and the Steelers’ storyline made sense.

“Why are we Steelers fans, dad?” one of my kids would ask someday. “We live in Illinois.”

“Well, don’t you remember, child?” I would respond, “Little Annaka’s life was saved in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is the city of her second birth. And they also gave us those free hats.  Remember?”

The fact that the Steelers made it to the playoffs last year, of course, didn’t hurt.

It would be a quaint story, one that reinforced our family narrative. Rooting for Pittsburgh would be an annual source of family bonding. It would be something we could look forward to now and remember fondly when the kids are all grown up and act like they don’t know us.

And then, of course, the President picked up his smartphone.

As an abrupt rhetorical pivot, Mr. Donald J. Trump may be the only person in American history that consistently and unapologetically makes bad things worse just by telling us what he thinks.

For example, in case you haven’t heard, North Korea has nuclear missiles.  North Korea.  How does a person even make that worse?  The worseness of that situation should be imputable, like at a glass ceiling of bad.  But Trump did it.  He picked up his smartphone, cyberbullied the biggest psycho on the planet, and now here we are, the closest we have been to a nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

And if that wasn’t enough, he has nearly ruined an entire NFL season, an organization that is already in need of a considerable P.R. makeover, by, again, simply not filtering what is in his brain.  The truth is, his stream-of-consciousness rambling is enough to get a pee wee soccer coach fired, but he’s the President. A certain amount of authenticity is nice, I guess, but seriously.  Openly mocking senators? From your own party? Please tell me the G.O.P. is vetting someone to start running against this guy a year from now.

Now, what do I, personally, think about the flag “controversy?”  Well, personally, I think it actually is disrespectful. It is shameful. My father served in Vietnam and I was always taught to respect the flag. It truly does bother me when Americans, regardless of their background, disrespect a symbol that people have fought and died for throughout our country’s 240 year history.

Having said that, however, we also need to keep in mind that forced patriotism is not really patriotism, and requiring someone to stand for a symbol that partially represents freedom of thought is a little suspect, anyway.

More importantly, however, the “not-standing-for-the-National-Anthem” thing would likely have died down after a while. Before Mr. Trump started tweeting about it and otherwise calling people names, players not standing were protesting a historical narrative and ideological position that you may or may not believe even exists. When the President became involved, however, it became personal. It became a protest against a specific individual doing what he has always done, which is to create controversy and incite division in order to boost ratings.

So, finally, let’s turn back to the hats.  I personally, cannot root for a team that refuses to respect the American flag. Even a basic understanding of how the world functions should convince a person that, “Hey, America has its problems, sure, but the least I can do is stand for my own country’s national anthem.” 

On the flip side of that, do I think the players have the “right” to kneel at football games?  Of course they do.  Do owners have the “right” to fine those players? Sure. It’s partially entertainment. If the script says to stand at attention and you don’t do that, then you also have the freedom to suffer the consequences. 

The entire spectacle, however, has become a useless diversion more suited for reality television than running a country. If only there had been hints. 

Project 7:15 - Three Month Reflection

It is October 15^th, which means we are now a full three months into my uncertified life-coaching street cred enhancement A.I.T., “Project 7:15.”  (To reiterate, an A.I.T. is known as an Amazing and/or Inspiring Transformation.  All good life coaches, uncertified or not, have at least one A.I.T. on their resume.) Initially my goal was to go an entire year without binge eating cookies in the middle of the night; this soon evolved into not eating cookies at all and then avoiding all sugar altogether.

The first thing we need to know about Project 7:15 is that I have eaten sugar.  I have not eaten that much sugar, but I have consumed enough that I think I should probably come clean and tell you about it. 

About three weeks into Project 7:15, I was standing around a fire while a friend was making s’mores for our kids.  I was the passer outer, and there came a point when all the kids had been s’mored and she handed me a melting treat.  “That’s yours,” she explained, going back to the task at hand.

