We Tree Kings

The tree trimming company that works for our electric utility put a note on our door telling us they would soon be in our neighborhood. I called them and asked for a special favor. I had two trees that were all tangled up in the electric service lines that ran from the power pole to the back of my house.  (I have learned this is called your home's "service entrance" by the way.)  The owner of the company came to the house to take a look and agreed that we had a problem, and a few days later his entire entourage showed up at my house at 7:30 AM on December 23rd.  They had two chipper trucks and two cherry pickers lined up down my street, and all of the men started buzzing around my yard preparing to take down the trees.  I was half expecting more guys to rappel down out of a helicopter saying "hut hut hut", but that never happened.

(Some of you may be mourning my trees and mentally calculating the extra CO2 that will be in the atmosphere as a result of this, but these two were so tangled up in my power lines that it was causing a problem. If a big wind were to one day blow one of the trees down, and that actually happens here, it would yank all the electricity lines and meters off the back of my house, and my neighbor's too.  It could even start a fire.  And I was unable to trim the tree myself because of it being tangled up in the power lines.  This tree needed pros.)

[At one point there were 13 men in our backyard.]

Almost all of the dialog between these men was in Spanish. I could only make out a little bit of it, but I'm pretty sure they kept calling the guy up in the tree "Pokemon" for reasons known only to tree pros.  To me it sounded like "Spanish Spanish Spanish tree Spanish Spanish him Spanish Pokemon".

I was so happy to have this tree removed I decided to make them some coffee. It was cold and early, and they drank about three pots between them.  One of them noticed the bumper sticker on my car that says "Yo <3 Los Frijoles, Honduras" and asked me about it. I got to tell him (in Spanish) that I travel down there with students every summer to work on projects and eat beans.  I'm not really sure he understood my Spanish, but we all went away happy and caffeinated.

[Before]

[After]

Desk Job

My grandfather's name was Olan Cleo Thomas.  He preferred the initials "O.C." and perhaps I can't blame him.  When I was a kid I often overheard his friends call him "Tom".  This was short for his last name, "Thomas",  but I didn't realize this. I actually thought his name was Tom Thomas for a while.  I just called him Granddaddy.

My granddaddy was a farmer, a school principal, and for a season, the postmaster at the small-town post office in Ralls, Texas.  By the time I met him, however, he had retired from all of these careers except the farming, and that had downshifted into gardening, really.  He taught me how to drive a car, shoot a gun, and took me to play golf with him many times.

In his bedroom he had an old wooden desk. Years after his death in 1989 (I think) the desk eventually made it's way to my house, Orangehouse, where it sat in my back room cluttered with toys and the computer printer and miscellaneous back room stuff that polite people put in their back rooms so visitors get the impression they're more organized than they are.

Over the Christmas break The M and I decided to sand it down, clean it up, and move it into David's room for him to use to do his homework.  For this task I donned my new Christmas overalls and a little "mousey" sander - the overt manliness of the former being balanced by the toy-like quality of the later. 

 [A Mouse sander doesn't quite qualify as a "power tool" - it's more like an electric toothbrush with attitude.]

 [After sanding it down, I used a leaf blower to blow the sanding dust out of the cracks.  This worked remarkably well.  Maybe it was the overalls, or maybe it was the leaf blower, but I had the urge to play the Lynyrd Skynyrd CD I bought at Cracker Barrel in a celebration of my redneckedness.]

[Four generations later, the desk has returned to a bedroom, this time my son's.]  

Cycles of Success

Dear readers, I'm sorry I have not written in a couple of months; I have been locked in the basement by a small group of protesters who call themselves Occupy Orangehouse, or "oh-oh" for short. 

My last post was an essay by my 15 year-old son, David, in response to a book he read in school called "The Other Wes Moore" by Wes Moore.  The ninth graders at his school were assigned to read it and write an essay.  David's chosen theme was the relationship between education, poverty, and community.  His teacher liked it enough to enter it into a county-wide essay contest and, remarkably, he was one of six winners!  He was able to attend a steak dinner with the author of the book, which was his primary motivation: steak, the proverbial carrot.

His grandmother, full of pride and the desire to encourage his academic achievement, bought him his first real suit for the occasion. He looked handsome and professional. He was concerned, at first, that he would be overdressed, but after everyone arrived he relaxed and had a fun night. I was enormously proud of him.

[David outside the steakhouse wearing his new threads.]

[Author Wes Moore and David pretend to be conjoined twins.]

At this point in the post I was going to make some insightful observations about role models, and how they, like education and community, are important for all of us to have, but as I am way behind in blogging, I'll have to cut it short.

An Essay by David

Cycles of Poverty and Success

            Poverty, education, and community are all part of a cyclical pattern.  Poverty

is amplified from a lack of education, and the impoverished typically live in communities with a low standard of expectations.  Because of wide spread academic neglect, these expectations are put on each generation as time moves on. For example, if someone is impoverished because of a bad education, then they won’t have enough money to send their kids to a good school.  Living in a community where no one is well educated, there are no role models to follow, and the pattern continues.

