High Plains Panhandler

Kiddie Lit

The deadline for Reflections ("A Different Kind of Hero") entries was last week and a well-intentioned fifth grade teacher decided to make all her students enter. Suddenly Suzanne had close to 50 essays that she was obligated to give her judges (the judges, of course, have no idea that they're supposed to read so many compositions). She asked me to read through the stack and separate the top 10 or so for the judges (these are the fifth grade essays only; it wouldn't be fair to judge anything from Colleen or Megan's class).

So here I am, on a somewhat chilly Saturday afternoon, reading through this stack and having flashbacks to graduate school grading marathons. Here are some of my favorite lines:

"I'm very proud that my grandpa sacrificed his life for our country. After that he came back from the war."

"Well what you're thinking right now 'Come on sitting on a desk is his crisis please, he's going to die.' Well if you weren't so sarcastic it was a crisis, so there ha-ha-ha."

"At least I am not with my stepmother. All I every heard from her was: 'wash the curtains,' 'sweep the doghouse,' 'give me your bone,' and ' you can go to bed without supper.'

"She moved Antartica from the North Pole to the South Pole."

"Moe is one of the most sly men in down toun New York. Some police men have been after him for approximently thirty years."

"It started when we were playing mud ball fight." [This has got to be the best opening of all the essays!]

"The thing I care about most is that there is air when you need it most."

"When I turned around, my dog bit me right in the eye. I ran to my mom, crying my eyes out."

"Technically, it if wasn't for the wonderful people in Amarillo, I would still be skinny."

"After about 7 months in the chamber he realizes that he was in the military and knew escape skills, why didn't he think of that 7 months ago?"

Thanksgiving, 2004

Before we dove in to our Thanksgiving bounty today, we went around the table and everyone said what they were thankful for:

Colleen: "I'm thankful for my family, my friends, and my clothes."

Megan: "I'm thankful for my family, food, and friends."

Alex: "I like my chicken and candy!"

Evil Knievel

For the past few years Colleen and Megan have entered Reflections, which is a national PTA program that asks kids to either make, paint, write, or compose something that fits a certain theme. We found out last year that this year's theme was going to be "A Different Kind of Hero" (when we heard this, I tried to convince them that they should draw a picture of a submarine sandwich wearing a cape, but both girls spurned my idea). This year our elementary school's PTA paid gnat-like attention to the deadline for Reflections and did nothing about it. Suzanne started growing suspicious when she heard nothing, and she knew the entire school district deadline had to be coming up, so she called the head of the PTA to get the skinny. Then suddenly this became Suzanne's project because it looked like no one on the PTA cared to do it.

So Suzanne volunteered to get it going (although she was at a disadvantage because now the deadline was looming). The PTA president came by one night (three hours late) with a pack of Reflections information. I answered the door and she handed me a large, four-inch thick package. "This was for last year," she said, and then she handed me three sheets of paper. "This is for this year."

I looked at the sheets. They were all identical. "You are so lucky my wife didn't answer the door," I said.

"I know!" she said and then she ran back to her massive SUV, which was idling by the curb like a sleeping beast.

It's strictly verbotten for parents to do anything to help the kids, we left Colleen and Megan to mull over what they'd like to do for "A Different Kind of Hero." Colleen decided to write a poem about Animal Control officers, and Megan decided to do a photo collage of hospital workers (later Megan also decided to compose a song on her violin as a second entry).

Colleen and I sat down for an afternoon one Saturday and talked about different kinds of poems and different kind of rhyming words. She tried a quick intro to a poem, but it came out sounding suspiciously similar to a Hilary Duff song, so then we talked about more poems. She decided she wanted her poetic structure to be about six or so stanzas following this theme: AAB/CCB/DDB/EEB/FFB so that the first two lines rhymed and the third line rhymed with each following third line.

Suzanne took Megan and Alex to the hospital to snap some pictures, but Megan didn't get enough in Pediatrics so we all made a plan to go back for more. The nurses told us we really couldn't take pictures of any kids without permission, but they said that Colleen and Alex could pose as sick kids. So Colleen crawled into a bed and gave a far away, pensive look while the nurse checked her pulse and Megan took a picture. Alex, who had earlier been acting like a caffeinated monkey, took his turn in a wheelchair and instantly got into character. His head drooped to the side. His arms hung listlessly. He looked like someone had just cancelled Christmas.