As you might imagine, this put me in something of quandary.  I couldn’t exactly just drop the s’more, obviously, because that would be beyond stupid.  It was Hersey’s chocolate.  I also couldn’t give it back and say something lame, like, “Yeah, I trying not to eat sugar for a year,” because she was busy making more s’mores.  So I ate the s’more.  As you might imagine, it was delicious, and, more importantly, the experience reminded me of a truth I had known since first grade. Sometimes food is not just food.  Sometimes food is community.

Nothing necessarily was gained by my eating the s’more, at least not socially, but had I not eaten it, especially since I had already touched it, something would have been lost.  I would have been one of those annoying weirdos that eventually are no longer given the task of handing out s’mores.

So, Project 7:15 was adjusted in that moment, and instead of dismissing all sugar for an entire year, I chose to dismiss all sugar that carried with it no community.  I dismissed random sugar.  So, since then, I’ve eaten a piece of birthday cake at my niece’s birthday party, a gift of a homemade candy brought in by a colleagues, a left over cupcake delivered by a student, and perhaps two or three other sweets that were basically handed to me by people I didn’t want to insult.

I also still have a piece of dark chocolate with my afternoon coffee and I still eat peanut butter with my oat meal.  Beyond that, however, twelve weeks into this thing, I have achieved three important benchmarks.

1.      Pants I haven’t worn in years now fit comfortably, which immediately enhances the wardrobe.  Instead of buying larger pants I simply now fit into pants I once wore.  This saves money and time, because I hate buying pants.

2.      My brain works better.  Although I only get about five or six hours of sleep at night due to my job as a parent, I still have a decent amount of creativity, something that wasn’t as obvious while I was still eating random sugar.

3.       And, perhaps most importantly, I don’t really miss sugar the way I did right at first.  I can get my kids donuts and have zero desire to buy myself one.  The smell of sugar, once intoxicating, is actually now kind of gross.

Thus, now Project 7:15, instead of resting on its laurels, will double down on its success and be even more amazing and/or inspirational.  Why?  How?  Find out in a month.  Until next time, remember, “The life coached well today becomes the legacy lived eventually.”  

Star Gazing

The world was supposed to end last month. 

As some of you may have heard, September 23^rd marked a moment of peak celestial alignment, when the planets of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter were near the constellations Virgo and Leo. The sun and moon were also nearby, and some people believe that this orientation was actually a sign spoken of in the Book of Revelation:

"A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who ‘will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.’ And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.”

            According to some interpretations, Jupiter’s departure from the constellation of Virgo, which began on the 23^rd, correlated to the child being born. A tremendous cosmic spectacle, such as a sun storm or the sudden appearance of an asteroid or even a rogue planet, was going to fill in for the devouring dragon. Those convinced that September 23^rd marked the beginning of the end suggest that the recent string of unsettling events leading up to the date, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, political disruption, and of course, the recent eclipse, are too closely linked in time and space to be mere coincidence. 

In other words: September 23^rd. Apocalypse Now.

I realize, of course, that as soon as I began quoting from Revelation, some of you lost interest and some of you became defensive, but if you’re still with me, it should be noted at this point that I do read the Bible. Every morning, before anyone else in the house is awake, I try to spend a good half hour or so reading and praying. As a husband, a parent of three kids, and a high school English teacher, there is usually plenty to discuss.

I am a very imperfect Christian living in a very broken world, and I don’t take any book of the Bible, Revelation included, lightly.

However, I am also genetically wired, I think, to be something of a skeptic, particularly when it comes to concrete dates pertaining to concrete events. After all, in the 24^th chapter of Matthew, Jesus himself says of the end of days, “… no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.” This is one reason why it bothers me when humans, who are quite earth bound, try to pin point an exact time when the world will end.

In many ways, it is even unbiblical to do so. After all, Christians are told throughout the New Testament, and I’m paraphrasing, “things will be rough, don’t freak out about it, trust God and pray about everything.” One might suggest that there is irony to this, considering that some Christians seem to be among the most anxious people on the planet.