            In “The Other Wes Moore” by Wes Moore, these ideas are supported by each Wes’ life.  Both the narrator and the “other Wes Moore” led similar lives in their early childhood. Both grew up in similar circumstances, in the same neighborhoods, in fatherless homes, and of course, in a world greatly influenced by drugs.  However, the narrator was only a spectator of the “drug game”.  The “other Wes Moore” was a player in this “game”.  (Moore 73)

            The cyclical pattern of poverty was continued in this way by the “other Wes Moore”, but it was broken by the narrator.  The narrator’s mother played a large part in this.  She sent him to military school which broke the poverty cycle in two ways.  First, this gave him a very good education, second it got him away from a community of drugs and peers with little respect for their own schooling.   The “other Wes Moore” wasn’t so fortunate.  He chose to make his money from illegal activities and to drop out of high school.  (Moore 89)

            In McClennan County there are many opportunities similar to the narrator’s.  Rapoport Academy, for example, is a great combination of a hard working community, excellent education, and little cost.  District superintendent Dr. Nancy Grayson said, “We all have a shared vision, everyone wants to work together for the sense of community,” in an interview with Focus Magazine of Baylor University. These key characteristics are the same as the narrator’s military school with two exceptions, at Rapoport Academy there is no cost to attend.  Also, places like Rapoport Academy provide a positive community only during school hours; whereas the narrator’s military school provided it twenty four hours a day.  Attitudes in one’s community can subtly influence one’s attitude towards education.  It is for this reason that one’s home life must be supportive and positive.  Even with an excellent school, the absence of a role model can cripple one’s ability to appreciate the value of a good education.  Additionally a positive support group made of close friends and family is important in deciding one’s future.  This is also shown throughout the story of the Wes Moores.  On one hand, the narrator’s mother and sisters were very supportive and pushed Wes to do well even when he didn’t want to.  On the other hand, the “other Wes Moore’s” mom smoked weed and his brother sold drugs. (Moore 73)

              Quality educations and supportive communities are helping people move out of poverty in McClennan County.  This is embodied by a sign at Rapoport Academy which says, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!”  Just as a poor education and negative community cultivate a cyclical pattern of poverty, a good education and positive community cultivate a cyclical pattern of success.

Hope "Falls" Eternal

I have a new level of hope in my life.  Not that I have had any deeply spiritual experiences or read something profound to give me this hope. I haven't seen an inspirational movie or been to a motivational conference.  It's much more shallow than that.  It's merely circumstantial, but yet it's there. I can't deny it. 

Here in Central Texas we have been a prisoner of war, and the war is almost over. It seems that the jail cell of Summer has cracked, and Fall has entered like an unlikely hero. "I'm Luke Skywalker and I'm here to rescue you."  And I am like Princes Leah, except with twice the body mass and cooler hair.

This year we smashed the record for the highest number of days above 100 F in a year: a total of 87 days.  I'm sure Al Gore is to blame, somehow.  The previous record was only 63 days, set back in 1980. It's been oppressive and seemingly unending.  It drains hope. But in the last few weeks it has finally cooled off so I've been spending more time outside, buoyed by a new hope.

And what have I been doing outside? Good things.

Today I finished the decking of an overly large, dangerously tall, and questionably safe tree-house in my backyard.  I'm embarrassed that it took me this long to get this far - so embarrassed that I am not even going to tell you how long it took.  And that's saying something. I like to make fun of myself in an attempt at entertaining you, the reader, but this is a sore subject for me. 

At any rate, here are some photos:

[Jono sits on the deck, waiting for adventure. The flag of Quebec flies proudly because... well, because it's the only flag we own that can take the rain.  Oh wait, I don't mean rain, I mean the water from my sprinklers, because it hasn't rained in a long time.  On the ground you can see my tools and an empty coffee cup, the icon of a good Saturday morning.]

[We haven't built any walls or rails yet, so you have to be cautious near the edges. It's a little spooky.]

[This is the view of my house, ORANGEHOUSE, as seen from the tree-house. It's not really orange anymore. It used to be, but we got a new roof. When we bought the house, the roof was a burnt orange color, just like the bricks and the shutters and the garage door and the trim and every paintable surface. In fact, it looked like someone spray painted the whole house one color, orange, so we called it "Orangehouse".]

[This is what it looks like up on the deck.]

[I used steel cables and turnbuckles to support the frame, just because they're cool. The other ends of the cables are mounted in the trunk of the tree with really big screws, also cool.]

[There is a cool branch that comes up through a cool hole in the floor.]

I have been told that people who live in cold climates get excited when winter finally cracks and spring starts to arrive. In fact, there's a great scene like that in "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe."  But for me, it's the reverse. Summer has finally passed. The back of the oppressor has been broken, and new hope has arrived.

What brings you hope?