We Do This Because

Today was the beginning of Passover. My brother-in-law is Jewish, and we have shared a Pesach Seder dinner with my sister's family for the past few years. I like it; the customs, although unfamiliar, are comforting in their ritual, and I appreciate feeling connected to two thousand years of history, even if it isn't my own. Tonight was no exception-- my sister made a wonderful meal; my niece and nephew shone with the excitement of the festivities, and their dad led us through the traditions of the holiday.

We were raised Catholic, and although I have some serious issues with the church and its social policies, I always loved the rituals and traditions of mass and the sacraments. I know that they can be mystifying to the uninitiated, though. Years ago, a friend of mine, who happened to be Jewish, and I were invited to the wedding of another teacher on our team. The ceremony included a Catholic mass, and when the priest asked that the gifts be brought to the altar my friend looked at me in panic. "I left mine in the car!" he whispered.

Rubbernecking

Our trip down to South Carolina was about an hour and a half longer than we hoped, mostly because of traffic backups in North Carolina. Oh, we made the best of it: the weather was glorious, cloudless blue skies, warm sun, and cool spring air; the van was comfortable and of course, the company was excellent. Still, we were in a place that many travel, but few actually see, and details that anyone would have been forgiven for missing at 80 mph were unmistakable: the way the pavement gleamed, studded with the broken glass from countless accidents, the dead dog nearly obscured by the tall grass, it's tail fluttering gold in the patch of fluttering green.

The cause of our delay? Violent storms and tornadoes had ripped through the area yesterday, and their devastation was visible from the highway. In one spot, people wandered aimlessly through the shattered remains of a trailer park, presumably trying to help put somebody's life back together, and we on the interstate were a legion of vehicles, passing by in a column ten miles long, slowed to a crawl so that we could see.

I Love a Minivan

How did the minivan get such a bad rap? Almost all of my friends and family with kids are waaaay too cool for the grand caravan and its ilk; you should see the faces they make when someone suggests that they might like to own one. It's impossible to tell what provincial stereotypes they wrestle with, but as a mature adult without children, I am free from those surly bonds.

I have merrily rented a van or two every summer for the last eight in order to pile all the nephews in and head out for some awesome kids-and-aunties-only vacation. It's hardly surprising then that to me a minivan represents nothing other than enough space for everyone and the dog to hit the road for some F-U-N! What could be the stigma in that?

Blood on the Ice

"How many years has this been?" someone asked me today on our annual sixth grade skating trip.

"Let me think about it," I answered. "I remember them by the injuries..." We eventually figured that this was number five, but not before a little girl fell and cut a couple of fingertips open on her skate. Despite the blood, it was no more than a band-aid injury. A friend asked me earlier in the week if we'd have an ambulance standing by, given our track record of stitches and sprains. "Shut up," was my witty rejoinder to her.

Still, there's something strangely satisfying about taking 200 sixth graders ice skating and to the food court, despite the inevitable exhaustion at the end of the day. This trip seems to offer the perfect balance of positive risk-taking and independence for the age group, and the kids love it, almost unanimously, despite the bumps and bruises and the gentle and not-so-gentle reprimands.

And each year as I lace up my skates with a simple prayer, Don't let me fall in front of my students, it gives me an appreciation of how hard it must be to be a kid in school.

Foraging

When I was a kid, Euell Gibbons was a household name. Maybe it was the Grapenuts commercial where he looked fondly at that pine tree and drawled,"You know some parts are edible...", but whatever the case, old Euell was the punchline to many jokes. Later in life I was introduced to his book, Stalking the Blue-eyed Scallop, but even then, appreciation was not my primary response.

I'm not sure when I realized what a smart guy he was, but for years, I have been consciously cultivating my knowledge of the plants around me and what we can eat. Just tonight the neighbor kids and I spent a merry half hour trying to reach all the red bud blossoms we could from the tall tall trees in our courtyards, both to nibble on out of hand-- the pink buds are a little sweet-- and also to toss in our salad.

I kind of like the fact that they might look at a tree and think that some parts are edible, without a trace of irony.

Annual Riddle Poem Edition

Each year my students write riddle poems. Here are a few pretty good ones from this round:

I smell as though a thousand years
I can be sad and bring many fears
Romance, fantasy I'm sometimes called
I'm creative and with me people have bawled
I make new worlds that are real and fake
I am as great as my creator make
Many shapes and sizes, skinny or plump I do come in
But the real great treasure is the one within.
A book

i am clear as a diamond
no color or shape
too much of me is deadly
but if you dont have enough of me you can die
many people try to run away from me
and they just cant because i am too fast. 
what am i?
water

Good times never last,
I should never have let you go,
I'll never forget my careless mistake,
All the time I prayed for your reappearance,
But you never floated back home.
A balloon

It is fluffy in the inside,
soft on the out.
In the night it has a head,
But when the morning comes,
then it does not.
What is this?
A pillow

The Real Treasure:
Yes, I'm partially in gold,
and in some part of diamond
Look at what it takes to get victory.
Yes I'm somewhat in money.
Check in these things
and you will see
my true identity.

What Am I?????
Love

(The answers appear in ghost post below each riddle.)

Buyer's Remorse

The other day in class the attendance secretary came to fetch one of my students. His dad was there to pick him up for a doctor appointment. He gathered his belongings and then hesitated at the door. With a concerned expression he turned around and approached my desk. The other students were working quietly on an assignment, so he whispered his request. "Will you tell (here he named another student) to give me my money?"

It was my turn to be concerned. "Why does he have your money?" I asked.

"Because we traded," he explained.

I was confused. "What did you trade?"

"I gave him my money and he gave me those cards." He pointed to the table where a deck of cards still lay.

"We call that 'buying' when we trade money for something," I told him, and looking sternly at both boys, I continued, "and we don't use class time to conduct that kind of business."

"But I changed my mind," the first kid said with a slight whimper, "and I need my money back. My dad will be mad."

The card seller had the sense to look abashed, but he kept the cash in his pocket. I sighed and canceled the transaction. "Give him his money and get back to work."