However, these are, truly, unsettling times, as the recent massacre in Las Vegas has only emphasized, and there is no indication that things will calm down anytime soon. Anyone who has been awake for more than five minutes in the last twelve or so months should be forgiven for some frazzled nerves.

Many of Jesus’ disciples had frazzled nerves, too, and when they themselves asked their teacher for signs pertaining to his return, Jesus had this to say, as written in the 21^st Chapter of Luke: (For the sake of brevity verses have been condensed.)

 “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.”  A few verses later, Jesus continues, “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.”

Or, in other words, the nightly news.

If we take the long view, however, it could be argued that the events Jesus described actually happen to about every generation, at least somewhere, and so perhaps the larger lesson he was trying to teach his young students was that timing is much less important than truth, and the truth is this: the end—relatively speaking, at least—is always near. 

After all, the world did end last month for many, many people. It will end for many more this month, too. Whether the entire world ends tomorrow or a thousand years from now, nearly everyone alive today will be gone within a century. Sorry. I understand this is not my typically upbeat tone, but just do the math. It shouldn’t take one catastrophe after another, one nuclear-tinged tirade on top of tirade on top of yet another demonic mass shooting, to get us to pause on occasion and think about the very, very big picture.

When we die or how we die—an earthquake, a hurricane, quietly in our bed years down the road—is actually pretty irrelevant. The only thing that will make any difference at that point will be our relationship with God and our relationship with each other. 

Everything else is just star gazing.

T-Shirts and Denim

One of many get well cards
sent to Annaka during her recovery
in Pittsburgh.

This is a special time of year, especially for parents with school age children. August marks the transition from the relatively relaxed, slower pace of summer to the more regimented school-days schedule. This specialness is enhanced when both parents also teach, as is the case in our home. I’m not afraid to admit that I did enjoy turning the calendar to September last week.  Autumn, the very best season, begins this month, and by September the craziness that often punctuates the transition from summer to school has at least started to calm down.

I’ve been doing this summer-to-school transition thing professionally for twenty years though, now, and I did it for free seventeen years before that, so you’d think I would be getting used to it. Every school year seems to be different, though, and some years are more different than others.

For example, last year at this time my wife and I, along with Annaka, were in the hospital—again, after coming off a series of hospital visits. This time last year, we were waiting for a liver, praying for a miracle, fully aware that our family was living on borrowed time.

And now? Well, now Annaka is trying to climb up the piano. Now she’s toddling around the house, wrestling with her brother and playing ponies with her sister. Annaka, from a liver standpoint, at least, has been healed.

We are under no delusion that this thing is all over, of course. She will have blood draws at least once a month for the rest of her life and will need to take multiple medicines well into her adulthood.  In fact, we will all return to Pittsburgh in November so her surgeons can once again operate and enclose the muscles in her abdomen.

Regardless, things are better. Annaka sat out the first year of her life in a fog of elevated bilirubin and fuzzy predictions; now she runs in the sun like a wound up watch. 

However, this column isn’t actually going to be about Annaka, whose fifteen seconds of health-related fame, hopefully, are up. What I really want to talk about today are t-shirts.

            Almost every Wednesday of last spring, I would walk into Effingham High School and be greeted by one green shirt after another. Staff and students were wearing Annaka shirts crafted by students down the hallway in the graphic design classroom. These were fundraising shirts worn on Wednesday as a simple gesture of solidarity, as Wednesday was the day we usually traveled to St. Louis for Annaka’s weekly clinics. Every Wednesday for months, this kindness popped up in classrooms and hallways throughout the district, from the high school all the way down to Kindergarten.

            I would say that these gestures were humbling, and they were, but by that point, we had been inundated with so much generosity, from our hometowns and from this community, that there wasn’t really anything left to be humble about. What these gestures really became were very obvious reminders that my wife and I work with some tremendous people. Perhaps this is not really news to many, but in a world where it seems that schools get the privilege of soaking up so much of society’s negativity, I think it’s worth repeating.