Megan took a few pictures and then, for some reason, the nurse started pushing Alex into the hallway. Of course, since he was still in the wheelchair, he wouldn't break character, so there we were, right in front of the nurses' station: Megan with a gigantic camera around her neck, pretend-sick Alex in a wheelchair pushed by a nurse, and Colleen with her hand on Alex's shoulder. That's when a skinny man wearing a leather jacket showed up. He was holding a white Maltese puppy under his arm, and he came close to the wheelchair so Alex could pet the dog.

"That a friendly dog," said Suzanne. The puppy was licking Alex's hand frantically.

"He's real friendly," said the man.

"What's his name," asked Suzanne.

"Rocket."

"That's a funny name for such a little dog," said Suzanne.

"Well, it's Evil Knievel's dog," said the man.

I realized then that Evil Knievel, who had been in town a few weeks ago and had broken his ankle, might still be in town and he was letting a friend use his dog to cheer up sick kids in the hospital. I couldn't quite explain that Alex wasn't sick at all and that we were just pretending so we could take pictures for a school project. So we just let Alex pet the dog for a little bit and then, when the coast was clear, we made our escape, grabbing Alex and rushing for the elevator before Evil Knievel could find out that his dog performed a miracle and healed a sad little three-year old boy.

Now that would be a different kind of hero.

Colleen's 9th Birthday Bash

Even though Colleen turned nine last week on the sixth, we had her big blowout birthday bash slumber party Friday night (this was because of a serious schedule conflict last week, the blame of which lies squarely on Jerry Seinfeld who came to Amarillo to do a show last weekend).

A brief departure about Jerry Seinfeld: the are rare occasions when someone well-known or talented or interesting comes to Amarillo, usually stumbling across us while they're taking a gas or beef jerky break on their way to someplace more interesting such as Tucumcari. One time, a few years ago, Wynton Marsalis performed for a almost-packed house (almost!) full off interesting people. I don't know where those interesting people live or what they do during the day, and unfortunately afterward they all disappeared, going back to their interesting places, hiding in their interesting caves, waiting for the day when they could come out into the light again without fear of having their hybrid cars accidentally crushed by Hummers.

When we heard the Jerry Seinfeld was coming, we snatched up a couple of tickets and lined a babysitter for the big night. The show was very good, but I think the best part was when he remarked that his glass of water was the biggest one he had ever seen. Of course, this inspired a great number of shouts and screams from the audience until he recognized that everyone was telling him that he was in Texas (where things, apparently, are larger than anywhere else). That's when he said that he had been to Oklahoma and, really, it didn't look any different. Well, the boos that he got from that were pretty ferocious, so he said that now he understood. Texas, he said, was better than New Mexico and Kansas and Oklahoma, and everyone cheered. A few rows behind us some weekend cowboy wearing a hat big enough to give shade to sixteen people gave out a monstrous "YEEEEEEHAW!", which was excruciatingly loud and embarrassing, and if Jerry Seinfeld had been a lesser comic it would have come back to bite us.

Jerry Seinfeld's remark right then summed it all up nicely. He said that he understood that Texans thought they were better than everyone else. He said he was from New York and told us they think they're all better than everyone else too.

I laughed and laughed at that.

So we rescheduled Colleen's slumber party for this past Friday. She invited six friends, but when you add in Megan and Alex we had a unwieldy total of nine kids running around screaming.

A few thoughts on screaming. This is the perfect word for the type and style of conversation the girls selected. At first, I admit, they talked with a certain amount of, well, volume control. Things were civil. Things were calm. They could understand each other. But as we added kid after kid, the volume increased. Please do not be confused that it got louder because more people were speaking at the same time. This wasn't the case at all. In fact, usually it was only one or two girls talking, but they seemed compelled to speak as if friends of theirs in Alaska were listening in. Colleen in particular was a culprit, directing traffic through the house with such ferocity and intensity that I thought we should nickname her Sarge. She began using phrases I hadn't heard her use before, such as "Come on, people!" and "People, over here!" and "Listen up, people!"