Granted, a cynic might respond, “Well, sure, but you guys are in the club. Of course they’re going to help you two out and buy the t-shirts. Who wouldn’t?”

Keep in mind, though, that school personnel throughout the district are still donating to worthy causes, such as the Crisis Nursery of Effingham County. Staff members are still offering up huge amounts of time outside of the classroom for our community’s young people, such as those who benefit from our local Blessings in a Backpack. Column space wouldn’t allow me to list all the various charitable fundraisers and volunteering that goes on by the employees of this school system, but you wouldn’t need to ask very many people before running into someone whose life has been blessed because of such kindness.

 The larger point, though, is that schools get quite a bit of bad press, much of it taken out of context at best and much of it utter nonsense at worst.  In our own fine state, public education has become a political football tossed around by lawmakers who often act as if the whole thing is just an afternoon game of scrimmage.

If nothing else, I simply want to use this forum to let readers know that the people I work with and have worked with for two decades don’t play scrimmage. They’re the real deal, putting students toward the very top of their priority list. I’ve said this before, but I think this is worth repeating as well: Annaka, along with her siblings, along with so many of our young people, have much to look forward to in this life, and a large part of that has to do with the teachers and school personnel waiting to greet them at the end of each summer.

Matches

What would a nuclear war look like? 

During the Cold War, this was a question posed by many people, from strategists at NORAD to script writers in Hollywood. Although variables exist, most predictions ended with some version of MAD -- Mutually Assured Destruction. The assumption was that if one of the nuclear powers attacked the other, the defender would simply unload, which would cause the other to unload, and the only creatures left alive to wax philosophic about the whole catastrophe would be the insects crawling beneath our feet.

Weirdly enough, this nihilistic assumption may have saved lives, because no one in charge really wanted any of that to happen. Wars are fought for various reasons, but no rational modern state, the argument went, would wage a war that would not only annihilate its enemies but also everybody else.

Looking back, then, it almost seemed like the Cold War had a kind of “kill switch” that would, in theory, at least, stop the go cart from actually driving into the barn.

With North Korea, though, no such kill switch seems to exist. After all, one thing that kept the United States and the Soviet Union from launching missiles at each other was the relative balance between their nuclear arsenals. One side may have had more ICBM’s, for example, but both sides had more than enough to destroy everything. I’ve used this quote from Carl Sagan in a column before, but it certainly bears repeating now:

“Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches. The other has seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who's ahead, who's stronger…The amount of weapons that are available to the United States and the Soviet Union are so bloated, so grossly in excess of what's needed to dissuade the other, that if it weren't so tragic, it would be laughable. What is necessary is to reduce the matches and to clean up the gasoline.”

The metaphor now, though, is different. North Korea doesn’t have seven thousand matches, but yesterday it had two, today it has four, and tomorrow it will try to get eight. Regardless, it doesn’t take seven thousand matches to blow up a room filled with gasoline, anyway.

 It takes one.

So, seriously, what would an actual nuclear war look like?

Another quote from Sagan that is worth repeating at length, particularly in light of recent events, concerned his opinion on the supposed usefulness of the hydrogen bomb as peace keeper. Because of its shocking power, some scientists and policy makers believed the weapon would act as deterrent to nuclear holocaust. In his 1995 book The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Sagan discusses Edward Teller, the so-called “father” of the hydrogen bomb:

“Teller contended, not implausibly, that hydrogen bombs keep the peace, or at least prevent thermonuclear war, because the consequences of warfare between nuclear powers are now too dangerous. We haven't had a nuclear war yet, have we? But all such arguments assume that the nuclear-armed nations are and always will be, without exception, rational actors, and that bouts of anger and revenge and madness will never overtake their leaders (or military and secret police officers in charge of nuclear weapons). In the century of Hitler and Stalin, this seems ingenuous.”

We have finished with the century of Hitler and Stalin, of course.  Unfortunately, we now find ourselves living in a century also full of irrational actors, with Kim Jong Un taking center stage.

At this point, it may seem as if President Trump must choose between two terrible options:  attack North Korea preemptively, dismantling its nuclear capabilities as quickly as possible, which will likely result in retaliation and tremendous civilian death, or attack North Korea after it actually uses its weapons, an action that will certainly result in tremendous civilian casualties.  One might assume that Kim Jong Un’s survival instincts would kick in before this took place, as any military engagement with the United States would undoubtedly bring about the end of his regime.  Again, however, this assumes a nation-state led by rational actors.

For some policy makers, one supposedly rational actor that has not done enough acting in all of this is China, whom Trump believes should be embarrassed by North Korea’s antics the same way a parent might be when his kid picks up a football in the toy section of Wal-Mart and kicks it into Electronics.  Some even suggest that China could “solve” the North Korean problem unilaterally if it simply treated its neighbor with more “tough” and less “love.”  However, just as one might question how much influence a parent has over a football-kicking child, the same might be asked of China’s supposed power over its disastrous neighbor.

One final quote to consider, this one by Defense Secretary James Mattis in the wake of North Korea’s most recent nuclear tests, outlined the Trump Administration’s potential response to the dilemma:

“We made clear that we have the ability to defend ourselves and our allies, South Korea and Japan from any attack and our commitments among the allies are ironclad. Any threat to the United States and its territories including Guam or our allies will be met with a massive military response — a response both effective and overwhelming."

            So, what will a nuclear war actually look like?  If North Korea continues down this road, the guessing, perhaps among other pursuits, might be over.

Project 7:15 2.0

An entire month has passed since the initiation of Project 7:15, my intense, uncertified life-coaching street cred, self-improvement regimen where I don’t eat cookies after going to bed for a whole year.  Fortunately, the first two weeks were so successful that I decided to up the ante and also not eat cookies before going to bed, as well.  Before long, I was not eating cookies all day, for days at a time, and my family was feeling the effects.  Oreo packages that once were lucky to last a few days were living in the pantry for weeks.  My pants loosened up a bit and my pace picked up steam.  Without cookies, I felt lighter and more alive, and soon the outright mental clarity I was experiencing reminded me of a National Geographic article I’d read a year or so ago that discussed the deadliness of copious sugar consumption.

To paraphrase, the article suggested that humans weren’t really designed to eat sugar, at least not the processed kind that surges into our bloodstream and gives small children the energy to power a boat.  This is the main reason, the article explained, why Americans are so fat.  Sugar.  Way too much sugar.  This processed sugar, combined with our increasingly sedentary lifestyle, has led to the obesity epidemic plaguing our health system and filling up our cemeteries.

This got me to thinking, “I do not want to die.” But not only that, I would like to be kind of active as I don’t die, and do things with my kids and maybe even grandkids, like hike mountain trails and canoe down majestic rivers.  Unfortunately, although I do not have an actual weight problem, per se, my cholesterol numbers were not trending in a direction that would lead to mountain trails or majestic rivers.  My numbers were leading me to cholesterol medicine.

So, these thoughts led me, naturally, to this idea:  What if I went a whole year without eating, not only cookies, but cake, too?  And candy?  And ice cream and sugary cereals and sugary drinks, even the sports kinds that supposedly help you kick balls?  What if I just stopped eating sweets all together?  Would my cholesterol numbers improve?  Would my brain start working better?  Would I fit back into those khakis that someone bought me for Christmas that one year and I’ve kept in my closet just as a reminder that, “Dude, someone once thought that you could wear these pants?”

Thus, Project 7:15 has now been upgraded into Project 7:15.2.0.    Stay tuned for even more uncertified life-coaching inspiration!

Moving the Car, Part One

Ten summers ago we traveled to Europe.  Such adventures were a much simpler trick in the days before children, mortgages, and half-acre lawns to keep.  Back then my wife and I, along with some friends, enjoyed a very stunted version of the “Grand Tour.”  In less than two weeks we explored parts of London, Paris, Normandy, and Amsterdam before relaxing a few days with our friend’s relatives in Heek, Germany.