I was glad to make the dinner-time pizza run, and I half-joked to Suzanne that I would be back in a few weeks. Little did she realize that as I drove to the pizza place my full tank of gas tempted me, but I knew she would cancel the credit cards before I ever got to Canada. Plus, I'm sure there's a law against leaving one parent alone with a house full of crazed and manic Hillary Duff-loving nine-year-old girls.

After pizza, Suzanne had the girls make their own tie-dyed pillow cases. It was a nifty project. Each girl had the others sign her pillow case, then they tied them with rubber bands and soaked them in ash water (I'm still not sure what this is) for awhile. Once they were done soaking, each girl put on a pair of surgical gloves and starting squirting the tied up pillow cases with different colors of ink. Since I had the duty of squeezing out the ash water-laden pillow cases, I had on my own pair of surgical gloves (of course, this was after I had blown a couple of like balloons and walked around with these bloated hands saying to everyone, "Please to meetcha!"). A few minutes into the tie-dye project, one of the girl's parents came to the front door, bringing with them a brand new sleeping bag for the slumber party, and here I learned a lesson for all parents throwing these kinds of parties: do not answer the door for other parents while you are wearing surgical gloves. I greeted them at the door and, I believe, frightened them. It didn't help when they asked about things and I said they were going great, and then I snapped my gloves at the wrist, as if giving them a wink and a nod. "Ja, thinks are going sehr gut here at de lab. Ach, ja!" Snap!

So we had pizza, tie-dyed pillow cases, presents, cake (with tie-dyed icing), and soon after all that it was time for the movie. Colleen had picked Confessions of a Teen-Aged Drama Queen, which I had no patience for, so I retired to the bedroom for some peace and quiet . . . er, I mean to get some vitally important professional work done. Alex soon joined me and we watched something about Superman on TV for a few minutes until he conked out. I took him to bed and then, mysteriously, it was almost midnight (with all the screaming and goings-on, time had stopped having meaning for me earlier that evening). I had promised Colleen that I would tell a spooky story, so once the movie had finished, I gathered everyone in the family room, made sure they were all snug in the sleeping bags, and started my tale.

I decided this year that I'd go all out on a pretty scary, pretty intense story, but as I started telling it I could see the girls' faces start changing, and I knew that if I pushed them, they'd all start cracking. Here's an example: "I saw the large chest in front of me, it's lock broken in half, its hinges rusted. I knew that inside I find the bones, the pile of bones of the missing mailman and the missing neighbor and the missing acrobat. I knew the bones were in there, and I was afraid to look, but I couldn't help myself. So I reached forward with my right hand. I reached forward until I touched the chest and I felt the creepy, cold hand of death itself pull me closer and closer and closer. So I flung open the chest and there inside I saw it, the white, bleached pile of . . . (they were getting really that freaked out look on their faces now) stones! Yes, inside were white stones, piles of them. So I thought, why would someone have all these stones. They weren't even good rocks for collecting. They were just white stones, all the same. Stupid stones!" (This is when the girls all laugh, exhale, and relax in their sleeping bags again. That's how the whole story went, scariness and then joke. That worked out just fine.)

I think they all went to sleep at two in the morning. Eight a.m. came around pretty early, but Suzanne had already been up for a long time drying out the pillow cases from the night before (where I am always sleepy, Suzanne is always amazing; this is the theme of our marriage). I ran out for Krispy Kreme to get the kids all sugared up before their parents came by. After they devoured the doughnuts, more screaming ensued, but I got lucky and had to abandon the house and take Megan to her violin play-in. If I were a better person, I would have felt guilty abandoning Suzanne with a house full of wound-up . . . I mean, excited little angels, but as I sat in the auditorium listening to thirty violin players deconstructing Twinkle Twinkle, I didn't feel guilty at all.

I simply felt relaxed, comfy, and slumber-party free.

Play on, Maestro. Play on!

Halloween 2004

I’m more than a week behind with a post about Halloween, but it took me that long to recover from our rowdy, candy-infused time. That, and I was busy at work, scurrying around, working hard to squeeze meaninglessness from meaning.