            We packed a season’s worth of memories into ten or so days, from navigating the Parisian subway system to shooting a zucchini off the top of a twenty-foot tall ladder during an impromptu, culturally authentic “shutzenfest” in Germany.  One particular memory, however, that didn’t seem all that profound at the time but that has grown in interest as the years have dashed past, took place during our second day in London.

            So there we were, relaxing in a restaurant beneath the London Eye, the city’s iconic giant Ferris wheel.  We were killing time, waiting for our journey to France on the Eurostar, while behind us out in the street, a large tow truck with an actual crane attached to it slowly lifted a car from its parking spot and onto the back of its bed.   Soon both the truck and the car pulled away, leaving the spot empty.

           “Does that happen quite a bit?”  I asked a patron to my right.

           “Sometimes.”  He replied.  “But they’re being a lot more careful since two weeks ago.”

The “two weeks ago” he was referring to at the time was a failed car bombing attempt at an airport in Glasgow.  That day, in fact, July 7^th, was the two year anniversary of the London bus bombing that had killed over sixty people.

We were all from small town Illinois, and so such considerations weren’t exactly on the forefront of our concerns, at least not back home.  Throughout the rest of the trip, though, trekking as we were through some of the most densely populated spots on the Continent, we often bumped into such reminders that the world we lived in could be a very dangerous place.

           That was a decade ago, and in the last ten years, I’ve often thought back to that very simple event.  Every time terrible news came out of London, or Paris, or any other place on Earth suffering from yet another sick and violent event, my mind would eventually ask the same question:  Now what?

            Because the fact is, we have had awhile to figure all this out.  We often think back to 9/11 as the turning point in this struggle, and, in many ways, particularly for Americans, it was.

           But terrorism has been around a long time, predating ISIS or Al Qaeda.  The organized use or threat of violence to achieve a political end has been part of the human condition for thousands of years.  Three basic things, however, make modern terrorism much different than what it was in the past.

         The primary change, it seems, is the magnitude of the threat itself.  Terrorists now have the destructive capacity unimagined in previous decades.  Secondly, our civilization itself is more densely populated and our borders more porous, making such violence much more potent.  Finally, our modern media, social and otherwise, inadvertently give terrorists the attention they seek.  

            All these reasons have allowed terrorists to be the bogeyman of our times the way Soviet communists or Nazis were for recent generations, and besides moving your family to a cabin in the woods, sometimes it seems there is little the average citizen can do about it all.  Islamist extremists have throttled their religion in a way that shocks most of us, including the vast majority of Muslims who simply want to live out their lives in peace.

         Before continuing, I want to pause briefly and return to our journey from ten years ago, where one of the highlights was the two relatively peaceful days we spent in Normandy, France.  Far removed from the hustle that characterized much of our trip, we grown up farm kids from Illinois could relax a little in the relatively rural solitude.  We found the beaches of Normandy refreshingly undisturbed; the numerous villages relaxed and friendly. 

            It has occurred to me that Normandy is where America, from a broad historical perspective, at least, shines brightest.  We often gloss over the parts of World War Two that aren’t as heroic—such as the injustice of the Japanese interment or the carnage of Hiroshima—but on the beaches of Normandy, we focus our historical lenses.   This is our nation, we often proclaim, at its very best:  storming a beach, bleeding against an enemy, vanquishing evil one village at a time.

            It might make sense, then, to model other struggles we come against in the same terms.  As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, America is relatively good at war; our history from the beginning has been very much linked to this martial success, and so we’ve developed the habit of simply declaring war on everything we don’t like.  Poverty.  Drugs. 

Terror.

            The problem, of course, is that poverty is still around, more than a half century after President Johnson targeted it in his sights.  Drugs, too, have outlasted every Chief Executive since Nixon and clearly aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

            Granted, terrorism, because it is by its nature violent, does respond to violence in the short term.  The long term problem, however, with declaring war on terrorism is that this problem affects all of us and most of us don’t see ourselves a soldiers.  We don’t personalize the issue until after the fact; until after the bomb has exploded, until after the gunman has been shot by the police, and even then we move on with our lives unless someone we actually know has been killed.

Any winnable “war on terror” would need to be waged as a total war, by soldiers and civilians alike.  For the sake of brevity, in a few weeks this column will consider what such a struggle would look like by taking a cue from the world of medicine.

Project 7:15, Week Two

Thus far my decision to not eat cookies in the middle of the night has been the right one.  As a family, we are going through cookies at a much more respectable rate, and, perhaps more importantly, I no longer wake up people with the loud "crinkling" noise that cookie packages make at two in the morning.

After three days of not gorging on cookies after going to bed, I had a pretty good idea for organizing some random junk in the basement, and it occurred to me that maybe that idea came from the added rest that came from sleeping instead of eating.  I have read somewhere that eating at night is a bad idea, because while you are trying to sleep, your body is busy trying to digest the food, thus making it difficult to actually rest.  This makes sense, and after ten full days of not eating cookies at night, I will admit that I do feel more rested.  And I lost three pounds, too, which makes me think I was probably eating too many cookies to begin with.

To reiterate what we discussed last week, as an uncertified life coach it is necessary for me to have an A.I.T., (an Amazing and/or Inspiring Transformation,) in order for you to actually take me seriously.  A successful A.I.T. will give me the life-coaching street cred that has been sorely lacking thus far.  Every A.I.T. I have ever witnessed, however, begins with the B.P.; the "Before Picture," the photographic proof that I am a flawed person in need of an A.I.T.  With this in mind, then, I have provided you with a pretty intense B.P. taken about a month before the beginning of my A.I.T.

Although a little blurry, this photo speaks volumes about where I was in my life before I stopped eating cookies in the middle of the night.  What am I even doing in this picture?  Playing badminton?  Directing spider traffic?  And what’s with the outfit, anyway?  Those shoes say I’m going on a hike later but the polo shirt suggests otherwise.  (Turns out the shirt was right.)

Regardless, I was a mess.  Fortunately, my journey toward not being that person anymore is into its second week.  Stay tuned for even more inspiration!

Project 7:15

As I enter into my second year as an uncertified life coach, I am becoming more comfortable with people not only listening to and taking my advice, but also with them actually trying to be like me.  True uncertified life coaching credibility, however, will always elude me until I undergo an A. I. T., an Amazing and/or Inspiring Transformation.  I need to change myself in a very obvious and public way over the course of a set amount of time.  I need to begin as person ‘A’, and then, by a combination of ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and even ‘D,’ become the person I was always meant to be:  ‘E.’ 

With this in mind, then, today we initiate Project 7:15.  Project 7:15 is a year-long journey of self-discovery that will most likely amaze and inspire anyone wise enough to pay attention to it.  Project 7:15 begins today, on July 15^th, hence its name, and it will continue until July 15^th of next year.  That’s right.  An.  Entire. Year.

What will Project 7:15 entail?  Well, that’s really rather simple.  Beginning today, I will begin to engage, fight and eventually defeat one of my worst vices:  midnight cookie binging.  You probably don’t know this, but I eat cookies.  Many of them, usually between midnight and two in the morning.  I do this with milk and silence.  I feel terrible about it because the cookies are supposed to be shared with my whole family but they aren’t because after about three days they are totally gone.  I have eaten them. 

Granted, I took a pretty big risk sharing this information with you.  After all, what kind of uncertified life coach engages in such selfish and uninspiring behavior?  One who runs the very serious risk of losing his uncertification.

Thus, beginning today, the battle begins.  

Today we start the long struggle against my very own cookie monster. 

Fidget Spinning

One of the best parts of being a parent is the toys.  I will never apologize for this.  Playing with my kids—helping them assemble their train tracks, build their spaceships, construct the narratives in their action figure or pony-themed dramas—this has always been my forte.  I am the fun one.  My wife admits this; the kids agree.  If you want entertained, you go to dad.

If you want fed, clothed, comforted, bla, bla, bla, look elsewhere.