We began our adventures with the neighborhood Halloween Party on Friday night. I had promised, like last year, to do a little magic show for all the kids. I had a few new tricks I wanted to try out, but by seven o’clock I was still woefully unprepared, so while Suzanne and the kids headed over to the party, I was still cramming away, trying to make my fingers bend around oddly shaped coins and vanishing a pitcher of water. To the fraternity of Magicians I realize that briefly practicing a new trick right before a performance is heresy. All the books say over and over again, get a trick down solid before doing it live. Anything else is an insult to magic.

Well, facing a crowd of sugared-up kids without new material would be an insult to my well-being and health. A phalanx of kids ready to storm the Bastille is quite nerve wracking.

When we got to the party, I found out I had about 45 minutes to burn before my show. Now the only thing I had in common with the other adults in the room was that we all breathed oxygen, so instead of enduring painful conversations involving Nascar and “Exit Strategies,” I found an unused, dark room and went through my tricks one last time. I had been preparing a levitation trick for a while (although I didn’t quite have it down yet), but I thought now would be a good time to try it out on some of the kids, so I called a few into the room and told them I was going to show a special pre-magic show magic trick. It took maybe half a second for every single kid in the house to cram into my little darkened room, and once they had all flooded in, I was stuck, shoved against the wall like a Sandinista in front of a firing squad.

The trick works like this: someone gives me a dollar. I crumple it up and place it on my face-up palm. Then, magically, it starts to rise. I make some mystical gestures and then remove my hands, leaving the dollar floating in the air in front of me. Then I blow it, and the dollar floats away from me and comes close to a kid’s face. It returns and then I grab the bill from the air, smooth it out, and hand it back. It’s a nifty trick.

One of the kids, you know the kind, starts arguing with me when I blow the bill in the air. “Hey, you’re blowing it! That’s how it works!”

Of course, it’s already floating. Blowing it merely moves it away from me. That’s the whole point. It’s a shame you can’t say, “Hey you punk, pay attention!” to kids like this. Instead, my usual response is: “Now I will make your head float away from its shoulders. You might feel a little discomfort.”

It’s always fun to see the rude kids grab on to their heads and hold them down, as if they’re holding down a balloon filled with helium.

After I finished, all the kids scurried away, back to their games upstairs. I heard Colleen yell out to everybody as they were leaving, “That’s my Dad!”

That was the best.

The main magic show went off nicely, although I changed the patter for one of my tricks (I was experimenting), and that flopped. After the trick, a couple of kids in the audience said, “Where’s the story? Where’s the story about the kids?” They knew the trick well, and they wanted to hear my old patter about it. Curse my so-called improvements!

Halloween this year was on Sunday, which made the city of Canyon, twenty miles south of us, declare that Halloween would be on Saturday. They did this because Sunday is a school night, but since they’ve never before tried to officially change Halloween from any other school night to a Saturday, methinks it has something to do with having little devils, princesses, and Richard Nixons run around on a church night. This is my suspicion.

This year, unfortunately, I was confined to the sofa for Halloween night, since my stomach had rebelled against me in a weird and queasy fashion. I could barely make it to the front door to dole out peanut butter cups. Suzanne took the kids around the neighborhood (Alex as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Megan as Jasmine from Aladdin, and Colleen as an Animal Control Officer - she was inspired by a recent trip to Wildcat Bluff Nature Center) while I watched The Simpsons, and when she finally brought the kids back home, their bags bulging, they wanted nothing to do with me. It was all about the candy.

This is an actual Alex quote about his Halloween adventures: “Candy! Candy! Candy! Candy! Candy! Bloo blab lalba boob labla blaboo booboo blaaaablaa!” Then he ran around the house, flexing his mighty Ninja Turtle costume muscles.

The inevitable sugar crash came an hour later, and all three kids curled up in bed and sank into candy comas.

It was quiet then. We waited another few minutes for any straggling trick-or-treaters, but none came. This was the time of night between the cute kids in costumes and the onslaught of not-so-cute teens in jeans begging for candy, a group that I didn’t want to face. So I checked one last time for any small shadows heading out way, and when I saw none, I blew out the candles in the pumpkins and turned off the porch light.

Then our house, like all the others, retreated into darkness, taking with it another year of magic tricks, pixie sticks, and secret identities.