It occurred to me recently, however, that not all toys are created equal.  It turns out that my expertise truly lies with the “old school” kind of toys, like Legos and Star Wars.  Some of the newer distractions leave much to be desired.

For example, my son is very much into Pokémon nowadays, which is amazing to me because no one I have spoken to actually knows how to play it. 

On the surface, perhaps Pokémon does look kind of neat.  The playing cards are vivid and nicely packaged.  The Pokémon—which is short for Pocket Monster, I think—exist in a fictional world where they are captured by trainers and basically used like fighting dogs.  From all I can really gather, Pokémon is basically a cartoon cock fight.  Instead of roosters, though, pecking each others’ faces, we have pretend creatures like Electabuzz with his “thunder shock” attack going up against Magearna with his very powerful “soul blaster” move.  Needless to say, the whole thing is pretty intense.

Despite all this weirdness, though, one morning I was feeling especially parentish, and I thought, “I am going to learn how to play Pokémon.”

This did not take place. It turns out the rules are beyond complicated and seem to fluctuate every time it’s your turn, especially if you’re winning against your six-year-old son.  The C.I.A. has financed Central American coups with less strategy than what goes into playing an actual game of Pokémon.

No thanks.

Continuing, then, with the strangeness of my kids’ free time, we come to Minecraft.

When I am old and gray, I will look back and realize that my adult life could be divided into two major eras:  before my kids began to play Minecraft and afterwards.  That is how odd this game is to me.  For those readers without small children, the gist behind Minecraft is that it is a video game, technically, where you are trying to build things out of boxes.  Your head is a box, the sun is a box; it’s disorienting.  Multiple people can be building things out of boxes at the same time, and these interactions are not always polite.

For example, the following is actual dialogue from my kids.

“Why did you steal my raw chicken?”
            “Because I thought you were going to kill me.”

What?  Even more vexing than a game where raw chicken is a thing, I’m consistently reading from educational experts that Minecraft actually teaches young people valuable life skills, such as problem solving and appropriate netiquette.  As to how dumping a bucket full of square lava onto a square cow—which has happened multiple times out in our play room—translates into any non-criminal life skill, however, is beyond me.

This, then, brings us to the newest and most useless fad, not just of right now but of all time, and that is…you guessed it, the Fidget Spinner.

If you don’t know what a fidget spinner is, then walk out of your front door or turn on your television, because these contraptions are basically everywhere.

In fact, there was a point this past spring when an entire third of one of my sophomore English classes was spinning these fidgets.  These are high schoolers, mind you, bright young  minds legally capable of driving automobiles and working part time jobs that they can’t stand, and here they were, not discussing Harper Lee’s simple and profound prose, which was the assignment, but instead whizzing these contraptions between their thumbs and forefingers.

“What are you doing?”  I asked.

“These relieve stress,” a student replied.

“Whose stress?”  Your stress?”

“They keep me from tapping my finger on the desk.” Another chimed in.

“So does taking notes.”

Sadly enough, these toys were advertised as just that—stress relieving, even therapeutic tools for folks suffering from mild cases of ADHD all the way up to full blown post-traumatic stress disorder.

Which is all well and good, except that neither claim is backed up by any actual data.

A recent article from NPR, which is where I read most of my news because it’s one of the few news outlets that doesn’t make me think the world is going to explode every five minutes, interviewed Duke University psychology professor Scott Kollins about the fad.  His take on the toy’s supposed health benefits was less than enthusiastic.

“I know there’s lots of similar toys,” Kollins is quoted as saying, referring to the topic, “just like there’s lots of other games and products toward individuals who have ADHD, and there’s basically no scientific evidence that those things work…”

In other words, do not believe the hype. Fidget spinners mostly relieve stress for the good folks who market them.

In closing, however, I suppose the toy actually does have some merit.  If nothing else, they make an awesome, whirring metaphor for our contemporary society:  anxiously spinning around in circles, fascinated by the inane activity of the moment while totally ignoring the notes on the board.